The Other Black Girl(12)
The irony of this comment coming from a girl with such a convenient exit strategy was not lost upon Nella. But, like all of the other people under the age of thirty-five who eventually left Wagner for similar reasons, Erin had a point. The pay was shit, and it would be shit for the next five years at least, depending on how close you could get to the Richard Wagner in that time. If you were able to snag his attention, you were set for the rest of your publishing career, but if you couldn’t—if you weren’t a legacy hire, like Bridget, or if you worked for someone he wasn’t particularly keen on—you were pretty much screwed. You could work at Wagner as long as you wanted, but you were still going to make twentysomething an hour.
Nella traced a finger down the second page of Maisy’s assistant packet, careful to avoid the large grease stain in the top right corner. She wondered which of Maisy’s assistants had left that mark—definitely not Yang, who never ate anything at her desk except green grapes and red pears, and not Emily, whom Nella had never seen eat anything at all. Heather, the one who’d just graduated from King’s College London and was always quick to drop a “bloody” here and a “loo” there, had hardly been at Wagner long enough to get her name on her cube. Nella supposed the perpetrator had been Erin herself. All those bags of Lay’s. All that noisy crunching.
“It says here in Maisy’s master packet that Simpson usually takes at least a week longer than he’s given to get his edits back,” Nella read, “and it looks like he’s three weeks late. Do you see anything in your inbox from him?”
Hazel scrolled through her emails, tapping her long, French-manicured thumbnail on the mouse as she went along. “Nope, nothing.”
“Alright. Well, what you’re going to do is tell Dee that Maisy will have a chat with Simpson. And then you’re going to write to Simpson yourself. Introduce yourself, gush about his last book on cumulus clouds, and then in the last line mention that you think—never say anything like it’s fact—that he might be…” Nella scanned the packet once more. “A week or so late.”
“He’s three weeks late, though.”
“Right. But it’ll be better if you pretend he isn’t. Good to tread lightly when you first start working here; then, over time, you can ramp it up. Once he likes you.”
“But wouldn’t it make more sense to just… I don’t know… start out by telling Simpson how late he actually is? Hold him accountable? He’s a grown man.”
That’s debatable, Nella thought. “Maybe it would. But this is just how it’s always been done.”
“Alright,” said Hazel, although she still sounded doubtful. She craned her neck to get her own look at the master packet. “And all of that is in there?”
The gracious smile Nella had plastered on her face for this how-to demonstration was starting to feel like work. She hadn’t asked this many questions when she took over for Katie, had she? “No, it’s not all in there. Well, just the bit about his cloud series, and about using kid gloves on him. A few years back, someone got sick of figuring out which types Maisy’s authors were, so whoever that was compiled an entire spreadsheet of quirks, which are in the back. Here.” Nella handed over the packet.
Hazel accepted it uncertainly, her perfectly arched eyebrow raised at a perfectly alarmed angle. “This looks like it should really be laminated. And alphabetized.”
Nella sucked some air through her teeth on her way back to her desk. “Yeah, well. You’re not wrong about that.”
“Mm-hmm.” They sat in silence for a moment as Hazel took in the pages. “Hey, girl—thanks for this.”
“No problem. I’m here if anything else comes up.” A sudden email on Nella’s screen distracted her from saying anything else. Can you print the very best reviews for Colin’s last three books? Vera asked. I’ve got a phone call with his agent in thirty.
“That’s really great of you,” said Hazel, who had turned her chair to face Nella. “I’m so glad I have you here.”
“Hey, it’s nothing.” Nella tried to put on her best smile again, but the thought of spending the rest of the afternoon compiling praise for Colin Franklin made it difficult.
“You’ll let me know if I’m too extra with my questions—right?”
“Please, don’t worry about it. Another assistant trained me. It’s the Circle of Life. That’s how assistants operate. On goodwill.”
Hazel flipped through the packet, humming at different pointers, shaking her head at others. “You’ve helped a lot of Maisy’s assistants, I’m guessing.”
“At least four since I started here two years ago. Maybe more.”
“Wow.” Hazel lowered the packet at the same time she lowered her voice so she had a clear view of Nella’s face. “That’s a lot of turnover. Is there anything I should know about Maisy? Or anything about Wagner in general?”
Nella considered this. Assistants were supposed to pass on the gossip to a new assistant, but the general consensus was to let her believe, at least for the first few weeks, that her boss was a fairly normal human being. Wagner was the hardest publishing house to get into. Every interviewee—Nella included—underwent four back-to-back interviews with various higher-ups, the last one culminating in a high-intensity tea with the editor in chief and founder of Wagner Books himself. The last thing any new hire wanted to hear after finally climbing over these esteemed walls was that an insane boss had been waiting on the other side.