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Authors: Fiona Gibson
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putrefying laundry but are ready to greet the working world with open arms, to grasp it by—
Heck, what am I thinking, assuming I know the first thing about this stranger’s life? I check the name: Searching for Something, Milton Whippet. I have never heard of Milton Whippet, yet I feel as if I
do
know her, because she could be me. And I suspect that she’s having a pretty crappy Friday night too.
She might even be stuck in the kitchen watching dandruff float by.
Would it really be so difficult to respond to letters like hers? Maybe I’d even enjoy it. Perhaps – my heart quickens at this – it’s the ‘something’ I’ve been looking for. To be Harriet Pike. No, not Harriet. Me. Caitlin Brown, as I was before I married Martin and became Mrs Collins and kind of
withered up
.
My gaze rests on her name. Searching for Something.
I think I might have just found it.
6
‘I knew you’d change your mind,’ Millie declares in the glass cubicle that separates her from her lowly staff. ‘Don’t worry about Harriet and how popular she was,’ she adds, ‘doing all the radio interviews and talk shows and stuff.’
‘Talk shows?’ I repeat.
Millie flips back her hair. ‘She’s quite a celeb, you know. A childcare guru with her books and DVDs and that slot she had on breakfast TV.’
Fuck. Bollocks. I haven’t watched breakfast TV for years. ‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ I ask.
She grins reassuringly. ‘All I want is for you to cover for her until she’s better, OK? You’ll be great.’
I gulp down a kernel of self-doubt. ‘So how d’you want it?’
‘Short. Snappy. Don’t blather on too much.’
Words aren’t really Millie’s thing. She prefers to swoon over fashion shoots and check that her ‘team’, as she calls them, are including enough luxury baby socks fashioned from eyelash of yak.
‘I mean,’ I try again, ‘d’you want me to be sympathetic and caring or, um …’ I want to say ‘shoots-from-the-hip-ish’, like Pike, but can’t bear to.
‘Just be yourself. Draw on your life experiences. Make sure there’s a nice mix of problems – an affair maybe, some emotional trauma, some practical stuff, potential suicide perhaps …’ She guffaws. ‘Honestly, Cait, it’ll be a walk in the park. I only need five letters a week.’
I try to exude confidence, but my gaze drops to Millie’s desk. It’s not how you’d expect a glossy magazine editor’s desk to be – i.e . bearing only a vase of cream lilies and a front-row ticket for a Dolce and Gabbana show. Millie’s is a jumble of rival magazines, the nicotine pellets she sucks manically to help her quit cigs and a half-eaten bagel with a curl of salmon lolling out like a tongue.
‘So what do I do?’ I ask.
‘It’s really easy. Just choose problems from the letters and emails that come in. Harriet gets about a hundred a week so there’s no shortage of angst out there.’
‘Really? I can’t answer all of those, Millie. I’d be up all night …’
‘You don’t have to answer them all, dimwit! There’s a line on the page that says, “We’re sorry, but Harriet cannot reply to letters personally.” Were you thinking you’d have to visit them personally? Let them cry on your shoulder? Take them all on holiday with you?’
‘No, but—’
‘No one expects you to be their
friend
.’
A girl with tumbling auburn curls pokes her head into Millie’s office. ‘D’you have a minute, Millie? Just wondered if you could settle something with the cover.’
Millie swoops up from her chair. ‘Won’t be a minute, Cait …’
Though the glass walls I have an excellent view of the comings and goings of Britain’s weekly parenting bible. When I’d inhabited the real, working world, rather than the fish-finger-grilling world, I’d had short stints on parenting magazines. Their offices had been chaotic and overcrowded, as magazine offices tend to be, with raggedy posters stuck up haphazardly on every
Heck, what am I thinking, assuming I know the first thing about this stranger’s life? I check the name: Searching for Something, Milton Whippet. I have never heard of Milton Whippet, yet I feel as if I
do
know her, because she could be me. And I suspect that she’s having a pretty crappy Friday night too.
She might even be stuck in the kitchen watching dandruff float by.
Would it really be so difficult to respond to letters like hers? Maybe I’d even enjoy it. Perhaps – my heart quickens at this – it’s the ‘something’ I’ve been looking for. To be Harriet Pike. No, not Harriet. Me. Caitlin Brown, as I was before I married Martin and became Mrs Collins and kind of
withered up
.
My gaze rests on her name. Searching for Something.
I think I might have just found it.
6
‘I knew you’d change your mind,’ Millie declares in the glass cubicle that separates her from her lowly staff. ‘Don’t worry about Harriet and how popular she was,’ she adds, ‘doing all the radio interviews and talk shows and stuff.’
‘Talk shows?’ I repeat.
Millie flips back her hair. ‘She’s quite a celeb, you know. A childcare guru with her books and DVDs and that slot she had on breakfast TV.’
Fuck. Bollocks. I haven’t watched breakfast TV for years. ‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ I ask.
She grins reassuringly. ‘All I want is for you to cover for her until she’s better, OK? You’ll be great.’
I gulp down a kernel of self-doubt. ‘So how d’you want it?’
‘Short. Snappy. Don’t blather on too much.’
Words aren’t really Millie’s thing. She prefers to swoon over fashion shoots and check that her ‘team’, as she calls them, are including enough luxury baby socks fashioned from eyelash of yak.
‘I mean,’ I try again, ‘d’you want me to be sympathetic and caring or, um …’ I want to say ‘shoots-from-the-hip-ish’, like Pike, but can’t bear to.
‘Just be yourself. Draw on your life experiences. Make sure there’s a nice mix of problems – an affair maybe, some emotional trauma, some practical stuff, potential suicide perhaps …’ She guffaws. ‘Honestly, Cait, it’ll be a walk in the park. I only need five letters a week.’
I try to exude confidence, but my gaze drops to Millie’s desk. It’s not how you’d expect a glossy magazine editor’s desk to be – i.e . bearing only a vase of cream lilies and a front-row ticket for a Dolce and Gabbana show. Millie’s is a jumble of rival magazines, the nicotine pellets she sucks manically to help her quit cigs and a half-eaten bagel with a curl of salmon lolling out like a tongue.
‘So what do I do?’ I ask.
‘It’s really easy. Just choose problems from the letters and emails that come in. Harriet gets about a hundred a week so there’s no shortage of angst out there.’
‘Really? I can’t answer all of those, Millie. I’d be up all night …’
‘You don’t have to answer them all, dimwit! There’s a line on the page that says, “We’re sorry, but Harriet cannot reply to letters personally.” Were you thinking you’d have to visit them personally? Let them cry on your shoulder? Take them all on holiday with you?’
‘No, but—’
‘No one expects you to be their
friend
.’
A girl with tumbling auburn curls pokes her head into Millie’s office. ‘D’you have a minute, Millie? Just wondered if you could settle something with the cover.’
Millie swoops up from her chair. ‘Won’t be a minute, Cait …’
Though the glass walls I have an excellent view of the comings and goings of Britain’s weekly parenting bible. When I’d inhabited the real, working world, rather than the fish-finger-grilling world, I’d had short stints on parenting magazines. Their offices had been chaotic and overcrowded, as magazine offices tend to be, with raggedy posters stuck up haphazardly on every
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