by Lynn Messina
The crowds roars with approval. They have mistaken her for one of their own. They think she has been moved to speak by the spirit, like a follower at a tented revival meeting. “I want to talk about art, real art,” she says, reciting the speech she used earlier to introduce Gavin Marshall. “Art that makes us cry. Art that makes us laugh. Art that makes us reflect. Art that makes our hearts bleed. Art that makes us believe in a being greater and better than ourselves.” The applause and yells grow louder, and Jane soaks up the approbation for a moment before gesturing for silence. Jane is good with crowds—only ninety percent of her success is just showing up—and she knows how to play them. “Real art is godly. Real art is pure. Real art isn’t about shock value and offending the most number of people in the least amount of time. Real art doesn’t use gimmicks. Gimmicks are for people who don’t know what real art is. I’m Jane Carolyn-Ann Whiting McNeill and I’m a Christian,” she says, pausing because she knows from recent experience that a pause works well here.
The cheers are almost deafening and Jane takes a deep breath in order to conclude on a high note, but before she can finish her speech—And this is Christian art; it’s devout and honest and God-fearing and insightful and instinctive and a reminder to all of us not to rush to judgment; Gilding the Lily is art, real art—she is embraced by the crowd. They lift her off the podium. They take her onto their shoulders. They parade her around like she’s a beloved trophy, hollering and yelling and hooraying with joy. Jane takes it in stride, with a calm smile and a gracious wave. She’s always known that one day she would be treated like this, like Cleopatra or Elizabeth Taylor.
I watch the proceedings with a sense of awe and helplessness, and the last I see of Jane, she is being carried off by a sea of fellow Christians down the narrow valley of Mercer toward the gleaming lights of Canal Street.
Resurrection
Jane’s a hit. She’s a media superstar, the go-after get, the name on everybody’s lips. Her image is endlessly replicated and reproduced, and when you turn on the television at eight o’clock the next morning, there are Jane clones staring back at you from the sets of Good Morning America, The Today Show and CBS This Morning.
Sometime during the past twelve hours, she has become an avatar of free expression, a foot soldier on the front lines of liberty. Flipping compulsively back and forth between three stations, I listen to her tell how she won over the demonstrators, opened their minds, raised their consciousness. There’s nothing to support her lavish claims of success, but she makes them anyway. She’s like Napoleon writing reports of victory from Alexandria.
I switch the channel to get away from her but you can’t get away from Jane. She’s everywhere—NY1, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel. Although her outfits change with each demo (black silk for NY1, double-breasted navy-blue suit for Fox) her rhetoric remains the same and she talks incessantly about moderating the great art debate. Her answers are well organized and articulate her point clearly, and when she embarks on a semiotic interpretation (“Fashionista and Gilding the Lily explore the possibilities of gender roles: What is a dress? What does it mean to wear a dress?”), I become suspicious. I become wary and skeptical and examine her closely. Although I can’t see the strings, I know there’s someone behind the scenes tugging on them.
I don’t know it yet, but issues of Fashionista are flying off the shelves. By eight-thirty, you can’t find a copy in any of the seven Hudson Newsstands in Penn Station. Grand Central is in similar straits, although the newsstand on the lower level that everyone forgets about has three remaining copies hidden behind a misplaced Glamour.
Advertisers are calling to pledge their continued support. Even after Jane’s assured performance this morning, they still have concerns, but their customer services departments haven’t gotten angry telephone calls yet from irate Christians and sticking up for the Constitution in this indirect way won’t hurt their brand identification.
The CEO of Ivy Publishing is delighted by the media blitzkrieg. He can’t remember the last time one of his magazines dominated the national consciousness. As a thank-you, he’s taking Jane to dinner this evening (providing she’s not taping Crossfire or appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews) and having her to his ski chalet in Vermont next weekend. He will add a sizable amount to her Christmas bonus and insists that she call in any designer she wants to redecorate her office.
Jane’s position is secured. She’s been elevated to status of media goddess, and although it will only last for a little while, the hangover will never go away. Jane Carolyn-Ann Whiting McNeill is now a Fashionista fixture. It’s the site of her greatest triumph and she would no sooner leave it than Kurtz would the Belgian Congo.
My Last Day of Work
When I get to the office, Allison is waiting for me. She’s standing by my door with her shoulders against the wall. She’s patiently reading the Times and lifts her head with almost careless indifference as I breeze by. I take out my key and open the door. Although I don’t say anything, she follows me in.
“You are so fired,” she announces without preamble and with a huge smile.
I put my shoulder bag down and pick up my phone to check messages.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she asks, leaning forward on the desk.
“I’m so fired,” I repeat. There are ten new voice mail messages and I reach for a pen to jot them down, but before they start playing, Allison lays her hand on the phone and cuts the connection.
She’s annoyed with me now. She hoped to get a response and can’t do anything with this sort of languid apathy. “Don’t you care?”
“You don’t have the power to fire me,” I say, dialing voice mail again. I don’t often have ten messages and I’m reasonably sure that they all have some fantastic statistic to report about Jane.
“No, but Human Resources does.” She throws the newspaper onto my desk with a flick of her wrist. It’s opened to my article on Pieter van Kessel. I give her a blank look. “You wrote and investigated that on Fashionista time. Fashionista owns that article. You are in direct violation of Code 43, sub-section B of your contract,” she says triumphantly. “You might want to start packing up your stuff now. Human Resources takes these violations very seriously and I’ve got an appointment with Stacy Shoemaucher in three minutes. You should be out of here by noon.”
I sandwich the receiver between my ear and shoulder and glance at her with faint interest. “Is that all?”
“Don’t you want to know why I’m doing this?” she asks, almost plaintively. Allison wants a show with fireworks and dancing bears, something with pizzazz to tell her audience on the other side of the line.
I have no intention of giving it to her. I shrug.
Grabbing the phone out of my hand, she yells, “You stole my promotion! Marguerite said that I would be senior editor as soon as she was in charge, but that’s not going to happen now, is it? Nothing went according to the plan. Jane’s a fucking hero and they’ll never fire her and it’s all your fault, you stupid bitch. Marguerite said I would be senior editor, not you. She came to me with her plan. Me, the hardest working editor at Fashionista. I deserve it. Not you. Not fucking you.”
She runs out of my office ranting about Marguerite and promotions and things that should have been hers. I’m still piecing together the truth when Delia knocks on my door.
“Hey there,” she says, coming into my office, “we’re all a little stunned about Jane landing so steadily on her feet, but you can’t spend the whole day in shell-shocked mode.”
I smile at her. “No, it’s not that, although I am reeling from that strange plot twist. It’s Allison actually. I just figured something out. Remember her plan?”
Delia makes herself comfortable in my guest chair and nods. “Her brilliant plan, which has ended in the exaltation of Jane Carolyn-Ann Whiting McNeill. Yes, I have some vague recollection of it.”
“It was Marguerite’s.”
She tilts her head, not quite following. “Marguerite’s?”
“Marguerite’s. She’s behind everything. If Allison’s mad ravings are to be believed—and I think they are—Marguerite promised her a senior editorship as soon as she became editor in chief in exchange for her help. It explains a lot,” I say, recalling how amazed I had been by the soundness of the plan. I should have known something was up from the very beginning. That someone like Allison, who never lifts her head up from her own life to look around, had heard of obscure British artist Gavin Marshall should have sent up red flares immediately.
“I like it,” Delia says, after a moment of thought. Respect lightens her tone. “Take it to the people. Make the plot seem homegrown—what an evil thing to do. I’ll have to remember that.”
The thought of Delia pairing her investigative skills with Marguerite’s knack for manipulation terrifies me and I’m about to woo her back to the side of the angels when the phone rings. I glance at the display. Although I don’t recognize the extension, I know before I pick it up that it’s Human Resources. Allison works quickly.
“I’ve got to go be fired now,” I say to Delia, undisturbed by the notion. In the past twenty-four hours, life has taken on an odd quality of unrealness or surrealness, and things that should matter no longer do. I don’t mind giving up my senior editor position at Fashionista in exchange for a single three-thousand-word profile in the New York Times. It’s a fair trade.
My meeting with Stacy Shoemaucher is abrupt and professional, and we only discuss business matters like Cobra payments and the confidentiality clause in my contract and how long I’ll need to pack up my things. Then she hands me a brown cardboard box and tells me to shave thirty minutes off my estimated time.
With Jane’s superstar status, Stickly’s situation has improved greatly and he sits outside Jane’s office, stiff and proud, like a guard outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. Having no patience for untrained campaigners, he has cashiered Jackie and commandeered Mrs. Beverly, who is running around fielding telephone calls and taking messages for Jane.
“Hi, can I see Jane?” I ask. I’ve come straight from Human Resources—the cardboard box is still in my grip—but I’m not sure why. “It’ll only take a minute.”
Stickly looks down his patrician nose at me and recalls past grievances, such as the meeting with Jane he arranged yesterday that I was too busy to attend. “Mum isn’t accepting visitors at the moment. Please leave your card and I will arrange something as soon as she’s available. Shall we say early next week?” Stickly’s manner is supercilious and haughty and there’s no longer a defeated air about him. He is serving monarchs again.
I say early next week is fine and turn around to leave, knocking the pencil holder onto the floor with my cardboard box. While Stickly is chasing pens, I enter Jane’s office. She’s sitting with a notepad on her lap watching herself on three different television sets.
She glances at me and pauses one of the Jane clones. “Here, Vig, look at that. See how I’m holding my head at a sixty-degree angle as I consider my answer? Stickly says it should never be more than forty-five degrees.” She makes a note. “I must work on that. Stickly says that how you hold your head is very important in how people perceive you.”
“I just wanted to let you know I’m leaving,” I say.
She freezes with the remote control in her hand. “Where are you going?” she asks sharply.
“Nowhere. I’ve been fired.”
Jane is relieved. My finding greener pastures elsewhere is unacceptable, but my getting kicked off the farm is a matter of complete indifference. “That’s all right then,” she says before turning away and hitting Play.
This is an archetypal Jane moment and yet still I’m surprised. I’ve come here expecting something in exchange for five years of service. Not outrage on my behalf or exhortations to stay but something small and heartfelt and sincere like thank you or good luck.
But Jane is a shell. She is a shell with only air inside and sometimes she manages to hold her head at the correct angle.
I’m walking out of her office when Marguerite pushes Stickly forcefully to the side and brushes past me. Anger is radiating from every pore in her body as she marches up to Jane and slaps her across the face. Jane is stunned for a moment but she quickly shakes it off and springs into action, attacking Marguerite with a snarl and dragging her to the ground. Amid hair pulling and screeching, I close the door. I close the door and leave them fighting like cats, under the benevolent gazes of a thousand empty stars.
Epilogue
As though this were a relationship, I invite Alex to the bar at the Paramount hotel to have drinks with Maya, Gavin and me. And he comes. As if he were a boyfriend, he comes, even though he has class, a work assignment to finish and an upcoming test on urban planning to study for.
“Okay, I’ve got one,” says Gavin, laughing so hard he’s in danger of falling off his stool. “New Soles: The Best Shoes for Carrying Your Cross.”
“Excellent,” says Maya, raising her glass. “To new soles!”
We’ve been drinking to Jesus article ideas all morning and fielding curious glances from other patrons. Only one person has figured it out—a matronly British tourist who shyly asked Gavin for his autograph. He good-naturedly signed his name under the Jesus’ New Birthday Suit coverline. His anger has been somewhat tempered by the misplaced optimism of our plan and the success of his show. He sold every one of his pieces last night.
Maya puts down her drink and reaches across the bar for the menu. It’s time for lunch.
“Let’s get the cheese plate,” I say, leaning back in my chair. Although alcohol has loosened my joints, it’s not the only reason I’m feeling limber. Being unemployed has had an unexpected effect on my muscles and for the first time in ages I’m relaxed. This is what happens when your future suddenly settles itself. This is what happens when your next few moves—drink to Jesus article ideas, go home to visit your parents and return to New York revitalized and refreshed—don’t involve Jane. When I come back from a week in Bierlyville, I’ll get another job—a better job, a less glamorous job, a job that doesn’t involve celebrities or their plungers.
“Vig, you’ve got to come back,” says Delia, who is suddenly and inexplicably at my side.
“How’d you know I was here?” I ask suspiciously. I don’t want Delia adding details to my file. We’re not co-workers anymore.
“Alex left me a message.”
I look at Alex, who shrugs. “Habit,” he says.
“I don’t want to go back,” I say, finishing my gin and tonic in one gulp. Maya and Gavin cheer my independent attitude and instantly order me another drink.
“You have to come back,” she says again. “Holden was on the floor looking for you.”
“What?” I’m immobilized by shock.
Alex is equally surprised. “He was actually on the floor?”
“He was asking people where you were.”
“Who’s Holden?” Gavin asks. He has heard the whole fashionista saga from beginning to end but never the name Holden.
“The reclusive genius behind Fashionista and several other high-profile magazines,” I explain. “Getting a meeting with him is like getting one with the pope, only the pontiff is more accessible. I wonder why he wants to see me.”
“Yeah, that’s what’s killing me,” says Delia. “You have to come back or we’ll never know.”
Her logic is sound and I slide off my bar stool to take a meeting with Jack Holden, even though three gin and tonics are swimming through my veins and head. Delia escorts me to his office and waits while the tight-lipped secretary informs him I’m here. She doesn’t think I belong in her reception room and she can’t hide her shock when Holden tells her to bring me right in.
Jack Holden’s office is bright and messy and he has none of the shiny toys that high-level executives usually have. The only fun thing on his desk is a stapler and from the way its guts are strewn across the desk, I can only assume that it’s broken.
“Ah, Ms.
Morgan,” he says, standing up to shake my hand, “you’re a very tough woman to track down. You should stay closer to your desk.”
“I was fired,” I say by way of explanation, but Holden isn’t listening. He has already moved beyond pleasantries.
“We are starting a new publication,” he announces, “a style glossy like Fashionista but without the aggressive celebrity angle. I want you to be on the team, maybe even head it up.”
I am flabbergasted. I’m flabbergasted and stunned and can only stare at him as if he were an escaped patient from an asylum.
“I read that piece you did for the Times on van Kessel. Excellent work. That’s just the sort of thing I want to see in our new book.”
“Thank you,” I say, trying not to break out into a fit of giggles. Three gin and tonics are swimming through my veins and head. “Excuse me, sir. Did you say head up the new magazine?”
He barely glances at me. My incredulity has made no impression. “Yes. Here are some notes I’ve been reading over. Mrs. Carson out front can give you the rest of the file.”
I accept the sheets with listless fingers. “Why me?”
“Our original candidate had to be escorted from the building today after an unpleasant episode. You were the next logical choice. Your article in the Times was excellent and is exactly what I’m looking for. What do you say?”
I take a look at the notes to get a sense of what this new magazine will be like and pause over a list of article ideas. At first these ideas just seem familiar, but then the truth penetrates my alcohol-soaked brain: These ideas are mine. They are ones I had given Marguerite for Fashionista. No wonder my profile of van Kessel is exactly what he’s looking for.
I digest this information quickly, but I’m too shocked and drunk to feel anger. My mind can only focus on the question at hand: What do I say?
I don’t know what I say. I’m not an editor in chief. I’m only an associate editor who has been dressed up in senior editor’s clothing for expedience. I know nothing about running a magazine. I know nothing about four-color separation and telling people what to do and positioning a product.
