Chapter 2
Ah! The first week of term. All those freshers scuttling around looking furtive and nervous but trying to style it out – I can’t believe it was a whole year ago that I was one of them, and now I’m all grown up and handing out copies of the magazine to the sweet little baby students.
‘We have a stand at the Freshers’ Fair if you’re interested in writing for the magazine!’ I say brightly, handing a copy to a blonde girl through a cloud of vape. She smiles politely and takes the magazine but doesn’t seem that interested. On to the next one!
Finally someone I recognise is heading my way. ‘Leonie! Magazine?’ I know she’ll take it because I literally sat next to her in our French Modernism seminar this morning. And she does take it, so now my stack of magazines to distribute is almost gone and my work is so nearly done.
‘Magazine?’ I say, extending my arm towards a passing fresher in a very daring neon-orange sweatshirt.
‘No, thanks, I’ve already got one,’ he says, waving a copy of the newspaper.
‘That’s the newspaper! This is the magazine!’ I explain brightly.
‘Oh.’ He frowns. ‘Are they different?’
‘Yes! Completely different! Completely different teams! The magazine is much more fun,’ I assure him.
He grudgingly takes a copy of the magazine and slopes off, leaving me with one solitary copy left to distribute, plus the one I shoved in my bag for my own perusal.
I’ve not done a bad job today – most of the Quad writers and editors hate doing distribution, but I don’t mind standing around convincing people to take a copy of a free magazine, probably because I’m very nosy and like an excuse to see what people are wearing, what they’re doing, what’s the vibe on campus and all that.
I hold out the magazine to every passing student, but the fact that I only have one left makes me look slightly odd and very unofficial.
‘Please?’ I all but beg a tiny blonde girl who surveys my outfit of a vintage pussy-bow blouse tucked into a sequinned pencil skirt with curiosity.
But she takes it! And my work here is done!
I’ve got the first magazine meeting of the year in an hour, which means there’s definitely time for a coffee first. The campus café, the Workshop, has had a sleek makeover since we were last here and has now been brought kicking and screaming into the ‘aesthetic’ age – everything is wood and cream with hanging plants everywhere.
It’s all a bit samey, but I can’t deny it’s an upgrade from how unloved it was looking in my first year.
With my iced mocha in hand, I take a seat at a corner table. Ordinarily this would be the perfect opportunity for people-watching, but I feel like I should probably flip through the magazine before our first official meeting tonight.
I have to say, Juliana has done a great job of designing my page.
She’s really got a good eye. Much like this café, Quad Magazine used to be a bit of a mess before Juliana started working on it.
She just made everything look . . . tidy.
Intentional. Obviously, Felix is going to do a great job as editor this academic year – he already is, in fact – but Juliana’s input cannot be overstated.
She found me the perfect retro-inspired font for my column, ‘Ask M-E Anything’, and has made the page look appropriately stylish.
My first column of the year wasn’t anything too tricky (which was nice, because my brain was very much in summer-holiday mode when I wrote it for the Freshers’ Week issue), just a classic moral quandary for me to advise on.
Dear M-E,
My mate was going out with a guy she met in Freshers’ Week last year.
We’d often go out as a group with people from our halls, and I’d sometimes feel like he was flirting with me on nights out.
I don’t think it was all in my head, and I definitely fancied him back.
They broke up after a few months, but whenever he saw me around uni we would chat, and I was definitely getting flirty vibes.
I bumped into him over the summer, and we ended up hanging out, and at the end of the night we kissed even though I’d spent the whole evening telling myself I wouldn’t or couldn’t.
He felt bad about the kiss and told my mate, and now she’s pissed off at me, but he wants to give it a go.
They’ve been broken up for months now – am I being a dickhead for even considering it?
Confused and Conflicted
Dear Confused and Conflicted,
It’s always such a tough situation when you’ve got feelings for someone that your friend has dated.
I guess it just comes down to how strong your feelings are, for both of them.
Are you super-close to this friend, or do you think this guy could be the One?
It all depends on what you’re more willing to let go of: the friendship or the prospect of a relationship with this person.
Flirting and making out in the club is fun, but if it’s not worth losing the friendship over, then you know what the right decision is.
But if you really see a future with this guy, and you don’t feel like your friendship with this mate is super-strong, then on balance maybe that’s the right answer for you.
In general though, I would always counsel against choosing a potential date over a friend.
Flirtations come and go but friendships are more likely to last. Whatever you choose, be definitive and don’t let things drag on with this guy in secret.
Make a decision and pursue it with integrity.
With love from M-E
I think that’s pretty decent and even-handed advice, right?
I try not to be too prescriptive because I think most people already know the answer to whatever question they’re asking, and I just want them to figure it out for themselves.
I also think most people are fundamentally good but come up against these moral dilemmas more than we would like.
I glance at the big clock above the counter. Oooh, better dash off to the mag meeting!
There is a stack of Quad News by the door of the café, as well as a smaller pile of magazines, so I pick up a copy of the paper as I dash out.
With less enthusiasm than I read the magazine, I flick through the pages of the newspaper as I walk, being careful not to bump into anyone.
Blah blah blah, important news, internal politics of the university, groundbreaking research, same old same old.
I’ve just made it to the Quad Media office for our meeting and am about to leave the newspaper on a nearby coffee table for someone else to read when –
What. The. Hell?
Do my eyes deceive me? Or am I looking at . . . ‘NO NONSENSE’? A new advice column. In Quad News.
Dear No Nonsense,
My mate used to go out with this guy and I really fancy him.
They’ve been broken up for ages and I want to ask him out because he fancies me too.
We kissed on a night out recently and then he told her because he felt guilty and now my mate is pissed off at me, but she was the one who dumped him in the first place.
Am I being a dick or should I go for it?
Wannabe Girl Code Respecter
Dear Wannabe Girl Code Respecter,
Frankly, I wouldn’t bother: the main problem here isn’t whether you’re allowed to go out with someone your friend went out with, but with the fact that it seems like he’s using this situation to make his ex – your friend – jealous.
Yes, it does sound like he fancies you, which is always nice and flattering, but the fact that he went straight to her to tell her that you two kissed, even though they’ve been broken up for months, speaks volumes.
It sounds like a level of drama you could do without.
Don’t hold back because you respect the girl code, hold back because you respect yourself.
No Nonsense
I stand in the doorway, my eyes scanning over it as my fellow writers and editors enter and take a seat.
My blood is absolutely boiling. There is no way this column is by anyone other than Laurie.
After he was so amused by me at the drinks last week!
Silly little me with my silly little column!
And now he’s basically taking the piss! All our copy lives on the same server, so all he would need to do is wait for me to upload mine for printing so he can see the problem I’ve answered and then write his mean little version!
‘Urgh!’ I burst out, slamming the door behind me now that everyone’s duly assembled.
‘What’s up?’ Felix asks.
‘What’s up is this bullshit,’ I say, holding up the newspaper. ‘This tedious guy I met at the mixer thing last week was so, ugh, dismissive of me and my column, and now a week later he’s started his own fucking advice column in the newspaper!’
‘Yikes,’ Katie Jones, the lifestyle editor, says, adjusting the blazer that’s elegantly draped over her shoulders.
‘Big, rude yikes,’ I say, finally sitting down. I don’t want Felix to see me losing my cool – must project an air of nonchalance at all times – but this has really taken it too far.
‘Which guy?’ Olu, the fashion editor, furrows her brow.
‘Laurie O’Donnell,’ I huff.
‘Oh, him,’ Felix says, his lip curled dismissively but his interest clearly piqued in some way. ‘Never trust a mathematician, that’s what I say.’
‘It’s deeply unchic!’ I fume.
‘The newspaper stealing stuff from the magazine! This is the last thing we need,’ Patrick says, exasperated. Felix shoots him a look. Uh-oh. What does that mean?
‘What?’ Tyler asks as murmurs go up around the room.
Felix exhales, disgruntled. ‘There’s . .
. well, things are tight in the Quad Media budget.
Tighter than ever. The cost of paper has gone up so much over the past few years, and there’s been a lot of – I suppose you could call it discussion and negotiation within Quad Media about what that’s going to mean for us.
Anyway, long story short, our funding has already decreased for this year and there’s a chance . . .’ He trails off. Infuriating.
‘A chance what?’ I ask impatiently.
‘A chance that only one of us will survive.’ At this point, everyone starts to look nervous.
‘And you know which one that’ll be,’ Patrick says, rolling his eyes.
‘Fuck!’ Olu bursts out. She said what we’re all thinking.
‘It might not be as bad as it seems,’ Felix says calmly.
‘We have no idea what’s going to happen.
I wasn’t even going to mention it, but obviously I didn’t have much choice.
’ He glances at Patrick again, who’s looking slightly sheepish.
‘But it’s better that we know what’s going on, given how much time and effort we all put into the magazine, on top of our degrees.
And anyway, we’ve still got a magazine to produce, so, section editors, tell me what you’ve got going on this issue? ’
The energy is slightly subdued as the section editors go around and list their plans for the next issue, but by the end of the meeting Felix has managed to rally the mood a little.
We go to the bar for a drink afterwards and I try to put the whole thing out of my mind. I need a Felix-shaped distraction, and lucky for me he’s pulled up a chair right next to me.
‘Do you ever drink anything that isn’t pink?’ he asks, glancing at my glass of lemonade with blackcurrant cordial, the dark of the blackcurrant so diluted by the clear lemonade it’s become a pale pink.
I flutter my eyelashes at him. ‘Not if I can help it.’
He smiles and takes a sip from his pint. We’re sitting so close to each other that I can smell his aftershave, all expensive and heavy and woody. ‘I’m sorry about the whole Laurie O’Donnell thing. He really is the worst.’
‘It’s starting to look that way,’ I sigh.
‘I was never a fan, I have to say.’
‘Do you know him?’
Felix nods. ‘We were at school together.’
I frown. ‘That surprises me somehow.’
‘Go on,’ Felix says, a sly smile on his lips.
‘I don’t know, I just mean . . . you have a particular vibe about you. And he doesn’t really have the same . . . vibe,’ I babble inarticulately.
‘Ha!’ Felix bursts out. ‘Don’t get St Alfred’s College vibes from Laurie? Might be the fact he was on a scholarship.’ Naturally, Felix went to a very fancy school. And so, apparently, did Laurie.
I shrug. I don’t know enough about this boy to decide what vibes he has at all.
Only that he’s got to me. A lot. I let us sit in silence for a moment before I burst, unable to contain my irritation any longer.
‘So, him doing an advice column for the newspaper is even more annoying for me than it looked, right?’ I say.
‘If the magazine does get wound down and they try to merge us with the newspaper, if they already have an advice column then what is the point in me? What do I have to offer?’
Felix sighs. ‘I know, it’s pretty fucking rude of them. Definitely taking liberties.’
‘Rude of him in particular. I know it must have been his idea.’ I narrow my eyes and think of Laurie O’Donnell and his smug face and him choosing ‘Genius of Love’ on the jukebox last week.
‘Look,’ Felix says, laying a reassuring hand on my thigh, ‘all you can do is focus on what you’re doing.
Not what anyone else is doing. Just keep doing your thing the way you want to do it, and he can just fuck off.
And there’s no point worrying what’s going to happen to the magazine; that’s something for me to figure out.
All I can do and all you can do is try to control the shit we can control, right? ’
I nod, feeling a little flutter in my chest as I see his hand on my thigh. ‘Felix, you’re so wise.’
‘I am, aren’t I? Maybe I should start an advice column,’ he says, giving me a sly sideways look, before taking another sip of his drink. His hand is still on my thigh.
On second thoughts, maybe it won’t take the whole academic year for me to get with Felix . . .