The Knockoff (26 page)

Aerin chewed thoughtfully on a macaron. “Designers used to be these mythical people. Who was Coco Chanel? I don’t really know what she was like. Until a few years ago people didn’t really know who Karl Lagerfeld was when he went home at night. And now he is on Instagram posting pictures of his cat and you have Prabal on there posting pictures of himself at the gym and what he is doing on vacation. People don’t want myths anymore. They want to buy products from real people and I think social media helps these mythical figures become real people,” the younger woman replied, just as an attractive man in a bright green checked shirt walked in with two trays filled with salads, veggies and lemonade.

“Chuck, this is Imogen Tate.”

“Hi, Imogen.” Chuck smiled at her.

“Chuck is one of our data scientists…and an impromptu chopped salad deliverer.”

“So pleased to meet you, Chuck. I have no idea what a data scientist does,” Imogen said with complete honesty.

“Some days I don’t either.”

They laughed easily.

“Chuck is a statistics guru is what he is. Do you want to join us?” Aerin asked him with a genuine sincerity.

He shook his head. “Too much work to do. But I’ll catch you guys later. Bye, Imogen.” He winked.

“He is so sweet.”

“And really good at his job,” Aerin said, pulling a plate of salad onto her lap. “Do you mind that we are just eating here, picnic style? I’m sure you’re used to really fancy lunches.”

“I’ve been having a lot less fancy lunches lately. This is nice.”

Both women chewed for a moment.

“I meant it when I said I really just wanted to meet you in person,” Aerin said after she swallowed a few bits of kale. “I’ve loved
Glossy
since I was a kid.”

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Imogen said.

“I saw the email that Leslie Dawkins sent to Eve,” Aerin said. She’d been having such a pleasant time, it took Imogen a minute to remember both Leslie Dawkins’s name and the letter.

“How? She sent it about twenty minutes before I got here.”

“It was up on TechBlab five minutes before you walked in. I’m not going to ask you about it or what it is like to work there right now. I can imagine. I know women like Eve. But I also know a lot of young people in this industry who aren’t a damn thing like her who would die to get to work with someone like you.”

Imogen sighed. “I have a pretty steep learning curve with tech.” She thought a second before she added her dirty little secret. “I’ve become a regular at the Apple Genius Bar.”

Aerin’s smile was warm. “Then you would love our Shoppit ‘Walk Up Windows.’ We have help bars right here. You can walk up to them any time of day or night and they’ll help you with pretty much anything technology related.”

The woman took a second to scoop a bit of salad into her mouth. “You know this is new to pretty much everyone. Ten years ago none of this existed. Five years ago ninety percent of it didn’t exist. A lot of what we are working with right now in tech just happened five minutes ago. New industries appear and disappear at a dizzying rate. We’re all adapting every single day.”

Imogen had never thought about it like that; she’d been too focused on her own pity party about how left behind she felt.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Aerin lowered her voice and Imogen nodded. “Humans built the Internet but they don’t really understand it. Even I didn’t really believe this whole tech thing was going to take off. My parents thought I was crazy. Why didn’t I go into banking or, better yet, go to law school? Why didn’t I get a job at a magazine, one like yours? In the beginning, when I was jumping from start-up
to start-up, I still had no idea any of this would work out. I took the LSAT and the GMAT and the MCAT and planned an exit strategy every single year. I only stopped doing that two years ago. I know this is here to stay and I feel good about what I am doing.”

Imogen smiled and grabbed another macaron. She felt good here with Aerin.

That good feeling began to dissipate when Aerin asked: “What don’t you like about your site?”

She wanted to trust this girl. Aerin Chang’s question rang sincere. She had none of Eve’s naked ambition—at least, she didn’t wear it the same way that Eve did. She was smart, but not calculating.

Before she knew what she was doing, Imogen let loose everything that drove her insane about the
Glossy
website: the mistakes, the juvenile content, the obsession with traffic, the way photos and videos were thrown into stories like an afterthought, the cheap design, her inability to do photo shoots that made the clothes leap off the screen.

Aerin nodded, never taking her eyes off Imogen to check her phone or to signal to an assistant. She just listened.

When she finished, Imogen felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Aerin said, “You have to love a brand a lot to give it the right refresh. I just think Glossy.com could be so much better. I think that the idea of blending commerce and editorial online is brilliant. I think it can be done in really smart and gorgeous ways. I don’t know if Glossy.com has done that.” She paused again. “Let me know if I am overstepping with my criticism.”

Imogen gave her head a small shake.

“I would be lying if I didn’t admit to having it in the back of my head that maybe we could find some way to work together.”

“How do you mean?”

Aerin moved her plate back to the low table between the chairs and leaned over, putting her elbows on top of her knees.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe a partnership. Maybe something more. I know Shoppit is lacking a clear editorial direction. We need creative eyes. We need to work with more people who know fashion, who
love fashion. I’m just not sure what a position would look like yet. I think maybe this is my way of asking whether you would ever even consider leaving
Glossy
.”

Could she know that Imogen considered leaving
Glossy
at least twice a day—once when she woke up in the morning and once when she went to bed at night?

“I am going to be blunt,” Aerin continued. “Would you ever consider coming to work somewhere like Shoppit? Probably not, right? You must think we’re all a bunch of nerds.”

Aerin must have sensed that Imogen didn’t know what to say. “You don’t need to answer me now. I just wanted to plant the seed in your head.”

There was a part of Imogen that wanted to jump up and scream,
Yes! Take me away from the hell I am stuck in every day!
Then there was the part of her who, despite everything that had gone on, was protective of her magazine and wanted to see it through, couldn’t abandon her loyalty to
Glossy
.

“I appreciate your offer so much. I know it must seem like things are dire over at
Glossy
from that email, but it isn’t all that bad. I love my magazine.” Imogen hoped she wasn’t letting too much emotion creep into her voice. “I want to see it do well, even if that means it lives online. I need to stick with it for now, if that makes sense, but I cannot tell you how flattered I am.” Imogen thought about Molly. Maybe there was a place at Shoppit for Molly? She thought about the brontosaurus toy on Eve’s desk. “Seriously, I know that there aren’t a lot of people like you looking for people like me and I want us to be friends and keep talking, if that’s possible.”

“That’s exactly what I want too. Now, will you help me finish these macarons?” Aerin paused. “I should also let you know, since you haven’t been online since you got here, that another email leaked to TechBlab besides Leslie’s.”

Imogen froze. Was it something she had written?

Aerin stood and grabbed a slick black iPad off her desk. She typed in a web address. It was an email that Eve had sent to one of the Bangladeshi assistants from the outsourcing company Zourced.

From: Eve Morton ([email protected])

To: Rupa Chary ([email protected])

Dear Rupa,

How is my favorite Bangladeshi assistant? Can you put all of the wedding guests into a spreadsheet organized by their dress size? Most of the girls I invited to the wedding will be a size two or four. They will look good in pictures.

We have made one exception for a size six. Her husband is a very well-known television broadcaster. I think she has a gluten allergy, so it really isn’t her fault.

I am also inviting the Gray Hair, my old boss Imogen, and we need to keep her out of the way at the wedding, so please make sure to send me her seating assignment as soon as that is ready.

One last thing. Could you send an email out to all of the women reminding them that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE can they wear black to the wedding. I need this day to POP!

I hope it isn’t too hot over there!

E.

Imogen’s hand fluttered to her hair.

“She thinks I’m ancient,” Imogen said.

“It isn’t about your hair,” Aerin replied without missing a beat. Imogen had forgotten she was being watched.

“ ‘Gray Hair’ is like a title. It’s a noun. Tech investors use it. Any good VC worth their salt…” Aerin slowed down. “Any good venture capitalist worth their salt won’t just fund a bunch of kids or a kid with a good tech idea. Kids have a million ideas a day. The investors make them bring in a ‘Gray Hair,’ someone with a history in whatever industry they are in who can keep the kids in line. You might be the Gray Hair for
Glossy
.” Aerin looked at her apologetically. Imogen was partially relieved that the nickname had nothing to do with a poor dye job.

“Do you have Gray Hairs here at Shoppit?” she asked.

At that Aerin laughed. “We have purple hairs. Our investors are so conservative that we have a whole squadron of industry vets here. If you came to us you would be considered a toddler.”

That brought a small smile back to Imogen’s face.

“Who leaks all this stuff to TechBlab anyway?”

“Everyone. I never put anything on email anymore unless I pause for a second and think about whether I want the president of the United States to read it…or my dad.”

Imogen sighed.

“That is no way to live.”

“But it keeps us honest.” Aerin reached out her hand to shake Imogen’s. “We’ll meet again?” Imogen grasped her hand back. Her palm was soft and the handshake firm, but not aggressive.

“We will. And in the meantime we still have Instagram.”

“That we do,” Aerin replied. “That we do.”

Imogen felt energized walking back to the office. Aerin Chang wanted to work with her! She may be a Gray Hair, but still, someone as young and hip as Aerin, at a company like Shoppit, thought she had potential in tech. She was halfway down the block when she realized she hadn’t returned her slick little navigator. She rubbed her thumb across it before dropping it in her bag to keep as a souvenir.

After the kids were sleeping in their beds that night, Imogen ran through the myriad emails she missed during the day.

The Hobbs photo shoot was all set with a seven a.m. call time at the Four Seasons in the morning.

Ashley helped her produce the shoot with six models, including Coco Rocha, Carolyn Murphy and Hilary Rhoda. She had also asked Rashid to help her choose four up-and-coming women in the tech industry, young founders and CEOs, to use as real-person models. The designers were all classic American names ranging from Michael Kors to Marc Jacobs to Lucia to Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. When the shoot was finished all of the photographs would be translated to the BUY IT NOW paradigm, but Imogen loved the concept of the shoot so much that that didn’t even bother her. She was eager to capture the
young power CEOs wearing fashion-forward techie accessories like Google Glass and bags with Bluetooth technology and sensory mood jewelry while working on their tablets. They’d have GoPros mounted on their purses during the entire shoot. That was Ashley’s idea. They’d use that video for behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot. What Eve had said about taking pictures with an iPhone had stuck in Imogen’s head through the night until finally it clicked—Alice
could
do the shoot with an iPhone. Why not take this creative, free application, Instagram, and add the exquisite eye of Alice to tell this story. She’d heard through the grapevine that Mario Testino was considering a shoot like this for
Número
. It was a way to be creative and cheap.

Convinced that the photo shoot actually might go her way, Imogen allowed herself to log on to the TECHBITCH Facebook page. It was becoming a guilty pleasure and she tried not to visit every single day, but the comments made her laugh so hard.

My boss asked that no one look him directly in the eye.

My supervisor emails me nonstop through the weekend, starting at 6 am on Saturday.

I’ve ordered dinner on Seamless at the office every night for 45 straight days.

I signed up for Codecademy! Who’s the techbitch now!

Within minutes there were three responses to that post.

You go girl!

I am doing it and it’s awesome. Learning JavaScript now! I am like a JavaScript ninja.

It will change your life.

Love it.

Imogen yawned. She could stay up for only five more minutes tops. She typed in “www.codecademy.com.” She had expected a lot of fancy bells and whistles, but the site was unassuming and simple.

“Learn to code interactively for free. People all over the world are using Codecademy.” There was an option to build projects, join a community or show off your profile to others. It wasn’t nearly as frightening as Imogen had imagined. She clicked the button to sign up, entering her first and last names, her email (Gmail!) and a password. She always used the same password, which she also knew was the epitome of foolishness in the age of identity theft. It was Johnny-Annabel1234. She made a mental note to change it one of these days. The next screen gave her the option to sign up for her first course, HTML & CSS, abbreviations that had no immediate association in Imogen’s brain. She allowed her thoughts to wander for a moment on what they could possibly mean. Haute Taupe Milled Leather, Cerulean Summer Sandals…Imogen giggled at her silliness, yawned and decided she would learn what they really meant tomorrow or perhaps later in the week.