The Bag Lady Papers by Alexandra Penney Page A

asked, unsmiling, assuming I had said “yes” when I hadn’t uttered one word. I replied that I did not have any questions at all and she said, “You’ll see the editor in chief this afternoon at three, and if all goes well, you can start tomorrow.”
    It sounded urgent. I understood urgency. I nodded and said I’d be there. When Miss C issued an order, the only choice you had was to obey. By five that afternoon, Glamour ’s Publicity department had called me to read the corporate release announcing that I was to be the new beauty editor of Glamour, Condé Nast’s largest and most financially successful magazine. That was when I finally comprehended what had transpired in Miss C’s office, and I was in a state of complete mind-body shock. I was to be responsible for producing forty or more editorial pages a month. I soon learned that I was also to receive an enormous salary raise and not one but two assistants.
    Everything at Condé Nast happened in a flash.
    I was overwhelmed as I whipped up dinner for my son and husband that evening. Rick suggested we toast my new job with a glass of wine. It took me a moment to register what he was saying and to raise my glass. Things had happened with such speed that the day seemed completely unreal.
    The next morning I agonized about what to wear. What did a Glamour beauty editor look like? Beauty? I personally was no beauty but I knew I had to look good. Very good, very “pulled together,” which was the high compliment I had received from Vogue fashion editors on the occasions when I met their enigmatic standards.
    Finally I pulled on a khaki Saint Laurent top from Rive Gauche, with matching khaki pants–a major splurge even at the discount price that Vogue editors often received—and checked my black Hermès Kelly purse in the mirror to see if it looked right with the outfit. I wished I had a sportier bag—maybe a Gucci hobo, which Miss G carried when she was in her “casual” traveling outfit (a seven-eighths length leopard coat, Galanos gray-flannel jumpsuit, and mid-heeled chocolately brown shoes, made to order in Paris), but in truth the Kelly was the only decent bag I owned.
    I strode purposefully into my new office. It was even larger than Miss G’s. The company decorator was waiting and asked me what “look” I wanted. There was no time to think—there never was at Condé Nast. So I said, with all the authority I didn’t feel, “Just white. All white. Please.”
    By the end of the week, I was ensconced behind two sparkling titanium white Parsons tables, with three white slipper chairs done up in white canvas for guests. The assistants each had a smaller Parsons table and their assistant had one, too, along with their own canvas-covered chairs.
    I’d always loved Miss G’s white orchids so I wrote a polite memo to the decorator asking for a plant for each table. A few hours after the memo was delivered—everything wasdone lickety-split, chop-chop for chief editors—my office was festooned with white pots each bearing four or five stems of blooms, a bit over the top for my taste but who was I to say no? My entire new environment, indeed the air the assistants and I breathed, was superchic. Only three years ago I was in jeans every day gallivanting with my husband across Europe in a small car with no destination. Now I was sitting in this large fancy office and I had to figure out a way to generate forty intelligent and visually arresting editorial pages tout de suite. I didn’t know what else to do but affect an aura of urgency and an efficient, knowing manner. The whole facade peeled off the second I hit home and started stirring pasta for my son and husband’s dinner.

CHAPTER 7
There Is Such a Word as “No”
    M y assistants at Glamour were holdovers from the previous editor, who had been an imperious Miss G type. They were well-trained in the