Not A Bad Thing

2 - Work Drama & Assignments

"I need something that will grab the passerby's attention," Virginia Statter stated in her thick foreign accent. I had never correctly guessed where it was from. It might have been from South Africa or Nigeria. George and I had tried too many times to guess it, but neither of us was ever right. She was not approachable enough for us just walk up to her and ask, obviously.

You were lucky if Virginia Statter did not chew you up in the first two weeks working in her company, the famous magazine Glamour. The defense mechanism that everyone had was to avoid coming in her path. It was hard for me to do that, though, I was part of the editing board of the magazine. We had weekly meetings where she was always present. People could say what they wanted about her, but she was very dedicated to her work and it showed in the quality of the issues we launched month after month.

Her daughter, Jennifer Statter worked with her. No one could say it was favoritism or nepotism. Jennifer had had to work hard to move up in the company. Virginia was not a woman who would give a second look at someone who was not good. It did not matter if it was family or not. She only worked with competent people and you had to follow her pace.

I sighed quietly and rested my weight against the chair. I could almost feel Jennifer's hateful glare burning through me. I was sick and tired of her. It was not my fault her boyfriend decided to leave her to go out with me, was it? That had been two months ago. When was she going to let go of it? She was quite pretty, I was sure she could find someone else in the blink of an eye. Her hatred towards me was a total waste of time and energy, in my opinion.

"We have Rihanna on the line for the new cover," Amelia, my other co-worker who I got along with well, noted.

I looked up to her, deciding to ignore Jennifer and her childish games. She could play alone, if that is what she wanted. The fact that her mother was my boss did not come very handy for me, though. I had to be careful in every single step I took and every single thing I did and said, or she could get me fired. I was not overreacting. She had said it to my face a couple of weeks ago. Since then, she had not taken her gaze off me.

It was creepy, to say the least.

"Yeah, but Rihanna on the cover is not the only thing that makes up a magazine. We need something else inside," Virginia said as she looked through the glass door at the people that walked by the hallway next to our meeting room. She rarely smiled, and with us were some of those few times, when we said or proposed something that she liked. You could not even say it was a smile. It was more of a brief smirk because things were working as they should.

"Maybe an interview with someone unexpected," I suggested with a small shrug.

"That is what I want," Virginia curtly said. She turned her gaze to me and asked with a frown, "but who could that be?" I had no idea if she knew about the problems her daughter had with me, and if she did I highly doubted she cared. It did not require a genius to know that she was not so fond of her daughter. Rumor had it that she had only given Jennifer the job to save her marriage. It turns out her husband gave an ultimatum to their relationship and the conditions included giving little, bratty Jennifer a job at the magazine.

That was when Jennifer first came in. Up to this day I still did not know if this was real or not.

"Um...maybe a businessman or something, even another singer, so we can follow on a singer-oriented issue," George offered from beside me. "You know, several interviews or something along those lines."

"It could work," Virginia agreed with a nod of her head. She was looking at the traffic beneath us once again. That was a bad sign. It meant we were losing her attention.