Sneak Peek of Elephant and Castle #2
Nora was relieved to find that she had finally picked the right direction when her phone didn’t command her to turn around again.
With her eyes focused on the screen, she almost walked into a couple of well-dressed Londoners before she discovered the small office space with a big window and little yellow sign with purple lettering that read “99 Flamingo Publishing.” Perhaps for the first time since exiting the Tube, Nora exhaled.
It was cozy inside—little desks blocked out at different angles, an office and a conference room in the back, and the sound of constant clacking as each person in the main room banged away on their keyboard.
It wasn’t exactly what she had imagined when she packed up her life and left America.
She’d been picturing a big corporate office with elevators and a first floor Starbucks.
This was kind of a rinky-dink operation, a one floor, very cramped, and very brown workplace situation.
She knew publishing didn’t have the budget it used to, and 99 Flamingo was only a very small imprint of a larger press, but this was still a surprise.
“Nora?” A woman at the front desk stood up and removed her glasses.
Nora did a double take, wondering if she should already be acquainted with this person. Surely the arrival of one American writer was of little significance to this place. “How did you know?”
The woman smiled warmly. “Well, we don’t get a lot of people wandering in here, and we’re expecting you.” She reached out a hand for Nora to shake.
“I found the place,” Nora said. It was an obvious statement, but she meant it more as an affirmation for herself than a conversation starter, as if she weren’t a travel journalist with a terrible sense of direction.
“Give me a minute, and I’ll take you back to Darcy,” the woman said. “Also, I’m Jasmine. Did I mention that?”
Nora had forgotten how much she loved being surrounded by British accents, the way it made her feel as if she had stepped into a Jane Austen novel or a George Bernard Shaw play.
It made her want to shout “hear, hear!” in raucous agreement whenever anyone said something exciting.
She smiled to herself while she waited for Jasmine to introduce her to Darcy—of course her editor would be named Darcy.
She wondered if it was a man or a woman.
Perhaps it was a Mr. Darcy and her wildest Pride and Prejudice fantasies would play out in the little publishing office.
“Come on back, Shrapsan!” a smoky voice called from the back office, and Nora jumped. The other people in the main room kept their heads down with their eyes on their computer screens as she passed by them. Friendly, Nora thought sarcastically.
She popped her head around the corner and peeked inside the back office to see a mess of books and papers, maps and notes, ashtrays and takeout containers.
Behind the desk was a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties with giant dark eyes and round cheeks.
Her black hair was pulled back from her face, and her lips formed a displeased pout.
“Have a seat,” Darcy said, and Nora quickly did as she was told.
Jasmine slipped back out of the office, leaving Nora alone in a sea of publishing debris with her new boss.
Actually, Darcy was just her editor, but Nora couldn’t stop thinking the word “boss.” She’d thought it so much that it didn’t totally seem like a real word anymore until she saw Darcy.
She appeared to embody the term, and despite the fact that she looked the opposite of Mr. Darcy in every way, she did exude his same sternness and derision.
Nora had been practicing this moment in her mind, planning her first impression, but she didn’t even get a chance to say hello before Darcy started going on in her raspy voice.
“Well, here you are then,” she said, not looking up from the note she was writing on her desk. “They insisted on having an American do some research and writing for the project, though I find it unnecessary. We can easily write the book on our own city and every other place they throw at us.”
“Right,” Nora said. “Well, I suppose they just want multiple perspectives for the app.”
Darcy scoffed. “Our perspectives are good enough, I think. But we do have a bit of ground to cover in a relatively short amount of time, so I’ll want you writing and editing blurbs as quickly as possible. Am I correct that this will be your first time writing this kind of content?”
“Yes,” Nora said quietly. She didn’t know how to elaborate. She was pretty sure that she would be great at this. She’d been waiting for the chance for so long, but this woman was already making her doubt herself.
She tried to give herself a mini pep talk in her mind.
You can do this. She could focus on her writing and publish incredible travel guides and forget that she was once again in the same city as the most beautiful man who had ever touched her.
A man with stormy eyes and incredible fingers, the first man to ever give her an org—Nope, get it together, Nora.
“We’ll check out the first place on the list together, go over what kind of details we’re looking for,” Darcy was saying.
“That will be your training. It may be unusual, but I think it’s important that you get a feel for the tone of the book.
” Nora nodded. “This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill guide.
It has personality and a special appeal for young, chic travelers.
There’s a restaurant in Kensington they want to include.
A couple of new clubs in Piccadilly. A hotel in Marylebone.
Those are going to get bigger write-ups in the book, but there will be even more content on the app.
God knows I’m too old to go to the clubs, but you can do that with Timothy. Did you meet everyone?”
“No, not yet,” Nora stuttered.
“Timothy!” Darcy called, and a pencil-thin, dark-haired man appeared in the doorway almost immediately.
He would have looked like a steampunk villain if only he’d been sporting an oddly manicured mustache.
“This is Timothy. He does some writing, some IT, and whatever else,” Darcy announced, as if that gave Nora all the information she would ever need to know about him.
“Hello, lovely, it’s a great pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Timothy said, running his hands through his hair. His accent wasn’t as charming as she would have expected.
“That’s enough,” Darcy snapped, and Timothy was gone again.
Nora felt terrified but also like she should be laughing her head off at the same time.
It was not at all the nurturing mentorship she had been expecting with her new editor in her dream job.
“Anyway,” Darcy said, “about the museums…” She proceeded to talk about the project as if in bullet points, not pausing even when Nora tried to ask a question.
Nora jostled the things in her backpack, searching for a pen as quickly as possible so she could take notes on everything Darcy was firing at her.
Darcy wasn’t even looking in her direction while she was talking—she was simultaneously typing an email on the computer.
Nora tried to say something, but Darcy cut her off again.
“You’ll need to get to know some locals, as it helps to get some context about the different neighborhoods from their view.
You want to get input from the kind of people that pass by these places every day as well.
We’re not just writing reviews or telling people about the latest events.
We’re telling a story. Though, you know, there will also be a lot of brochures to collect and facts to check. ”
“Ok, what do you think about—” Nora tried, but Darcy cut in again.
“I guess now is as good a time as any. Let’s go.”
“Go?”
“To the new restaurant. Training. Have you been paying attention?”
She mostly had been paying attention; there was just that one little part in the middle where she really zoned out. Maybe if she burned the diary, she could somehow stop her weird memory/fantasy life from taking over.
Darcy stood. “Come on then, let’s get started.”
When Nora was starting college, she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with her life.
She loved studying English, but that wasn’t really one of those majors that led to an easy, specific career path.
She loved books and stories, but she didn’t want to teach, which seemed to be the only thing that anyone expected you to do if you got a BA in Literature.
She loved true crime and mysteries, but she didn’t have the constitution to be a detective, and even the thought of blood made her queasy.
When she found out about the study abroad program in London, it was the closest she had ever come to figuring out what she wanted as a career, because she wanted exactly that, to read Shakespeare and go to plays at the Globe Theatre, and take walking tours around beautiful, historic cities.
How did one turn that exact thing into a job that paid you money?
Finally, her chance had come, which was perhaps a testament to the power of perseverance, or even more likely it was proof of the power of begging.
The company where she’d been sitting at her cubicle for years had given her a shot in their most low-stakes writing position, and now that the job was hers, she was working hard not to let Darcy’s persistent negative attitude depress her.
In fact, as they sat in a dim restaurant that was going to get a tiny write-up in the book, Nora was beaming.
“Why are you making that face?” Darcy asked.
“What face?”
“That face like a puppy and a unicorn just had a baby, and it’s going to carry you around the Froufrou Forest and grant you three wishes.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” Nora said.
“Stop smiling so damn much,” Darcy barked. “This restaurant isn’t even good. It would get one out of five smile emojis in the book.”
“My soup isn’t bad,” Nora said.