felt tiny. Everything looked as though the real world had been scanned, had the contrast turned right up and then enlarged by 500 per cent. It made Piccadilly Circus look positively anaemic. After I had crossed the same road about five times, I spotted a steady stream of very thin, very beautiful women dressed head to toe in black, heading into a narrow black glass doorway back where I had come from. The small tasteful sign next to the door? Spencer Media. Ah. Of course.
The building was tucked away in a corner off Broadway, a beautiful art deco building that stretched high into the Manhattan skyline, past the animated billboards and brightly lit ads. As I rode higher and higher in the lift, I passed my weight from foot to foot. Erin had said (my editor!) was called Mary Stein, but I had no idea what she was expecting. I’d printed out my last few diary entries and printed off the Amazon records of some of my books in lieu of a portfolio. Hopefully she wouldn’t just laugh me out of the office.
Mary’s secretary ushered me into her office after a quick silent appraisal. Apparently I passed and was offered a coffee before being left alone. The office was bright and light, with stunning views of the city. I stood staring out of the window and promised myself I’d go to the Empire State Building as soon as I’d finished.
‘Angela Clark?’
It was Mary. She hardly looked like a magazine editor, let alone a super cool web editor. Mary was easily in her fifties, no taller than five feet, had a short grey bob and just looked really, really nice.
‘Yes.’ I stretched my hand out for a firm and welcoming shake. ‘You must be Mary.’
She gestured to a seat in front of her desk and then sat herself down. ‘Erin tells me you’re a writer?’
Straight to business. ‘Yes,’ I nodded eagerly, bringing out my sales sheets. ‘I don’t have my portfolio with me right now, but I have some sheets showing the books I’ve written. They’re mostly children’s movie tie-in books but I can turn my hand to anything, really.’
‘Hmm.’ Mary flicked through the pages and then pushed them back at me. Maybe she wasn’t going to be so nice. ‘I need a blogger. You’ll have looked at what we have on the website already so where do you think your blog will fit in?’
She fixed me with a serious gaze. I hadn’t looked at the website. Eeep. But praise be for the hateful man in Starbucks, I did know what a blogger was.
‘Well, I’m going through a pretty one-of-a-kind situation right now,’ I started.
‘One-of-a-kind has no appeal to my readers,’ she said, already looking away at her flat screen monitor and wheeling her mouse.
‘Well, one-of-a-kind in a way, but in another way, it’s something every girl has gone through,’ I blagged. ‘I’ve split up with my boyfriend of ten years and now I’m dating for the first time.’
‘Go on,’ she said, still looking away, but the wheeling had stopped.
‘Well, I found out he was cheating on me at my friend’s wedding, made a bit of a scene and then sort of ran away to New York,’ I explained quickly. ‘And now I’m dating. Two men. A banker and this guy in a band.’ I had to admit, I thought it sounded pretty bloody interesting. Probably even more so if you weren’t having to go through it yourself.
‘Do you have some sample copy?’ she asked, her full attention back with me. ‘You’re what, Bridget Jones in New York?’
I handed over the print-outs of my diary. ‘I’m really not Bridget Jones,’ I said. ‘I’m not all about dating, I think it’s more about finding my feet and finding out who I am again.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, scanning the copy with pursed lips and a frown. ‘You’re certainly not Bridget Jones, but there is something here. And it is about dating.’
‘OK,’ I shrugged. I would write about being a one-armed gypsy horse rider if she would give me a writing job. ‘It can be about dating.’
‘Tell me more about the break-up. Is it funny? It sounds funny,’ she slapped the pages of diary I’d given her.
OK, suck it up, I told myself. She’s going to make you a proper writer. So I went through every detail of the break-up, trying to make it sound funny rather than bursting into tears. Mary stared at me emotionless and silent until I was finished.
‘Great. It is funny and I suppose you can write,’ she said, ‘OK, you write two to three hundred words a day and email it to me. The pay wouldn’t be great but it’s only on the website. If we go ahead, I’ll need a picture of you so find one, but it’s fine to keep everyone else anonymous.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t the glorious big break moment I’d always envisioned. There was no champagne for one. ‘Oh, I just thought, I don’t have a work visa. Is that going to be a problem?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Mary looked really, really pissed off. ‘I can’t pay you as staff if you don’t have a visa. You may as well just go.’
‘But I only just got here on Sunday.’ I stood up, desperately trying to get this back. ‘And, and, you don’t have to pay me! I’ll work for free!’
‘Free?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’
I nodded, half in, half out of my seat. ‘Anything Mary, please, I’ll write the funniest dating column you’ve ever read. Honestly.’
‘I guess I can’t let you work for free … I could pay you as a freelance contributor,’ she mused, looking back at the diary. ‘And you say you only got here Sunday? So this happened this week?’
I nodded again.
‘Bring me your first three days’ diary, along with a 1000-word establishing piece and a photo on Monday and we’ll talk about everything else then.’
The meeting was over. I don’t know if Mary had a silent buzzer or made invisible semaphore signals but her secretary appeared at the door and gestured for me to leave. I never did get that coffee.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was going to be a writer. Actually writing for an actual magazine. OK, website of a magazine, but still. Clearly getting on that plane on Sunday was the best thing I’d ever, ever done. Jenny was working a double shift and Erin was out of town for the weekend but I needed to find some way of celebrating my job, my New York minute. Surely there was only one way? I set off down Broadway, proud, confident and on my way to the Empire State Building to share my success with the city.
Which would have been great if the city hadn’t been twenty-five degrees above average for August, full of overheated tourists, a whole load of children on their school holidays all with one very clear brief, to barge past me and, whenever possible, knock my (delicious) Marc Jacobs bag off my shoulder. Which was already tingling and a delightful shade of pink. By the time I’d staggered all the way down to 34th Street in the searing sunshine, I must have been suffering mild sunstroke as I attempted to pass Macy’s. Before I knew what was happening, I’d been sucked through the doors and was drinking a refreshing iced tea, using a comfortable and clean bathroom and spending $250 on the Benefit cosmetics counter. An hour later, I wandered back out onto the pavement and around the corner, the queue for the Empire State Building was insanely long. The sun was beating down on me and my new purchases, threatening to melt my new make-up, and I was so close to home. My new writer’s pride had been replaced with buyer’s remorse, and before I knew what I was doing, my legs were carrying me across to Lexington, back to the apartment, back to my laptop and back to bed.
Waking up on Saturday morning, I couldn’t believe it was a week since I’d woken up in my own bed. So much had happened in such a short space of time and yet, as soon as I remembered my date with Alex was later that evening, time seemed to start going backwards. It was Jenny’s first twenty-four hours off duty in over a week, meaning she would pretty much be asleep for fourteen hours. She’d made some halfhearted offers to take me out when she got in from work, but the girl was dead on her stylishly shod feet, so I’d let