Chapter Text
Andy Sachs stared out of her office window as the rain hammered down across the city. She longed to open a window and breathe in the smell of wet pavement. Fourteen stories up, that was an impossibility and not for the first time recently, she found herself feeling the confines of her office.
A light tap at her door drew her away from grim thoughts and she turned her attention toward the woman quietly opening the door. Radha had worked for them for going on two years now and one look told Andy she wasn’t going to enjoy whatever was about to come out of her mouth.
‘You free for a sec?’ Radha asked, entering the room.
Andy glanced at the manuscript on her screen which had been left untouched for the better part of an hour. ‘That depends entirely on who’s asking,’ she replied, closing her laptop.
Radha approached her desk and sat down. ‘Me, actually.’ The accompanying wince confirmed Andy’s worst suspicions.
‘I had a feeling,’ Andy sighed, pushing her glasses up onto her head and into her pixie cut before leaning back in her chair. ‘So, who’s stealing you away from me?’
Radha looked surprised and then resigned. Andy had been expecting it for a while. The outrageously successful marketing campaign Radha had run for one of their new authors had been bound to catch the attention of someone. And by the look on Radha’s face, it was someone big, with an offer that would be impossible to match.
‘Elias-Clark,’ Radha said after a moment. ‘They approached me last week. I turned them down but they came back, and it’s a lot, Andy.’
Andy couldn’t help the sardonic chuckle that escaped at that. She knew the depths of Elias-Clark’s pockets all too well. ‘Well, I suppose it’s about time you dipped your toes into the shark pool. New York?’
Radha nodded. ‘I told them I would need to work out my notice here, obviously. But with my loans, I just don’t think I can turn them down. I’m so sorr—
Andy held up a hand. ‘Don’t apologize. You have to take care of yourself. If we had a budget the size of Elias-Clark’s then we’d pay you what you’re worth too.’
Radha relaxed back into her chair a little, the tension leaving her face in a whoosh. Andy didn’t think she was a particularly intimidating member of the senior staff, but perhaps she had been a bit off lately. Nothing felt like it fit anymore. Not her clothes, her apartment, her job, or even this city.
‘Do you have someone ready to step in?’ Andy asked, opening her laptop and pulling up the personnel details for the marketing team. There were so many of them now. They were a small house but digital marketing alone was like a twenty-four-hour job. Losing their head of department was going to sting.
‘Yeah, Kimani. She’s been shadowing me for the better part of the last six months.’
Andy pulled up her file and blanched when she read the date of birth. Twenty-six and up for management.
Radha must have caught her look. ‘I know she’s young, but she has the leadership qualities and is a good decision-maker. Give her a shot. Even just as Interim Manager of Digital for the time being, but she deserves a raise regardless.’
Andy raised her brow at that and Radha gave her a wry, albeit, nervous smile in return. ‘Hey, I have to look after my girls, right?’
Andy let a smile creep onto her face and shook her head. Radha’s entire team didn’t have a single competitive streak between them. They worked like a well-oiled unit, lifting each other up, supporting each other, and covering each other’s asses. Sometimes Andy wished she had been born ten years later. Or when money was tight, twenty-five years earlier.
‘Interim Manager. I can probably negotiate to get her a slight raise to reflect her increased responsibilities. After six months, if she’s proven herself, she’ll get the title and the salary to match. Happy?’
Radha beamed. ‘Thanks, Andy,’ she said as she got to her feet.
‘It’s not a free ride. She’s going to have to work. And I’ll need your official letter of resignation by the morning so I can pass it on to Tim.’
‘I’ll get it done,’ she said as she began moving towards the door.
‘Oh, and Radha?’ Andy said, stopping the woman in her tracks. ‘Make the most of this opportunity. Elias-Clark can open doors for you that you can’t even imagine.’
A strange look passed over Radha’s face like she was trying to solve a puzzle and had just been given another piece. ‘I will Andy, and thanks again for understanding.’ She walked out and closed the door behind her.
Alone again, Andy reached over and closed the laptop on Kimani’s beaming young face.
It had been a long time since Andy herself had been that happy. The end of her marriage had left her withdrawn and pensive. Her thoughts too often strayed to the past, to things she had given up in the name of love. She had compromised. Too often, on reflection.
Elias-Clark.
Her short time in the gilded halls of Runway Magazine had been the catalyst for a lot of what came after. She had been so arrogant back then. She had thought her future was guaranteed, that she was destined for greatness and was somehow owed it. She thought she was better, that she could forge a new path where she could keep everything in balance, be better than those who had come before. Miranda Priestly had somehow reinforced those ideas in her mind when she had allowed her to walk free without punishment and straight into a job at the Mirror.
She had worked her ass off at that paper, but the payoff was minimal. Journalism just wasn’t the field it used to be. Headlines were produced for shock value and to entice social media users to click. Bias was rife throughout most publications, and she didn’t have enough of a reputation to step out on her own as a freelancer. After a couple of years in the trenches, she was ground down. Her age had seen her pushed into digital content, but the stories, always short, lacked substance and were forgotten almost as soon as they were read.
She couldn’t see any purpose in what she was doing. She was a good writer, but so were many others, most of whom were willing to sell their soul for the maximum number of page views. She was viewed as an old-fashioned thinker, and when her editor was eventually ousted for refusing to compromise on standards, she couldn’t bring herself to stay.
Feeling lost and adrift, Nate had convinced her that a change of scenery might be good. So she sold her stuff, packed a bag, and moved to Boston.
They were never still after that. Washington came next, and then Chicago as Nate chased promotion after promotion. She followed, and never went back to journalism. She fell into publishing in Boston and that was where she stayed. She kept writing, for herself mainly, and then somewhere along the line she simply stopped.
They had gotten married because it was the logical next step, and it wasn’t until much later that she realised she might have made a mistake.
They had been in Chicago for a year when Nate decided he wanted kids. He was at the peak of his career, and his hours were terrible. She knew what he wanted as soon as he said it; a woman, at home, with a baby. She had recently moved up to Senior Editor, a timely fluke that meant her focus was anywhere but children. As soon as he broached the subject, she felt the walls beginning to close in. It was visceral in a way she hadn’t expected. His brother’s wife had just had her second baby, and, as he pointed out, Andy wasn’t getting younger. They needed to start thinking about it, he said.
Something held her back from saying yes, even if just to appease. Instead, she laughed it off, and in the coming months, put it off. She had plenty of excuses: the increased responsibility in her new job and later the expansion of her role to take on more management tasks.
It took Nate eighteen months to finally confront her, and in that very vivid moment, she admitted to him and to herself that she didn’t want children; couldn’t imagine them, not with him. She still couldn’t say what it was that particular day, but something inside of her knew that to have acquiesced at that moment would have been the final nail in the coffin of her life, and she had finally woken up to protect what little she had left.
Things fell apart quickly after that. She should have felt worse about it, but all she seemed to be able to do was dwell on the past decade and every non-decision she had made. She had a good job, but it didn’t feel right.
She was good at it, but it wasn’t what she wanted and she only had herself to blame.
She turned and looked out of her window which faced directly into another dreary Chicago high-rise.
This city didn’t feel right because she had never liked it in the first place. She turned back and looked at the door Radha had just left through.
New York.
It had been a catalyst for many things. She had allowed herself to be drawn away. Perhaps if she had stayed and fought, things would be different.
She reached for her phone on an impulse and pulled up a familiar contact. ‘Lil, it’s me. Remember that offer you made me after Nate and I split? I was wondering if it was still on the table?’