Cole Brannon’s now-familiar blue eyes twinkled from a huge photo, splashed in color across the newsprint rag. My heart thumped as I took it all in. His arm was thrown comfortably over the shoulder of a blond woman as they strolled together—she was gazing adoringly up at him as he looked out in the distance.
But the woman wasn’t me.
It was Kylie Dane. The married actress.
Who he had sworn to me that he wasn’t seeing.
“What?” I mumbled to myself. I was relieved, of course, but I also had a strange and unexpected feeling that felt suspiciously like jealousy.
But that made no sense. What did I care if Cole Brannon wanted to sleep with Kylie Dane? It wasn’t any of my business. I was just mad that he’d lied to me. Yes, that was it. I was mad at myself for believing his lie. I took a deep breath and willed myself to be calm.
The discomfort returned in a flash, though, when I saw the words printed at the bottom corner of the page:
“For more of Cole Brannon’s women, turn to page 33.”
“Shit,” I mumbled again. The big photo of Kylie and Cole was just a teaser. She was the biggest star he was sleeping with. On page 33 my cover would be blown, and it would be even worse than I’d originally suspected. I’d be playing second fiddle to one of the sluttiest women in Hollywood. “Shit, shit, shit.” I flipped quickly through the pages, getting stuck again as I desperately tried to rush to page 33.
I finally found the continued article and stared desperately at the page. It featured three photos of Cole with different women, each complete with its own caption. I quickly scanned each photo, trying to keep my eyes from glazing over.
None of them were me.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief and tried not to feel jealous as I looked at Cole walking through Central Park with a scantily clad Kylie Dane. Cole at dinner in a fancy restaurant with a dark-haired woman identified as Ivana Donatelli, his publicist. Cole locked in an embrace with a perfectly toned, leather-clad Jessica Gregory, the star of TV’s Spy Chicks.
I slowly flipped the page, just in case the story was continued, but thankfully, the next page just featured a story about Carnie Wilson’s weight loss. I resisted the urge to look down at my thighs for comparison.
I flipped back to page 33 again and stared hard at the photos, my heart pounding quickly in anger.
He had lied. I couldn’t believe it. He’d made me think he was different. He’d made me think he was a real gentleman and that the stories about him with other women weren’t true. He’d looked me in the eye and told me that he’d never get involved with a married woman, but here he was canoodling in Central Park with a practically naked Kylie Dane. In full color. There was no denying it. I wouldn’t necessarily believe a story in the often unreliable Tattletale, but there was no mistaking what the photos meant.
And Wendy’s reports about Ivana Donatelli had been true, too. In the photo Cole was leaning across the small round table to whisper something in her ear, and she was blushing. A bottle of champagne sat between them, and they each had a full flute of bubbly near their elbow. Ivana’s sparkling black hair cascaded alluringly over her bare shoulders, coming to rest at the level of the diamond necklace she wore around her slender neck, surely a gift from Cole.
And his pose with Jessica Gregory looked anything but innocent. The Spy Chicks star had her arms thrown around his neck. He was picking her up off the ground, lifting her up so that they were nose-to-nose, gazing into each other’s eyes. It looked like they were milliseconds away from locking lips. Her red leather pantsuit clung to the perfect curves of her body, glistening in the light.
I flipped back to pages 18 and 19, where Cole and Kylie were splashed across two full pages, their arms comfortably around each other. A five-year-old would be able to tell they were more than just friends. She was gazing adoringly up at him, snuggled tightly against his body as they walked. He was pulling her against him, his hand resting on her shoulder as her bosom pressed into his side. He was looking in the direction of the camera, although not right at it. I stared for a moment at his blue eyes, which had seemed so innocent and kind on Sunday.
“Liar,” I mumbled aloud at his picture.
I suddenly felt furious. At myself, and at Cole. How could I have been so stupid to have been taken in by his charms? To have actually believed, even for a second, that he cared, even remotely? He was an actor. It was his job to make me think what he wanted me to think. And damn it, I’d fallen for it like a rookie, like some silly little reporter who’d never met a celebrity before. Like some silly little lovesick girl. Like someone desperate to be appreciated.
I was such an idiot.
I wouldn’t normally have behaved that way. Tom had crushed me, and in a moment of weakness I’d been taken in by a professional con artist’s charms. Damn it, he was sleeping with half of Hollywood. And I’d been so ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I angrily slammed the Tattletale closed and stuffed it into my bag. I pulled away from the brick wall I’d been leaning against, brushed my skirt off, and straightened my blouse. I took a deep breath and began walking toward the F train. It was only 6:30 a.m., and I knew I’d be in the office by 7:15 if I left now, but I didn’t have much of a choice. There was nowhere else to go, and besides, what better way to run from my problems? When in doubt, bury yourself in work.
*
“You like him,” Wendy whispered bluntly as she stared at me with wide eyes over the wall that divided our cubicles.
“What?” I asked, making a face at her. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t like him.”
“Why do you care who he’s spotted with in Tattletale then?” she asked innocently. Today, her typically outlandish style was toned down a bit with modest, natural makeup colors and slim Diesel jeans. The only clue of Wendy’s peculiar fashion sense was the low-plunging neckline of the lime green shirt she wore under a gauzy beige cardigan, and the orange scarf she had tied around her neck.
“It’s not that I care who he’s in Tattletale with,” I said, shooting a dirty glance at the gossip rag protruding from the top of my bag. “It’s just that he lied to me.”
“And made you think he liked you,” Wendy said, finishing my thought.
“No,” I protested. “I don’t care whether he likes me. Why would I care? You know nothing could happen, anyhow. It would be totally unprofessional.”
“Hmm,” said Wendy, arching an eyebrow at me. “So you don’t care? At all?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.” She winked at me. “Whatever you say.” I fixed her with a glare. Why did she think I cared? I didn’t care about Cole Brannon.
“It just proves that all men are scum,” I said with finality. Wendy arched an eyebrow.
“All men?” she asked. “I’d agree with you that a vast majority are. But all men? I don’t think so.”
“I do,” I muttered. First Tom, now Cole. Lying, cheating scum. I felt angrier at Cole the more I thought about it. Who did he think he was? Just because he was some hot-shot movie star.
“Jean Michel isn’t scum,” Wendy said dreamily, batting her eyes and looking off into space.
“Glad to hear it,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. I wasn’t in the mood to hear the virtues of Wendy’s waiters today. I didn’t know how she did it. She dumped them. She was always the one to lose interest and move on. As long as I’d known her, she’d never been dumped. She’d never been cheated on. She’d never even been treated as anything less than a princess. Why did I attract guys who liked to screw me over and lie to me?
“C’mon, Claire, you can’t believe everything you read,” said Wendy gently.
“I don’t,” I said firmly. “But I believe what I see. And those were not innocent pictures. With any of those women.”
“Maybe there’s an explanation,” Wendy said quietly.
“And maybe there’s not,” I said, looking up at her. “He lied, Wendy. He lied, and he’s a sex addict. He’s sleeping around with ever
yone. Anyhow, I’m sick of talking about this. I really am. I made a mistake by believing what he told me, but that’s over now. He’ll get the complimentary article he wants in Mod magazine, and I’ll never have to see him again.” Somehow, the words didn’t make me feel as good as they should have.
“What about the flowers?” Wendy asked softly. I’d been trying to ignore them all morning, which was pretty difficult considering they were overflowing all over my desk. They still looked perfect, and they smelled beautifully tantalizing. “Aren’t you going to thank him?”
I snorted.
“No,” I said firmly. “In fact, we’re going to pretend this never happened.” I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the card that had come with the flowers—the sweet, sensitive card that was obviously a lie. He didn’t care about me. I tore it in half and dropped it into the garbage can. Wendy gasped.
“You’re throwing the card away?” she asked.
“I just did,” I said. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
*
Margaret called an editorial meeting for eleven o’clock that morning, to replace the one she’d canceled the day before. I was relieved in a way, because it gave me an excuse to focus on something other than Cole Brannon. Besides, I was looking forward to thirty minutes without Wendy’s half-pitying, half-accusatory glances.
The only downside to the meeting was that Sidra would be there. I’d have to squirm in discomfort as she looked at me smugly, content with the knowledge that I’d been summarily dismissed in the most embarrassing way by a slimy boyfriend who was now screwing her sister.
As I settled into a chair at the oval table, I smiled at Anne Amster, the senior features editor and the only other person to have arrived for the meeting. She was Wendy’s direct superior, a fantastic features editor who did a great job of directing her section of the magazine. Like me, she looked much younger than she was and sometimes had trouble being taken seriously by those who didn’t know her. Her wiry black hair framed her face in a pixie cut, and her features were sharp and childlike. She smiled back at me.
I hadn’t yet been able to decide whether the weekly editorial meetings were actually useful or not. In theory, the senior members of the staff were supposed to discuss the magazine and the articles we were featuring in the month we were currently working on. We were supposed to give progress reports to help debate and decide what direction the magazine would take.
Instead, we pitifully offered suggestions and had them immediately shot down by Margaret while the executive editor, Donna Foley, who would soon be retiring, tried to give us encouraging looks. She would jot down notes about what we said and discuss them with Margaret later. Eventually, the good ideas would end up becoming a part of that month’s issue. But of course Margaret would take full credit for them, saying things like, “I came up with that idea over dinner at Lutèce the other night,” even when there were eight witnesses to the fact that the idea had been proposed by one of us at an editorial meeting. We’d long since learned that it was better to keep quiet and simply be thankful that Margaret was running the Mod ship with a little help from those of us who actually knew the magazine industry—even if it was completely thankless help.
Sidra glided in five minutes late, swooping into the empty seat beside Anne, who politely said hello, oblivious to the death looks Sidra was already shooting me. Sidra ignored her greeting, and Anne finally shrugged and shook her head. I had never talked to Anne about the Triplets, but I suspected she wasn’t a fan any more than I was.
Today Sidra was dressed in skintight beige leather pants that accentuated her slender hips, and a fitted black top that showed off the curves of her fake bosom.
“It’s Gucci,” she said haughtily in response to the other editors’ stares. No matter how many times we all saw Sidra, her outfit choices never failed to astonish any of us. I’d never seen her wear the same thing twice, and her clothes were always striking. “Couture,” she added, tittering lightly. “George loved it on me.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. We all ignored her. Her George Clooney references were like a broken record we all hated listening to.
Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Margaret bustled into the room and glided to the head of the table.
One might think that in a conference room with an oval table, we would align ourselves equally, like the knights of King Arthur’s court. I’d thought that when I showed up for my first editorial meeting a year and a half ago, until I noticed that the arrangement of chairs divided the oval nearly in half. Eight of us sat squished into the half closer to the door, while Margaret reigned supreme from the other half, splaying her papers out in front of her and gazing down the table at us, her loyal subjects. We were all subjected to an hour of bumping elbows and fighting for space while Margaret leaned back and enjoyed the room.
“Happy Mod morning,” Margaret greeted us with the same silly words she used to open each editorial meeting.
“Happy Mod morning,” we all grumbled back, because we knew we’d be the subjects of Margaret’s wrath that day if we didn’t.
“Let’s begin,” Margaret said, contentedly leaning back in her throne. She nodded in Donna’s direction. “Donna?” she said.
Donna sighed. She ran all of Mod’s editorial meetings from her seat in the eight-member throng at the lower half of the oval table.
“It looks like we wrapped up August successfully and on time,” Donna said, reading from her notes, trying not to bump elbows with Jeffrey on her left and Carol on her right. “As most of you probably know, Margaret made a last-minute decision to sub the Julia Stiles cover with a Cole Brannon cover, which breaks somewhat from Mod tradition.” Her voice sounded strained. A few pairs of eyebrows shot up in surprise, and a few editors glanced my way. Sidra and Margaret both looked suspiciously smug.
“According to Margaret,” Donna continued, glancing at her boss, “Claire’s Cole Brannon interview was very intriguing and will have a good chance of increasing our circulation.” I tried not to blush as several heads swiveled toward me. A few editors smiled encouragingly from across the table. “I didn’t have a chance to see it myself, but I’m sure Margaret knows what she’s doing.” She didn’t sound too sure. My stomach swam uncomfortably.
“The rest of the issue went off without a hitch, just the way we planned it,” Donna continued. “I talked to Julia Stiles’s publicist, and she’s okay with us using Julia for the September cover. Her movie is coming out Labor Day Weekend anyhow, so it will be better timing for them. I had to promise another of her clients a Q & A in the September issue, though, so she didn’t make a big deal out of this whole thing. Can you do that, Claire?”
I nodded and felt relieved. In this business, timing was everything. If Julia’s movie had been scheduled for a late July or August release date, her publicist would be screaming bloody murder right now. Most celebs didn’t grant interviews out of the goodness of their hearts. A-listers and most B-listers agreed to features only when they had a movie, TV series, or album coming out, because being featured in a top women’s mag was a guaranteed way to increase their fan base. When we had originally agreed with Julia’s camp six months ago to feature her this summer, her new movie was scheduled for a late July release, which made the August issue perfect. Thankfully, the release date had been moved to Labor Day Weekend last month, so her publicist had likely been more than willing to make the switch to our September issue.
“Okay, the September issue,” Donna continued. A few editors took out pads of paper and started to jot down notes as Donna spoke. “According to the ad department, we’re going to have four more pages of editorial than we’d counted on, which will be great. I’d like to use one page to expand the fashion section, because Sidra, Sally, and Samantha are shooting on location in Italy this month, and they’ve promised us a great romantic spread of fall fashions in Venice.”
Sidra nodded without looking up and began filing her nails with a diamond-studded nail file.
r /> “As for the remaining three pages, I’m . . . we’re . . . open to suggestions.” Donna glanced quickly at Margaret to see if she’d noticed the slip, but she hadn’t. She was busy gazing out the window.
“The clouds look like little sheep in the sky today,” Margaret said suddenly. We all looked at her strangely. I stifled a laugh. Sometimes she was like a little child. Donna took a deep breath and continued.
“Claire,” she said. I turned to look at her. “Margaret and I discussed adding a celebrity Q & A with someone up-and-coming.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Sidra’s glare. She was no doubt furious that I was getting any extra attention. “Would you be interested in that? If it works out, we could try to make it a monthly feature. It wouldn’t be too tough, just a straight one-page Q & A with a young newcomer. You know, identify the next Brad Pitt. That kind of thing.”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“It was my idea,” Margaret interjected, turning her attention momentarily back to the group. “Because of Claire’s strong work on the Cole Brannon piece.” She winked at me, and I forced a smile. Donna sighed again and Margaret’s attention drifted back out the window.
“Any ideas for the remaining two pages?” Donna asked. She made a note on her pad and looked up.
“How about a two-page feature on the ‘20 Sexiest Things Women Can Do in Bed’?” Cathy Joseph, the sixtysomething copy chief, asked in her perfectly clipped voice. I smiled. It was always strange to hear a woman pushing seventy saying anything at all about sex. But just last month she’d been the one to suggest August’s sex feature: “10 New Ways to Have an Orgasm.” I hoped I was still having orgasms at her age. For that matter, I wished I was having them now.
Donna smiled at Cathy.
“Sounds good to me,” she said. Of course it did. Cathy was a forty-year veteran of the magazine business, and it was no coincidence that she was also the fountain of more editorial ideas than anyone else on staff. The funny thing about women’s magazines was that once you’d had a subscription to a magazine for five years or so, you would have read every service article ever written. Sure, there were new celebs to feature every month and new spins on old ideas, but women’s mags recycled the same hundred or so self-help, sex advice, and to-do articles every few years. For example, there was no doubt in my mind that the “20 Sexiest Things Women Can Do in Bed” wouldn’t include a single thing that had never before been mentioned in Mod—or in Cosmo, Glamour, or Marie Claire for that matter. After all, creative as we might be, there were a finite number of things one could actually figure out to do between the sheets. I had a sneaking suspicion that Cathy had a pile of women’s magazines dating back to the ’60s at home, and before every editorial meeting she simply flipped through the stacks and pulled some ideas from the February ’68 issue or the July ’75 issue. If that was the case, she was smarter than the rest of us.