Liz had a certain holier-than-thou, putting-you-in-your-place attitude and she immediately started playing power games with me. For example, she’d never pick up the phone when I’d call. She would have her assistant answer, then grill me about what the call concerned before she’d take it. And if Liz ever called me, it was never directly. Her assistant would ask me to “hold for Liz Alexander,” and Liz would never get on the phone until she was certain I was on the line. But after about the third time her assistant asked me to “hold for Liz,” I cut her off and told her that I didn’t have time to hold for anyone, and if Liz really needed to speak to me she could call me directly herself. And whenever we met, there was a little power play about who was coming to whom; Liz always wanted me to come up to her office. But after a while I’d occasionally insist that she come down to me, especially if the meeting involved other members of my staff, despite her audible sighs of protest. It was stupid, and catty, I know. But catty people needed to be given a taste of their own kitty litter.
Dreading my latest interaction with her, and Ellen, I hurried out the glass door, nearly tripping on the box of copy paper along the way. An elevator door was just sliding shut, so I jumped at it, sticking my hand over the sensor. “Thanks,” I said sheepishly to the crowd inside as the doors slid open. When I went to push the button for the thirty-third floor, I realized I had gotten on an elevator going down.
Shit.
When I reached the bottom, I gave another sheepish smile as I let everyone out and got back in. I frantically pushed the “door close” button so I could have an express ride. For once, luck was on my side.
When I finally arrived on the thirty-third floor, I took a deep breath, stepped out of the elevator, and gave the receptionist my most confident grin. “On my way to see Ellen,” I said, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all. My stomach’s incessant churning, however, betrayed the truth.
Now it was time for my “Miss America” walk. I felt on parade as I glided past yet another sea of cubicles, but these cubicles were painstakingly neat with gleaming, polished wood trim. My heels sank into the plush, thick new carpeting, so I had to concentrate extra hard on walking without tripping. I held my head high, taking in the décor—original, signed masterpieces and sleekly framed covers of best-selling issues. I noticed that not a one of them was Jill.
Continuing my pageant stride, I nodded at Michelle, Ellen’s assistant, as I flitted past. “She’s expecting you,” she said dryly.
I gave a quick, assertive knock on the door and opened it before receiving a response. “Hey,” I said, as nonchalantly as possible, when I entered Ellen’s spacious lair.
Ellen was sitting at her desk, with Liz looming over her. They looked up in unison from the paper they were studying, as if they were some kind of pearl-wearing, two-headed monster.
“Please take a seat, dear. We may be here a while,” Ellen said, nodding toward the Eames chair placed on the other side of her desk. Ellen was my peer—thirty-eight years old at the most. So her sudden, condescending way of calling me “dear” made my skin crawl. Liz’s green-eyed glower on top of that made me want to jump right out of it.
Ellen adjusted the crimson hair band that kept her unmoving bob in place and perfectly matched her red sweater set. I noticed Liz had recently gotten her hair cut into the same severe lines, a style that said, “I’m not only frigid, I’m a control freak, too!” Though today she opted for an unflattering, diarrhea-colored cashmere turtleneck, Liz was also fond of sweater sets. Two bitches in a pod, I thought.
“Jill is in serious trouble,” Ellen started gravely, yet calmly. “Ad sales have been dropping.”
“Plummeting is more like it,” Liz added snidely. “Existing accounts are complaining about the recent content. And forget about getting new accounts.”
This was getting to be like Groundhog Day. We’d had this discussion before. I made my usual retort. “But circulation is up. Newsstand is up—”
Before I could even finish, Liz interrupted: “We’re talking about ad numbers, Jill.”
Fine, I thought. Let’s talk about ad numbers. I was the only one who was selling ads, it seemed. When I showed up on ad calls, I didn’t leave without closing the deal. Liz knew it. And so did Paul….
Where was Paul anyway? In the good old days, Paul Thomas, Nestrom’s creative director, would have been my ally, sticking up for me in situations like this. Now the Twins didn’t even invite him to meetings. Still, I thought of what he might say. “Are we approaching the right advertisers?” I asked. “And have these complaining accounts ever bothered to look at a copy of Jill? Do they understand what they are buying into? It’s not for everyone. It’s not supposed to be for everyone.”
“It’s not only the advertisers, Jill,” Ellen continued, giving me a cold stare. “Nymph Airways is upset about that stewardess story. They don’t advertise in Jill but their CEO is extremely well connected.”
Liz jumped in. “And Watley Brown is infuriated that you printed her photo shoot rider. Her publicist called Ellen last night and threatened to cancel all of her clients’ upcoming interviews and shoots for not only Jill but Fashionista, too.”
“Liz, you know as well as I do that publicists are full of shit,” I scoffed, knowing that the only reason they brought it up was that someone was pulled from their biggest title because of lowly Jill. “The minute she has a C-lister she needs to promote, she’ll be back. Besides, that’s what Watley gets for her ridiculous demands. I mean, two dozen lavender-scented candles? Peruvian peaches, pitted while facing east, cut into precisely half-inch squares, and marinated in honey? A six-pack of purified oxygen in ten-ounce cans complete with attachable face mask? That woman is insane! And the readers should know it.”
“That’s really beside the point,” Ellen continued evenly. “And we can’t change what’s been done. But I’ve been looking over the next issue’s cover.”
She pulled the layout from a folder and stood it up on her desk. She read from it in a halting, disapproving monotone.
“How to sleep with someone famous.” Long pause, accompanied by a tense glare from Liz.
“His penis is not a toy.” Pause after nearly choking on the word penis. “Or is it?” she finished. Pause. Glare.
Ellen continued, “Another reason not to quit smoking.” Another, even longer pause. Another, even longer glare.
“We need to tone these down, Jill,” Ellen said.
“Way down,” Liz echoed.
I knew how to play the magazine business game. It was all about ad sales; I knew that. But it was also about keeping expectations in check. And it was also about targeting the right advertisers for your publication. Jill was a niche publication, and when conceptualized, its circulation was never meant to be more than half a million. Eight years later, we even topped that, closing in on 800,000. And the advertisers, for the most part, understood that Jill wasn’t at all like the other glossies out there. Jill was unabashedly unapologetic about making young women feel good about themselves instead of pointing out their flaws. Jill had models of all sizes and color in its pages, not just the stick-figure heroin addicts the other publications favored. Jill favored subversive celebrities. And our core advertisers knew it.
“Come on, those are all obviously tongue-in-cheek. And what about our readers?” I asked. “Toning down the coverlines will alienate them.”
“Readers don’t buy ad space,” Liz said smugly. I wanted to strangle her by her string of pearls. She had no idea how to—or to whom to—sell the magazine. Not to mention that before she arrived the publisher, in essence, deferred to me. An editor at my level—with her own name on the magazine—should have the power to admonish the publisher. Liz apparently thought it was the other way around.
“I’m not saying you have to tone down the content,” Ellen said, softening a bit. Sometimes I thought she actually did get what the magazine was originally about.