A Lady Under Siege(40)
“I’ve been very supportive up until now,” Jan protested. “But if you’re going to tell me that after all this, the man of your dreams looks just like your neighbour, well I’m telling you sister, now is the time to rejoice and give thanks that he’s been gift wrapped and delivered almost to your front door.”
“More the back door, actually,” Meghan replied. She began to tell Jan the story of the shattered pane of glass, and had reached the part where she first noticed the sloppy clump of bandages wrapped around Betsy’s finger, when Debra suddenly arrived, sailing into the boardroom without so much as a nod of greeting and setting herself straight to the task of assessing the designs Meghan had laid out on the table top. They were cover designs for a novel called Enemies with Benefits, all variations on an image of two teary women commiserating. In one they were in a swank cafe while handsome men circled like predators, in another they sat cross-legged facing each other on a comfy couch, with a box of tissues between them half-buried in a pile of scrunched-up used ones. Debra wasted no time in giving her opinion.
“This work is not to your usual standard, Meghan.”
“I think it’s true to the book,” Meghan defended herself. “The book is all about women processing, and here we see women processing.” In truth she had barely flipped through her galley copy, she’d relied on the blurb prepared for the catalogue.
“But there’s more to it than that,” Debra said sternly. “We talked about this, I’m certain. I’m sure I told you what I’ve been telling everyone—Bridget Jones was about one woman, Sex and the City was about four, well, this one splits the difference and is about two. Two best friends comparing sex lives—bright, gorgeous young women in their twenties who expect the men they meet to measure up to their high standards, to be their intellectual and emotional equals, and yet they wind up navigating an urban wasteland of eternal adolescents, Game Boy addicts and porn freaks eager to subject them to every bizarre sex act known to man.”
“Like that show Girls?” Jan said.
Debra winced. “Yes. But we can’t say that, we have to differentiate it. We’re expecting this book to be huge, the film rights have already brought six figures. It’s for a new generation of women who think Sarah Jessica Parker is a wrinkled old hag. It’s edgier, more explicit—there are passages of severely kinky sex, enough that men might be tempted to read the thing too. But, Meghan, I see nothing in your designs, nothing here at all, to alert people to that.”
“Maybe she could be stirring a cup of tea with a riding crop,” Meghan suggested, with just a hint of sarcasm.
“You don’t get it,” Debra rebuked her. “These girls don’t drink tea, they chug Red Bull.”
“Do you really think men will wade through pages of women’s chatter for a few bits of kinky sex?” Meghan asked.
“It’s more than a few pages. And we have to let them know. Give them the option.”
“We should change the title, to something that really zeros in on the no-strings-attached sex they’re having,” Jan interjected. “Saying friends with benefits to describe a relationship is something women do. It’s a cute pun, to make the point that they keep ending up having sex with men they don’t even like, but we need a stronger word than benefits. Something funny yet depraved, so men will sit up and pay attention. They love depravity. Any hint of it and men rent the DVD.”
“Then they fast forward through it,” Meghan asserted. “Novels don’t have fast forward.”
“It’s like that website that tells you to the second where the naked bits are in every movie ever made,” Jan added. “Men search that. They memorize it like sports statistics.”
Debra directed their attention back to the design. “Think of it as a movie, because it’s going to be one soon enough,” she intoned. “You’re designing a movie poster to lure men as well as women to the local Cineplex.”
“Think kink,” Meghan said.
“Exactly. A Helmut Newton kind of thing, only more contemporary, realistic but influenced by computer animation. And I need it by Thursday.”
She turned on her heels and left the room, taking all the tension with her. Jan and Meghan exchanged looks of relief. Then Meghan sighed deeply. “She told me I’m slipping,” she worried. “First time for that.”
“She’s stressed. Everyone is. She has no more clue than we do what they’re plotting upstairs. The whole imprint could be shut down tomorrow, and she’d be on the street with the rest of us. We’re still young and adaptable enough to land on our feet, but she’s fifty-six, divorced, and higher up in the food chain, where chances of a lateral move are slim to none right now.”