Page 13 of Stay Awake
Josie’s chatter washes over me as I try to remember. She talks about the magazine’s new direction as she shepherds me around the office. My unease turns into near panic as I realize I don’t recognize anyone. Everyone at the office is a stranger. I feel as if I’m in a parallel universe.
My eyes dart toward the entrance. I want to make an excuse and get out of here, but Josie is already introducing me to the team. Everyone is superfriendly, getting up from their desks to greet me with a succession of warm hugs. They treat me like I’m the prodigal daughter returning to the fold.
“You look wonderful, Liv.”
They all give me different versions of the same compliments in saccharine voices that are too chipper to be authentic. They’re being too nice. That bothers me more than the hopscotch carpet.
A woman rushes toward me and embraces me as if I’m a long-lost sister. I hug her back, thinking that I don’t know who the hell she is.
“Liv, I wish we’d known that you were coming today. We’d have arranged a lunch to welcome you. It can’t be easy.…”
“What can’t be easy?” I ask.
“Coming back here after all this time…”
I stare at her uncomprehendingly. Her cheeks flush. She looks away, squirming with discomfort.
She changes the subject.
“I’d love to hear about your life in London.”
I’m lost for words. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve never lived in London. Without pausing for breath, she inundates me with questions. What part of London did I live in? Did I do a lot of traveling around the UK?
I want to tell her that she’s mixing me up with someone else. The only time I’ve spent in Europe was a six-week backpacking trip with friends after college. I certainly have never lived there.
“You must be very jet-lagged,” she says. “It always takes me a day or two to adjust when I fly back from Europe.”
Jet lag? Maybe that’s why I feel so numb.
Josie sweeps me away toward the office pantry area. It’s been remodeled into an open-plan lifestyle area with an assortment of white-and-lime tables and chairs. A giant white shelf of bright green ferns in white pots serves as a natural divider with the rest of the office. She prepares us coffees on a shiny new coffee machine as she jabbers on aboutCultura.
She talks as if I’m aware of all the changes at the magazine. I’m not. If anything, I’m shocked by what she tells me.
It turns out that it’s not just the office decor that has changed. The magazine was taken over by a European magazine publisher. There’s been a radical change of strategy. Now there’s an emphasis on a younger, millennial audience. The online and social channels get as much attention as the magazine. There’s talk of turning the hard-copy magazine into a quarterly.
“I barely recognize anyone here. The staff is completely different.”
“It’s the restructure. They let a lot of people go,” Josie explains.
I’m shocked to hear that Frank, my editor, and Sonya, the style editor, were retrenched along with Natalie and many others. Poor Natalie. She’s a single mom. She really needed the money, and she loved working here.
“We’re going for edgy. That’s why they hired Niko to be the executive editor and why the editorial team has changed. It’s a younger team to reflect the demographic of our new readership. Ted, as you know,” she pauses meaningfully, “transferred here a few months ago to run the commercial side of the business. Neither of them is here today.”
“Where are they?” I ask, largely because it seems expected that I show interest.
“Nico is at a cover shoot in L.A. Ted is home sick. It’s bad timing. They would have loved to have been here to welcome you.”
Josie prattles on at a mile a minute while I try to make sense of all these changes at the magazine. Everything is off-kilter. I need to get back in control. To do that, I need a laptop so I can check my emails and refresh my memory. It’s not possible that I’ve blanked out for what seems like years.
“Actually,” I pipe up. “Ted asked me to come in… to work on a project.” I become more confident as I lie. “He was supposed to organize a loaner laptop for me, and somewhere to work. I hope he didn’t forget.”
“Ted gets more forgetful the closer he gets to his wedding day.” She bites her lip and flushes as if she’s said something out-of-line. I have no idea what she’s talking about, or why I’d care.
“It’s so great that you two are still…” she starts to say, and stops when she notices my frozen expression. “I’ll find you a spare laptop.”
Josie escorts me to a small glass-walled meeting room overlooking the lunch area. She tells me she’ll be back in a minute with the computer.
While I wait, I stare at the morning news on a large TV screen. The footage cuts to police officers standing behind crime scene tape at the entrance of an apartment building. A graphic at the bottom of the screen says:MURDERER WRITES MESSAGE IN VICTIM’S BLOOD.
