love sounds great and all, but I do want grandchildren someday, darling, so there are going to have to be some strings attached, Mallory wrote.
Keira rolled her eyes and laughed to herself.
Even Felix sent messages of support, although Keira suspected he didn’t have any social media profiles and had just been prompted by Bryn to do so.
She smiled to herself as she dashed out of the apartment and hurried toward the subway.
“Hey! Romance Guru!” someone shouted.
She turned to see the coffee seller in his little truck.
“I got your drink ready for you! Caramel macchiato with cream!”
He waved an extra-large cup of coffee at her. Keira grinned and went over to take it.
“Thanks,” she laughed, reaching in her pocket for some cash.
“On the house,” he said with a wink. “Just tell everyone you get your coffee from Bobby’s, okay?”
“I will,” Keira said, taking the coffee.
If there was only one perk to come out of the exposure, free coffee wasn’t one to be scoffed at.
Keira strode away, coffee in hand, and headed down to the subway. Finally she got the chance to check her phone and see for herself what everyone else was reading about her. On all her social feeds there were positive mentions of her article, with thousands upon thousands of comments below from women who’d been inspired and empowered by her stories. Women who’d been ridiculed for breaking off engagements, ones who’d lost lovers due to jobs, due to distance, due to clashes over money and careers. She’d had no idea so many people felt so isolated because of their bad luck in love, and that she’d inadvertently created a community where they felt able to reach out and share their stories.
When she checked her work emails, she was shocked to see that some journalists had managed to get directly through to her, rather than going via Heather or the receptionist, and she had numerous requests for appearances and advice.
Coming up, over and over again, was this term: The Scandinavian Way. Everyone was acting like she’d invented the light bulb, and she didn’t want to claim credit for something she’d merely observed. She’d never meant to start a trend or to get famous.
As the train jostled her about, Keira could hardly believe what she was reading, or what was happening. She was touched and overwhelmed by it all.
And as if to make everything more emotional than it already was, a message came through on her phone from Milo. She didn’t even hesitate before opening it.
Great article! So proud of you!
Keira grinned to herself. Not for making Milo proud, although she was glad he’d enjoyed her piece, but because for the first time after meeting a guy and breaking up, she didn’t feel her heart sink when reading his text.
Quickly, she wrote back, Thank you! Busy atm, but catch up soon.
Then she rode the rest of the way to work, her mind spinning with excitement.
Keira entered the office to find it in a frenzy. The phone was ringing off the hook and people were dashing about all over the place. Elliot immediately came out of his office, grinning, and whisked Keira into the conference room before she had a chance to catch her breath.
She walked in and saw the room was full of people, all unfamiliar.
“Uh… hello,” she said, tentatively, as Elliot pulled a chair for her.
“Keira, so great to meet you,” a man with dark auburn hair said. “I’m Rick, your new publicist. This is Sally.” He gestured to a woman with thick curls and bright red lips sitting beside him. “She’s my assistant and will handle your timetable.”
“Nice to meet you,” Keira said, shaking each of their hands in turn. “And the rest of you guys?”
“The new editorial team!” Elliot beamed, throwing his arms wide.
“Team?” Keira asked. So far, Nina had been the editor of Viatorum, then as things had picked up she’d been given a group of interns to assist her, but nothing like this, nothing professional. Keira realized then that Nina wasn’t sitting around the table with the editorial team. “Where’s Nina?”
“At her desk,” Elliot said, simply, as though it were a bizarre question to ask.
“She’s still editor, isn’t she?” Keira asked. The thought of her friend being demoted because of her success sat uncomfortably with her.
“Of course,” Elliot said. “She’s editor of the print part of the magazine. Which now accounts for approximately ten percent of our sales. It’s all about the Internet team now, the only subscription model, the social media bite-sized articles. That’s what the new team will be handling from now on.”
Keira looked around at all the unfamiliar faces. It felt odd that Elliot hadn’t thought to promote any of the people they currently had in the office, or to have Nina oversee the online editing. It didn’t seem fair. She understood that Elliot would want the best and brightest money could afford, but she’d never have gotten to where she had if no one had taken a risk on her.
Rick cleared his throat then. “Shall we get down to business? Sally, can you give Keira the low-down on her publicity appearances?”
Sally seemed like an even more efficient version of Heather, if such a person could exist, because she appeared to have preempted Rick’s question and turned her attention to a neat notebook sitting in front of her.
“Breakfast New York, News 24, Daily Roundup, Good Morning USA, Helen & Phil In the Morning, Katie & Joe In the Evening…”
As she listened to Sally reel them off, Keira mind boggled. All these talk shows and new organizations wanted her on their shows? She started to feel sick with nerves.
“Are you good at press work?” Rick asked, once Sally was finally finished listing TV shows.
“I have no idea,” Keira told him. “I’ve never been on TV.”
“That’s fine,” Rick said in his no-nonsense business tone. “I’ll train you. Sally, book Keira onto Helen and Phil In the Morning for tomorrow. That’s a great teething show. The interviews are short and quite informal. And importantly, prerecorded. So it’s a win-win. We’ll move onto live once we’ve seen how you perform there, so Sally, get some afternoon slots lined up as well.”
Sally didn’t even waste a second. Her cell phone was up to her ear immediately, and within moments she was talking rapidly into it. Keira could hardly get her head around how quickly everything was moving. She looked over at Elliot, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat, clearly loving the sudden increase in pace and pressure. Unlike Keira, he thrived on this kind of stuff. But Keira couldn’t help but feel a bit like some kind of pawn in a game. She’d always felt like that with Viatorum, even when it had just been Elliot and Nina calling the shots. But now with this whole team of people scheduling her life it felt even worse.
“We’d better get to work on the training,” Rick said then, folding up his papers and standing.
“I have to leave at five tonight,” Keira suddenly blurted. “I have a shopping trip with my sister.”
Everyone stopped and looked at her suspiciously.
“Uh, yes, of course,” Rick said, smoothing his jacket down.
Keira could tell immediately that they’d been expecting her to give up all her free time, that they hadn’t even given a second thought to what she wanted. They’d all just assumed she’d go with the flow, follow their demands and have no input of her own.
Rick looked at Sally. “Make sure everything winds down by five.”
Sally nodded.
With the meeting adjourned, the new editorial team rose to leave the conference room. Keira was about to leave when Elliot addressed her.
“Can