I Hate Everyone, Except You(7)

“What is this magazine?” I asked.

“Marie Claire. I like it.”

“It is literally the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I need to work there.”

“Uh. OK,” she said.

“Do you mind if I rip out the masthead?”

“Take the whole thing if you want.”

“That’s OK. I don’t want to be seen carrying this rag around.” I tore the masthead containing all the editors’ names and the address of the Hearst offices, folded it, and put it into my pocket.

We drank wine and talked about men and our careers and the television shows we should write, like the one about the gay guy and the straight girl who are best friends living in New York City who have some wacky neighbors and go on crazy dates. “There’s nothing like it on TV!” When Will & Grace premiered the next year, Jennifer was convinced NBC had bugged her apartment.

When I returned home, I drafted a letter to the editor-in-chief, Glenda Bailey. Glenda. Glenda. The name floated through my mind like an incantation. Glennnndah. Glennnndah. I had never met a Glenda before, though I had driven through Glendale once on the way to Disneyland. How exotic Glenda seemed. She would be the woman to change my life, I decided, and so I mentally grouped her with other G names that positively influenced me, like Glinda the Good Witch of the North and Glen the First Guy I Ever Made Out With.

Dear Ms. Bailey,

I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I don’t even know anyone who knows you, but I want to be an editor at Marie Claire.

I’d like to meet with you, and to make it worth your while I will come to our meeting with 100 original story ideas for your magazine.

My résumé is attached.

Thank you for your time,

Clinton Kelly

Two weeks after mailing it, I received a call.

“Can I speak to Ms. Kelly?” asked the woman on the other end of the line.

“This is Mr. Kelly.”

“Oh, you’re a man.”

“Mostly.”

“Glenda Bailey of Marie Claire asked me to call you. She’d like you to come in for a meeting tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked. I had been planning on doing my laundry.

“Yes. Can you do first thing in the morning? She’s quite busy.”

“Sure. What time is first thing?”

“Eight thirty.”

“OK. I’ll be there.”

I hung up the phone and walked three blocks to Bloomingdale’s to buy something to wear. I couldn’t meet Glenda in Banana Republic khakis and a polo shirt. A meeting with Glennnndah required something dressier, perhaps an Elizabethan neck ruff. But I settled on a black suit and lavender shirt, which together cost $800, a virtual drop in the bucket compared to my $45,000 credit-card and student-loan debt.

On the way home reality hit me: I had to come up with one hundred story ideas by the morning. A couple of headlines had been floating around my brain in the two weeks I had been waiting for a response: “What Makes Me Different Makes Me Beautiful,” an article showcasing women who had features they might have hated at one point in their lives but learned to love, like unruly hair, lots of freckles, or a gap-toothed smile; “48-Hour Closet Swap,” for which two women with polar-opposite styles would trade wardrobes for two days and report how differently strangers, mostly men, treated them.

I’ve never been especially good at math, but even I knew that two stories out of one hundred made me exactly 2 percent ready for the next day’s first-thing meeting. Crap. I bought two bottles of Sancerre, which I also could not afford, and invited Jennifer over for a brainstorming session. Luckily, she was free.

By the time Jen arrived, another bottle of Sancerre in hand, I had about fifty semisolid ideas. And over the next few hours we came up with another twenty-five—mostly stories about dating and sex—until we hit a point of diminishing returns. Neither of us had eaten dinner, and we were getting pretty drunk.

“You know what I’d like to read?” Jennifer asked. “A story about a chubby girl with a mole on her chin who had the mole removed and lost the weight and grew up to be a beautiful commercial actress and television host.”

“That’s amazing,” I replied. “But do you know anyone I could interview for that?”

“Hey! That’s my story!”

“Oh, right. I had forgotten you had that mole,” I lied. “I’ll write the headline down and see if they go for it. How do you feel about: ‘How My Mole Made Me Whole’?”

“That sounds like there’s a mole near my hole,” she said.

“Not if you read it. See?” I showed her the computer monitor. “It’s whole. Spelled with a w.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“How about ‘Wholly Moley’?” I asked.

“Forget about the mole,” she said. “The mole is irrelevant.”

“So what you’re telling me is . . . this is a story about moles and the women who love them.”

“That is not even close to what I am telling you.”

“Jennifer, you are an ideas machine,” I said. “I am going to propose a series of first-person stories about women who have used their skin conditions to their romantic advantage. ‘He Loves Me Warts and All, Like Literally.’?”