I was a spaz, Jenna thought, for the zillionth time that morning. Eric made me look like a fool over that cupcake because I was a spaz, and now I have to face him in an hour. Shonda Rhimes couldn’t even write me out of this plot.
Jenna was barely awake. She’d had a total of three hours of sleep, obsessing over her StyleZine situation. Luckily, she’d taken the morning off to serve on the jury for the Fashion Institute of Technology’s senior collections prelims. It was being held in a massive white box of a loft space on 25th and 10th Avenue, which was filled with thirty rolling racks, each manned by an overwhelmed-looking design student—and peppered with jurors wandering around surveying the projects. The room was lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing white-hot streams of sunlight to flood the space, so the poor kids were not only struggling to explain their prohibitively ethereal collections to their style industry elders, they were blinking blindly into the sun. Oddly, they almost all had Buddy Holly glasses and lavender hair.
Sighing, Jenna approached a rolling rack filled with extravagantly repurposed vintage white and cream nightgowns in silks, satins, and crushed velvets. The designer, a chubby strawberry blonde with hair styled like Rita Hayworth’s, bit her bottom lip.
“Hi, Ms. Jones,” she said in a fluttery voice.
“Hi! Well, these are lovely. I love how you combined ‘30s bias cut shapes with flouncy ‘60s silhouettes.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I guess I really like…the vulnerability and sensuality of undergarments…worn on the outside. You know, the duality of being a powerful woman, but…I don’t know, wearing these delicate, flimsy fabrics as armor. I guess?” Jenna smiled. She recognized her beloved students from Northern Virginia Community College in this girl. Bursting with ideas and compelled to express them, but at the same time, worried that their every thought was garbage. This was what she loved so much about mentoring, being able to lead them through the process, helping them refine their ideas and trust their instincts.
“I’d suggest that you push yourself, though. Play with shapes that might be a bit more unexpected. You know, because we’ve seen this look before. You were clearly influenced by the Riot Grrrls from the early 90’s.”
“Riot what?”
Jenna looked at her. “Courtney Love? Hole? Babes in Toyland? The whole ‘kinderwhore’ style movement, with the slips and Mary Janes?”
I am a thousand years old.
She tucked her clipboard under her arm. “Lesley, so much of fashion is understanding where the influences lie. You should watch Courtney Love’s videos for “Doll Parts” and “Violet.” Also, find Baby Doll on Netflix. It’s a 1962 film about a childlike seventeen-year-old who lives with this shady older man, who makes her sleep in a crib and wear these exquisite little girl nightgowns until she’s of age and he can marry her. It’s totally sick and genius, and you’ll be inspired by the costuming. After that, rethink your direction a bit, okay?”
“Yes…I will…I really will. Thank you.”
The grateful expression on the designer’s face made her morning. And then she remembered the situation awaiting her in the office.
So, she gave Lesley a hug and headed to the refreshments table—where she stalled like crazy, grazing on crudité and sipping Bellinis for the next forty-five minutes.
Jenna was standing in the tiny kitchenette by the cubicles, chugging her second cup of black coffee (she’d had one too many bellinis). Just back from FIT, she’d intended to get a quick shot of caffeine before getting back to work. It was Tuesday. She and Eric were supposed to have a rough cut of their first video to Darcy by end-of-day tomorrow and, due to brain-freezing stress, every idea she came up with was uninspired and unusable. She had to have something prepared in the next hour—plus, she needed to psyche herself up before seeing Eric again.
As she gulped down the second cup, Terry and the assistant market editor, Jinx, swept into the tiny enclave, all hectic energy. Terry was swiping away on her phone, while Jinx, a perpetually frantic Persian-American beauty, was pulling a rolling rack of outfits behind her.
They completely ignored Jenna’s presence.
“…and I’ve done the “where to buy” info for our five outfits of the day, but my headlines are so blah,” said Terry, a vision in designer sweatpants and Supra high-tops. Every morning Mitchell, the photo editor, sent her pics of cool-looking girls that he’d curated from all over the world, and she captioned them.
“Let me see,” said Jinx, dry-swallowing a diet pill. Her dark, voluptuous beauty was lost on her. She wanted to be a basic white girl. She longed for suburban blonde highlights, loved seasonally-flavored coffee and wore celebrity perfumes. She looked like a mysterious, dark-eyed enchantress—but on the inside, she was Lauren Conrad.
Terry shoved her phone in Jinx’s face. “Look at the pic. She has blood-red lips, cowboy boots and a white-collared black dress. I called it ‘Daytime Goth,’ but that sucks. Darcy said my captions sound like they were written by someone on the spectrum.”
“‘Bleak Chic?’ I don’t know, I can’t concentrate!” wailed Jinx. “I’m on deadline and these pills give me tremors. I have to lose five pounds by Thursday so I can wear a crop top to Le Bain without the gays shading me!”
Jenna took a little breath and spoke up. “Hi, guys.”
“Oh we didn’t see you,” said Terry, despite the kitchenette being the size of a linen closet.
“Hi, Jenna,” said Jinx. “I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s your Instagram? Darcy wants us to follow you.”
“She doesn’t have Instagram,” said Terry, eyebrows raised. “Really?” Jinx frowned at Jenna. “Well that’s…umm…anyway, I really like your column. So cuuute,” she said, dismissing her. She refocused her attention on Terry. “Show me the girl one more time?”
“Maybe I can help,” said Jenna.
Terry and Jinx looked at each other, and then the blonde shrugged. “Sure.”
Jenna took Terry’s phone. She studied the outfit for a moment. “Vampire Pilgrim Walks into a Saloon.”
Terry nodded slowly, smiling. “That’s actually good.”
“It is! How’d you do that?” asked Jinx.
“Don’t be so literal,” said Jenna. “Push the description as far as it can go. Even if it feels ridiculous. The silliest, most far-out headlines are the most memorable.”
“Damn,” said Terry, “can you write all my captions?” Jenna beamed.
“Omigod, maybe you can help me, too,” wailed Jinx, who until five minutes ago, had never spoken four words to Jenna. She pulled an outfit off of the rack and thrust it at her. “Our first ‘Get the Look’ of the day is going up in forty minutes, and Mitchell’s shooting me in our version of a Kristen Stewart outfit. K-Stew, with my huge tits. I have no idea how to pose!”
“Hmmm,” said Jenna, thinking. “Get the Look’ is a split screen, with the celeb and editor pics, side-by side. The editor’s always in the same arms-by-her-sides pose. You should switch it up, make it editorial.”
Jenna shook her hair into her face and slumped her shoulders, crossing her feet at the ankles. Despite the fact that she was wearing a tulip-skirted sundress of Billie’s (“Belle of the Barbeque”), she transformed into the sullen, twenty-something movie star. “Do a play on her persona. That whole ‘yeah-my-fans-made-me-the-highest-paid-woman-in-Hollywood-but-I-won’t-give-them-one-single-smile thing.”
“But I look nothing like her. She’s a tiny pixie person.” Jinx was skeptical.
“I know; it’s just a send-up of her mythology. You’re being ironic. Wear tons of black eyeliner. Be glum—but with a wink. Have a sense of humor about it. Fashion is fantasy; the reader wants a story!”
“That could work,” said Jinx, looking at Jenna with a mixture of vague mistrust and burgeoning interest. “Terry, what do you think?”
I can’t believe she’s checking in with a woman fifteen years my junior before going with my great idea. I used to run a massive fashion department! Am I seriously this beside-the-point? I really need to adjust my expectations.
And a cocktail. I need a cocktail.
“You, posing like Kristen Stewart?” Terry clapped her hands together. “I cannot with the genius!”
Jinx squealed. “Do either of you have black eyeliner? Do we have Spanx in the fashion closet? This might turn out really dope, thanks, Jenna.”
“Anytime,” exclaimed Jenna, embarrassed by how proud she felt by their approval.
Just then, Jenna noticed Terry peering over her shoulder. She started hopping up and down. “Eric Combs!!”
Jenna whipped around. There he was, walking past the kitchenette. He stopped, tensed up almost imperceptibly—and then relaxed. The picture of cool. She smiled hugely at him, overdoing it. All night long, she’d been praying that she’d come into the office and discover that her mortification over what happened yesterday had been like a twenty-four hour virus. Intense, but short-lived. Sadly, this was wishful thinking.
“Hiyee!” she trilled too loudly, offering up a dumb, fluttery wave.
“Hey, Jenna,” he said with careful, benign friendliness. “How are you?”
Before she could answer, Terry pushed past her and launched into his arms.
“Hi, baby,” she squealed. “I didn’t get to see you on your first day! Can you believe we actually work together? Dude, it’s so beyond on.”
“What’s good, Teezy?” Eric hugged her back.
“You know each other?” asked Jenna, forcing herself to join the conversation.
“I’ve known Eric since he was shorter than me. And I’m the reason he’s here!” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I told him not to freak out about working for his mom. At least it’s a paycheck.”
“Terry dated one of my boys back in eighth grade or whatever,” he said. “Who’re you with now?”
“I’m about to break up with Kevin Watson, and I have Jamal Crebb on standby.”
“Jamal Crebb. Power forward at Columbia?”
She sighed, placing her hand over her heart. “Bae.”
“Figures,” he said, to Jenna and Jinx. “This girl loves a black guy. Look at her hair, she has the side shave. That’s code for ‘I bone black guys.’”
“So that’s what that means?” asked Jinx. “I should do something cool to my hair. My boyfriend doesn’t like it anyway.”
“But it’s so good,” said Eric. “It looks like Lara Croft’s. I have questions for a dude who doesn’t appreciate comic book heroine hair.”
She lit up. “You totally have a point.”
“Stop looking at Eric like he’s a Cinnabon,” said Terry. “Sorry, E. This is an office full of women. We’re not used to straight male energy. You might get sexually assaulted.”
“I don’t know, the women I’ve met seem pretty composed,” he said, unable to help himself. “I can’t picture anyone here trying to molest me.”
Jenna cut her eyes at him.
Just then, Darcy stormed past the kitchenette, and then retraced her steps, stepping into the now-full space. An impressive extravaganza of multi-tasking, she was typing into her iPhone, applying lip gloss, and barking orders into a second phone cradled between her shoulder and ear.
After making the foursome wait for thirty seconds, she tossed both phones and the gloss into her bag.
“Jenna, how was FIT? Did you represent us beautifully?”
“I think so,” said Jenna. “You can’t imagine the creativity pouring out of those students, and it was a great opportunity to…”
“Perfect. So, Jinx.”
“I had lunch with Alexandra from Commes des Garcon, and she told me you’d RSVP’d to their spring tee-shirt launch? You can’t go to that, you’re too junior. Besides, you’re banned from attending any fashion events until you get your undiagnosed eating disorder under control. At that TopShop lunch, I heard you tunneled a hole through all the mini baguettes in the bread basket, leaving crust carcasses everywhere. StyleZine girls are always the coolest bitches in the room. Do spare me the starving fashion girl cliché.”
Jinx blushed and nodded. “Yes. I will.”
Out of Darcy’s sightline, Eric looked like it was taking everything he had to keep his mouth shut.
“And Jenna. Your last three ‘Just Jenna’ posts got ridiculous traffic, which I like. What I don’t like is that the traffic would’ve quadrupled if you had promoted them. Please tell me you did it today.”
Jenna still hadn’t mastered the art of digital promotion—it wasn’t a natural reflex for her to write something and then broadcast the link to zillions of strangers. Jenna had dropped the ball, and was about to be outed in front of these girls, who she’d just gotten to consider that she might be a valuable addition to the office. And Eric, who already thought she was ridiculous.
“Hello? Jenna?”
Terry and Jinx glanced at each other, and then down at the floor.
“I…well, I…” Jenna felt like an entry-level assistant, getting confronted by her boss for forgetting to tell her that the London Times called to interview her about an Isaac Mizrahi show. What could she say? “I was…”
“She handled it,” said Eric.
Jenna whipped her head in his direction. Darcy asked, “How would you know?”
“You don’t have access to our HootSuite account, do you?”
“I don’t even know what that is,” spat Darcy, impatiently. “You should. It helps you schedule your social media engagement. I checked it earlier and saw that Jenna has four tweets queued for this afternoon and something on Google Plus. And a Facebook post set for three o’clock. Or is it three-thirty?”
“Umm, three-thirty.” Jenna wiped her palms on her skirt. She had no clue what he was talking about. “On Who Sweet, that’s it.”
“HootSuite,” repeated Eric.
“Right!”
“Huh. Good.” Darcy eyed her with distracted skepticism, and then started to walk away. “Jenna and Eric, looking forward to the first video.”
The two girls scurried behind Darcy, and Jenna and Eric were left standing in the kitchen. Jenna exhaled, slumping back against the counter. She gestured for Eric to come closer.
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, with great difficulty.
“Except thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “You were drowning; it was painful.”
“But you could’ve let me drown. You know, after our… challenging day yesterday.”
“Challenging? That’s the word we’re going with?”
“Fine, I was a tad hysterical.”
“I mean, yeah, you were extra. But it was almost cinematic.
You made it count.”
“Eric,” she started grandly, “I would like to tell you…I think you deserve an…I’m sorry…about my behavior yesterday.”
Eric looked surprised. “Wow. I bet that hurt.”
“You can’t imagine.”
He folded his arms. “Apology accepted. And I’m sorry for calling you middle-aged.”
“And Mrs. Robinson,” she added.
“And Mrs. Robinson.”
“I’m not a bitch. I’m really not. I’m actually one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Though that’s like saying you’re beautiful or hilarious. It’s one of those things you should wait for someone else to say about you.”
“I don’t think you’re a bitch,” he said, leaning up against the counter next to Jenna—but a good two feet away. There was a Keurig coffee maker and a basket of Twinings tea bags between them. “I think you were freaked out. And I didn’t help.”
“Who are you today?”
“See? I’m a cool dude, and you were trying to report me to HR.”
Jenna crossed her arms. “This is so stressful. I had no idea what you were talking about to Darcy. It sounded like Bantu Swahili.”
“Why are you stressed?”
“Okay,” she said with a pained sigh. “I’ll keep it one hundred.”
“Nooo,” he said, laughing. “No, you will not keep it one hundred.”
“Isn’t that what the kids are saying these days?”
“Yeah, but it’s keep it one hunnid.” he said. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
She paused, sizing him up. Eric was so sure of himself, so comfortable—he truly wasn’t thrown by their Three’s Company-level, shit-storm of a situation. Yesterday, this had aggravated her. Today, she was grateful. It was like he refused to give awkwardness between them a chance to set in—which was sort of gallant.
“I was teaching in Virginia for a long time and I just came back to New York.” She lowered her voice. “It’s my first time working for a website and, I’m a little lost.”
“And you’re scared if you ask for help, you’ll give yourself away.”
“Pretty much. Instagramming? Twittering? I’m clueless.”
“Twittering? Okay, that’s the cutest thing that’s ever happened.”
Cute? Jenna couldn’t remember the last time a man called her cute.
“You seemed to know what you were talking about,” she said. “With Hoo Tweet and everything.”
“HootSuite.”
“HootSuite.”
“She just wants you to post links to your stories to get people to sideways click,” said Eric.
“Bantu Swahili.”
“No one, like, directly enters a URL or a website name into their browser anymore. You find websites and stories from links on different platforms. You know, sideways.”
“I see.” Jenna let this sink in. Then, she cleared her throat and, with hesitancy, turned toward him. “Do you think…you could help me? Give me a tutorial? I really need your expertise. I need you.”
“What was that?”
“I need you,” she said through clenched teeth. Eric radiated satisfaction, but said nothing. “What?”
“I’m trying this new thing where I don’t say the first thing that pops in my head.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Of course I’ll help you. And SpikeMee90 will be your first official follower.”
“90? Is that really the year you were born?”
“Yeah, definitely the wrong year, though. Everything good happened before my time, or when I was too young to get it. Thirties gangster flicks. Brando. Blazing Saddles. Blaxploitation. Soundgarden. Outkast. But 1994 Outkast, not that ‘Hey Ya’ shit.” He shrugged. “Older is… better. It’s richer. Older is sexier.”
Older is sexier.
He didn’t realize what he’d said until it was out. Eric glanced at Jenna to see if she’d reacted, and caught her eyes. Jenna hesitated longer than was appropriate and then looked away. Without realizing it, she scooted further away from him.
“Wow. Soundgarden,” said Jenna, trying to keep the conversation going. “When I was in high school you couldn’t be black and into so-called ‘white’ stuff. Admitting I loved Motley Crue would’ve meant instant ‘Oreo’ status.”
“You loved Motley Crue? With your fluttery hands and bougie hair flips?”
“Fluttery hands? How did you notice that?”
“I’m a filmmaker. I notice everything.”
“Okay filmmaker, if we don’t figure out this series, we should both quit now.”
“Right. Let’s focus.” Eric pulled a bag of Skittles out of his pocket, popping a handful in his mouth.
“You need Skittles to focus?”
“No, I just have a low grade oral fixation and a candy addiction. I gotta taste the rainbow at least twice a day.” He offered her the bag.
“No thanks.” She reconsidered. “Actually yes.”
She took a handful and grabbed a napkin. Then, she fished around for the yellows and lined them up on the napkin. Eric watched her do this for a moment, mystified.
“You gotta explain this.”
“Everyone knows that lemon’s the tastiest flavor. That’s the rule.”
“Oh that’s the rule.”
Jenna pulled her analog Smythson journal out of her bag, and flipped to her notes from the night before. She scrolled down her list of half-hatched ideas, and stopped on the only one that was viable.
“First of all, do you have any intel? I mean, what does Darcy love? Any particular designers? Art? Models? What could we give her that would blow her mind?”
“The blood of virgins? How would I know?”
“So no intel. Well, here’s my idea. You’ve heard of Isabelle Mirielle’s, right? The fancy shoe line all the celebs and It-girls fetishize? They’re what Jimmy Choos used to be. Well the designer, Greta Blumen, is an old friend. She’s super-mysterious and never does press, but she’ll speak to me. Let’s go to her studio and interview her. We could get a preview of next season! It’ll blow everyone’s minds.”
“Hmm. Okay.” Eric offered Jenna more Skittles.
“What does ‘okay’ mean?”
“I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get?” She popped the yellows in her mouth. “I know the hottest shoe designer in the game, why wouldn’t girls want an insider’s peek into the creation of the stilettos they covet?”
“That’s a magazine article,” he said, simply.
Eric offered more Skittles to Jenna, and this time, instead of taking a few, she snatched the whole bag out of his hand. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s static. You could read that story. It’s not visual. It’s not clicky.”
“Pardon me?”
“No one will click on it! Also, that’s one video. What would the series be?”
“A series of interviews between me and fashion VIPs.”
Eric ran his hand over his face. “Yo, that’s such a flatline.”
“It’s fabulous!” She poured the bag into her mouth, finishing it off. “I happen to have just a tad more experience than you. Trust me.”
“Your boss is expecting this to go viral. This will not go viral.”
Jenna, who only had the vaguest understanding of what ‘viral’ meant, said, “It will go triple viral.”
“Does this shoe chick have a dynamic personality, at least?”
“I can pull dazzle out of anyone. I’ve been doing this for a long time. No shade, I think it would behoove you to sit back, watch, and learn.”
“I think you just threw plenty shade.”
“How do you know it won’t work? You’re sitting there eating Skittles and telling me how to do my job. You’re a kid. You probably rode to work on a skateboard.”
“And what’s the make and model of the broom you rode in on?”
“What?”
“We could do this all day. You won’t win. And not for nothing, you ate all my Skittles.”
Jenna looked down at the empty bag.
They were quiet for a moment, each realizing that they lost their battles to control themselves. Jenna had promised herself that she’d stop the defensive outbursts, but something about Eric stoked this in her. And Eric had truly attempted to curb his innate smartassedness, but Jenna drove him to it. It was clear—they knew how to bring out the worst in each other.
“Look,” said Eric, “we had such a promising start to this conversation. We can’t do yesterday again. I have banter burnout.”
“Me too.”
“And you’re right—I am green. So, let’s do this shoe designer thing.”
She smiled triumphantly. “Thank you.”
Eric cocked his head. “You always get what you want?”
“More or less.”
Eric nodded, thinking to himself. And then with a coolly assured expression, he said, “So do I.”