24

‘This dress is a complete piece of shit!’ was the first thing Imogen heard when she walked into the office the next morning.

‘Someone get me out of this piece of shit!’

Rounding the corner, Imogen could see that all of the fuss was taking place around three stainless-steel rolling racks of wedding dresses lined up along Eve’s desk. Without an ounce of propriety she was slipping them over her matching red lace bra and panties, oblivious to the fact that her brazen nakedness might make anyone within eyeshot a little bit uncomfortable. Imogen glanced at the labels: Vera Wang, Dennis Basso, Pnina Tornai, Reem Acra, Lanvin and Temperley. These were all $10,000-plus dresses, $100k on that rack alone, and Eve treated them like she’d just grabbed them from the discount bin at T.J.Maxx. She wiggled her way out of a Monique Lhuillier mermaid dress and chucked it across the room.

‘Nothing is right!’ Eve glowered at the rack.

Trying to make her eyes fall anywhere else, Imogen strained not to take in Eve’s toned physique – a six-pack of abs, sculpted little triceps like oblong kiwis and not an ounce of cellulite. What must it be like to have that self-confidence? To have no barrier, no apprehension about what anyone else was thinking about you? She wandered over to Eve’s tall desk and distracted herself by picking up the only piece of clutter, a toy plastic dinosaur. The long neck meant it was a brontosaurus. Johnny begged for one of these every time she took him to the American Museum of Natural History. It was nice to have something to occupy her hands. She ran her finger along the pebbled plastic surface of the toy.

‘Imogen.’ Eve’s snap brought her attention back to the moment. ‘Which of these dresses do you like?’ Walking closer to the racks, Imogen tried not to feel like she was following orders. She feigned an actual interest in pulling them down and examining them.

‘Well, Eve,’ she began slowly. ‘It depends what look you’re going for. When you thought about your wedding when you were a little girl, what did you see? Were you a princess? Were you glamorous? Sexy?’ Eve’s lower lip protruded from the top one and she bit down a little. Her hands moved up on her hips.

‘I loved Kaley Cuoco’s wedding dress … and the one Chrissy Teigen wore when she married John Legend. Oh, and that bitchy girl from The Bachelor, the wedding they had on live television. I loved Pippa at Kate’s. I think my style can best be described as “sexy princess,”’ she said, with the determination of an Olympic figure-skating judge.

Imogen briefly imagined shaking the girl and telling her she was the reason brides got such a bad name. Instead, always the editor, she thought quickly, considered the dresses, and ran her hand over the fabrics. She loved wedding dresses, loved the sense of occasion that went into creating them, the beading, the lace, the handiwork. A wedding dress was an event all unto itself, for some women the most important part of the big day, maybe even more important than the groom. ‘Okay, so I think we want a fuller skirt, but nothing too big, with a strapless top.’

Imogen pulled an Alexander McQueen sweetheart ball gown in silk satin with a natural waist and beaded embroidery and presented it to Eve. ‘Be delicate though, the beading can get caught on nearly anything and the whole thing will unravel at your fingertips.’ Eve rolled her eyes and clumsily stepped into the dress, her foot coming down on the inside seam. Imogen blocked out the sound of something tearing. Eve yanked it up. The dress caught on her bra and she wailed for Ashley to come behind her to zip her up.

What a gorgeous gown, Imogen thought. Classy and yet sexy at the same time, a dress fit for royalty that showed the right amount of skin.

Eve wrinkled her nose. ‘Is it too old-fashioned?’

‘I think wedding dresses should be a little old-fashioned,’ Imogen said.

‘Of course you think that.’ Eve gave a rueful laugh. ‘I like this one. Let’s add it to the maybes.’ She reached behind her, cocking her arm at a painful-looking angle to yank the zipper down and let the dress fall to the floor.

‘Eve, be careful,’ Imogen warned.

‘If I mess it up they’ll send over another one. We’re getting them so much press for this wedding.’ Eve stepped out of the dress, leaving it in a crumpled heap and knocking her hip into the corner of her desk. Rubbing the bruise, she scowled at the piece of furniture as if it purposely tried to trip her. She walked to the corner, her perfect ass swaying with each step, and pulled on a tight black skirt and low-cut sweater. ‘Did I tell you that I think we nailed down Martha Stewart Weddings magazine?’

Imogen shook her head. ‘You didn’t.’

‘Yeah, I met one of the editors at Spirit Cycle last night and invited her to come to the wedding. You know she will write about it if I invite her. It will make her feel all special. It is expected to be like the wedding of the year.’

That was not entirely accurate, but Imogen was sure it would be a well-attended event.

‘I’m happy for you.’ As the words came out of her mouth, Imogen remembered some advice Molly gave to her in her late twenties before she got married. Her mentor had been incredibly intuitive and never needed to ask any questions to know exactly what was going on in any of her employees’ lives. There was a stretch, when Imogen was dating Andrew, when six of her friends became engaged and Imogen thought she was never going to find that particular happy ending. Molly, sensing her ennui during a lunch at La Grenouille, said to her: ‘It’s best to be happy for all the weddings … all the engagements, all the babies, all the job promotions. You must try to be truly happy for these things.’

Small talk wasn’t ever easy with Eve, but Imogen thought she might as well give it a shot.

‘Is your dad walking you down the aisle at the wedding?’

‘My dad is dead,’ Eve said evenly and then, as if realizing she may have been too flip, added, ‘He passed away last fall while I was at B-school. Heart attack during the last football game of the season.’

What could she say? With anyone else Imogen would have apologized profusely, maybe hugged her. Eve had already whipped out her phone, perhaps as an emotional shield, and was snapping pictures of the racks of dresses and posting them on Twitter.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Imogen said.

‘It’s okay. He went out doing what he loved best.’ For a second, her steely resolve wavered. ‘He’d be proud of me right now though. He always wanted me to be in charge of something.’

Eve quickly shifted gears. ‘We can check the dress off the list,’ she said as she walked back over to her desk while Ashley stooped to pick up the remaining dresses off the floor, doing her best to smooth out wrinkles in the satin and organza before returning them to the rack and rolling them into another corner of the office.

‘Eve, I have a lunch meeting today,’ Imogen began.

‘Sounds good. Have you met the new staffers?’

Imogen hadn’t. Twelve new women arrived in the office that morning to replace the six they let go the day before.

‘Not yet, but I’ll make some time this afternoon.’

‘Good. The amount of content we are producing is already up. Traffic is up. It was a good move. My decision was definitely the right one.’ Eve paused for a second.

‘This city is hard.’ Eve swallowed impatiently. ‘Not everyone is cut out for it.’

‘Sometimes you have to give people chances.’

‘Isn’t that what I gave them? When they got the job here?’

Imogen decided to change the subject again. ‘So, after my lunch why don’t we go over the details for the big winter fashion photo shoot?’

The winter fashion photo shoot was something of a coup for Imogen. She knew Eve hated spending money, especially on photo shoots, but showcasing designers in innovative ways was still something that mattered to Imogen. It was the heart of Glossy. Her own employees had been her inspiration for this shoot. She would feature young women working in tech wearing amazing designers. They would use a few models, but mostly real women, on the subway on their iPads, walking around town in Google Glass, on a conference call while going for a jog and sitting with their laptops all over the city. It would be gorgeous and empowering all at once and Imogen had exactly the photographer for the job. Her good friend Alice Hobbs was perfect for this. A fellow Brit, Alice was raised in both London and Switzerland. She understood women, captured their inner strength. She’d taken a two-year hiatus from fashion in the 2000s to shoot tribal women in Namibia, publishing her first book of photographs, titled Brave. Alice wasn’t cheap, but Imogen knew she was worth every penny and she somehow managed to convince Eve that she was the way to go. Eve was reluctant to spend money on things that mattered to Imogen, but she was loose with Glossy.com’s cash when it came to things that mattered to her.

Ashley let it slip that Eve was paying $10,000 and $20,000 to a handful of celebrity starlets to compel them to show up to her wedding and be photographed for just half an hour. She was also in negotiations to have her idol, the pop singer Clarice, serenade her as she walked down the aisle.

Eve shrugged. ‘Whatever. It’s just a photo shoot. I would be just as happy with someone taking pics on their iPhone. It might even be better, right? More raw! Maybe we should think about that?’

‘We already put Alice on contract, remember?’

‘Well. Next time. Let’s see how much extra traffic we get from having “the famous Alice Hobbs,” as you call her, taking pictures instead of, like, “Intern Number Two.”’ And then as an aside, more to herself than to anyone else in the room, Eve muttered, ‘We should get some more interns in here. One more thing … let’s talk about creating some holiday GIFs.’

‘You’re so right,’ Imogen said. ‘I’ve been so busy I forgot all about the holiday gift guide. I think we should think out of the box this year. We can still do some of the traditional mom gifts, dad gifts, boss gifts, but let’s get a little wild. Gifts for your gay best friend, gifts for the office frenemy. We could have a lot of fun with it.’

Why was Eve laughing? She guffawed so hard a small snort came out of her mouth.

‘GIFs, Imogen. I want to create some viral GIFs, you know, those moving pictures Buzzfeed is always doing … gift guides. You crack me up. Can I tweet that? I’m going to tweet that.’ Imogen felt like a fucking idiot and began backing toward her own office, not noticing the plastic brontosaurus still in her hand until Eve shouted to her.

‘Hey, give that back to me.’ Flustered, Imogen looked down at her hands.

‘I’m so used to grabbing these toys when the kids leave them around. I wasn’t paying attention.’ She twisted it around as she tried to return it to its rightful place on the desk. On the side she hadn’t looked at, very clearly written with a thick black marker, was her name, IMOGEN, in neat all-cap letters. Why was her name on this plastic toy?

Eve noticed her confusion and for a moment she may have been at a loss for words. The moment, however, was brief. And she picked up the brontosaurus.

‘I named it Imogen.’ She held it aloft in one hand and made it do a little jig. ‘Because you’re our office dinosaur.’ Eve’s lips turned up at the corners in a cruel smile. How was Imogen meant to respond? There was no shame in Eve’s face. She kept her eyes locked on Imogen’s.

Laugh it off. I have to laugh this off.

‘I’ve always thought of myself as more like the T. rex than a bronto,’ Imogen said, walking away from Eve’s desk.

Eve didn’t want anyone walking her down the aisle. This was her day. If he’d been around her dad surely would have stolen the spotlight. He always did. It sucked being the unwanted daughter of the most popular man in town.

Big John Morton had passed his willful stubbornness along to his daughter as surely as he passed on his lumpy earlobes and wide mouth. The man was the most successful failure in Kenosha, Wisconsin. That was Dad – the high school football coach with the best record in the state who had never been invited to move up the ladder because of an attitude problem so severe, no one in the upper echelon of academia wanted to work with him. It was no secret that Big John wanted a boy and he hadn’t even tried to mask his disappointment over Eve. It got worse around the house after Eve’s mom died. Their similar facial structure and red curls made Big John cringe when he saw his daughter, who he regularly referred to as ‘just the girl,’ instead of by her name, despite her best efforts to do all the things a boy child could do.

The girls at Ronald Reagan Memorial Elementary had been cruel to her. Her father had insisted on buying her asexual clothing, striped rugby shirts and baggy khaki shorts. He cut her hair off like a boy’s.

Finally, in junior high she rebelled through fashion, dressing as girly as possible, growing out her hair and overdoing it with eye shadow, lipstick and mascara. Boys started to like her and when boys liked you other little girls liked you too, or at least they pretended they did.

Making the varsity swim team in high school and getting a 4.0 still didn’t make up for her lack of a Y chromosome. Harvard was the first thing that made her dad proud. Now he was gone. Eve knew she was supposed to feel more, but at the funeral she had a hard time projecting the emotions people wanted to see. She’d almost stayed out East, but then she’d always be known as the girl who skipped her dad’s funeral, and that would look like hell all over Facebook.

She’d gone and seen all the losers who didn’t think there was a life to live outside of Wisconsin. They really should have been more impressed with everything she had achieved in New York and then in Cambridge. But no one even mentioned Harvard or Glossy. It was like they didn’t follow her at all. Still, she had invited a group of them to her wedding. That way they would at least post pictures so people back in town would have to see that Eve Morton (soon-to-be Maxwell) was Winning-At-Life.

The girl who Imogen had seen crying in the elevator had looked broken, but harmless, which was why it surprised Imogen when she saw the email from her that afternoon. It wasn’t addressed to her, but to Eve. Imogen was copied, not blindly, along with twenty other Glossy employees and journalists from outlets all over the city, ranging from newspapers including the Post, the New York Daily News and the snarky Observer to websites like Gawker, BuzzFeed, TechBlab and the Daily Beast. The email criticized the way that Eve treated her while she worked there and systematically fired her.

From: Leslie Dawkins (Leslie.Dawkins@LeslieDawkins.com)

To: Eve Morton (EMorton@Glossy.com)

Hi, Eve,

You might not remember me. You hired me two months ago as an assistant producer for Glossy.com. Last night you abruptly fired me. No explanation given. I had been working for days on end. I was tired, but I didn’t let that stop me from doing my job.

You enjoyed firing me. You smiled the whole time.

I know that I have what it takes to succeed at this job. I have a dual degree in computer science and English from UPenn. This job was MADE for me. You need bright young women like me in that office. Right now you are breeding a staff of robots, there just to do your bidding.

It’s not normal to force your staffers to be your friends. It’s not normal to make us all stay late and play games. It was weird that you made us all play Truth or Dare.

We’re not sisters. We’re not family.

I wanted to be your employee.

You made the wrong decision. I hope that my voice can speak for all the young women you have laid off.

You can’t treat people like they are disposable.

You can’t make people work 24 hours a day.

You can’t call us dumb and retarded and lazy and expect us to want to work for you.

You can’t shush someone when they ask you why they are being let go after they have worked their ass off for you.

I don’t want to work for you anymore, but I did want to give you a piece of my mind about how poorly you are leading Glossy.com. I am fine with burning this bridge down all the way to the ashes because it is a bridge I never want to cross again.

I deserve to have a last word.

Leslie Dawkins

Imogen felt a surge of embarrassment for the young woman. Was she drunk when she wrote the email?

‘What is this?’ she messaged Ashley, copying and pasting the text.

Ashley replied with a frowny face emoji. She appeared in Imogen’s office a minute later, sighing and looking less perky than usual.

‘I’m surprised this hasn’t happened yet. It’s like a kind of a trend these days. When people get fired or they don’t get a job, they shoot off these public rants. I’m sure it will get picked up on a website soon.’

Imogen was horrified. Wouldn’t someone want to bury something like this, move on quietly? Ashley correctly read Imogen’s expression.

‘My people overshare. I’m sure you’ve figured that out,’ Ashley said, referring, Imogen assumed, to millennials as ‘her people,’ not Upper East Side WASPs, who traditionally did not overshare. Imogen nodded, indicating she should go on. ‘People actually end up getting job offers from other places after they do something like this. It’s ballsy, but it can end up working in someone’s favor.’

‘How so?’

‘Some start-ups want to hire people who aren’t afraid to put themselves out there. It’s kind of like blasting your résumé out to a million people. You’re bound to hit someone who is hiring.’

‘But it is humiliating,’ Imogen countered.

‘Humiliation is relative these days. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. All she said was that Eve was a crappy boss and that was why she was let go. There are worse things that can happen to you on the Internet.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Oh, we ignore it. If anyone calls for comment we say that we don’t discuss current or former employees. These things have a life cycle of about twenty-four hours … even if they get picked up by another website,’ Ashley said casually.

‘Damn. I’m late for my lunch.’ Imogen stood and grabbed her cashmere camel coat. ‘I hope people just delete this. Maybe no one will forward it or repost it? It’s silly.’

That morning, Imogen had scoured her closet for the perfect outfit to wear to Shoppit for lunch, finally settling on a copper-colored Chloé pencil skirt with a Peter Pilotto embroidered top paired with an oxblood Kensington Mulberry bag and Vera Wang black suede pumps. Chic and conservative without being stuffy or, as Eve would so kindly put it, ‘old-fashioned.’ She ran a brush through her hair sitting at her desk, happy she’d had the roots touched up over the weekend. She swore the gray began creeping in faster over just the past six months. Gray made some women look sophisticated. Imogen didn’t think she would be one of those women. She would be a blonde until they shut the lid of her coffin.

Shoppit had offices in a loft space downtown. Rashid informed her that the company had plans to move at the start of the new year into a new space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, carved out of the old Domino Sugar Factory. For now, they had half of a building on Greenwich Street. Reception for Shoppit was on the ground floor.

‘Hi, Imogen,’ a perky Asian girl with an egg-shaped head and large red glasses said as she walked through the door.

‘Hello,’ Imogen replied with what must have been a look of utter surprise. Do we know each other? The girl giggled.

‘We take people off guard sometimes when we just blurt out their name,’ she said. ‘It isn’t magic or anything. Your name is in our system to go see Aerin and it has an image of you that we pulled from Google. We just think it’s nice to greet guests by name when we have the time.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It creeps some people out though.’

Imogen moved back half a step as she laughed along with her. ‘It definitely creeped me out a little bit.’

‘Do you mind signing in on the screen there?’ She motioned to a sleek white tablet on the desk in front of her. ‘It will print out your badge for you. It already has your name and stuff, but it wants to take a picture of your ID. Just hold your license under the little red light.’ Imogen pulled out her New York State driver’s license and held it under the blinking red dot. A name badge slid out of the side of the tablet. The girl handed Imogen a small gray piece of plastic no bigger than her thumb that looked like the kind of key fob she used to enter the gym in the Robert Mannering Corp. building.

‘This will tell you where to go. It makes noise and vibrates a little. Do you want a water for your walk?’ The girl gestured toward a refrigerator stacked with individual boxes of water similar to the one Rashid had given her at DISRUPTTECH!

Imogen was a little bit freaked out as she ran her thumb over the smooth plastic shape, especially when the small gray object spoke to her with a perfect Oxford British accent. ‘Please proceed to the right elevator bank. You will be going to floor number four.’ Behind the desk, the girl’s eyebrows bobbed in delight at the technology.

‘These are new. They’re programmed to know who you’re seeing and how to get you there. It also knows where you are. It has a GPS so it lets us know if you go anywhere you aren’t supposed to go. It will open any doors along the way. I just think they are the coolest.’

‘The coolest.’ Imogen nodded.

She walked to the right elevator bank and held the device up to her face. It looked entirely unremarkable, just a piece of plastic with three small holes on one side that must have been a speaker. Once she was in the elevator it politely reminded her to push the button for four. At the fourth floor she entered a brightly colored lobby-like space with a couple of low-sitting couches, but no reception area. The walls were covered in scribbled marker and there were glass doors to the left and to the right.

‘Please travel through the set of doors to your right.’

Imogen did as she was told. The voice was soft, just loud enough that she could keep it in her hand and have her arm resting alongside her body and still hear it, but not so loud that it could be heard by anyone more than two feet away from her. As she approached the glass doors she heard a small beep and the click of a door unlocking, undoubtedly the magic of her little toy.

‘Please proceed straight.’

Open and airy with battered concrete floors, the Shoppit offices confirmed every urban legend about start-up work spaces Imogen had ever heard. Eager young people sat at rows and rows of desks, not unlike the ones at Glossy.com, but also on couches and in beanbag chairs. Some stood at their desks, like Eve. Others took it a step further and appeared to be walking on treadmills right at their desks. In a completely clichéd moment someone zipped by on a scooter. No one paid Imogen much mind as she strolled among them. At the end of the floor was a wall of glass offices. ‘Turn right,’ her device told her as she was about to reach the wall. She walked past four offices and was advised to stop as she came to the one at the corner.

‘You have arrived,’ it informed her. The words felt heavy.

Imogen looked up to see Aerin Chang sitting on a chair in the far right corner of the office. The back of the chair leaned against the glass, making it look as though she could topple, at any moment, into the river down below. The girl’s smile was bright and welcoming as she gestured to the table and a platter of macarons and then beckoned Imogen through the door. She stood and walked over, leaning in for a hug and then laughing.

‘I feel like I know you after looking at all your Instagrams and that made me feel like we should hug, but then I remembered we had never met in person.’ Imogen laughed too, realizing that she felt exactly the same way.

‘I can’t even look at your Instagram. I get so jealous,’ Aerin said.

‘No. Yours! So jealous.’ Imogen laughed back.

Aerin had a look of studied indifference. She wore a casual pair of waxed leggings with a graphic T-shirt and an Isabel Marant leather jacket with a pair of to-die-for high-heeled studded boots. Sitting on her shoulder-length black hair was a Rag & Bone fedora. She was petite. Despite her four-inch heels she barely reached Imogen’s shoulder. An amazing art deco emerald ring adorned the middle finger of her left hand. Her ring finger was bare except for a thin tan line.

‘I asked my assistant to stop by our macaron stand before you got here. I remembered that you liked my post about them.’ Aerin fished a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. ‘She wrote down the flavors: Lemon Meringue, Pistachio Dream, Mocha Raspberry Frappé.’ Imogen leaned over to grab a pale yellow cookie.

‘That one is Lemon Meringue.’ Aerin clapped her hands in delight.

Imogen bit into the cookie and sweetness tap-danced over her tongue as she felt all of the tension about this meeting melt through to the beautiful wood floor.

‘These came from your macaron stand?’ Imogen said, confused.

‘Yes. Isn’t that wild? We have an actual macaron shop right here in the Shoppit offices. We have nine floors in total with all sorts of amenities. The macarons aren’t free but they are very, very cheap. The barbecue joint and the taco stand are free, as are the cafeterias … obviously. We have a hair salon that does five-dollar shaves and ten-dollar haircuts. There is an arcade on the second floor and a gym in the solarium on the roof. We’re getting a noodle shop soon. Everyone is really excited about the noodle shop.’

It was like Main Street, U.S.A., in Disney World.

‘Sit, sit,’ Aerin said. ‘I’m happy you came by. I asked someone to grab us salads from the chopped salad bar in the cafeteria. We stole a chef from Facebook recently! He’s sooooo good. But we can go out if you want.’

Imogen shook her head. ‘I’d love to stay here.’

Aerin settled into the chair opposite her. ‘Good, good.’ She tapped out a quick email on her iPhone. ‘The food should be up in a few minutes.’

‘So, I have to ask you.’ Imogen cleared her throat. ‘Why did you want to meet me?’

‘I knew my invite was strange.’ Aerin buried her head in her palms. ‘I feel like a weirdo.’ Imogen could tell that Aerin didn’t really feel like a weirdo. She exuded a calm confidence in everything that she did. Her brown eyes were steady in their assessment of Imogen.

‘I love meeting new people.’ Imogen flicked her hand downward to underscore the point. ‘In fact, my friend Rashid had meant to introduce the two of us. He just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.’

‘Rashid from Blast!?’ Aerin’s eyes widened. ‘He rocks. He is like a weird super genius with the absolute best taste in clothes.’

‘He said the same thing about you.’

‘Noooooo.’ Aerin waved her hand back and forth as if sweeping the compliment away. ‘He is the genius. He can take the smallest idea and turn it into a multibillion-dollar company. I swear it.’

Imogen glanced around. ‘It looks like you’re already running your own multibillion-dollar company.’

‘Not billion … just yet.’

Aerin was at ease with herself in a way not many women were. She was humble, but didn’t shrink from the compliments. She sat taller when she began talking about her company, telling Imogen about how she started out as the fourth employee at Shoppit when they were working out of a buddy’s apartment in Long Island City, Queens.

‘I grew up in the suburbs of Saint Louis, where fashion meant the Gap. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Gap, but I wish I’d had a few other options. I don’t just mean expensive stuff either. I wish I could have browsed the stalls in Chinatown, finding two-dollar sandals, or the table vendors in SoHo selling ten-dollar necklaces. That’s what Shoppit is all about. We are trying to create a truly global fashion marketplace that will benefit big brands and small brands and kids in Missouri who just want to accessorize. Fashion is an industry that builds walls up and my personality is the opposite of that. I am all about breaking those walls down. Fashion is a lifestyle now. For centuries fashion was inaccessible.’

Imogen knew Aerin was dumbing things down for her, but she was still impressed. She loved that the woman didn’t once mention traffic or revenue or data. She talked about a creative concept and the love of that concept. That was what Glossy was to Imogen in the early days. It was a way to showcase the very best of fashion to people who didn’t get to live in that world day in and day out. Imogen said as much to Aerin.

‘I knew we had that in common,’ Aerin replied.

‘But don’t you ever worry that we are giving too much away on social media? When you show so much of your personal life?’ Imogen asked, and she didn’t regret the bold question when it came out of her mouth.

Aerin chewed thoughtfully on a macaron. ‘Designers used to be these mythical people. Who was Coco Chanel? I don’t really know what she was like. Until a few years ago people didn’t really know who Karl Lagerfeld was when he went home at night. And now he is on Instagram posting pictures of his cat and you have Prabal on there posting pictures of himself at the gym and what he is doing on vacation. People don’t want myths anymore. They want to buy products from real people and I think social media helps these mythical figures become real people,’ the younger woman replied, just as an attractive man in a bright green checked shirt walked in with two trays filled with salads, veggies and lemonade.

‘Chuck, this is Imogen Tate.’

‘Hi, Imogen.’ Chuck smiled at her.

‘Chuck is one of our data scientists … and an impromptu chopped salad deliverer.’

‘So pleased to meet you, Chuck. I have no idea what a data scientist does,’ Imogen said with complete honesty.

‘Some days I don’t either.’

They laughed easily.

‘Chuck is a statistics guru is what he is. Do you want to join us?’ Aerin asked him with a genuine sincerity.

He shook his head. ‘Too much work to do. But I’ll catch you guys later. Bye, Imogen.’ He winked.

‘He is so sweet.’

‘And really good at his job,’ Aerin said, pulling a plate of salad onto her lap. ‘Do you mind that we are just eating here, picnic style? I’m sure you’re used to really fancy lunches.’

‘I’ve been having a lot less fancy lunches lately. This is nice.’

Both women chewed for a moment.

‘I meant it when I said I really just wanted to meet you in person,’ Aerin said after she swallowed a few bits of kale. ‘I’ve loved Glossy since I was a kid.’

‘I’m glad we’re doing this,’ Imogen said.

‘I saw the email that Leslie Dawkins sent to Eve,’ Aerin said. She’d been having such a pleasant time, it took Imogen a minute to remember both Leslie Dawkins’s name and the letter.

‘How? She sent it about twenty minutes before I got here.’

‘It was up on TechBlab five minutes before you walked in. I’m not going to ask you about it or what it is like to work there right now. I can imagine. I know women like Eve. But I also know a lot of young people in this industry who aren’t a damn thing like her who would die to get to work with someone like you.’

Imogen sighed. ‘I have a pretty steep learning curve with tech.’ She thought a second before she added her dirty little secret. ‘I’ve become a regular at the Apple Genius Bar.’

Aerin’s smile was warm. ‘Then you would love our Shoppit “Walk Up Windows.” We have help bars right here. You can walk up to them any time of day or night and they’ll help you with pretty much anything technology related.’

The woman took a second to scoop a bit of salad into her mouth. ‘You know this is new to pretty much everyone. Ten years ago none of this existed. Five years ago ninety percent of it didn’t exist. A lot of what we are working with right now in tech just happened five minutes ago. New industries appear and disappear at a dizzying rate. We’re all adapting every single day.’

Imogen had never thought about it like that; she’d been too focused on her own pity party about how left behind she felt.

‘Can I tell you a secret?’ Aerin lowered her voice and Imogen nodded. ‘Humans built the Internet but they don’t really understand it. Even I didn’t really believe this whole tech thing was going to take off. My parents thought I was crazy. Why didn’t I go into banking or, better yet, go to law school? Why didn’t I get a job at a magazine, one like yours? In the beginning, when I was jumping from start-up to start-up, I still had no idea any of this would work out. I took the LSAT and the GMAT and the MCAT and planned an exit strategy every single year. I only stopped doing that two years ago. I know this is here to stay and I feel good about what I am doing.’

Imogen smiled and grabbed another macaron. She felt good here with Aerin.

That good feeling began to dissipate when Aerin asked: ‘What don’t you like about your site?’

She wanted to trust this girl. Aerin Chang’s question rang sincere. She had none of Eve’s naked ambition – at least, she didn’t wear it the same way that Eve did. She was smart, but not calculating.

Before she knew what she was doing, Imogen let loose everything that drove her insane about the Glossy website: the mistakes, the juvenile content, the obsession with traffic, the way photos and videos were thrown into stories like an afterthought, the cheap design, her inability to do photo shoots that made the clothes leap off the screen.

Aerin nodded, never taking her eyes off Imogen to check her phone or to signal to an assistant. She just listened.

When she finished, Imogen felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Aerin said, ‘You have to love a brand a lot to give it the right refresh. I just think Glossy.com could be so much better. I think that the idea of blending commerce and editorial online is brilliant. I think it can be done in really smart and gorgeous ways. I don’t know if Glossy.com has done that.’ She paused again. ‘Let me know if I am overstepping with my criticism.’

Imogen gave her head a small shake.

‘I would be lying if I didn’t admit to having it in the back of my head that maybe we could find some way to work together.’

‘How do you mean?’

Aerin moved her plate back to the low table between the chairs and leaned over, putting her elbows on top of her knees.

‘I don’t know yet. Maybe a partnership. Maybe something more. I know Shoppit is lacking a clear editorial direction. We need creative eyes. We need to work with more people who know fashion, who love fashion. I’m just not sure what a position would look like yet. I think maybe this is my way of asking whether you would ever even consider leaving Glossy.’

Could she know that Imogen considered leaving Glossy at least twice a day – once when she woke up in the morning and once when she went to bed at night?

‘I am going to be blunt,’ Aerin continued. ‘Would you ever consider coming to work somewhere like Shoppit? Probably not, right? You must think we’re all a bunch of nerds.’

Aerin must have sensed that Imogen didn’t know what to say. ‘You don’t need to answer me now. I just wanted to plant the seed in your head.’

There was a part of Imogen that wanted to jump up and scream, Yes! Take me away from the hell I am stuck in every day! Then there was the part of her who, despite everything that had gone on, was protective of her magazine and wanted to see it through, couldn’t abandon her loyalty to Glossy.

‘I appreciate your offer so much. I know it must seem like things are dire over at Glossy from that email, but it isn’t all that bad. I love my magazine.’ Imogen hoped she wasn’t letting too much emotion creep into her voice. ‘I want to see it do well, even if that means it lives online. I need to stick with it for now, if that makes sense, but I cannot tell you how flattered I am.’ Imogen thought about Molly. Maybe there was a place at Shoppit for Molly? She thought about the brontosaurus toy on Eve’s desk. ‘Seriously, I know that there aren’t a lot of people like you looking for people like me and I want us to be friends and keep talking, if that’s possible.’

‘That’s exactly what I want too. Now, will you help me finish these macarons?’ Aerin paused. ‘I should also let you know, since you haven’t been online since you got here, that another email leaked to TechBlab besides Leslie’s.’

Imogen froze. Was it something she had written?

Aerin stood and grabbed a slick black iPad off her desk. She typed in a web address. It was an email that Eve had sent to one of the Bangladeshi assistants from the outsourcing company Zourced.

From: Eve Morton (EMorton@Glossy.com)

To: Rupa Chary (RChary@Zourced.in)

Dear Rupa,

How is my favorite Bangladeshi assistant? Can you put all of the wedding guests into a spreadsheet organized by their dress size? Most of the girls I invited to the wedding will be a size two or four. They will look good in pictures.

We have made one exception for a size six. Her husband is a very well-known television broadcaster. I think she has a gluten allergy, so it really isn’t her fault.

I am also inviting the Gray Hair, my old boss Imogen, and we need to keep her out of the way at the wedding, so please make sure to send me her seating assignment as soon as that is ready.

One last thing. Could you send an email out to all of the women reminding them that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE can they wear black to the wedding. I need this day to POP!

I hope it isn’t too hot over there!

E.

Imogen’s hand fluttered to her hair.

‘She thinks I’m ancient,’ Imogen said.

‘It isn’t about your hair,’ Aerin replied without missing a beat. Imogen had forgotten she was being watched.

‘“Gray Hair” is like a title. It’s a noun. Tech investors use it. Any good VC worth their salt …’ Aerin slowed down. ‘Any good venture capitalist worth their salt won’t just fund a bunch of kids or a kid with a good tech idea. Kids have a million ideas a day. The investors make them bring in a “Gray Hair,” someone with a history in whatever industry they are in who can keep the kids in line. You might be the Gray Hair for Glossy.’ Aerin looked at her apologetically. Imogen was partially relieved that the nickname had nothing to do with a poor dye job.

‘Do you have Gray Hairs here at Shoppit?’ she asked.

At that Aerin laughed. ‘We have purple hairs. Our investors are so conservative that we have a whole squadron of industry vets here. If you came to us you would be considered a toddler.’

That brought a small smile back to Imogen’s face.

‘Who leaks all this stuff to TechBlab anyway?’

‘Everyone. I never put anything on email anymore unless I pause for a second and think about whether I want the president of the United States to read it … or my dad.’

Imogen sighed.

‘That is no way to live.’

‘But it keeps us honest.’ Aerin reached out her hand to shake Imogen’s. ‘We’ll meet again?’ Imogen grasped her hand back. Her palm was soft and the handshake firm, but not aggressive.

‘We will. And in the meantime we still have Instagram.’

‘That we do,’ Aerin replied. ‘That we do.’

Imogen felt energized walking back to the office. Aerin Chang wanted to work with her! She may be a Gray Hair, but still, someone as young and hip as Aerin, at a company like Shoppit, thought she had potential in tech. She was halfway down the block when she realized she hadn’t returned her slick little navigator. She rubbed her thumb across it before dropping it in her bag to keep as a souvenir.

After the kids were sleeping in their beds that night, Imogen ran through the myriad emails she missed during the day.

The Hobbs photo shoot was all set with a seven a.m. call time at the Four Seasons in the morning.

Ashley helped her produce the shoot with six models, including Coco Rocha, Carolyn Murphy and Hilary Rhoda. She had also asked Rashid to help her choose four up-and-coming women in the tech industry, young founders and CEOs, to use as real-person models. The designers were all classic American names ranging from Michael Kors to Marc Jacobs to Lucia to Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. When the shoot was finished all of the photographs would be translated to the BUY IT NOW paradigm, but Imogen loved the concept of the shoot so much that that didn’t even bother her. She was eager to capture the young power CEOs wearing fashion-forward techie accessories like Google Glass and bags with Bluetooth technology and sensory mood jewelry while working on their tablets. They’d have GoPros mounted on their purses during the entire shoot. That was Ashley’s idea. They’d use that video for behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot. What Eve had said about taking pictures with an iPhone had stuck in Imogen’s head through the night until finally it clicked – Alice could do the shoot with an iPhone. Why not take this creative, free application, Instagram, and add the exquisite eye of Alice to tell this story. She’d heard through the grapevine that Mario Testino was considering a shoot like this for Número. It was a way to be creative and cheap.

Convinced that the photo shoot actually might go her way, Imogen allowed herself to log on to the TECHBITCH Facebook page. It was becoming a guilty pleasure and she tried not to visit every single day, but the comments made her laugh so hard.

My boss asked that no one look him directly in the eye.

My supervisor emails me nonstop through the weekend, starting at 6 am on Saturday.

I’ve ordered dinner on Seamless at the office every night for 45 straight days.

I signed up for Codecademy! Who’s the techbitch now!

Within minutes there were four responses to that post.

You go girl!

I am doing it and it’s awesome. Learning JavaScript now! I am like a JavaScript ninja.

It will change your life.

Love it.

Imogen yawned. She could stay up for only five more minutes tops. She typed in ‘www.codecademy.com.’ She had expected a lot of fancy bells and whistles, but the site was unassuming and simple.

‘Learn to code interactively for free. People all over the world are using Codecademy.’ There was an option to build projects, join a community or show off your profile to others. It wasn’t nearly as frightening as Imogen had imagined. She clicked the button to sign up, entering her first and last names, her email (Gmail!) and a password. She always used the same password, which she also knew was the epitome of foolishness in the age of identity theft. It was JohnnyAnnabel1234. She made a mental note to change it one of these days. The next screen gave her the option to sign up for her first course, HTML & CSS, abbreviations that had no immediate association in Imogen’s brain. She allowed her thoughts to wander for a moment on what they could possibly mean. Haute Taupe Milled Leather, Cerulean Summer Sandals … Imogen giggled at her silliness, yawned and decided she would learn what they really meant tomorrow or perhaps later in the week.

An ad for Shoppit appeared on the side of her screen. Imogen clicked it. The site was well organized by type of item and it looked as if it sold absolutely everything anyone in the world would ever want to buy. Imogen clicked over to the website’s fashion section. It was simple and utilitarian, lacking a sexiness that Imogen craved when looking at fashion content. Aerin was right, her site could use some glitter.

Imogen wondered: What if Shoppit did the opposite of Glossy? What if it turned a commerce site into a magazine instead of the other way around? Was that crazy? Was anything crazy anymore?

She pulled a notepad from the nightstand drawer and began drawing mock pages.

Aerin was serious about importing high and low into the Shoppit website. There actually was a whole section of the site devoted to street jewelry sold by vendors on Prince Street in SoHo.

What if they created a magazine that built stories around those items? They could interview the artisans and tell their story. What if they paired the jewelry with gorgeous clothes? Wouldn’t that inspire someone to BUY IT NOW? She began copying her notes into a document on her laptop.

She could do that for Shoppit. She should be doing it for Glossy. She went to sleep right after she closed the computer.