We paused in the lobby to part ways; Neil would return with Olivia to our home in Sagaponack, while I caught a cab to my Brooklyn-based office.
“What time should I expect you? I’m cooking tonight.” He leaned in for a kiss that Olivia intercepted with a cranky whine and a hand over my mouth. Neil shifted her to his other arm and tried again, this time, more successfully.
“Around seven-thirty, god willing. I’ll call you when I’m in the car.” The commute was long, but Neil needed the helicopter more than I did. Trying to keep Olivia entertained in her car seat for two hours was a special kind of hell, and we were currently in an air traffic battle with the neighbors.
While Olivia was distracted by something across the lobby, Neil leaned in for another kiss. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” I said, and quickly dropped a kiss on Olivia’s head. “Tell Tony five o’clock, okay?”
It kind of broke my heart to leave them. It always did. During the first year taking care of Olivia, I’d looked for any excuse to escape when I could. Not because I didn’t love her. I’d just been overwhelmed. After I’d gotten used to it, I hated to leave her and Neil for any length of time. I even had a picture of the three of us on my desk.
That was a future I definitely had never planned on.
The Mode office was in Brooklyn, in a brick building we’d previously rented, then bought when the opportunity arose. Though we’d started out as online only, we were trying to transition to a print version, as well. Which had created ten times the work for my co-editor-in-chief, Deja, and me. Luckily, we had a great assistant.
Mel looked up from her desk as I approached. As always, her eyeliner was preternaturally symmetrical, her outfit scorchingly stylish—she wore her YSL puff-sleeved black blouse as though it had been designed for her—and her manicure glistened as though the polish were still wet. Her heels were Louboutin; her hijab was Hermés.
“Good morning, Ms. Scaife,” she said with a big smile. “And good interview.”
“Thank you.” I did a little a curtsey. “I tried my very best.”
“Well, you succeeded.” She turned to her computer and typed with unnerving speed. She’d missed her calling as an airline ticket counter worker. “Okay, all of your messages have been forwarded, you’re late for the August pitches and you’ve got the run-through at eleven.”
I checked my phone and hissed through my teeth. “Yikes. That doesn’t give me a lot of time to pull the Michael Kors bags, huh?”
“I’ll put Patricia on it.” Mel’s fingers started flying, again. Those bags would be in my office within minutes. “Did you see Daisy’s new outfit?”
Mel had a Chihuahua named Daisy, and Daisy had her own Instagram account, wherein she posed in different, rarely repeated outfits, daily. Sometimes, she and Mel matched.
“I did not,” I admitted. “But I am going to look, right now.”
And that wasn’t a lie. Daisy’s OOTD—Outfit of the Day—was as essential to getting me through the morning as caffeine.
I dropped my purse and jacket in the office and headed straight for the conference room, where Deja and the four other editors—two for fashion, one for beauty, one for lifestyle—were seated around the table. Deja sat at the head, leaning her elbows on the table and fiddling with a stylus as she listened intently to Dana, our lifestyle editor. Always the epitome of cool, Deja had taken the bold step of totally shaving her perfectly shaped head.
I paused outside the glass door and waited, watching for a break in the conversation. When Deja looked down at the tablet in front of her and started scrolling, I saw my chance and pushed open the door.
“You’re late,” she said without looking up as she dragged the stylus over the screen.
“I have a good excuse today,” I reminded her. “I was on TV.”
Deja grinned at me. “I know. We were watching. ‘You, too?’”
Light laughter rippled around the table. I sank into my chair with a good-natured shake of my head. “Ugh, I know. I can’t believe I said that.”
“It’s like when you buy something at an airport kiosk, and the guy says, ‘Have a nice flight!’ and you’re like, ‘You, too!’” Stephenie, one of our fashion editors, said.
“Other than that, I think it went pretty well,” I said with mock—okay, and a little bit real—defensiveness.
“You did good,” Deja reassured me. “Okay, we were about to talk Gwyneth Paltrow.”
“Veto!” I said automatically, raising my hand. “I use my veto card.”
Deja arched an eyebrow. “You just walked into this meeting. Do you want to wait a second and see what’s going on before you jump right in?”
I made a sheepish, apologetic face.
“Yeah. Put that card back in your deck.” Deja cleared her throat. “Okay, on the subject of our lifestyle piece debunking several vaginal health claims made by Gwyneth Paltrow’s website…”