The Knockoff

by Lucy Sykes

  The doctor softly pressed in a circle around Imogen’s right nipple.

  “The pain is on the left side,” Imogen said, too anxiously.

  “I know that, Imogen.” Claudia smiled, used to anxious patients. “I need to check the healthy one before I check the one you say is bothering you.” Imogen nodded and resolved to keep her mouth shut and let the doctor do her job. When she moved to the left side she cautioned, “This may hurt,” before launching into her favorite diatribe about why New York continued to be an unsuitable place to live.

  “Why do we live in New York, Imogen? Why? I keep asking myself that every single day. Humans aren’t meant to live like this and I don’t just mean the cold. We work all the time. We never have enough money. We never do those things that allegedly make New York such a great place to live.” She put air quotes around the words “great place to live.” “I keep telling my husband we should go to Santa Fe. I had an aunt in Santa Fe. Dry heat there.”

  Imogen nodded supportively even as it began to hurt when the doctor pressed her fingers into the soft tissue around her nipple. Her breast felt like it was clamped in a vise every time the doctor pushed down, which was why Imogen was shocked when Dr. Fong finally smiled, Santa Fe a distant memory for the time being.

  “I don’t feel anything at all abnormal, Imogen. But I want to do a mammogram just to be sure. Let’s get you back into the X-ray room and get one done straightaway so that we can assuage your fears.”

  That wasn’t possible. Imogen knew that her cancer was back. She could feel it, feel it growing inside her and taking back control of her life. The mammogram would prove Dr. Fong wrong.

  But it didn’t. Sitting in Dr. Fong’s office, the inside of her breast illuminated on a flat screen in front of her, even Imogen had to admit that both sides looked like they contained healthy tissue. Dr. Fong traced the edges of the illuminated breasts with a lighted pointer.

  “See, here are the implants. You can tell because they are less dense than real tissue. But you still have some of your own tissue right around the nipple and underneath the implants.” She pointed to a cloudy mass. “That tissue appears more dense, but it also appears completely healthy. Imogen, I think what you are experiencing is phantom pain.”

  This made her feel hysterical. “You think I am making this all up?”

  Dr. Fong quickly shook her head. “No, I don’t think that at all. Phantom pain is actually very real. It’s a lousy name. Sometimes it can originate in a patient’s head, but it is most often because the nerves are short-circuiting a little bit, as they are getting used to the surgery. They are sending pain messages to the brain when they shouldn’t be there. Pain is useful for us. Pain tells us when something is wrong with our bodies. Think of pain as a referee throwing up little red flags all over the place. In this case the pain made a mistake. There is nothing wrong with you, Imogen. I promise.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Try to relax through it. I’ll prescribe some more painkillers. I need you to keep up with the exercise of your chest and your arm.” Dr. Fong finished taking notes on her tablet and started writing out a prescription. “Keeping those muscles strong will help you heal even faster. Beyond that I can’t tell you much else except that I am incredibly pleased with your progress.”

  Imogen felt relief coupled with annoyance. Phantom pain wasn’t something she wanted to say to people. It sounded like something she made up.

  “What do I tell Alex?” Dr. Fong could tell that Imogen was displeased with the diagnosis.

  “Tell him the truth. Your nerves are getting used to the new tissue and there is a learning curve. You don’t ever actually have to say the word ‘phantom.’ ”

  Sometimes fake felt so real.

  Imogen sank back onto the table and typed out a text to Alex:

  >>>>Tests okay. You get to keep me.<<<<

  <<< CHAPTER THIRTEEN >>>

  Was it possible the entire scene with Lucia van Arpels hadn’t happened, that Imogen had imagined the entire thing? She kept replaying it over and over in her head as she popped into the chemist to fill her prescription and then again on the way to the office—Eve’s hand moving in slow motion across the table. The whites of Lucia’s eyes expanding as she tried to comprehend what was being done to her. It couldn’t have been real. It was too much like a scene out of a movie. But when Imogen glanced down at her phone, there was Lucia’s text to her.

  Eve was perched on a table in the kitchen regaling the staff about her meeting with Lucia when Imogen walked in to make an espresso.

  “And then I just told her, ‘I know what is good for your brand.’ You should have seen her face.”

  “Yes, you should have.” Imogen wished she weren’t still surprised at Eve’s nerve, but it managed to blindside her at least twice a day.

  “Eve, let’s have a chat about this in my office.”

  Eve popped off the table and did a small dance, biting her bottom lip and shaking her ass.

  Imogen had no choice but to show Eve the text. “She won’t work with you again, Eve. What you did just made you a techbitch in Lucia van Arpels’s world.”

  The word “bitch” didn’t faze her in the least. If anything it energized her. The girl twirled a piece of hair around her finger. “It’s not my fault she can’t see that we’re the future. She needs us.”

  “No, Eve, right now we need her more than she needs us. We need people like Lucia to want their designs sold with us. Lucia’s dresses are the kinds of things our readers will really want to buy.”

  Eve shrugged. “So call her back. We’ll have another meeting.”

  “She won’t take another meeting with you, Eve. That’s the point I am trying to make.”

  “Fine. What do we do?”

  Imogen sighed. “Money talks, Eve. We offer to buy two million dollars at wholesale to prove how serious we are about moving her inventory.”

  Eve scoffed. “Two million dollars is crazy. That’s like thirty percent of our new round of investment.”

  “It’s the only way to save this situation with Lucia. And I can tell you another thing, Eve. Lucia doesn’t have a big mouth, but her staff does, and unless you want to get us blackballed in this town, we need to find a way to mend this situation.”

  Eve lifted her eyes and fixed Imogen with a look of utter bewilderment.

  This was the part of the job that was making Imogen feel ill. When she described what she was doing to Massimo, he referred to it as being paid to open your kimono. Imogen was opening up her network to Eve. No, she was opening up her network to Glossy.com. That was how she had to think of it. She was doing what was best for the company. But at what price? How long could she protect Glossy’s reputation from Eve’s antics?

  “Pay the bitch then.” Eve stood. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was assertive in that meeting, Imogen. If I were a man in that meeting Lucia would’ve called me powerful.”

  If she’d been a man in that meeting Lucia would have called her abusive, Imogen thought irritably. She had always agreed with the hypothesis that men in powerful positions could be complete bastards and be promoted, while women could be called cows for the smallest offense. Still, even Donald Trump couldn’t have gotten away with what Eve did.

  “Maybe you should try keeping your hands to yourself in the next meeting, Eve.”

  —

  GChat between Eve and Ashley:

  GlossyEV: I need to vent for a min. About Imogen. I MEAN SERIOUSLY?

  Ash: ??

  GlossyEV: Why doesn’t she understand how to do ANYTHING? I swear something is always wrong with her computer or her phone or her iPad. She swears it is never her. It is always the fault of the technology. I can hear her huffing in her office RIGHT NOW.

  Ash: She’s getting better.

  GlossyEV: It’s just cray that someone made it so far in their careers without ever learning how to use any kind of technology. I try to help her. I do. I am
a nice person. You know I am a nice person. It’s just so frustrating. I can’t keep repeating myself. “Tell me my password again, darling,” she titters as though it’s adorable that she is as forgetful as an Alzheimer’s patient.

  Ash: shrug

  GlossyEV: And what about when she talks to the screen like extra loud like a dumb American in Europe for the first time. Just figure it out ALREADY. I don’t know how you do it. How r u so nice to her?

  Ash: shrug

  GlossyEV: ROFL

  Ash: She’s learning. It’s getting better.

  GlossyEV: Not fast enough.

  Eve slipped out of her heels, Louboutin knockoffs she ordered from Korea, to stretch her calves. She rose onto her bare toes and rocked back on her heels a few times.

  It was proven that people made decisions quicker when they stood up at work. Sitting at a desk all day made people lazy.

  Eve’s desk was immaculate except for her devices: a laptop, an iPad mini, an iPhone and a Samsung Android. She craved order. All of the other girls back home had rooms filled with trophies and riding ribbons. Eve kept those things in a pretty little box under her bed. She prided herself on having a room as neat as a hotel suite.

  She had been the right amount of assertive with Lucia. It wasn’t like she face-palmed her or anything. She’d made an affectionate gesture with her hand, that was all. Imogen needed to quit it with the overreaction.

  How much longer did they need Imogen Tate here anyway? It was nice to keep her around for the transition, but was she more trouble than she was worth? She’d just cost them a lot of money. Worthington really liked her, but if Eve could prove that Imogen wasn’t a team player for the new Glossy.com maybe he wouldn’t want to keep her around anymore. He was a man after her own heart, one who thought in terms of cash instead of emotions. So what if he was a little Handy McGrabberson under the table during their meetings? He could paw at her bare thigh all day for all she cared. Maybe she would invite him out to dinner next week, slip into that low-cut new Alaïa dress she’d ordered (from the site, natch!) and see what he had to say about Imogen’s future with the company.

  <<< CHAPTER FOURTEEN >>>

  NOVEMBER 2015

  The Human Resources department for Robert Mannering now mandated that two people be in the room whenever someone was being let go from the company in case the aggrieved party made a scene or later claimed they were fired under unfair circumstances. The decree was handed down after Eve fired three people by text message. For no discernible reason Eve decided that third party would be Ashley Arnsdale, and bearing witness to biweekly executions, as she had come to think of them, had become a part of Ashley’s job description that she never talked about with anyone.

  Back in the summer of 2009, Ashley had been fired from Old Tyme Ice Cream out in Montauk, where her parents had their summer house.

  “You are so good at so many things,” Mr. Wilson, the shop’s longtime proprietor had said to her. “But you are terrible at scooping ice cream.” It was fair and true. Ashley spent most of her time chatting with the customers about the ice cream, rather than serving it to them. Mr. Wilson at least let her go with a week’s pay and a kind smile. Eve smiled when she fired people, but it wasn’t kind.

  “I just don’t see how you are useful to this site,” Eve said to the young male engineer sitting in front of her in the conference room, well after ten p.m. one night. Weren’t there rules about firing someone this late?

  “Seriously,” Eve continued. “Prove to me that you should keep this job when the rest of your team has worked at least ten more hours than you have in the past three weeks.”

  Oh jeez. Ashley wanted to hide beneath the big white conference table. Or hug him. Or both. Humans shouldn’t treat other humans like this. This was literally the worst.

  “I’m here until midnight every night,” he countered meekly.

  “The rest of your team sleeps here,” she said, her lips curling at the end. “You aren’t a team player. You don’t want to succeed. Plus…” Eve paused and made a show of looking at his grimy Converse sneakers and plaid button-down over a faded gray T-shirt with a Stormtrooper on it. He was tall and doughy, with a belly that belied too many nights of Seamless. His eyes were slightly crossed. “I just don’t think you are a cultural fit here.”

  He looked like every other tech dude that Ashley knew. This was their uniform: sneakers, jeans, button-down. Eve just liked saying words like “cultural fit.” She learned them in business school. The lingo reminded Ashley of Benji, her college boyfriend who went to Northwestern B-school right after college. That guy was a douche.

  There was no correct response to “cultural fit.” It wasn’t like Eve said, “You dress like a slob or a homeless person.” But it was a lie. Eve was trying to outsource all their engineering jobs to the Balkans, an apparent new hotbed of nerd talent. Ashley focused on a moth across the room, desperately beating its wings against the glass wall. I feel you, buddy, she thought.

  Ashley felt the urge to make a joke to lighten the mood, but she didn’t dare. She’d learned six firings ago not to interrupt Eve. When she did, Eve turned on her. It was best to sit as still as possible. There really wasn’t a worse person for this job though. Ashley had no poker face. When she knew Eve’s attention was directed the other way she would silently mouth, “It’s okay,” and, “I’m sorry,” to the former employees. She’d have to bring this up in therapy tomorrow. She’d been going twice a week since August and had just hit the amount for her deductible, so now she was going three times a week. Free therapy! Woo hoo!

  “You’re just not good enough to work at Glossy.com,” Eve concluded this time and stood, walking out of the room without another word.

  The engineer turned his tired eyes to Ashley in disbelief.

  “I’ll help you clean out your desk,” she said before lowering her voice and handing him a slip of paper with her cell phone number on it. “I might have some work for you on a top secret project.”

  —

  Imogen worried she might be growing more invisible. She was no fool. Each day that she was still editor in chief could very well be her last. The fashion industry had always been cutthroat. You were only as good as your last collection, your last shoot or your last cover. To call this world judgmental was a grievous understatement. For a long time, Imogen had done all the right things. She’d craft a brilliant cover line she knew would sell. And it would. She would find a young twig of a girl and turn her into the next Kate Moss or connect a talented no-name designer with a massive label to make him or her the next big thing. Along the line the career hadn’t been so much a choice as something that was an inescapable part of her character.

  What she couldn’t deny was that this new world was making her feel like a fucking dummy. Angry and stupid was not exactly a winning combination for an editor in chief. She nodded along to the metrics that the little girls in her office were showing her, but it might as well have been a bird’s nest of figures, for all Imogen could untangle them in her head. The rules ceased to exist. A career was no longer linear. Eve proved that, leapfrogging straight from assistant to a number two (maybe a number one).

  Each day Eve found new ways to make Imogen feel subordinate. She left Imogen out of meetings and she made big decisions without consulting her, including the hiring of new staff.

  Of course, there were some things Imogen loved about this new world. The instant connection to an entirely new group of people through Instagram and Twitter was just as addictive as a jolt of caffeine. The favorites, the likes and the retweets all made her feel a strange sense of validation, which didn’t jibe at all with how she felt in real life. In the Insta-filtered world she was bathed in this kind of golden glamour that made everything look perfect, when outside the filter she sometimes had trouble remembering to breathe.

  This must have been what workers felt like during the Industrial Revolution. All of a sudden their entire lives were upended. One month th
ey had a small family business making horseshoes or cheese for their neighbors and the next they were forced into a factory to make things for nameless, faceless customers. That was how Imogen felt about the Internet. Sure, she never met most of the readers back when Glossy was a magazine, but she felt a connection with them. She understood them. She didn’t quite get the young women who clicked on “20 Essential Items to Make Pumpkin Picking Chic” or “The 10 Weight Training Tricks You Can Do in Your Car with a Water Bottle.” She desperately wanted to understand them, to climb inside their millennial brains and knock around the wires and coils to figure out what made them tick.

  A heaviness enveloped Imogen the first thing every morning. Its weight dared her to rise out of the bed against it. No matter how early she woke up, her in-box was buried in emails, most of them composed of abbreviated words and phrases written in a Joycean stream of consciousness from Eve sent at all hours of the night. When you’re on top of the world, getting out of bed is such a simple thing. When life makes a wrong turn, just pulling off the covers can be the hardest thing you do all day. I just want to lie here, a voice in Imogen’s head whispered as she buried her face in her pillow each morning.

  Where she had once left the office every night at six, she now found herself having to sneak out to make it home by nine p.m.

  On one of those nights Imogen stumbled upon a girl weeping in the elevator.

  It could have been any night of the week. The schedule never changed. There was no longer the rhythmic play of the monthly magazine schedule, when it became frenetically busy, then relaxed, before picking up to start all over again. She tried desperately to maintain a small amount of editorial control, at least glancing at things now before they went up on the website, sometimes giving them a hard edit, approving and discarding photos.