Little Bee

“Oh. Well, that’s great.”

I looked over my desk. Clarissa’s laptop sat in the center, next to her Kelly bag. My papers had been shunted to the far end.

“We didn’t think you’d be in,” said Clarissa. “You don’t mind me usurping your throne, do you darling?”

I saw the way she had plugged her BlackBerry into my charger.

“No,” I said, “of course not.”

“We thought you’d like us to get a head start on the July issue.”

I was conscious of eyes watching us from all around the office. I smiled.

“Yes that’s great,” I said. “Really. So what have we got so far?”

“For this issue? Wouldn’t you like to sit down first? Let me get you a coffee, you must feel terrible.”

“My husband died, Clarissa. I am still alive. I have a son to look after and a mortgage to pay. I’d just like to get straight back to work.”

Clarissa took a step back.

“Fine,” she said. “Well, we’ve got some great stuff. It’s Henley month, of course, so we’re doing an ironic what-not-to-wear for the regatta, which is a cunning pretext for some pics of gorgeous rowers, bien évidemment. For fashion we’re doing something called ‘Fuck Your Boyfriend’-see what we did there? That’s going to be girls with whips snarling at boys in Duckie Brown, basically. And for the ‘Real Life’ slot there’s two choices. Either we go with this piece called ‘Beauty and the Budget’ about a woman with two ugly daughters and only enough money to pay for cosmetic surgery for one of them. Ugh-yes-I know. Or-my preference-we’ve got a piece called ‘Good Vibrations,’ and I’m telling you, it’s an eye opener. I mean, my god, Sarah, some of the sex toys you can buy online these days, they’re solutions to desires I had no idea existed, god save us all.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the fluorescent lights, the buzzing of fax machines, and the fluid chatter of the editorial girls on their phones to fashion houses. It all seemed suddenly insane, like wearing a little green bikini to an African war. I breathed out slowly, and opened my eyes.

“So which piece do you want to go with?” said Clarissa. “Cosmetic conundrum, or carnal cornucopia?”

I walked over to the window and rolled my forehead against the glass.

“Please don’t do that, Sarah. It makes me nervous when you do that.”

“I’m thinking.”

“I know, darling. That’s why it makes me nervous, because I know what you’re thinking. We have this argument every month. But we have to run the stories people read. You know we do.”

I shrugged. “My son is convinced he will lose all his powers if he takes off his Batman costume.”

“And your point is?”

“That we can be deluded. That we can be mistaken in our beliefs.”

“You think I am?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Clar. About the magazine, I mean. It all seems a bit unreal suddenly.”

“Of course it does, you poor thing. I don’t even know why you came in today. It’s far too early.”

I nodded. “That’s what Lawrence said too.”

“You should listen to him.”

“I do. I’m lucky to have him, I really am. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”

Clarissa came and stood next to me at the window.

“Have you spoken with him much, since Andrew died?”

“He’s at my house,” I said. “He showed up last night.”

“He stayed overnight? He’s married, isn’t he?”

“Don’t be like that. He was a married man before Andrew died.”

Clarissa shivered. “I know. It’s just a bit creepy, that’s all.”

“Is it?”

Clarissa blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Sudden, I suppose I mean.”

“Well it wasn’t my idea, if you must know.”

“In which case I revert to my original choice of word. Creepy.”

Now we both stood with our foreheads against the glass, looking down at the traffic.

“I actually came here to talk about work,” I said after a while.

“Fine.”

“I want us to go back to the kind of article we did while we were making our name. Let’s just, for once, put a real-life feature in the ‘Real Life’ slot. That’s all I’m saying. I won’t let you talk me out of it this time.”

“What, then? What kind of a feature?”

“I want us to do a piece on refugees to the UK. Don’t worry, we can do it in the style of the magazine. We can make it about women refugees if you like.”

Clarissa rolled her eyes.

“And yet something in your tone tells me you’re not talking about women refugees with sex toys.”

I smiled.

“What if I said no?” said Clarissa.

“I don’t know. Technically, I suppose, I could sack you.”

Clarissa thought for a moment.

“Why refugees?” she said. “Is this because you’re still cross we didn’t go with the Baghdad woman in the June issue?”

“I just think it’s an issue that isn’t going to go away. May, June, or anytime soon.”

“Fine,” said Clarissa. Then she said, “Would you really sack me, darling?”

“I don’t know. Would you really say no?”

“I don’t know.”

We stood for a long time. In the street below, an Italian-looking boy was cycling past the traffic queue. Mid-twenties, shirtless and tanned, in short white nylon shorts.

“Five,” said Clarissa.

“Out of ten?”

“Out of five, darling.”