The Goy Next Door (Girl Meets Goy #2)

Chapter 12 Thank God it’s Monday!

Thank God it’s Monday, Leah thought when she woke up that morning. She had been looking forward to this day all weekend. No, she had been looking forward to this day since she had been offered the job of researcher at Teen Club the previous summer. No, she’d been looking forward to this day since she turned 13 and officially became a teenager and could read Teen Club without hiding it from her mother!

She put on her favorite professional pink blouse and a black skirt that she had only worn once at Club Business before she realized that most of her colleagues wore jeans every day. But she knew the dress code for Teen Club was different. In fact, in the last seven months, she had become adept at knowing exactly where people worked the minute the stepped into the Diamond Media building. A professional-looking business suit meant they worked in sales or business development for the parent company. Stretchy pants disguised as office attire meant Connoisseur Club. Fashion Club employees wore outfits that looked like they were better suited for a runway than an office and Home Club employees only wore beige or monochrome. Club Business has a reputation for casualness or suits that didn’t exactly fit, even though Leah had unsuccessfully tried to single-handedly elevate the reputation. Teen Club employees were the best dressed, in Leah’s very objective opinion. They wore business casual or simply casual while always incorporating fashion trends but also not trying too hard. That was Leah’s signature style, or at least the one she was always trying to go for. Anyone who saw her pink blouse and black skirt would immediately know she belonged at Teen Club.

She set out to the subway early that morning, hoping to get through her commute quickly and get a head start on her first day. Thankfully, there were no delays, and she stepped into the Diamond Media building well before many of her former colleagues at Club Business.

She mindfully pressed the right button on the elevator so she wouldn’t end up on the twelfth floor, which had been her destination for the last several months. Now, she would be getting off one floor below.

If Club Business’s floor could be described as fluorescent and gray, Teen Club’s floor was the exact opposite. It was bright and colorful with lights that look almost natural with posters of celebrities in elaborate outfits framed on the walls. Even the cubicles had personalities. Many were covered in neon post its with notes written in bubbly handwriting. Magazine cutouts decorated the walled desks which housed plants and sun lights next to the computers. One desk had a small candy vending machine on it.

Leah started thinking about how she would decorate her own desk. She wondered if people decorated right away or if their desks were accumulations of months of work, adding one post it or picture at a time. In her months at Club Business, she hadn’t added anything personal to her desk. Not that anyone had many personal touches there. But for Leah, it was because she considered her time there temporary.

Because she was early, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to do. She didn’t know where her desk would be and the few people who were on the floor didn’t look like the type to know. She sat near the reception and waited.

Just before 9:00 am, people started arriving. Leah looked up to watch the appropriately dressed employees walk in together, talking and laughing as though they were walking down a high school corridor. Once they entered the floor, they quieted and veered in different directions. No one noticed her, until Brittany walked in.

“Leah? What are you doing here?”

Leah stood up, excited to answer, but then she remembered that Brittany had wanted the position and she was suddenly afraid of ruining her new friendship and her absorption into the cliques of Teen Club.

“I was transferred,” she managed to say, hopefully with just the right amount of enthusiasm.

“Cool,” Brittany responded and continued walking toward a set of cubicles. Leah looked through the crowd until she saw Marnie Gray, editor-in-chief of Teen Club, walk through the door. Leah’s mouth felt dry when she saw her. She watched Marnie walk in alone, step right into her office and close the door. Leah wondered if she should follow and knock. After all, Marnie had wanted her here at Teen Club. Surely she knew that Leah was starting then and she would orient Leah to her desk and tasks for the day.

She used all her strength to hold her head high and walk to Marnie’s office. As she was about to knock, she heard, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Leah turned around to see a woman in a professional-looking pant suit with large bangle earrings, horn rimmed glasses, and a headscarf. She did not look like Teen Club. She did not look like any publication at Diamond Media.

“Today’s my first day,” Leah explained. “Well—” She wanted to continue explaining, that well, it wasn’t really, but it sort of was, but the woman waved her hand.

“I’ll help you. Just don’t ever bother Marnie when the door is closed. The last person who did that now works in the mail room if she works at all.”

Leah nodded and wondered what that said about Marnie. She seemed so nice from the interviews and profiles about her that Leah had read. Leah had never actually met Marnie, she realized. It seemed strange because Leah had thought about her so much, read about her, and imagined all their future conversations together, but the truth was that Marnie hadn’t even interviewed her when she was originally been hired by Teen Club. She had several HR interviews, one with Marnie’s assistant—which Leah suddenly now found odd—and another one with the head reporter of Teen Club.

“Leah Rosenberg, right?” the woman said as she motioned Leah to follow. She pronounced Leah’s name the way she hated, like Princess Leia, and Leah was about to correct her, but the woman was walking quickly and she needed to keep up. Suddenly the woman stopped so shortly that Leah almost ran into her. “This is your desk. Here is where the junior reporters sit. You stay here until you’re assigned a beat. Over there is fashion, that’s celebrity gossip, the cluster over there is relationships. Junior reporters help on all the beats.”

Leah nodded and put her purse down. She looked at the different cubicle clusters, there were about four reporters on each beat, plus four junior reporters. That was way more than had been at Club Business.

“Marnie meets with the beat reporters to assign stories,” the woman explained. “If one needs help, they’ll come ask. Get to know the beat reporters because you want them to want to work with you. If you’re not contributing enough, you’re out. You good?”

Again Leah nodded. “What do I do now?” she asked.

“Make yourself useful to the magazine,” the woman said as if that should mean something to Leah. “You’re from Club Business, right? You know how this works.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement, so Leah nodded again and the woman walked away before Leah could even ask who she was or what her position was.

Leah looked at the other junior reporters who were all staring at their computers. All of them were girls, well, women. Another stark difference from when Leah was the only female at Club Business. She sat down and peered around the cubicle wall to the next junior reporter.

“Hi,” she said meekly. When the reporter looked up from her computer, Leah smiled. “Nice to meet you, I’m Leah.” She made sure to emphasize the pronunciation of her name.

“Jill,” she said.

“What are you working on, Jill?”

“A list of 100 ways to upgrade your look in ten seconds or less.”

“That sounds interesting. How many do you have so far?”

“37.”

“Can I help you?”

“No, I got this, thanks.” Jill’s eyes tracked back and forth from her computer screen to Leah and Leah got the hint. She looked to her other side, where another woman was typing away on her computer.

“Hi,” she said again. “I’m Leah. What are you working on?”

“I’m Kay. I’m brainstorming headlines for an article about why scarves are coming back in the fall.”

“How about “knot kidding around about scarves?’” Leah suggested and Kay gave her a blank stare. “Like not kidding, but write it with a k, like the word knot? Like knot a scarf?”

Kay nodded and looked back at her computer. “That’s actually not bad. My favorite so far was ‘How to be a wrap star.’”

“I like that!” Leah said, hoping she was starting to connect with someone. “Can I help you brainstorm more?”

Kay shook her head. “Sorry, this is my assignment.”

Leah nodded and looked back at her black computer screen. She powered on the machine and started reading the news. An hour passed and then another. Every once in a while, a senior reporter came up to the junior reporter cluster and quietly said something to one of the reporters. They’d nod and get back to their screens. Leah kept her head up and smiled at everyone, hoping someone would say something to her. Another hour and then it was noon. She was ready for her lunch break. She may not have done any work, but she had been staring at a computer screen for hours.

None of the other reporters looked like they were taking a break anytime soon. But Leah’s stomach grumbled and so she stood up and looked around the quiet floor. Along the wall, she saw Brittany sitting with a few others. More researchers, Leah guessed. She decided to walk up to Brittany. What good was running with her if she didn’t have a friend here?

“Do you guys go to lunch?” Leah asked Brittany.

“Lunch? This is Teen Club. Pretty much everyone here has some sort of eating complex or body image issue.”

“Doesn’t Teen Club advise about getting through those things?” Leah remembered a recent column about improving self-esteem and loving your body.

Brittany giggled. “Giving advice and using it are totally different. Besides, Marnie doesn’t really like when people take breaks.”

Leah looked at the closed door of Marnie’s office. It hadn’t opened once since the morning. Did she even notice the reporters? Did she notice breaks?

“I’ll meet you after work and give you a rundown of the office, OK?” Brittany said. “Just get back to work.”

Leah nodded and went back to her cubicle. Not that she had any work to get back to. She spent the rest of the day reading every article published by Teen Club, Club Business, and every other Diamond Media publication. When the workday ended, she turned off her computer and left the office.

“Did you make yourself useful?” the woman with the headscarf asked Leah when she reached the doors of the office. Thinking about the headlines Kay was working on, Leah wondered if this woman was setting the fall trend.

Leah pursed her lips afraid to answer either way. “Tomorrow then,” the woman said. Leah said goodbye and waited for Brittany by the elevators.