The Lost Girls
Page 3
She looked at me in the amused way she does when I spiral from illogical into completely irrational. Which is often. “I promise—in the remote chance that you actually get chosen, there’s no way they’d give the job to someone else. You’ve worked your ass off. And besides, it’s not like they can forbid you to serve on a jury. So don’t stress.”
I sighed. Jen was probably right. In any case, I didn’t appear to have much of a choice. As the notice implied, either I would serve my civic duty—or I could wind up serving time.
Sitting in the courtroom a few weeks later, I tried to look as pathetic as possible. I’d made it a point to toss on sweats, leave my hair unwashed, and avoid makeup completely. Maybe the judge would think, “This girl can’t even be bothered to use mascara—how can she possibly be qualified to sit on a jury?”
Glancing at the bored New Yorkers around me, I wondered who among us would get chosen to serve. I’d narrowly escaped the day before and hoped to shimmy through the cracks a second time. Every hour I sat here, trying to avoid attracting attention, was one more that I wasn’t answering e-mails, which no doubt had already mutated and multiplied in my inbox like some resistant strain of flu virus. By now the pile of glossy proofs I’d yet to read had probably toppled and slid under my desk.
Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to Argentina.
As that traitorous thought whined around my head, I tried to squash it senseless. What good was taking the trip of a lifetime if you were just going to regret it once you got home? Back in Iguazú, when we’d contemplated turning our dream vacation into a yearlong adventure, I’d been high on the idea of unplugging from my cell phone, my computer, and in fact, my entire life. But almost the second I’d dived back into my desk chair, reality had sledgehammered down. Somehow, during the ten days that I’d been away, I’d managed to fall at least a month behind on my assignments. Go away for a year? Yeah, right. By the third weekend spent shivering inside an empty office tower trying to get caught up, I understood why more experienced editors joked that it wasn’t worth the hassle to take a vacation at all.
As winter faded and spring edged in, the pace at work never slacked. If anything, it grew even more intense. Ad sales were up, and we had more pages to write and assign. The hole I’d dug while in Argentina grew into a ditch, then a bottomless trench.
The same stress that had once motivated me to spring out of bed in the morning now chased me under the covers at night. I lay awake, heart racing and guts churning as I scribbled to-do lists in the back of my head. Stress became my chronic companion, an ugly, overcaffeinated little goblin that used my chest as a trampoline and my head as a boxing ring and laid off only when I was exhausted enough to pass out.
Despite advice from friends to set boundaries (“Tell your boss you can’t take on any more work. Just walk out the door every day at 6 p.m., no matter what”), admitting I’d bitten off more than I could chew would be a huge mistake. I worked with five other ambitious assistants just as eager to prove themselves as I was. We all knew that to reach the coveted level of associate editor (and if you didn’t want that, you might as well just get out now) we’d have to go way above and beyond our job descriptions, taking on any extra responsibilities we could convince the department heads to dish out.
The competition among the six of us was friendly but fierce. When the pressure got to be too intense we’d commiserate, but we still fought for assignments the way hyenas might scrap over felled antelope. Ironically, perhaps through the shared experience, the late nights, and the intensity of the situation, we forged a tight friendship, a bond built over blood, sweat, and take-out soy sauce.
Of those young women, Holly was always my closest confidante. Even though she had even more to do than the rest of us—she assisted three executives in addition to editing her own pages for the Happiness section—I’d never seen Holly break down or sob in the women’s bathroom the way almost every other junior staffer had. She fielded the demands of the job with good humor and a can-do attitude (at least, when our bosses were around) but was never too busy to go on a caffeine run or join me in a gripe session. She even managed to break me out of the office a few times for yoga and Pilates classes, saying we’d end up being more productive mentally if we took care of ourselves physically.
When the to-do list got really long, both Holly and I would work late, taking breaks to vent over California rolls and fantasize about doing something on Friday nights other than partying at our desks. Running the editorial hamster wheel could be almost fun with Hol around—except that as soon as we got back from Argentina, she scored a job at a kinder, gentler women’s magazine. I was thrilled for her (and, yes, slightly jealous) but mostly just perplexed when she started inviting me to hit the gym or designer sample sales at lunch. Had she already forgotten where she’d worked?
As the weeks ticked by, the anxiety I hid while at the office started to bubble over. I snapped at the deli guy if he accidentally put mayo on my sandwich or if someone cut me off going through a subway turnstile. I’d always been a tad feisty, but some days I felt as if I were one annoyance away from climbing the art installation in Union Square and opening fire on the skateboarders below.
Then, just before spring finally broke, two things happened: The magazine’s sole associate editor spot, the position directly above mine, became vacant. And I was forced to leave the office to serve jury duty.
Despite my every intention to perjure myself, when the judge finally locked his eyes on mine and started asking questions, I heard the terrible, awful truth spilling out. I’d never been placed under arrest. I’d never been the victim of a hate crime. I’d never been stalked (unless you could count years of ex-boyfriend drama). And yes, I lived in Manhattan and had no immediate plans to leave the area.
It came as almost no surprise when, at a quarter to five, the court officer read my name off the list of selected jurors.
The judge assured the dozen of us that our case wouldn’t last long, a week or so at most. Once we’d passed judgment on a relative stranger, we’d be free to go back to our regularly scheduled lives. Sounded easy enough.
As he spoke, it struck me that my new courthouse workday would be an unthinkably brief eight hours long—and for once I could actually leave the building for lunch. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone anywhere but the company cafeteria. Two years spent inhaling its greasy buffalo chicken wraps and oil-soaked pasta salads had caused me to gain fifteen pounds and a pretty substantial muffin top. Considering I was simultaneously instructing millions of women how to “Lose a dress size in 10 days!” and “Slim down in your sleep!” the irony hadn’t escaped me. Nor, I figured, had my extra flab escaped the hawkeyed editors with whom I shared my office tower. As I headed out to grab a bite that first day, I wondered if jury duty might actually be a blessing in disguise.
Despite the incredible amount of carrying on I’d done beforehand, I was surprised to find that I actually loved serving on a jury. I slid from bed each morning on the third snooze rather than the tenth, dressed quickly (who’d care if I wore cargo pants and a hoodie?), and jammed out to my new iPod mini as I zipped downtown on the express subway line.
The trial, as it turned out, was nothing like those in Ally McBeal or Boston Legal, but I didn’t care. Boredom was so unfamiliar a feeling that I actually welcomed it. During my hours in the jury box, my attention warbled in and out like an AM radio signal, my thoughts inevitably drifting back uptown.
As testimony played faintly in the background, I recalled how intense it felt, after years spent shifting between internships and jobs that weren’t quite right, to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. The moment I finally hit upon that realization, I’d been almost manic about my quest to get into magazines. I’d interviewed for what felt like hundreds of positions before finally convincing my boss that, at twenty-five, I wasn’t already too old and too experienced to take on the grunt work required of an editorial assistant (and make $24,000 a year while doing it).
Still, I knew exactly where he was headed. Baker had been planning a multicountry backpacking trip in the years before we’d met and had grounded himself in Manhattan only long enough to give our blossoming relationship a fighting chance. Eventually, though, he’d grown restless, eager to move on. “Let’s get out of New York already,” he’d urged. “Just hand in your notice, pack a bag, and let’s go.”
It was such a far-fetched plan—who abandons everything in her midtwenties to become a vagabond?—but a part of me ached to leave and see the world with him, to determine if the problems plaguing our relationship had everything to do with the extreme pressure of life in New York rather than some irreconcilable failure between the two of us.
I loved the possibility of adventure. I was still in love with him. But in the end, he couldn’t commit to a future in the city and I couldn’t bring myself to leave. So I let him go. After all that time, I didn’t need a plane ticket or a stamp-riddled passport to know that he and I weren’t meant to make certain journeys together.
Once Baker left, I wondered: How could I have ever considered leaving New York when I’d just gotten started?
The embers of my relationship still smoldering, I threw myself headlong into the new position I’d lobbied so hard to get. I couldn’t work enough hours or take on enough tasks—no matter how mundane or unrelated to my career they might have been—to capture my attention and fill the void in my life. My higher-ups seemed delighted that their new nutrition assistant had little else to do besides spend her nights and weekends helping out at work.
Over time, the pain subsided, but my dedication to the magazine didn’t. It occurred to me along the way that, unlike a relationship with a man, the more time and energy I poured into my job, the greater the satisfaction and reward I got out of it. It took only a year for me to get my first promotion (a subtle but important title change from editorial assistant to assistant editor), and when my boss broke the good news, she suggested it wouldn’t be long before I got the next bump up—as long as I kept exceeding everyone’s expectations.
The challenge had been proffered. So dedicated did I become to my job that I was willing to downgrade every other priority in order to put in more time at the office, to achieve that next level. Did I ever feel conflicted as I turned down trips to the beach with my girlfriends, guilty at blowing off night after night of friends’ happy hours, or anxious over the fact that I hadn’t left myself much time to go on dates with guys, let alone attempt a new relationship? Hardly a day went by that I didn’t. But I’d gotten a later start than most. If I ever wanted to be viewed as something other than a mail-retrieving, phone-answering, yes-girl junior editor, I couldn’t afford to slack off now. And if I got the promotion to associate and moved one more spot up the masthead, it really wouldn’t matter what I’d given up to get there. I was still years away from my thirtieth birthday. There’d be plenty of time for family, friends, and new boyfriends then—right?
When I checked my messages on the last day of the trial, I had a voice mail from my executive editor, Helene, telling me that she wanted to discuss the associate spot as soon as I returned. Something in her voice threw me. I couldn’t tell if she was being her typically reserved self or if something was wrong—but I couldn’t wait until Monday to find out.
I forced myself to get through the closing arguments and the half-hour jury deliberation (unanimously not guilty! Now let’s go!) without making it too obvious how much I wanted to run. Scrambling down the front steps of the courthouse, I dived down to the subway platform and slipped through the doors of the N train just before they slammed shut.
My body was shot through with adrenaline by the time I arrived at work. A few sidelong glances in the elevator reminded me that I hadn’t dressed in uniform—I was wearing a pair of faded terry cloth pants and a long-sleeved tee—but I was too preoccupied to care that people were staring.
Rocketing past reception, I saw that my entire floor looked like a ghost town. Computer screens were on, proofs slung across desks—but no editors. I walked around until I spotted our office manager on the phone in her cubicle.
“Where is everybody?” I asked.
“Conference room,” she mouthed, pointing down the hall.
The room was completely packed with both editorial staff and salespeople. I slipped in the back and shimmied in the direction of the other assistants. Our editor in chief, Beth, had just finished presenting the upcoming issue, something she did so the staff could get a sense of how the content in the whole magazine worked together. We’d had several of these presentations before, but never with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, which were reserved for baby and wedding showers and, occasionally, promotions.
Then it hit me. Were they going to announce the promotion? Now? I was suddenly mortified that I’d worn something so unkempt into a room full of fashion editors.
“Such an impressive issue, everyone. Thanks again for your hard work. I know you all have pages to attend to, places to be,” said Beth. “But before you bolt out of here, I hope you’ll join me in celebrating another piece of good news. Today I’m proud to announce the promotion of one of our hardworking assistants.”
I glanced at Claire, who immediately looked away—and then I knew. There was no doubt in my mind that when Beth reached the end of her speech, it would not be my name that she announced. Oh, my God, I have to get out of here.
But there was simply no way I could escape without being noticed. There was no time. As everyone raised their glasses, Beth said how proud she was of Elizabeth Morton; no one would do a better job as the team’s new associate editor. While everyone else sipped, I silently choked. I forced my throat not to close up and cut off my oxygen supply; I willed my eyes not to fill up with tears and commanded my body not to shake.
Mercifully, the meeting broke up, and at the earliest possible second, I made a beeline for the door. As I scurried away, miserable little hamster that I was, I felt a hand wrap around my upper arm and maneuver me down the hall to an office. It was my old boss, Kristen.
For once in my highly verbal life, I couldn’t speak. I knew if I opened my mouth, torrents of tears and dammed-up emotions would come flooding out.
“I’m sorry, that was a terrible way to find out,” she said. “Look, I know that Helene wanted to talk to you before you came in on Monday and heard it from someone else.”
“But I don’t get it, I just thought…” I managed to squeak. “Why?”
“Well, I think that Helene and Claire just have a few…concerns. I know they both wanted to talk to you sometime next week. We didn’t think you’d be here today.”
“Please, just tell me what’s going on. I’d really just rather hear it from you so I can at least be prepared.”
She sighed. “Well, it’s not the end of the world. But it was a bit unprofessional that you never came in to work this past week. Everyone really feels that you should have taken care of your responsibilities and assignments, jury duty or not.”
“You mean no one covered my section?” I was floored. “I was supposed to come in at night? After jury duty?”
She didn’t say anything, but her silence confirmed it.
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t Claire just tell me that I needed to be here?” As the words left my mouth, I realized I already knew the answer. My bosses couldn’t le
gally require me to come in after jury service—but a dedicated editor would have done it on her own.
“I think you should just meet with them,” she said kindly. It was sinking in that things might be a lot worse for me than simply not being promoted.
An agonizing weekend and two weekdays passed, but the following Wednesday, I finally shut the sliding door to Helene’s office and sunk into the chair next to Claire’s. Helene, well known among our staff for being direct but fair, didn’t waste precious seconds. “So, we want you to understand that you’re not being let go—”
Let go?!
“—but in light of your recent performance, we’re beginning to question whether you’re really committed to your position at the magazine.”
My head snapped left to get a read on Claire, who kept her eyes firmly forward.
“Claire has told me that since she’s been your manager, you’ve been focusing on larger projects but neglecting your assistant duties. She says the newspapers don’t get clipped daily, the mail hasn’t been opened and distributed on time every morning. Is that correct?”
I knew it would be useless to explain that with the huge number of tasks on my plate—editing a monthly recipe section, writing features and front-of-book pages, running the internship program—sometimes phones didn’t get answered on the first ring and I had to save clipping newspapers and opening boxes for the weekends.
I nodded, dejected.
“Well, okay then. What I have here is a list of the various areas where we”—she glanced over at Claire—“feel that your performance has been slipping. And you’ll have one month to make improvements in these areas. If you can’t, then we’ll have to discuss whether or not this magazine is really the right place for you anymore.”
Instantly I knew what was happening. I was being put on probation, the legal formality required before a company can show its undesirables the door. Here, when people were given a month to shape up, it was their cue to look for another job.