Chapter 11
11
AMAZING GRACE
Grace is surprisingly approachable and enthusiastic. I’m sitting in her office, looking around me as I wait for her to finish on a phone call. She’s speaking to a photographer about a shoot she has organised, and it all sounds impossibly glamorous and exciting – and a million miles away from ‘Ten Ways to Increase Productivity and Wow Your Boss’.
Her office is relatively small, but it’s tidy save for a pile of Northern People magazines in the corner that I’m pretty sure poses a significant fire hazard. It’s not my place to point such things out, so I stay quiet and instead look at the selection of framed magazine covers on the walls. There’s the first edition, published in the eighties, featuring a woman with permed hair, shoulder pads and bright blue mascara.
There’s also a cover featuring a smouldering shot of Jamie Dornan. He’s giving his best sexy serial killer expression, which makes me think this edition must have coincided with the success of the Northern Irish-based drama series The Fall .
I remember thinking, at the time, that I wouldn’t mind the likes of him climbing in my window one evening. I wasn’t so keen on the notion of being murdered, mind… but still, Jamie Dornan was very good at setting my heart (and other parts) all a flutter.
The other covers on display mark different landmarks in the magazine’s decades-long history. I spy their one hundredth edition, and one celebrating their ten-year anniversary. It’s an impressive sight and I can hardly believe that I am in with a chance to actually become a part of this magazine’s story.
My stomach fizzes with what I hope is excitement, but which could also be an incoming bout of gastroenteritis. Please God, it’s the former.
Grace looks very comfortable behind her desk – as if she was made for the role. I’d been low-keyed worried she’d turn out to be a Miranda Priestly clone and immediately see right through my pathetic attempts to be relevant and fashionable.
But she hadn’t been like that at all. She’d come to greet me in reception, smiling broadly, instead of sending one of her minions. She’s dressed in a neat pair of black trousers, with a stylish white shirt, open just low enough to be classy and to show off the simple gold necklace around her neck. Her entire look could probably be described as effortless, but I’m sure it wasn’t. I am not blind to the extra flourishes.
She is a well-polished and more confident version of the girl she used to be at school. If she had been in the same year group as Niamh, Laura and me, we would probably have been friends. We were cut from the same slightly nerdy cloth – neither part of the popular set nor cool enough to hang out with the emo crowd who, for some reason I’ve never understood, were known as the Fraggles. They were certainly nothing like the brightly coloured puppets of one of my favourite childhood shows.
Grace was always, always passionate about what she wanted to get out of life. She was determined, even then, that she would become a journalist and she would climb that career ladder. Unlike me, she never found herself a comfortable spot on the bottom rung and took up permanent residence there.
There’s a lot to admire in the version of Grace I see in front of me now.
Her nails are manicured and painted a subtle taupe, while mine are bare and could probably do with a good massage with hand cream and cuticle oil. Her highlighted hair is pulled back in a neat chignon, but a few stray hairs have managed to escape, which puts me at ease. I think I might have cried if I’d been faced with perfection personified. Women who don’t look just a little harassed make me suspicious – even more so if their make-up and cosmetic touch-ups mean they could be any age between twenty-five and fifty-five.
Grace Adams looks her age – in a good way. Her eyes crinkle when she smiles, and her lips are not unnaturally plumped and filled. I can see the hint of grey roots in her hair. She looks as if she is very comfortable in her late-forties style which I find deeply reassuring. It’s always a bonus when I don’t want to slide under a table with embarrassment at how out of place I feel. There’s a kinship here. I can feel it.
She says goodbye to the person on the other end of the line and puts the phone down. ‘Sorry about that,’ she says. ‘I should be able to leave the photographer to get on with things but sometimes he can need a little more guidance. We’ve a big edition coming up and it’s all hands on deck to make it really special. No one wants to fuck it up.’
‘That sounds exciting,’ I say with a smile.
She shrugs. ‘Between the two of us, it is and it isn’t. There’s a lot of pressure to get it just right. Print editions are fighting for their lives out there at the moment. Who wants to pick up a magazine when they can get the latest fashion, features and gossip online in minutes? We’re pushing hard to keep selling and keep relevant.’
‘That must be a lot of pressure for you?’
‘It is and isn’t,’ she repeats with a smile. ‘I love it, which is why I keep doing it. I think I’ve learned to thrive under pressure, but at the same time I’m responsible for keeping the show on the road, keeping my staff in a job and growing our digital content too. It’s certainly busy.’
Her phone rings again and she lifts it before hanging it straight back up, then lifts the handset and lays it on her desk off the hook. ‘But listen, you didn’t come here to listen to me talking about how busy I am! Thanks for sending over the sample columns. I had a good read of them last night and Becca, I’m in.’
I hardly dare to believe what I think I’m hearing. She’s in? In what? In for having me on board? ‘I’m in!’ is usually a positive statement, isn’t it?
But what if I’m wrong? What if she means she’s in a state of disgust that I would insult her with such nonsense? Or in shock at my audacity at thinking I had a voice her readers would want to entertain?
I don’t know how I should react – whether to smile or cry – so I just stare at her while trying to remember how normal human beings use their own faces. It’s possible that I look as if I’m mid stroke. Speak, Becca! I think, For feck sake! Open your damn mouth and say something sensible!
‘You’re i-in?’ I stutter.
‘Yes. I loved them!’ she says enthusiastically. ‘You have such a relatable voice – and not just because I’m a similar age and my children are leaving me behind while they forge ahead into their futures like yours are. You just get that mix of humour and heart that our readers love so right. I laughed when I read them, and I had a little cry too because, seriously, when you wrote that motherhood inevitably breaks all our hearts, I felt that in my bones. I mean, we put all the work in and then they just clear off! When I showed them to my deputy and features editors they agreed with me. We think you’d be a great asset to the magazine.’
‘You d-do?’ I stutter again, watching for signs on her face that maybe she had but now that she’s met this stuttering eejit who doesn’t even know how to react like a normal person she might just be reconsidering that decision.
‘I do. Look, I don’t have unlimited means. I’d like to tell you that I do, but truth be told, every month I get through without having to go full Hunger Games with my staff to appease the powers that be is a bonus. What I do have, though, is a modest budget for contributors. We’d love it if you were able to provide us with five to seven hundred words on surviving your forties each month. I’ll have to brainstorm with the team, and you of course, but we’ll come up with a name for the column and branding. You’ll have editorial freedom, within limits. Write what you want – but try and stay clear of ripping into the industries most likely to advertise on our pages. I like your warts-and-all approach. What it’s like trying to figure out who you are, while caring for older relatives, your children and your friends, while working and trying to maintain a relationship – or build a new one,’ she says with a wink. ‘Give us menopause chat. A forties-is-the-new-thirties attitude. I want that “there’s life in the old gal yet” approach – but without using that phrase. It makes me feel queasy. Something about “old gal” feels like we should all be wearing tweed skirts and twinsets and supping gin out of hip flasks down at the stables.’
I’m listening as she chats excitedly about the words I’ve written, and the style I’ve adopted. I beam with pride when she tells me she almost peed laughing at my menopausal take on ‘Position of the Fortnight’, which had been the closest thing to porn many a teenage girl in the nineties saw in each edition of the now sadly defunct More magazine. But my version wouldn’t be about sex, but instead about getting a good sleep while dealing with night sweats, aches and pains and a back that goes out more than I do.
‘I’m so glad you liked it,’ I say, delighted with myself for being able to speak a coherent sentence with the appropriate facial expression in place.
‘Seriously! I loved it. And when I say I almost peed, I’m not lying. I’ve had two vaginal births, and a hysterectomy. I’m always just one belly laugh away from needing Tena Lady.’
Her honesty and willingness to talk about the things we have often been urged to keep under wraps warms my heart. It’s exactly how I want to write. I don’t want every word women read to be aspirational. I want what I write to be relatable. Life is bloody hard enough without thinking you’re getting it wrong all the time and everyone else is sailing along in a state of near perpetual bliss.
I don’t want my words to amount to a how-to guide of how to look younger and fight off the natural ageing process. Women in their forties and fifties are not solely fixated on their looks.
There’s an incredible warm glow inside me as I listen to Grace, and for once it’s not a hot flush. It’s just sheer pride.
‘So,’ she says, cutting through my little internal celebration, ‘here’s the catch.’
Catch? I freeze. I don’t like catches. I don’t like little surprises on the end of nice news. I am always immediately suspicious of them. They scream of ‘if something looks too good to be true…’
My concern must be written large all over my face as Grace immediately moves to reassure me. ‘Oh, God. Don’t look so stressed. Don’t worry. It’s not bad. It’s… well… let me put it this way: how good are you at working under pressure?’
I snort. Everything in my existence seems to be under pressure at the moment; what difference would throwing one more log into the bin-fire of my life make?
‘I may require a large glass of wine at the end of the day, but as it happens, I’m quite good at pressure. Most of the time,’ I reply, wondering if it’s appropriate to start regaling her with stories of my sons, the unexpected pregnancy situation , the new romance or making sure my mother doesn’t kill herself by climbing into her attic or breaking a hip trying to shovel snow on her own. But then I remember this isn’t actually a friendly natter over coffee. This is a work situation and I am supposed to be professional – even if we were only discussing incontinence a few moments ago.
‘Look,’ I tell her, ‘I’m used to working to frequent and shifting deadlines. The majority of the business-to-business clients I have worked with over the years have very exacting standards and are never afraid to shift the goalposts at the last minute and expect everyone to fall into line behind them. This creates pressure all of its own.’
She nods.
‘I juggle creating content with hitting their deadlines, targeting specific issues within their industries and making even the driest of copy sound entertaining. This gig… well, this is me doing something for me. Something that feeds my soul. Truth be told, this is something I should’ve pursued years ago but, you know, life got in the way in the way it tends to do. Parenting. Lone parenting. That kind of thing. And then I got too settled in my comfort zone. But this? This is what I want to do and I’ll do anything to make it work. Pile the pressure on. I’ll make it happen.’
I’m hoping my speech has come across more Jerry Maguire–esque than just the desperate ramblings of a woman who knows this might be her last chance to take control of her career.
I’m also hoping that even though I’ve told her to pile on the pressure, she doesn’t pile too much on. I can’t help but feel a little like a human version of Buckaroo right now. One cowboy hat too many and I’ll be kicking my emotional baggage all around me.
‘Great,’ she says, grinning. ‘Because here’s the thing. April is our fortieth anniversary edition and I really think that will be the perfect time to launch you as our latest voice.’
April? Well, this is January, and February and March are still to pass. I’m pretty sure I can write a seven-hundred-word article by then without giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome or RSI .
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she continues as if she’s reading my mind. ‘April is ages away. Except in magazine land, it’s not. We bring our April edition out mid-to-late March. And yes, I know you think that mid-to-late March is, what, nine weeks away?’
I nod.
‘You’d be right on one level, but the thing is, we like to get the magazine planned and the freelance features all to bed around six weeks before publication. We keep certain pages for closer to deadline, obviously, but your copy? We’d need that sooner rather than later.’
‘That won’t be a problem,’ I tell her, knowing that I have several sample columns already drafted beyond those I’ve sent to her already. There’s bound to be something among that which will be suitable.
‘Great!’ Grace claps her hands together. ‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Now, before we get down to talking money and the like, I want to run one more thing past you. I think it could be right up your street, but it is a bit out there.’