The Making of Mia by Ilana Fox

she walked past people she could hear them laughing at her, and although she wanted to ask someone where the ladies’ was
     she didn’t dare – she was much too shy. Eventually Jo found them – hidden behind a glossy black door that merged seamlessly
     into the wall – and she took cover in a cubicle just before a couple of girls stumbled in to reapply their make-up.
    ‘So, like, the bastard told me if I refused to work Saturday to help the editorial team meet the deadline he’d sack me!’ Jo
     lifted her head from her hands and stared at the cubicle door.
    ‘And what did you do?’ a bored-sounding girl asked.
    ‘What could I do? I worked the Saturday. It was such a fucking pain, but I’ve only been there for a couple of months and the
     last thing I need is for everyone to know I got sacked from
Sparkle
magazine.’
    Jo held her breath. A girl who worked on a real magazine was only a few feet away, and Jo was desperate to hear what she said
     next. This girl, Jo thought, could be the person whohelped her with her career – if only she stopped being so scared of everyone.
    ‘Don’t know why you bother working there anyway,’ the girl’s friend said. ‘It’s just a crappy teen magazine.’
    ‘Yeah, true, but it’s a foot in the door, isn’t it. I don’t want to be a secretary all my life, but it’s a way in. Today
Sparkle
… tomorrow
Tatler
. Well, that’s the plan.’
    Jo’s drive for wanting to work on a magazine banished her shyness – she flushed the toilet and approached the sinks. Both
     of the girls were tall, skinny and blonde, and Jo felt like a frumpy mess standing next to them. They looked like they’d stepped
     out of
Sex and the City
. She took a deep breath.
    ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear …’ she began meekly. ‘But do you work on
Sparkle
magazine?’
    The prettier of the two girls looked Jo up and down. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Why?’
    Jo beamed. ‘I’ve always wanted to work on a magazine,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘How did you get to be a secretary there?’
    The pretty blonde girl smirked and gave her friend a side-long glance. ‘My agency sent me there …’ she began slowly, as if
     she were considering something. ‘You know, you could be a secretary too … it’s really easy.’
    Jo’s mouth dropped open. ‘Do you really think I could?’
    ‘Sure,’ the girl said, and Jo was so overwhelmed that she may have found a way into a magazine that she didn’t notice the
     other girl giggling.
    ‘Look, why don’t you phone them up? The woman I deal with is Felicity, and she’s great. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you
     the number.’
    Jo wrote the phone number down carefully on an old receipt, and thanked the girls gratefully as they sauntered out of the
     toilets. The door slammed behind them, and assoon as they were out of earshot they both fell about with laughter.
    ‘I wish I could see Felicity’s face when that fat girl turns up,’ the girl said to her friend, who couldn’t stop giggling.
     ‘That will teach her for putting me on an assignment where I have to work weekends.’
    Luckily Jo didn’t hear a word of their conversation, as she was too busy counting her blessings. Who needed A-levels and journalism
     college when there were other ways to work on a magazine? she thought to herself, with a tiny smile. She carefully tucked
     the phone number into her bag, and, thinking that the haughty-looking girls in the bar weren’t that bad after all, went to
     find Amelia.
    Jo stood in the West End of London looking at the sky. Dark clouds were overhead, masking the afternoon sun. Jo checked her
     tattered watch and realised she was early for her appointment at the recruitment agency. She pulled at her jacket nervously
     – she wasn’t convinced it was big enough for her, and she also wondered if she had dressed correctly. Jo wasn’t so sure she
     had.
    ‘Think of it as a job interview,’ Amelia had advised the week before, when she’d