“Warren! A word in my office, please!”
I jumped at the sound of my editor yelling my name across the room. I clicked the screensaver on my computer before swiveling around in my chair and slipping into my heels. The dress code at Howell House Publishing was normally business-casual, although the formal footwear, for some reason, was always mandatory. But only when I wasn’t at my desk.
I looked toward the commanding voice to see Devin Fields standing in his doorway. He was Senior Editor of Now! Magazine, the Sunday insert for every second-rate newspaper within the tri-state area. He reigned supreme from his corner office, a large glass enclosure that we in the copywriting department lovingly referred to as The Shark Tank.
His tone told me he wasn’t very happy with me at the moment, but his stance told me he was practically itching to tear into me. Devin normally chose one thing a day to blow his top over and it looked as though it was my turn to be the unwitting scapegoat and undeserving target of his wrath. Again.
I held my head up high and walked into his office.
He closed the glass door behind me and asked me to sit down. I chose one of the black leather club chairs across from his desk as he planted himself down in the ergonomic seat behind it. He steepled his fingers in front of the cleft in his determined chin and stared me down before speaking. “Miss Warren,” he said at last, “why is it that I asked you into my office today?”
I hated when he spoke to me as if I were a misbehaving child who’d just been caught stealing a piece of candy. It was rather condescending and there was no need for it.
“Devin, why don’t we just skip the intimidation and get on with your reason for calling me in here, okay?”
He broke his pose to point down at the papers in front of him, his eyes never breaking contact with mine. “This, Layla. This is the reason I called you in here. But I’m quite sure you’re already aware of that.”
I craned my neck to peek at the stapled sheets between us, pretending that I needed to see what he was referring to, but he was right. I already knew what it was. It was a three-page article I’d written on the dangers of methane gasses. He stood up, placed both hands on his desk and leaned forward, close enough for me to smell his aftershave. “Might I ask how something like this wound up, yet again, under my door this morning?”
“Devin, it’s a really important piece. Have you even read it? I thought maybe we could-”
“Layla. The people who read Now! Magazine are not interested in the hazards posed by cow farts.”
I had to stifle my laugh at him actually using the word “fart”. The term was not very Devin-Fields of him. But he didn’t break stride and just continued with his reprimand. “The readers of our little periodical don’t care about the environment, or the latest medical study, or politics.”
“But Devin, it’s an election year!”
He ignored my outburst and ran a hand through his thick brown hair in exasperation before continuing. “People who read Now! are sitting around the breakfast table in their jammies, trying to relax with a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. They’re interested in heart-warming little stories about Billy Hanson’s lemonade stand and the opening of the latest Starbucks. If they want hard-hitting news, they can pick up a copy of TIME. And our copywriters,” he said, practically through clenched teeth, “should only be interested in filling the ad space in between all those delightful little fluff pieces. Are we clear?”
We both knew it wasn’t the end of the subject, as it wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last time he and I would need to have this conversation.
I’d been working at Now! since ‘97, submitting new articles that I’d written every few weeks since my first day on the job. When I was first hired, I’d taken the copywriting gig, hoping it would be a stepping stone toward a much bigger career in journalism. Three years later, and I was still sweating it out in the same circle I’d been running in since leaving college.
I’d graduated NYU in ‘95 with a degree in creative writing. I thought I could parlay that accomplishment into a journalistic career, maybe do some in-depth pieces on a freelance basis for The New York Times, or, at the very least, command my own witty column in a high-profile magazine like The New Yorker or Newsweek. But reality had other ideas. I’d spent a couple years doing some temp work at my father’s architecture firm and picking up any odd jobs I could get in between interviews, just waiting for my life to start. But I was one of thousands of recent college graduates looking for work in the city, and I couldn’t even get hired as a go-fer at The Aquarian or Time Out New York.