“The role will start off admin-heavy with my diary, minute-taking, meeting prep, online orders—very much things you’ll have already done and are proficient at,” Penny says. When she reaches for a sip of her tea, I notice her plain wedding band and that her nails are painted Barbie pink by someone who has difficulty coloring within lines. I wonder if she has any children. “You’ll be trained in our database MDX where all our data is stored,” she continues, “and there’s a lot you’ll learn on the job. We pair all our assistants with a senior editor so you gain invaluable insight into what it means to be an editor from the very beginning.”
This sounds promising. Not so much the admin portion, especially since I know “meeting prep” is industry talk for making tea and coffee, but if I can get through that period, I’ll get to learn the realities of the publishing trade. Maybe move to a fiction department in a year or two. Look at that—I have a career plan.
Next I have to complete two fifteen-minute tasks: mark up a printout of Penny’s calendar with any changes I’d make or concerns I might have. Then read through a short story and correct any errors.
I start with the short story, and spot all the to/too/two and they’re/their/there errors, as well as inconsistencies （the little girl’s been called three different names within the first paragraph） and mark up the relentless use of commas.
I move on to Penny’s diary and this task is easy; I’ve been managing diaries of the overworked for years now. I already know you can’t have back-to-back meetings in two different buildings and that an hour for lunch should always be set aside, even if that’s not what it’s used for. I move clashes, but without access to other diaries, I can only suggest changes. On paper I query if some of these meetings are in her diary for information’s sake and which ones she’ll be chairing and may need to bring material to. I spot some repeated meetings and make a note of them. Her days seem to start and end at different times, so I mention core hours, and I question her lack of desk time.
I’m looking over the short story again when Penny walks in. “How was that?” she asks.
“Good, I think.”
Remaining on her feet, she takes up the two pieces of papers and lowers her glasses to read through them.
“These look good, especially the diary one.” She smiles; her mouth is closed but it reaches her eyes. “Thank you for coming in, Maddie.” As I shake her hand, Penny says, “You should hear back very soon.”
* * *
I’m back home an hour before Cam is and by then I’ve unpacked my kitchen and bathroom things and half of my bedroom. I linger upstairs because Cam’s gone straight to her room and her door is shut. I wonder if I should make myself known, but maybe she wants to be alone and decompress after a day filled with schoolchildren.
Google: Should you knock on the door of a new flatmate?
Demi: No let me come 2 you. You don’t know what kind of day I’ve had and maybe I want to be left alone Margaret: Bedrooms are off limits so only knock if you need something. Keep socializing restricted to communal areas like the kitchen Tally: OMG of course! If you want to chat that’s so nice!
Chris: Don’t bother me. I’m here to get away from family/be closer to work, not to make new friends I decide to leave Cam to it and continue unpacking until Jo is home two hours later.
“Hi, girls!” she shouts from downstairs.
Cam’s door opens and they both end up in the kitchen.
I’ve waited too long to shout “Hi!” so I go down. My pulse jumps as I do. I live with these people, and they’re technically strangers. I should have googled: “How to get flatmates to like you.” I don’t know how to make new friends.
“I was thinking maybe that new pizza place,” I hear Jo say. “The one in—Oh, here she comes, I think. Maddie?” Jo has a bright smile when I enter the kitchen. “Welcome!”
Cam rolls her eyes and says, “Please don’t mistake my failure to match her enthusiasm as a comment on you moving in. You’ll find Jo and I are slightly different people.”
“Whatever,” Jo sings. You couldn’t dampen this girl’s mood if you tried. “So!” she says. “We were thinking the new pizza place in Clapham Common for dinner. You got our message about not eating, right?”
“Yes.” For goodness’ sake, say something else. How was your day, maybe?
“Good.” Jo claps. “It’s not far, but Cam said she’d drive us.”
Say literally anything. “You drive, Cam?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Parking’s shit round here, so my car’s on the other side of the road.”
“Thirty minutes and then we’ll go?” Jo says. “Let me just freshen up and get the stench of capitalism off me.” Doesn’t she work in the charity sector? “Which reminds me, Maddie, did an Amazon package arrive for me by any chance?”
* * *
Dinner out with my flatmates, with the girls …
On my way home from CGT, I used to walk past the West End restaurants and see tables of girls laughing, talking, eating, and drinking. An hour from now, that will be me!
Tone down the excitement, Maddie.
“I’m not wearing heels!” Cam throws upstairs.
“That’s fine!” Jo calls. “I’ll let you off today—it’s just pizza!”
I’m grateful for the brief exchange. I put my only pair of heeled boots aside and replace them with trainers. Jeans and a loose red jumper later, and I’m sat in the passenger seat of Cam’s car.
There’s something about cars that encapsulates freedom. I have this fantasy of driving my own car at night under infinite stars with my favorite, feel-good music playing. Maybe I’m on my way to meet a friend or just to get ice cream from a place that does gelato like nowhere else; sometimes I’m on my way to a date and when he asks what I’m drinking, I say, “Nothing strong for me, I’m driving.”
“So how was your first day in the house?” Jo asks from the back seat.
“It was fine,” I answer. “I mainly unpacked.”
“Was it hard leaving home for the first time or did you go to uni?”
“I went to uni but in London,” I answer, “so I’d take the train in and back.”
Silence. Keep going, then.
“It was sad to leave this morning, but the house isn’t going anywhere. I can visit whenever.”
“Exactly,” Jo says. “You can always pop back when you miss the fam.”
A song I’ve not heard before starts to play on the radio and Jo, scrolling through her Instagram Stories, sings along with powerful lungs. I can’t quite tell if she’s good or just really loud.
Cam laughs at her and says to me, “You’ll get used to her doing that.”
* * *
There are a lot of people out for a random Thursday, but maybe the warm, dry evening needs to be utilized. Clapham Common is filled with bars, pubs, and restaurants, one building after another, like a line of dominos. Some people are casually dressed, holding pints in beer gardens, and others look ready for what’s clearly going to be a long night out.