Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [27]
Trix noticed immediately and recovered with aplomb. ‘… My ma hates my boyfriend – both of them – I bleached my hair and burnt my scalp, that kind of thing.’
‘Good idea,’ Jack said. ‘Mercedes, any thoughts?’
Mercedes had been doodling, her dark eyes distant and opaque. ‘I’m going to showcase as many Irish designers as possible. Attend the degree shows of the fashion colleges –
‘How parochial is that?’ Lisa interrupted, caustically. ‘We’ve got to feature international designers to be taken seriously.’
No way was she going to wear amateurish, home-made garments run up by Mercedes’ mates in their bedrooms! Proper magazines like Femme did photo shoots of exquisite garments sent from the press offices of international fashion houses. The clothes were only on loan but more than once they’d got ‘lost’ after a shoot. Naturally, the models had got the blame – let’s face it, didn’t they all have heroin habits to support? And if the missing threads turned up in Lisa’s wardrobe, then no one was any the wiser. Well, actually, everyone was very much the wiser, but there was nothing they could do about it. And it was a perk that Lisa had no intention of relinquishing.
Mercedes flicked Lisa a knowing, contemptuous look. To Lisa’s surprise, she was unsettled.
‘Is that it?’ Jack asked.
‘What about…?’ Ashling said slowly, barely trusting herself to speak. She suspected she was having an original thought, but couldn’t be sure. ‘How about a regular piece by a man? I know it’s a women’s magazine, but could we have a kind of A-Z of how a man’s head works? What he really means when he says, “I’ll call you.” In fact,’ she squeaked with excitement, ‘how about showing the woman’s side too? A his’n’hers piece?’
Jack gave Lisa a questioning eyebrow.
‘That’s so five minutes ago,’ Lisa said shortly.
‘Is it?’ Ashling said humbly. ‘OK.’
‘It’s the twelfth of May today,’ Jack concluded the meeting. ‘The board want the first issue on the stands for the end of August. That sounds like a long time for those of you who’ve come from weekly publications, but it’s actually not. It’s going to be a lot of hard work.
‘But fun too,’ he added, because he knew he should. Whoever he was hoping to convince, it certainly wasn’t himself. ‘And any problems, my door is always open.’
‘Which isn’t much use if you’re not in your office,’ Trix said cheekily. ‘I mean,’ she said hastily, as his face darkened, ‘that you’re often over at the telly studio, keeping the peace.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Jack directed this at Lisa, ‘our television and radio operations are at different premises, half a mile away. Demands of space mean that my office is here, but I still have to spend a fair amount of time over there. But if you need me and I’m not here, you can always ring me.’
‘OK,’ Lisa nodded. ‘And what circulation are we aiming for with Colleen?’
‘Thirty thousand. We may not get that initially, but over six months that’s what we hope to work up to.’
Thirty thousand. Lisa was appalled – if the circulation of Femme dropped below three hundred and fifty thousand, heads rolled.
Then Jack showed Lisa her freelance budget, but something was wrong with it – it seemed to be missing a nought. At least one.
That was it. She found herself politely excusing herself from the room and, as though in a dream, gliding to the ladies’, where she locked herself in a cubicle. To her surprise she found that she was heaving and sobbing. Weeping from disappointment, humiliation, loneliness, for all that she’d lost. It didn’t last long, she wasn’t really a cryer, but when she finally emerged from the cubicle her heart banged hard when she saw someone standing by the basins. Plain and simple Ashling, her hands behind her back. Interfering bitch!
‘Which hand?’ Ashling asked.
Lisa didn’t understand.
‘Pick a hand,’ Ashling said.
Lisa felt like smacking her. They were all mad here.
‘Right or left?’ Ashling urged.
‘Left.’
Ashling revealed the contents of her left hand to Lisa. A packet of tissues. Then her right hand. A bottle of rescue remedy.
‘Stick out your tongue.’ Ashling plopped a couple of