Authors: Melanie Jacobson
“We’re calling that strategy? I thought it was plain old sneakiness.”
“It’s all in the eye of the beholder,” I said. “And behold, you got whupped.”
He stomped off toward the kitchen to inhale some food, and I eyeballed my mom. “Aren’t you supposed to lecture me about acting my age?”
“Nah. It’s good to see you having some fun.”
“Have I been that difficult?” I picked some carpet threads off my jeans and waited for her answer.
“Yes,” she said. “But I knew you’d snap out of it eventually.”
“Sometimes I think I’m just going to snap—period,” I confessed.
She gathered me in a hug. “Your dad told me, but we’re not worried. We know you’ll find your way.”
I stepped out of the hug after a hard squeeze back. “Thanks, Mom. And now I need to finish revising my résumé. Do me a favor and don’t ask Ginger to ‘help’ me with anything else.” I smiled so she would know I wasn’t mad. It was sad that for months, my family’d had reason to assume that peevish was my default setting.
“You got it,” she said, and I headed back into the office to work on phase two of becoming a real, live journalist.
Dear Ellie,
It was great to meet you in person. Anna Mayers has nothing but great things to say about you, and I’m so glad she suggested that I contact you. I know I don’t have a ton of experience, but I believe I have talent, and I know I have the drive to work hard. I’m blown away by what Real Salt Lake is doing, and the more I think about it, the more sure I am that I want to be a part of the team.
Thank you for taking the time to interview me. I look forward to getting started.
Sincerely,
Pepper Spicer
Chapter 4
Ginger poked her head around my door, and I threw a slipper at her. It bounced off the wall two feet away from her, and she stayed where she was, unperturbed. “Let me see,” she begged.
“No. Your
help
is not so helpful.”
“Not fair,” she said. “Those shoes would have been fine if the train wouldn’t have broken down. Blame Trax.”
“Your résumé coaching was a disaster too,” I reminded her. “And if I could find a reason to blame you for the snag in my tights, I would.”
“Come on,” she wheedled. “I won’t comment. I just want to see what you’re thinking about wearing tomorrow.”
Knowing she wouldn’t give up, I sighed and waved her in. She stood next to me and stared at the outfits laid out on my bed in anticipation of my interview with Ellie Peters the next day. She kept her word not to say anything, but I could tell she was about to choke with the effort. I ignored her for another minute or two while I debated between a black suit I found on the Target clearance rack for forty dollars and an outfit I had pulled from my closet. It was definitely funkier with skinny black pants, a soft gray tunic shirt, and a wide black belt. Ginger mumbled behind closed lips.
“Are you trying to say something?” I asked politely.
“I promised not to comment,” she said, her face slightly pink from the effort of restraining herself.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “I know you want me to pick the suit.”
“No, I don’t.” She looked pleased to have surprised me. “I checked out
Real Salt Lake
online, and I think wearing something more hip would work better. Wear the belt outfit.”
“For real?” I was touched that she had bothered to check out the magazine.
“Yeah. It’s got a young, urban feel. I bet it’s not a suit kind of place,” she said. “I’ll give you my Steve Madden slides if you see anyone wearing a suit in there.”
“Like I would want them,” I said. “They won’t fit.”
“Your loss,” she said with a grin. “But you should definitely go hipster. If anything, you might want to switch the shirt out for something bright. I bet their office is going to be one of those rule-breaking, creative-type places where people show up in ironic T-shirts.”
“Go away now. I need to make a final decision on what to wear, and then I need to sit and think about the interview.” Tanner Graham said I had a lot to learn, but I learn quickly. I would definitely be more prepared for this interview. I’d spent a lot of time researching the
Real Salt Lake
website, and I liked what I’d seen. It was designed for young, aspiring urbanites who wanted the big city experience, offering articles on all the cool places to eat, shop, and play. It had a youthful but sophisticated vibe, kind of like a weekly indie tabloid that grew up a few years and shaved off its pretentious goatee. If I didn’t know Salt Lake from growing up forty miles south of it, I would look at
Real Salt Lake
and think the city fell a few points short of being Manhattan; the website’s production was that slick. If this was all an outgrowth of Ellie’s vision, then she definitely knew what she was doing.
Ellie had been expecting my phone call a few days before, thanks to Mrs. Mayers. Ellie explained that they were still a very small operation but that she had some possibilities to discuss with me. My meeting with her tomorrow had been the only thing that had kept me slogging through another week at Handy’s. I clung to the hope that I would soon be able to shake sandwich purgatory forever.
After Ginger left, I tooled around the Internet for a while, reading articles like “How to Get the Job You Want” and “The Sure-Fire Guide to Acing an Interview.” And I possibly spent a little extra time on Etsy looking at some cool retro jewelry designs. Maybe. When I slept that night, I dreamed I was waving a tiny digital voice recorder at the governor, who was a tomato, while standing on top of Tanner Graham, who had dream-morphed into a purple ottoman with a head and arms. I woke with that good omen fresh in my mind and set out to meet Ellie Peters and begin life as Pepper Spicer, sandwich shop refugee and girl reporter extraordinaire.
By the time I exited the freeway, I could tell that everything about this interview was already better than the
Bee
disaster. For one, the
Real Salt Lake
offices were located in Sugarhouse, and I decided right away it would be my favorite part of Salt Lake. There was a relaxed vibe about it, and lots of young people lived in the area. The funky boutiques and quirky shops dotting the area made me feel right at home. As I drove down this section of 2100 South, I wondered how all this time I could not have realized what a cool area was waiting for me only a short drive up the freeway.
I found the address easily. It was a small office perched over a music shop advertising “Lessons from Accordion to Zither.” That would make for some interesting ambient noise. I climbed the stairs to a glass door displaying the clean lines of the
Real Salt Lake
logo in its center. Taking a deep breath, I pushed it open and stepped into the crowded office. Like the newsroom at the
Bee
, everyone worked in one open space, but a much smaller one. Eight desks, all Ikea style, dotted the office in a configuration that allowed navigation through a narrow pathway running straight down the room. Four of the desks sat empty of people but full of loose papers, knickknacks, and oversized flat-panel computer monitors. Every other desk had someone at it. The lone male, a pasty-skinned guy in a Homestar Runner T-shirt, stared at his computer screen and clicked his mouse every few seconds. The three girls, none of whom looked more than five years older than me, were either talking on the phone in business-friendly voices or clicking around on their own fancy monitors.
One of them, a willowy brunette with a chic bob cut, stood and made her way over with a smile on her glossy lips. As I checked out her dark skinny jeans and gathered tee in an achingly cool retro print, I sent up a silent thank you to Ginger for suggesting I skip the suit.
“Ellie Peters?” I asked, my hand outstretched.
“And you’re Pepper,” she said, assessing me even as she shook my hand and smiled. I hoped I looked like a good fit.
Love me
, I silently begged.
Love me so much that you offer me a job on the spot.
“Yes. I’m so glad to meet you. I love what you’re doing with
Real Salt Lake.
”
“Thanks,” she said, her smile bright. “We work hard at it. Why don’t you follow me to the break room, and we can talk more about it.” She scooped up her laptop as she walked.
I trailed after her, trying to look as hip and cool as the other girls in the office, although I was feeling very Old Navy in an Anthropologie world. I didn’t have a lot of time to study the office before following Ellie out, but besides the modern desks and furniture, earthy terracotta-color paint warmed the walls, and a few abstract paintings in thick oils and a couple collages with a slightly vintage feel caught my eye. The space looked like the love child of Ikea and a Moroccan bordello. Weird but cool.
The break room was far more generic. A worn fridge hunkered in a corner, and a coffee maker and microwave crowded the cheap Formica countertop. Ellie waved me into a seat at the folding table in the center of the room and pulled out the chair opposite me.
“Sorry about the ghetto fabulous décor in here,” she said. “As a start up, we try to keep our money invested only in things that affect the public’s perception of us. We need the front to look nice for investors. By the time we can afford a break room makeover, we should be graduating to bigger, nicer digs.”
“That makes perfect sense.” I nodded and then caught myself, not wanting to go down the same crazy head-bobbing path I’d taken with Tanner Graham. “Thanks again for seeing me.”
“I’m glad you called,” she said. “What do you know about
Real Salt Lake
?”
I did a mental fist pump, glad I had spent time studying the webzine. “I love the design of it. You’ve created the look and feel of an expensive glossy magazine online. The writing is excellent, the topics are interesting, and I will definitely be checking it out in the future, regardless of what happens today.”
She beamed. “I love hearing that. This is all I’ve eaten, breathed, and slept for more than a year. I like to refer to us as small but mighty. We only have eight full-time people on staff right now, but it’s a high concentration of talent.”
“That’s definitely fair to say,” I agreed, meaning it. They had a really good thing going. “I’m honestly shocked I haven’t heard of it before.”
Her face fell for a moment, but then she mustered another winning smile. “That’s our biggest headache right now, figuring out how to get our name out there. That’s part of what drove the choice in our name. It’s a play on Real Salt Lake, the soccer team, to get us more hits when people do Internet searches. Get it? It’s real, but it’s also
real,
” she said, giving the last word the proper Spanish pronunciation.
“Nice,” I said. Ellie Peters was a very smart girl. Er, woman. Young lady?
“We’re looking at new ways to draw reader interest and create some buzz. We get high traffic before the weekend when people are Googling searches for places to eat or stuff to do. We want to convert more of that traffic to click throughs for other articles, not just our restaurant and theater reviews. We sell a fair number of ads to restaurants, but if we could attract more readers to our other content, we could charge more for what we already sell, plus attract whole new categories of advertisers.”
I nodded. It sounded like pretty straightforward common sense.
“That’s where you come in,” she said. “We want new, fresh voices to uncover the quirks and secrets of the city for our readers, someone that our target demographic can relate to. I think that’s you.”
“Me?” Remembering Tanner’s diatribe the week before, I cleared my throat and took a stab at total transparency. “I’m inexperienced, but I learn fast. You won’t find anyone willing to work harder, and I’m full of ideas.”
She smiled. “We’re not worried about your experience. I know you can write. I read through your blog archives—” and here again, I experienced a rush of relief that I had taken down the posts not fit for potential employer consumption— “and you have a great voice. I also asked Anna to send me copies of the features you wrote for
North Valley Gazette.
You have a good sense of story and a subtle sense of humor.”
“Wow, uh, thanks,” I stammered and then felt like I was about fourteen and Ellie was the senior cheer captain deigning to sit with me at lunch.
Pull yourself together,
I scolded.
“You’re welcome, but I’m stating the facts. I think your style is a good fit for us, and we can polish you in editing where you’re still green.”
Holy cow. It sounded like she was on the verge of whipping out a contract for me to sign on the spot. Maybe I was more awesome than I realized . . .
“We’ve got a special assignment we’d like to start you out with,” she said.
Yes!
“Are you single?”
Wha . . . ? I nodded, stupidly.
“Perfect. Then you’re definitely the right girl for this assignment,” she said.
“Great?” I said, but I was so confused that it came out sounding like a question.
Ellie laughed and tucked her hair behind one ear, better exposing the hand-worked silver curlicue earrings dangling from her lobe. This girl had an impeccable sense of style. “Based on the hits different articles and search terms get within the website, we think we could grab another huge chunk of Internet traffic if we added a
Sex in the City–
type feature, and we want you to be our Carrie Bradshaw.”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t find the presence of mind to do more than stare, slightly horrified.
Sex in the City
? Had she seen on my totally sanitized, painfully accurate résumé that I was a BYU graduate? What kind of craziness was this?
The look on my face sent her into another peal of laughter, and she took a minute to pull herself back together.
“I’ll clarify,” she said when she had calmed down, although she grinned broadly. “This is a highly modified, no-sex version. It would be more like
Love in the City
than
Sex in the City.
”
I was less alarmed but still confused. “I don’t understand where you’re going with this,” I said, careful to keep my voice neutral so I didn’t sound negative.
“Forget
Sex and the City
,” she said. “Bad comparison. I’ll pitch it a different way. A significant number of the visitors to our magazine are drawn by search terms related to dating, especially Internet dating. Anytime we run a feature about the do’s and don’ts of Internet dating, it lights up with page hits. We want to tie it more closely to the Salt Lake experience, not just generic Internet dating tips. We’re going to launch a weekly column about the online dating experience in the Salt Lake area.”
“How do I fit into this?” I didn’t like where this was going.
“You’ll take the LDS point of view in your column, since that’s half our readership anyway. The hot site everyone uses right now is LDS Lookup. We’ll pay for your account and ask you to set up one date a week. We want it to be safe, so we’ll always know when you have a date and where you’ll be going. You’ll write the column under a pen name so your dates won’t guess who you are, although we’ll leave it up to you whether you want to tell them that you’ll be writing about the date. You’ll need to disguise their identities.” She’d been typing as she talked, and now she turned her laptop to face me. The LDS Lookup site was on the screen, looking sleek in tones of sage green and slate blue. She gestured for me to click around on it and then continued her spiel.
“Whenever possible, we want you to leave it to your date to plan the activity. We think it will better reflect what the experience is like for other women doing the online dating thing. Your column will be your take on the experience, and we’ll run it every Tuesday, giving you a couple days to write it. What do you think?”