Thread: Four Letters (Ariamella and Dane Stalling)

Walker flashed the half-grin back at her. She hadn't so much as blinked at the assignments. Not only that, she was already working on a plan of attack. He was impressed. He realized that she wasn't going to bolt and she wasn't going to bitch. She was going to try to knock the ball out of the park and that changed things for her, for him, for the whole damn magazine. I have a particular luxury, Ms. Demmings, he said, standing up and walking over to the window that looked down on South Grand. I am my own demographic. You'd be surprised how many editors in chief are making magazines that aren't their cup of tea. Our audience is me, men who want the same things I want, who see the world more or less like I do. It makes editorial decisions easy except for one thing. I also like to be surprised. Our readers like to be surprised. I could write those opinion pieces myself if I just wanted information in the magazine. Hell, I could have Hank write them. He wrote them for the first three issues before we could afford to hire a woman to do them for us. You have an extremely important piece of anatomy that I don't have. You have a brain that isn't mine, and based on your file, it's an excellent one. I can't tell you specifically how to approach those columns. I want you to surprise me, but I can tell you what will blow the lid off of the column, not just for Alpha, but for the entire men's magazine industry- Vulnerability. If you expose yourself in those words, honestly, pulling no punches, it would be absolutely revolutionary. He went to a cabinet that had a small refrigerator and took out two chilled bottles of water. He handed one to Marisa and cracked the other one and took a sip. He sat in his chair and pointed his chin toward the main office. The writing staff is excellent here, but we write about other people. Every opinion is safely at one remove from the writer. Every emotion is someone else's. Even the cheesecake photos, as high class as they are, are not real. Models are just as much actors as our writing staff, and then we Photoshop them to make them even less real. You could write the column like that, starting with 'Every woman is different, but on balance, they'll tell you...' and blah blah blah. The sad thing is that it would work. You could make it a compelling piece just like that. But if you write the piece naked- emotionally naked- two things will happen. You will jump our subscriptions by four, maybe five percent, and you will earn exclusive bragging rights for having the biggest balls in the office. Walker grinned crookedly. Maybe that's not what you're looking for, but there's a treasure trove of information right outside these doors. That staff out there will help you get anything you need once you have their respect, and I mean anything . He was handing her the keys to the kingdom, and he wasn't sure why. She was hot, but this was Alpha. Hot was everywhere and Walker got more than his fair share of card keys for hotel rooms slipped into his mailbox, or even his car when he left the windows cracked. If you were trying to sleep your way to the top, well, he was the top. But that game didn't appeal any more. Not for a long time. He had Andrea return the card keys to the hotels along with a few complimentary copies of the current edition for their lobbies. His instinct told him that Marisa understood the goal of the magazine at some subsurface level. While the gossip mags admired his singular vision, he knew that was exactly what he didn't need. Too many publications had become ingrown failures because of singular vision. He needed to cultivate diversity, but diversity with the understood goal of making the magazine great. Walker buzzed Hank and leaned over his desk toward Marisa, his voice low. Don't tell me what you're doing. I want to see it for the first time in the proofs. I want to be surprised. I'll know things are on track if I see Hank sweating bullets, trying to run things by me. Understand? The door opened and Hank stepped in. He saw Marisa and straightened his tie. Hank, this is Marisa Demmings, she's taking Claudette's place on Women and Sex. Can you get her set up with a desk and a laptop? Oh- and tell her about how the Red Paper Source works. I think she's going to need it. Sure thing. Should I get a headshot of her for the byline? Walker shrugged. It's her column. Ask her. He smiled at Marisa and almost winked. Really? Hank looked at Marisa and back at Walker like he'd lost his mind. I mean, sure thing, Walk. Whatever you say. Hank waved for Marisa to follow him. The noise level jumped as they entered the open space of the main office. A dozen telephone conversations were going on at once, and several clusters of people were deep in conversation. The IT girls have Macs, PCs, and Linux laptops in the inventory. He pointed at an empty desk in the corner next to a floor to ceiling window that looked out on the high rises surrounding the building. That one's yours unless you're scared of heights.