August 12, 2016
The streetcar was only a block from Heather’s stop when her phone buzzed. She dug it out of her pocket, hoping the driver wouldn’t choose that instant to hit the brakes, and frowned when she saw the sender. Brett only texted in emergencies. Maybe the laser printer had run out of toner again.
BRETT: where are you?
HEATHER: on my way. what’s up?
BRETT: something’s up. richard’s here. looks like he never went home. in boardroom w guys in suits. they don’t look happy.
It took her a few tries to type out her response.
HEATHER: anyone else we know in there?
BRETT: gregor and moira.
The magazine’s publisher and the head of ad sales. At eight o’clock on a Friday morning.
HEATHER: be there in 5.
The streetcar lurched to a stop, bell clanging as some jerk in a Hummer tried to inch past the open doors. As soon as she found her feet again, Heather pushed her way through a sea of backpacks and down the steps to the street. The magazine’s offices were on the south side of King Street, just at the end of the next block, and as she grew close, and then walked up the stairs to the second floor, she had to remind herself to breathe. Brett might have got things wrong. Gregor and Moira and Richard and a bunch of cranky-looking guys in suits didn’t automatically equal a catastrophe.
Kim wasn’t at her desk in reception. Not good. And the office was weirdly quiet. They all shared one big open-plan space, with shoulder-height cubicles that gave the illusion of privacy and towering plastic ficus trees that gave the illusion of a bright and healthy workplace, and most mornings everyone congregated in the break room for a solid quarter hour before drifting to their desks. Not today.
Heather made it to her cubicle, stowed her bag under her desk, and switched on her computer. Only then did she turn to face Brett, Bay Street’s other staff writer, whose desk faced the opposite wall of their three-sided pod.
“What’s the deal?” she whispered.
“Check your email,” he whispered back.
It took a minute or two to pull up her email, long enough for her heart to try to hammer its way out of her chest.
“The one from Richard?”
“Duh,” Brett hissed.
Richard had sent it at 4:20 that morning. Brett had been right about the all-nighter.
Heather,
I need to speak with you this morning regarding some alterations in our corporate structure. Please remain at your desk until I call, and refrain from unnecessary gossip and speculation with your colleagues until everyone has been briefed on the changes.
Richard
Editor in chief
Bay Street
Mitchell Media International
“And?” Brett prompted.
“I’m supposed to stay at my desk until he calls me in. Something about changes to the corporate structure. Does your email say that?”
“Yeah. But it also says I’m supposed to go to the boardroom at eight thirty.”
“Have you talked to anyone else?” He didn’t answer, so she swiveled to face him. “Brett?”
“I, uh . . . yeah. Most people are getting called into the boardroom. I’m sorry. This sucks.”
It was as good as an actual pink slip.
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and turned away to stare sightlessly at her monitor. One by one her colleagues arrived and read their email from Richard, and most of them, Brett included, tiptoed to the boardroom.
The office grew quiet again, and when her phone finally rang Heather nearly jumped out of her skin.
“It’s Richard. Could you come to my office?”
“Sure.”
Her hands sweating like crazy, her mouth so dry she couldn’t even swallow, she walked to his office on leaden feet. He’d left his door open, but she knocked on it anyway.
“Hi, Heather. Come on in. Take a seat.”
She sat, and waited, and eventually he dragged his eyes from the sheets of paper spread out on his desk. As if he was dreading what came next. Or, rather, wanted her to think he was dreading it.
“So. Heather. The people at MMI have been concerned by our drop in ad revenues for a while now. Very concerned. Now, they could have just shut us down, which would have been a disaster. Instead they’ve decided to start up a Canadian edition of Business Report, and Bay Street will be folded into it. Each issue will include eight to ten pages of purely Canadian content.”
Heather nodded.
“I’m sorry to say that the restructuring will involve some redundancies in our editorial staff here, and I’m especially sorry to tell you that your position has been eliminated.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. Not the most articulate response, but it wasn’t as if Richard was really listening.
“I want you to know that I’ve insisted they give you a very attractive package, very attractive, and I’ll provide a glowing reference. Absolutely. As well, MMI also offers career counseling and a variety of transition resources. Kendra in HR will be furnishing you—”
“So I’m out.” Finally she’d found her voice.
“Yes. I wish I could—”
“What about the offshore banking piece? I only just started digging in.”
“We’ve got it covered. And, well, I hate to do this, but MMI is asking that redundant staff vacate the premises as soon as possible.”
“Okay. I guess I had better get on it.” She stood, went to his door. “Good luck with everything,” she said, not bothering to turn around.
Since she routinely sent blind copies of all her emails to her Gmail account, all she had to do was copy her contacts list, send it and a handful of story ideas she’d been developing to her private account, and erase a few hundred personal messages. Easy enough to sort out before they sent in security to frog-march her out.
“God, Heather. This sucks.” Brett flopped down on his chair and let out a long, lingering, highly annoying sigh. He wasn’t the one who’d been canned.
“That’s okay. It’s not your fault.” Her voice felt weird. Robotic, if she had to describe it.
“Do you want me to get you some boxes? There’s a whole pile of them already set up in the hall.”
The suits had thought of everything. “Sure. But I only need one. I don’t keep much stuff here.”
It took her another ten minutes to pack up her things—some pictures in frames, her aloe vera plant, a handful of pens and sticky notes—and she was done. The box held before her like a shield, she said good-bye to her friends, promised she’d stay in touch, and retreated to the safety of the cab that Brett had called for her.
Not to cry. Not even to fume. She couldn’t be sure about it yet, but she wasn’t all that upset. A little unsure about what she’d do next; a little embarrassed, too. But her main feeling was relief.
Maybe this would give her a break. A chance to step off the hamster wheel and think about what she really wanted to do with her life. She hadn’t stopped scampering on that wheel for years. From high school to university to internship to job to job to job, she’d always said yes to the offers she’d been given, always convinced that forward was the only way to go. She’d had her head down for more than a decade now, staring at that wheel beneath her feet, so sure she’d trip and fall if she ever looked up.
Screw it. She was going to stop, and breathe, and let herself think for a change. And she was going to take a vacation before she set foot in another office.
SHE SPENT THE afternoon napping, only waking when a text from Michelle set her phone buzzing.
MICHELLE: hey you. still up for dinner tonight? where are you anyway?
HEATHER: upstairs. came home early. long story.
MICHELLE: ok. didn’t hear you. do you want to walk? reservation’s for 7. tanya’s meeting us there.
She didn’t say anything to Michelle and Sunita on the way over. Better to wait until they’d all had at least one drink, and then she’d get it over with. By the time Tanya arrived, a solid half hour late as usual, Heather was on her second glass of sauvignon blanc and was feeling a little punchy.
“So I lost my job,” she said as soon as Tanya was settled and their starters had been delivered.
“Whaaaat?” her friends chorused.
Sunita was shaking her head. “How is that even possible?”
“Corporate restructuring. I’d go into the details but it’s actually pretty boring.”
“Tell me they gave you a package,” Michelle implored. She was an accountant and the most practical person Heather had ever met.
“They did. Three months of pay, which isn’t bad. They also threw in career counseling, which, let’s be honest, is a total lie. They’ll probably just give me a pamphlet that describes how to write a winning résumé.”
“You’re not panicking, are you?” Tanya asked worriedly. “Because you really shouldn’t panic.”
“Of course you shouldn’t,” Sunita agreed. “You were the smartest person there.”
“Your stories were the best thing about that magazine. Everyone knows that.”
“Tanya’s right. They’ll be lost without you,” Michelle said. “And you don’t have to stay in magazines. You could try public relations. Or corporate communications—those jobs pay really well. You’d be making twice what Richard was paying you.”
“And you wouldn’t have to deal with his tit-talking at the office Christmas party,” Sunita added. “Or his awful neck massages when you’re working late.”
“There is that,” she agreed. And then, through a mouthful of fried calamari, she added, “I’m thinking of taking a vacation.”
“That’s the spirit! Where are you thinking?” Michelle asked.
England, she thought.
Until that very moment it hadn’t occurred to her. Thirty seconds ago she’d been thinking of the beach, or maybe a few weeks at her parents’ cottage up north.
“England,” she said. “I want to see if I can find out about Nan. Remember those embroidered flowers she saved for me, and how we had no idea where they’d come from? I finally did some digging, and I know it might be wishful thinking on my part, but I think she might have worked for Norman Hartnell. I think she might have worked on the queen’s wedding dress.”
“Holy shit!” Tanya burst out. She owned a vintage clothing boutique, the sort of place that sold fifty-year-old designer dresses for thousands of dollars, and the expression on her face reminded Heather of a little kid at the front gates of Disneyland. Michelle and Sunita, on the other hand, looked mystified.
“Oh, come on,” Tanya chided. “Hartnell was the British dress designer back in the day. His stuff wasn’t what you’d call cutting edge—he was no Alexander McQueen, that’s for sure—but he did design some fabulous things for the queen. Hold on a sec.” With that, she pulled her smartphone out of her purse and began to type away.
“Here,” she said, and handed her phone to Michelle. “This is from 1954. Just look at this dress—you can’t tell me it isn’t gorgeous. For that matter, look at the queen. We think of her now as this little old lady, but she was really beautiful back then. And Hartnell knew how to make clothes that really suited her.”
Their main courses arrived just then, so Tanya took her phone back and they all dug in, and it was a few minutes before conversation resumed.
“So what’s the plan?” Michelle asked. “Will you go to London and see if you can find out anything more about Nan?”
“Hartnell died a long time ago, but maybe you can find someone else who worked there,” Tanya suggested.
“I may have already,” Heather allowed. “Have you ever heard of Miriam Dassin?”
It was Sunita’s turn to be astonished. “The artist? Of course I have. I love her work.”
“I’ve got two photos of her and Nan together, and in one of them they’re sitting in a workroom around embroidery frames. I couldn’t find any mention of her having worked at Hartnell, but there isn’t much about her personal life out there, anyway. A few interviews from the fifties, and then some short things that are tied to anniversaries of the end of the war. The fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Ravensbrück—that kind of thing.”
“Is there any way of getting in touch with her? Just to find out more about Nan?” Tanya asked.
“I tried, but she doesn’t have a website or email address that I could find. I did email the gallery that used to sell her work, but they said she’s retired and they can’t pass on any inquiries or messages.”
“Even if you can’t track her down,” Tanya reasoned, “it’s not as if there aren’t other reasons for you to visit England.”
“You’re right. I can still see her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the queen’s wedding dress is on display at Buckingham Palace this summer. I definitely don’t want to miss that. And maybe see the places where Nan worked and lived? If only so I can take some pictures for my mom.”
Michelle extracted a notepad and pen from her bag and wrote Heather’s Big London Adventure across the top of the first page. “Okay. Let’s make a list of everything you want to see and do. There’s your flight, your hotel—”
“You have to stay at that little place in Soho that I discovered last year,” Tanya insisted. “Wall-to-wall antiques and the building itself has got to be three hundred years old. The rooms all have their own bathrooms and most have a fireplace, too. I’ll email you the details.”
“Oooh—I’m adding it to the list,” Michelle enthused. “Anything else?”
“Tons,” said Tanya. “But first we need to get the waiter’s attention. We’re going to need another bottle of wine.”
AS SHE LAY in bed that night, Heather’s spirits were light, and it wasn’t because she was tipsy; she’d stuck to water after her second glass of wine. Losing her job had been awful, it was true, but she refused to feel depressed about it. Her friends had been awesome, they’d helped her plan the trip of a lifetime, and now she had something to get her through the next few weeks, something exciting ahead of her, and she could figure out what she was going to do with her life when she got back. Not now, not tomorrow. Not anytime soon.
She lay in bed, Seymour at her side, his steady purr endlessly comforting, and she let her fingers sweep over the wispy warmth of Nan’s blanket. Everywhere she’d lived, on every bed she’d called her own, she’d always had the crocheted blanket Nan had made for her tenth birthday.
She’d been going through a super-girly phase, so Nan had used something like ten different colors of pink wool in the granny squares and trim that ran around the border. It was pretty ratty now, and the corner where Seymour liked to nest was covered in orange fur, but if her apartment was burning down it was the first thing she’d save after her cat.
What would Nan say if she could talk to her now? What would she expect her to do?
Heather sifted through her memories, trying to conjure up some scrap of remembered wisdom from their shared past. Nothing . . . nothing . . . and then, just as sleep overtook her, the faintest whisper.
She’d been at Nan’s for the day and she’d fallen off her bike and skinned her knees. Her grandmother had taken her into the kitchen, dampened a cloth, and wiped away her tears.
“This may smart a bit,” Nan had said, just before she cleaned Heather’s knees and dabbed on some iodine. “But you’re a brave girl, aren’t you? So chin up, and when we’re done we’ll go into the garden and you can pick some flowers and we’ll make a posy for you to take home. How does that sound?”
“Okay.”
“Good girl. Keep your chin up, and you can face anything.”