other junior staff writers at Spark magazine, looking down at her with worry in her eyes and a speculative eyebrow raised.
Clearly Claire was as concerned as Jess about what sort of news was about to be bestowed on her.
There had been rumours flying about the office recently about staff cutbacks and everyone had been on tenterhooks for weeks, desperately worried that they were the one about to be summoned to the editor’s office in order to be given the boot.
Okay, time to buckle up.
Smoothing a hand down her hair and straightening her blouse, Jess gave Claire a curt nod and stood up, balling her trembling hands into fists at her sides, before striding over to the editor’s office.
If she lost this job she was in big trouble. She’d already raced through her meagre savings living in London as an intern for nine months, before finally securing the job here—on the proviso she made it past her three-month probation period. The thought of having to pack up and go home to live back with her parents in the burbs of Leicester, after all the excitement of finally being employed in her dream job, sent a twist of panic through her.
They thought she was crazy chasing such a competitive career, but it was what she’d always wanted to do and she’d been determined to give it everything she had.
She was stubborn like that.
It had taken her two years after leaving university to land a placement at Spark, two long years of living back at home with a woman who would surely place as a top contender for ‘World’s Most Disappointed Mother.’
Jess was not the daughter Ingrid LaFayette had hoped for. Instead of a vivacious, beauty—a carbon copy of herself—she’d been lumped with kooky-looking, strong-willed Jess.
No way was she going back to the raised eyebrows and tense silences that she’d lived with for longer than she wanted to remember. Life had moved on and so had she.
Pushing back her shoulders and taking a deep breath, Jess rapped on the glass partition of her editor’s office before walking in.
Pamela Bradley—editor extraordinaire—looked up from her computer and waved Jess into the office with a perfectly manicured hand.
All the women who worked on the magazine rocked up to work every day looking as if they’d just stepped off a Paris catwalk—all except for Jess. She preferred to stick with her smart, comfortably fitting suits. She knew her limitations when it came to fashion—she hadn’t a clue what was supposed to suit her body shape and didn’t want to make a fool of herself by looking as if she was trying too hard. She was a smart, but practical, girl through and through.
‘Jess, sit.’ Pamela gestured towards the chair facing her and Jess sat down on the edge of the seat, her hands folded neatly in her lap, and waited, her heart thumping hard against her chest.
‘So, I read your piece on nail salons.’ Pamela gave her a steely-eyed look and Jess shrank back into her seat under the confidence-wrecking force of it.
Uh-oh. That wasn’t the look of unadulterated joy and respect she’d been hoping for.
‘To be perfectly honest, Jess, it wasn’t good enough. The pieces you’ve been submitting recently have been a little... How can I put this?’ She put both hands onto the desk in front of her, her nails digging into the wood like talons, and leant forward. ‘Dry. Lifeless. Dull.’ The words snapped out of her mouth as if she found them utterly distasteful. She gave a small shake of her perfectly coiffed head. ‘I expected more, Jess, when I offered you the position here.’
Fear and embarrassment wound through Jess’s chest and pooled like burning acid in her stomach.
She’d blown it. Pamela had to make someone redundant and it looked as if it was going to be her head on the block.
‘I c-can do better,’ she stuttered out, desperate to stall the words she felt sure were about to trip from Pamela’s lips.
Pamela shook her head and her mouth twisted into a dissatisfied smile. ‘I gave you the job because I sensed there was some hidden potential there, Jess. You’re a talented writer, methodical with an accomplished style, but your writing lacks the edge you need to make your pieces really stand out. It’s too controlled, too stuffy.’
‘I can unstuff it,’ Jess yelped, feeling tears of frustration burning at the backs of her eyes.
‘How do you propose to do that, Jess?’
Jess mouthed at her, totally at a loss for how to answer.
‘To be frank, I think you need to stop living in that self-controlled little bubble,’ Pamela continued, eyeing the immaculate, but understated, suit Jess was wearing today.
Jess smoothed her skirt down, then her hair. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Look, Jess, I think you’re a talented writer and you could build a great career with us here, but my advice to you is that you need to find that extra something to make your work sparkle. To find the life beyond your neat little world.’ She tipped her head in a motherly sort of way. ‘When did you last go out on a date, for example?’
The question made Jess uneasy. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘You’re what? Twenty-five? You take life too seriously. You should be out, having wild sex and falling in love at your age. Widening your experiences.’
‘Sex is overrated,’ Jess muttered, thinking back to the awkward sexual experiences she’d had up till this point. She didn’t get what all the fuss was about when it came to sex. It was uncomfortable and messy and she was usually glad when it was all over if she was totally honest. Neither of the guys she’d slept with had rocked her world, but at the time she’d thought she ought to put the effort in, just to see what she was supposedly missing out on.
It turned out she wasn’t missing much at all.
There was a knock on the partition behind her and Jess turned to see Pamela’s assistant standing there with a slip of paper clutched in her hand.
‘Sorry to interrupt, but Maggie just phoned. She’s stuck in Greece because of an air-traffic-controllers strike and can’t make it back for her assignment today. She sounded pretty fed up because apparently she’d managed to snag an interview with Xander Heaton, that bad-boy artist everyone’s so crazy about.’
Pamela sighed. ‘Can’t she reschedule? I really need that piece in the next issue. Xander was going to be the linchpin of the article.’
‘Apparently not. He’s refusing to change the date because he’s about to start working on a new exhibition. He’ll be at his studio in Old Street today, but he’s off to Italy tonight and he never gives any press interviews while he’s working. Something about killing his muse.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ Pamela sighed, flapping a hand in a tired manner. ‘Can Marnie go?’ she asked, clearly not that hopeful.
‘She’s off with the flu. Nearly half the office has called in sick this week.’
‘I can go and cover it,’ Jess said a little too loudly, her heart racing as a sudden shot of adrenaline fired round her body. If she didn’t grab this opportunity quickly one of the
