When Jules arrived at his glass-walled office, Simon looked up and sighed. “What did she do?”
“Fired Mallory.”
“Ah.” He removed his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
She didn’t blame him for getting a headache. She’d served as his assistant before Vivian poached her, and there wasn’t a harder working creative director in the business than Simon Carvalho. Many times, he and Jules had burned the midnight oil as he tried to make creativity and capitalism play nice together: reaching out to advertisers, wrangling hot-tempered artistes who didn’t want to sully their hands with business concerns. It was exhausting.
Vivian’s frequent power plays didn’t make it any easier. Jules had spent many hours at Simon’s side wondering why Vivian couldn’t just relent a bit. Working with Vivian directly hadn’t enlightened her as she’d hoped.
“I thought Mallory would get one more shot,” she said. “She’s done good work in the past.”
“Welcome to fashion, where the past will only be relevant in twenty years. Maybe we’ll see Mallory then. In the meantime, don’t question Vivian’s decisions. At least not to her face.”
Like I don’t know that. “She says to remember the salary budget in the next job ad.”
Simon sighed. “I wonder if Mark’s finally getting to her.”
She had to agree. Mark Tavio, chairman of the Koening publishing group, was nobody’s favorite human. Top executives weren’t usually known for being warm and fuzzy types, but Mr. Tavio was a special kind of sour. Sometimes it seemed he had it in for Vivian personally. If Vivian hadn’t rescued Du Jour from folding five years ago, Jules had a hunch he’d have tried to get rid of her.
True, Vivian wasn’t the easiest personality in the world. Jules still smelled misogyny in the room. Hard to avoid when a man resented a woman who was better at her job than he was at his. Among Mr. Tavio’s petty tactics: summoning Vivian to his office for updates that only wasted her time, constantly implying that she was on thin ice, and neglecting to include her in company-wide decisions. Somehow, though, she always managed to influence those decisions, whether she was invited to the meetings or not.
Simon rolled his shoulders with a grunt. His pink dress shirt looked crisp, and the navy blazer draped over the back of his chair complemented it perfectly. He had what most people would call above-average looks—tall, broad-shouldered, hazel-eyed. But when you spent every day surrounded by models and actors, above average turned into meh.
Jules often felt it herself. She was cute, not dazzling. This job could be a real blow to the old self-esteem, if you let it.
“You okay?” she asked.
“About Mallory? Eh. Easy come, easy go. I’ll have a hundred applicants for her position.” He gave Jules a hopeful look. “Would you like to go through a hundred job applications for me?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “I’ll just swap places with you, and you can do my job all day.”
“At my current salary?”
“Totally.”
“Not enough. We both deserve to make a million bucks a year. Just wait for it. The day will come.” Simon tapped his mouth with one long finger. “Speaking of a million bucks, you look like that today.”
Sweet! Jules had hoped someone would notice the RIXO floral print skirt. She couldn’t resist swaying her hips so the silk crepe swirled around her calves. “Fifty percent off.”
“Don’t be gauche. I do like that line.”
So did she. The RIXO fall collection had been exactly to her tastes: free-flowing and exuberant. Her days might be strictly regimented, but her clothes didn’t have to be.
“Was there anything else from our glorious empress?” Simon asked.
Shoot. Jules had hoped not to mention this part. “She said we have to get it right this time.”
“‘We’ meaning moi. My fault—I sold Mallory’s idea too hard. That’ll be fun to recover from. Do I have new marching orders?”
“You know you do.” She handed him her tablet with the notes.
He skimmed over them. “So much for keeping to the budget. Of course she wants to re-do the whole spread.”
“Fast, too.”
“Naturally.” He read the notes again, looking more attentive. “But…”
“But you like it better than Mallory’s thing, don’t you?” she asked.
“Oh, shut up.” He returned the tablet. “Send this to me ASAP. I’ll make it happen.”
“You always do.” Jules smiled and turned to go.
Simon cleared his throat. “Before you scoot, has Vivian mentioned anything—is there any more news about…”
She waited.
He huffed out an impatient-sounding breath. “You know, her divorce.”
“I doubt I’ve heard anything you haven’t.” Simon was Vivian’s second-in-command. If she trusted anyone implicitly, it was him. Surely, he wouldn’t be less well-informed than Jules. “He dropped the bomb on her, he’s out, and I’ve already scheduled a meeting with her lawyer.”
“I can’t decide which is worse: Vivian’s strategy of having three husbands or mine of not having any.” He looked morose. “This industry is hell on relationships.”
“Oh, great.” Jules rolled her eyes while she opened the door. “Now he tells me.”
Simon’s wry chuckle followed her.
* * *
That night, as Jules flopped onto her sofa with her phone, she found her mother had more to say about Vivian’s divorce than Simon had. Specifically, she had a lot to say about how it should serve as a warning to Jules: “Remember what happened with Aaron. Make sure you don’t end up like your boss.”
That wasn’t fair. Aaron had dumped Jules last year after being unreasonable and insisting she work an eight-hour day and be off every weekend, which, come on!
She had tried to laugh around the cold pit that opened up in her stomach. “Mom! I’m nothing like Vivian. I have a life outside of work.”
“Really?” her mom said tartly. “Then maybe sometime you’ll talk to us about something other than your job.”
Ouch.
When she disconnected, Jules looked down at her phone’s screen until it went dark. Then she sighed, got off the sofa, and headed for the kitchen to get water.
She loved her Lower East Side apartment. Jules was luckier than lucky—her maternal grandparents had purchased the one-bedroom when they were young and when the area was less than savory. It had stayed in the family, and now Jules had six hundred square feet all to herself on the condition that she paid her parents for the utilities and half the property taxes.
Her parents had upgraded the place about ten years ago. The worn carpet had been pulled up and the original hardwood floors refinished. Nothing fancy, but it was perfect for a generation of renters who’d been here before Jules had moved in.
Since Aaron had left and taken his dirty laundry and band posters with him, Jules had been able to redecorate. She’d watched YouTube tutorials on painting and spent hours priming and taping and cursing. Now she had an accent wall covered by squares and triangles in alternating colors of aqua, salmon, and yellow. It looked pretty cool. Vivian never had to know about the yellow part.
An assistant’s salary didn’t stretch far, especially when she had to prioritize clothes, so most of Jules’s furniture was family hand-me-downs. Nevertheless, she’d splurged on a contemporary coffee table and a Moroccan-style rug. She’d made her own curtains. She was satisfied with the place for now.
Jules sat at the kitchen table and looked moodily at her water glass. In spite of herself, her thoughts wandered back to her conversation with her mom. Okay, maybe Jules wasn’t a relationship expert. She still had to be better than Vivian, who had nobody to blame but herself.
It was easy to see that Vivian had known her marriage was in trouble for a while. Jules had given ever-more elaborate excuses when she called the soon-to-be-ex, financier Robert Kirk, to cancel dinner or a date on Vivian’s behalf and had seen her texting him with an increasingly furrowed brow. She had even on one occasion overheard her voice crack when talking to him.
So why hadn’t Vivian been able to compromise with Robert, to try and be more available to him?
In the months she’d been working here, Jules had seen that Robert was clear about what he wanted: for his wife to spend time with him. It was hardly unreasonable. No, this divorce hadn’t been sprung on Vivian out of nowhere. So why hadn’t she acted to prevent it?
Not Jules’s problem, except when it came to canceling the dinners and scheduling the lawyer. It was time to put it out of her mind. She sighed and reached for her computer.
Now for her second job.
She opened the laptop and glowered at the Google doc that had been waiting patiently for her return. Another article she was slaving away at in the hopes that this time it would go somewhere. Last time The Cut had sent her a personalized rejection email, which was more than she’d gotten before. Now that she was on their radar, this effort had a chance to land.
It had to land quickly, though. This time she was writing an article about Jimmy Choo’s collaboration with Timberland to create an haute couture hiking boot. It’d be old news by the end of the week, even though the boot was selling out in Bergdorf.
Why? Jules’s article asked. It was the same as a regular Timberland boot, except it had crystal trim and cost $1,300. Why was such an unnecessary, extravagant item flying off the shelves?
She knew the answer: the boot was a status symbol. People would still click on the headline, eager to read about the excesses of the wealthy.
It wasn’t an article about climate change in The Atlantic. It could be a step on the way to a real career, though. If Jules could elevate the topic beyond clickbait, argue that this stuff mattered and get her name in a national publication…
It was all about the baby steps. Jules had to start somewhere, and successful writers grabbed opportunities as they came. Everyone said so.
She had to grab this opportunity fast. That meant another sleepless night.
Maybe Aaron had a point after all. Maybe both he and Robert did.
No, dammit. It wasn’t the same thing, and Vivian’s messed-up priorities weren’t Jules’s. Sure, Jules had ambition, but she had humanity too. They didn’t have to be at odds.
And she’d show Vivian Carlisle it was possible, even if it killed her.
Not that she wanted to tempt fate or anything.