How to Sleep with a Movie Star (16 page)

“What about the flowers?” Wendy asked softly. I’d been trying to ignore them all morning, which was pretty difficult considering they were overflowing all over my desk. They still looked perfect, and they smelled beautifully tantalizing. “Aren’t you going to thank him?”

I snorted.

“No,” I said firmly. “In fact, we’re going to pretend this never happened.” I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the card that had come with the flowers—the sweet, sensitive card that was obviously a lie. He didn’t care about me. I tore it in half and dropped it into the garbage can. Wendy gasped.

“You’re throwing the card away?” she asked.

“I just did,” I said. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

*

Margaret called an editorial meeting for eleven o’clock that morning, to replace the one she’d canceled the day before. I was relieved in a way, because it gave me an excuse to focus on something other than Cole Brannon. Besides, I was looking forward to thirty minutes without Wendy’s half-pitying, half-accusatory glances.

The only downside to the meeting was that Sidra would be there. I’d have to squirm in discomfort as she looked at me smugly, content with the knowledge that I’d been summarily dismissed in the most embarrassing way by a slimy boyfriend who was now screwing her sister.

As I settled into a chair at the oval table, I smiled at Anne Amster, the senior features editor and the only other person to have arrived for the meeting. She was Wendy’s direct superior, a fantastic features editor who did a great job of directing her section of the magazine. Like me, she looked much younger than she was and sometimes had trouble being taken seriously by those who didn’t know her. Her wiry black hair framed her face in a pixie cut, and her features were sharp and childlike. She smiled back at me.

I hadn’t yet been able to decide whether the weekly editorial meetings were actually useful or not. In theory, the senior members of the staff were supposed to discuss the magazine and the articles we were featuring in the month we were currently working on. We were supposed to give progress reports to help debate and decide what direction the magazine would take.

Instead, we pitifully offered suggestions and had them immediately shot down by Margaret while the executive editor, Donna Foley, who would soon be retiring, tried to give us encouraging looks. She would jot down notes about what we said and discuss them with Margaret later. Eventually, the good ideas would end up becoming a part of that month’s issue. But of course Margaret would take full credit for them, saying things like, “I came up with that idea over dinner at Lutèce the other night,” even when there were eight witnesses to the fact that the idea had been proposed by one of us at an editorial meeting. We’d long since learned that it was better to keep quiet and simply be thankful that Margaret was running the
Mod
ship with a little help from those of us who actually knew the magazine industry—even if it was completely thankless help.

Sidra glided in five minutes late, swooping into the empty seat beside Anne, who politely said hello, oblivious to the death looks Sidra was already shooting me. Sidra ignored her greeting, and Anne finally shrugged and shook her head. I had never talked to Anne about the Triplets, but I suspected she wasn’t a fan any more than I was.

Today Sidra was dressed in skintight beige leather pants that accentuated her slender hips, and a fitted black top that showed off the curves of her fake bosom.

“It’s Gucci,” she said haughtily in response to the other editors’ stares. No matter how many times we all saw Sidra, her outfit choices never failed to astonish any of us. I’d never seen her wear the same thing twice, and her clothes were always striking. “Couture,” she added, tittering lightly. “George loved it on me.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. We all ignored her. Her George Clooney references were like a broken record we all hated listening to.

Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Margaret bustled into the room and glided to the head of the table.

One might think that in a conference room with an oval table, we would align ourselves equally, like the knights of King Arthur’s court. I’d thought that when I showed up for my first editorial meeting a year and a half ago, until I noticed that the arrangement of chairs divided the oval nearly in half. Eight of us sat squished into the half closer to the door, while Margaret reigned supreme from the other half, splaying her papers out in front of her and gazing down the table at us, her loyal subjects. We were all subjected to an hour of bumping elbows and fighting for space while Margaret leaned back and enjoyed the room.

“Happy
Mod
morning,” Margaret greeted us with the same silly words she used to open each editorial meeting.

“Happy
Mod
morning,” we all grumbled back, because we knew we’d be the subjects of Margaret’s wrath that day if we didn’t.

“Let’s begin,” Margaret said, contentedly leaning back in her throne. She nodded in Donna’s direction. “Donna?” she said.

Donna sighed. She ran all of
Mod
’s editorial meetings from her seat in the eight-member throng at the lower half of the oval table.

“It looks like we wrapped up August successfully and on time,” Donna said, reading from her notes, trying not to bump elbows with Jeffrey on her left and Carol on her right. “As most of you probably know, Margaret made a last-minute decision to sub the Julia Stiles cover with a Cole Brannon cover, which breaks somewhat from
Mod
tradition.” Her voice sounded strained. A few pairs of eyebrows shot up in surprise, and a few editors glanced my way. Sidra and Margaret both looked suspiciously smug.

“According to Margaret,” Donna continued, glancing at her boss, “Claire’s Cole Brannon interview was very intriguing and will have a good chance of increasing our circulation.” I tried not to blush as several heads swiveled toward me. A few editors smiled encouragingly from across the table. “I didn’t have a chance to see it myself, but I’m sure Margaret knows what she’s doing.” She didn’t sound too sure. My stomach swam uncomfortably.

“The rest of the issue went off without a hitch, just the way we planned it,” Donna continued. “I talked to Julia Stiles’s publicist, and she’s okay with us using Julia for the September cover. Her movie is coming out Labor Day Weekend anyhow, so it will be better timing for them. I had to promise another of her clients a Q & A in the September issue, though, so she didn’t make a big deal out of this whole thing. Can you do that, Claire?”

I nodded and felt relieved. In this business, timing was everything. If Julia’s movie had been scheduled for a late July or August release date, her publicist would be screaming bloody murder right now. Most celebs didn’t grant interviews out of the goodness of their hearts. A-listers and most B-listers agreed to features only when they had a movie, TV series, or album coming out, because being featured in a top women’s mag was a guaranteed way to increase their fan base. When we had originally agreed with Julia’s camp six months ago to feature her this summer, her new movie was scheduled for a late July release, which made the August issue perfect. Thankfully, the release date had been moved to Labor Day Weekend last month, so her publicist had likely been more than willing to make the switch to our September issue.

“Okay, the September issue,” Donna continued. A few editors took out pads of paper and started to jot down notes as Donna spoke. “According to the ad department, we’re going to have four more pages of editorial than we’d counted on, which will be great. I’d like to use one page to expand the fashion section, because Sidra, Sally, and Samantha are shooting on location in Italy this month, and they’ve promised us a great romantic spread of fall fashions in Venice.”

Sidra nodded without looking up and began filing her nails with a diamond-studded nail file.

“As for the remaining three pages, I’m . . .
we’re
. . . open to suggestions.” Donna glanced quickly at Margaret to see if she’d noticed the slip, but she hadn’t. She was busy gazing out the window.

“The clouds look like little sheep in the sky today,” Margaret said suddenly. We all looked at her strangely. I stifled a laugh. Sometimes she was like a little child. Donna took a deep breath and continued.

“Claire,” she said. I turned to look at her. “Margaret and I discussed adding a celebrity Q & A with someone up-and-coming.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Sidra’s glare. She was no doubt furious that I was getting any extra attention. “Would you be interested in that? If it works out, we could try to make it a monthly feature. It wouldn’t be too tough, just a straight one-page Q & A with a young newcomer. You know, identify the next Brad Pitt. That kind of thing.”

“Sure,” I agreed.

“It was my idea,” Margaret interjected, turning her attention momentarily back to the group. “Because of Claire’s strong work on the Cole Brannon piece.” She winked at me, and I forced a smile. Donna sighed again and Margaret’s attention drifted back out the window.

“Any ideas for the remaining two pages?” Donna asked. She made a note on her pad and looked up.

“How about a two-page feature on the ‘20 Sexiest Things Women Can Do in Bed’?” Cathy Joseph, the sixtysomething copy chief, asked in her perfectly clipped voice. I smiled. It was always strange to hear a woman pushing seventy saying anything at all about sex. But just last month she’d been the one to suggest August’s sex feature: “10 New Ways to Have an Orgasm.” I hoped I was still having orgasms at her age. For that matter, I wished I was having them now.

Donna smiled at Cathy.

“Sounds good to me,” she said. Of course it did. Cathy was a forty-year veteran of the magazine business, and it was no coincidence that she was also the fountain of more editorial ideas than anyone else on staff. The funny thing about women’s magazines was that once you’d had a subscription to a magazine for five years or so, you would have read every service article ever written. Sure, there were new celebs to feature every month and new spins on old ideas, but women’s mags recycled the same hundred or so self-help, sex advice, and to-do articles every few years. For example, there was no doubt in my mind that the “20 Sexiest Things Women Can Do in Bed” wouldn’t include a single thing that had never before been mentioned in
Mod
—or in
Cosmo, Glamour,
or
Marie Claire
for that matter. After all, creative as we might be, there were a finite number of things one could actually figure out to do between the sheets. I had a sneaking suspicion that Cathy had a pile of women’s magazines dating back to the ’60s at home, and before every editorial meeting she simply flipped through the stacks and pulled some ideas from the February ’68 issue or the July ’75 issue. If that was the case, she was smarter than the rest of us.

“Anne?” Donna asked. “How does the ‘20 Sexiest Things’ idea sound to you?”

As the features editor, Anne would be the one to assign and edit the piece, so she’d have to give her approval.

“Sure,” Anne chirped with a smile. “I’ve just started working with a new freelancer who’s a regular at
Maxim
. She’d be perfect to work on this if she’s available.” Donna nodded and made a note.

“Margaret?” Donna asked, sounding almost timid. Margaret looked up briefly and waved a hand.

“Yes, perfect,” she said. “I was just about to suggest a similar article. That idea will do.”

“Excellent,” said Donna, making another note. She quickly recapped. “So one extra page to fashion, one to celebs, and two to features. Okay with everyone?”

She was answered with a chorus of “fine’s” and “okay’s.” Margaret abstained because she didn’t need to give her approval with the masses. Sidra kept quiet because she believed she was too good to speak in unison with anyone.

We spent the rest of the meeting outlining and confirming assignments for the September issue. Most articles were already assigned or in the works. Freelancers across the country were already busy tracking down “10 Ways to Land Your Dream Man,” “15 Ways to Know if His Love for You Is Real,” and “10 Ways to Earn the Promotion You Deserve.” (Although I was confident that the answers to all those questions could be found in
Mod
’s archives many times over.) The Triplets were busy putting the final touches on the wardrobes they’d take for their models to wear in Venice.

In the next month I’d have to have five proposals for November celeb cover stories, update my Julia Stiles story for September, find and interview an up-and-coming star for the new Q & A, and include a teaser for Kylie Dane’s new movie, which would come out Labor Day Weekend. Plus, I had to finish a two-page spread with quotes from various celebs about what they’d eaten for dinner the night before (Margaret’s idea), and another spread on celeb secrets to finding lasting love.

Sadly, many of our readers would blindly follow the advice of their favorite stars, many of whom were juggling dissolving marriages with steamy affairs. The majority of women didn’t think twice about taking making-yourmarriage-last tips from a thrice-divorced thirty-two-year-old television actress. Or body-toning tips from the thirty-four-year-old screen goddess whose entire body was an homage to the best plastic surgery the Western world had to offer (never mind that she had never set foot in a gym in her life). Or political advice from an MTV veejay who had once been completely stumped when asked by Jay Leno to name the vice president of the United States.

Talk about the blind leading the blind.