Kind regards,
Isabelle Marlowe
Editorial Assistant to Marta Wallace
She almost laughed out loud at that last line. She didn’t think that she’d ever talk to Beau Towers, let alone soon. She’d probably be sending him progressively more and more unhinged emails every two weeks for years to come.
The thought of that made the smile drop from her face. How much longer could she do this?
Her first year at TAOAT had been hard, yes, but still new, exciting, thrilling every day to work with books all around her. But as certain parts of her job got easier, other parts got harder and more overwhelming. Marta gave her more and more work to do—more details to manage, more manuscripts to read, more authors to talk through their work with, cheer up, or get to chill out. And all those new responsibilities were great, and she felt like she was good at most of them, but they were all in addition to her regular work, and sometimes she felt like she was drowning. And since she was one of the few employees of color here, on top of everything else, she was always getting pulled in to give advice about diversity this or inclusivity that or to meet that one Black author who was visiting that day. She had to put a smile on her face and do it all, but it was exhausting.
Plus, what really mattered was whether Marta thought she was good—and when it came to that, Izzy had no idea. She tried to remind herself every day that Marta was brilliant, that she’d learned so much from watching her and listening to her, that she was lucky to have this job. But while that was all true, it was also true that Marta was hard to work for—often curt, not at all friendly, not particularly encouraging, and she rarely, if ever, gave out compliments. What Izzy wanted was to get promoted to assistant editor, and then, eventually, to editor. Not immediately, but someday. After all, Gavin had been promoted after two years, and her own two-year anniversary was fast approaching. But Marta hadn’t dropped a single hint to her that promotion was in the cards.
Very occasionally, Marta would throw a “Good job” in Izzy’s direction, and each time it would thrill her. She would work harder for the next few weeks, in the hopes that Marta would notice her and praise her again, and when no praise came, she would give up in despair. One time, after a particularly curt email from Marta on an edit she’d worked so hard on, Izzy even went so far as to update her résumé. But she’d never done anything with it. Why would she, when she had no idea if she was doing anything right? And that was one of the most depressing things about this job—she wanted guidance, mentoring, a way to get better at her job, a way to someday become the kind of editor Marta was. She wanted to edit great literary fiction, commercial fiction, and memoirs. But she had no idea if she’d even been learning anything.
And, yes, she’d wanted to write some of that great literary fiction herself. But she hadn’t written a word in months.
She’d started to question if she really belonged here, if this job, if this career, was really for her. Something she barely wanted to admit to herself was that working at TAOAT had spoiled her previously uncomplicated love for books and reading. Reading used to be her greatest hobby, her source of relaxation, comfort, joy. Always reliable, always there for her. Now reading felt like homework, in a way that it never had back when she was in school. Now she felt guilty when she read for pleasure, because she knew there was always something else she should be reading, always another manuscript out there, always something Marta was waiting on, an author was waiting on, an agent was waiting on. It made reading stressful, when it never had been before.
Izzy sighed. She might as well deal with that pile of books she’d shoved to the side of her desk.
A few minutes later, Marta walked in, chatting with Gavin. As they got closer to her desk, it was clear they’d run into each other skiing over the weekend. Ah, that’s why they’d both left early on Friday.
Izzy couldn’t help but envy Gavin’s relaxed, easy relationship with Marta, who still completely intimidated her. Even though Marta stressed her out constantly, Izzy wanted so much to impress her. She wished she had any idea how to do that.
Marta nodded at Izzy on her way to her office. That was more of a greeting than she usually got; Marta often didn’t even seem to notice her there. Gavin stopped by her desk on the way to his own.
“Hi, Isabelle. How was your weekend?”
Izzy smiled at Gavin. “Good, thanks. How was yours? Did I hear you saying you were skiing?”
Izzy had heard the whole conversation—they hadn’t been quiet—but she’d let Gavin tell her about it. He was always a little pompous and long-winded, but he’d also always been kind to her—he’d given her lots of advice about working with Marta and had always been something of a mentor for her. Lord knows Marta wasn’t.