“Stella Jones, in my office, now.”
Megan’s voice is chipped, similar to her nailpolish. Across our small divider, Madison half shrugs at me. She’s efficient like that. In fact, she probably expected this.
I rise as smoothly as I can in my new platforms. Earlier, I saw Miss Uptight at the front desk eyeing them off, so I’m trying to look all professional, like I know how to walk in shoes that set me ten feet above everyone else.
As I tap across the length of the room, I brush down my cream pencil skirt, nervously maybe. Discreetly, I do up the second-to-top button on my black blouse. I don’t particularly want my boss seeing more than she needs to.
I’ve walked past twelve people now and they’ve all given me looks, some sympathetic, others plain malicious. It’s not my fault I wear better clothes than them.
Megan’s office is glass, so I see her fuming before I enter. Her first words are spoken in a very bad drawl. “Oh look, the walking Eiffel Tower.”
I nod. No need to be nice to this one. Sitting upright across from Megan, I gesture to her desk, where the reason for the whole dilemma sits innocently. Megan swipes a finger over the glossy cover of Single or Not and frowns. I study the cover as its owner is helplessly picked up and flicked through. The magazine is aimed at teenaged girls. It’s supposed to be bubbly, edgy and cheerful. Unfortunately, it looks like Amie, the visual design girl, has had her usual so called ‘touch’ influenced by her recent breakup. The largest caption reads, “How To Make Him Sorry!” and she’s used a truly awful blue colour scheme. I don’t know what was trying to achieve there.
I frown significantly as Megan glares at another tween pop star who happens to be gracing the cover of our February issue. The poor covergirl’s probably had a breakup in the past year and has been squeezed for information on how she made the unfortunate bloke pay. I’d guess that over fifty percent of the interview comes from Hedi – interview girl – ‘s head. The interviews have been truly rubbish since Rachel Saxon left last spring. She got a job offer for Marie Claire and like any of us would at the golden opportunity, she abandoned ship and ran as fast as her Gucci-clad feet would carry her.
I can roll my eyes right now, because none of the feature problems are even remotely my fault. Finally, after what I suppose Megan thinks is a ‘tantalizing, guilt enforcing’ silence, devil-woman speaks.
“Stella, do you remember Karina, age fourteen?”
I blink mildly. Of course I don’t remember her. I rarely even read the names of the wimps I write back to.
Megan purses her lips and flips the magazine forward a few pages, reciting carefully, “Dear Stella, I just bought the cutest blue hoodie from Supré, only to have my ex-best friend of two weeks buy the same one, except pink! We both wore it at school on the same day and now everyone thinks we’re friends! What do I do!”
She slams the innocent magazine onto the glass desktop and I take the opportunity, sliding it meaningfully towards me, swishing it around to face me. I read the reply in a false voice, dripping with sarcasm, holding my signature archness above it.
“Oh Karina, what a disaster. I’m joking. You’re fourteen, yes?”
I pause for a breath, mortified. This wasn’t supposed to hit pages.
“Well, at fourteen, everything is the end of the world. She probably eats the same nutella sandwiches as you. How’s that for newsbreaking?”
I pause again. I totally forgot about this. It was a joke, a result of a bad mood. I meant to delete it and rewrite it later.
“…Well, thing is; you’ll probably be back friends again with your ex-bffl in like, a week. It works that way at your age. And you know what they say: it’s not about what everyone else thinks, rather about how you feel about yourself.
Oh and never mind about the hoodies. They were from Supré, you say? Well they were probably ugly anyway.”
I try my best to feign nonchalance. I must’ve gotten lazy and just chucked this one on the email with the other bulk and intern Marley must not have reviewed. Airhead.
Points: 40
Reviews: 3
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