Pretty in Ink by Lindsey Palmer

Author:Lindsey Palmer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-02-14T06:00:00+00:00

12

Leah Brenner, Executive Editor

With five minutes left before I need to skedaddle out the door, I’m racing around my home office grabbing folders while also trying to keep an eye on Rose, who’s eked her way in and is now teetering across the carpet to my pile of Hers back issues. She picks up the most recent one, the first-bound version of August that just came into the office, a week before the final version will ship out to newsstands and subscribers. I don’t have the energy to discipline, so I watch absentmindedly as my toddler rips the cover in two and then tosses the torn magazine halfway across the room. Good arm—my baseball-obsessed husband would swoon. The issue lands sprawled open to Mimi’s first editor’s letter. Rose peers at the page; it features a photo that appears to be a friendlier (and thinner) twin of Mimi, perching in an almost-too-short skirt against her desk. Rose begins wailing.

“Thatta girl, good judge of character,” I say, although it’s more likely she’s reacting to her sisters crying in the next room. I hoist up my daughter and glance at the page. Mimi’s hair blowout for the photo shoot was rumored to cost four hundred dollars, and when Lynn showed her the shots, she insisted on more Photoshop-cropping of her waist and arms. I can barely make my way through her note: It’s all sunshine and happiness for the summer, her loopy “Cheers, Mimi” sign-off stamped at the bottom in red ink. A sidebar features staff quotes about all our fun warm-weather plans. Laura had to pry them out of us, because really, who’s had time this summer to frolic about on the beach or picnic in the park while on Mimi’s grueling watch? A blurb on the bottom tells readers they can buy Mimi’s skirt from the Gap for 20 percent off by mentioning they spotted it in their favorite magazine—clever. I kick aside the issue and grab my briefcase.

Maria appears to fetch Rose. I wonder for the hundredth time whether I should give the girls’ nanny some warning about the job search that’s likely on her horizon. Surely she knows something’s been off; for the past three months, as often as I’ve greeted Rob at the door at six, he’s had to come and coax me out of my office and soothe me through my tears. Even the girls have been crankier. And on the evenings before my work-from-home days, Maria has taken to laying out clothes for me along with the babies’ next-day outfits, a not-so-subtle message that it would be a good idea for me to change out of my ratty pajamas while I work.

I glance at my watch: 7:58 a.m., August 2. My weeks of relative safety finishing up the October issue are speeding by—two out of three now gone. Just one week until I’m likely out, I think. I resolve to break the news to Maria tomorrow. Then I’ll pass along her information to Suzie in H.R., who can give out her phone number to whomever they hire next.

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