Free Younger by Pamela Redmond Satran Page B

only night they get out without their husband or kids—one of the most stimulating, fun nights of the month.”
    I hadn’t realized I had so much to say on this subject, but I guess after a couple of decades of book group attendance, my thoughts were pretty well honed. I was certainly holding forth, and Teri was sitting there staring at me, her mouth slightly open, exposing the points of her sharp little teeth.
    â€œWe’re not editors,” she said. “We have nothing to do with the quality of the books.”
    I felt myself color. I guessed what I’d been talking about did have to do with editorial, not marketing.
    â€œOur job,” Teri said, pronouncing very clearly as if I was hard of hearing, not hard of marketing, “is to get the books in the hands of the book groups. And no one has figured out an effective way to do that: not via the Internet, not through display techniques, not in the books themselves.”
    â€œMaybe we could give special discounts,” I blurted.
    Teri looked at me as if I’d spoken Croatian.
    â€œYou know, for volume. If a book retails, with discounts, for eighteen dollars, offer it to book groups who order eight or more for fifteen dollars a copy.”
    Teri looked away
    â€œMy book group was always very price-conscious,” I tried to explain. “We wanted new books, but we didn’t want to pay hardback or even full trade paper prices.”
    Now she was shaking her head. “I’m not interested in what some impoverished assistants’ or college girls’ book club is doing,” she said. “We’re marketing to grown-up women with families and houses and professional jobs.”
    I opened my mouth to explain, but then realized I couldn’t without incriminating myself.
    â€œI thought I made it clear that I was the only idea person in this department,” she said. “I thought you said you were comfortable with that. Have you changed your mind?”
    I pressed my lips together and shook my head no, keeping myself from welling up by focusing on the photos of the angel-faced children smiling in their picture frames, my sole piece of evidence that Teri Jordan was human.
    â€œGood, then,” she said. “Mrs. Whitney has called a staff meeting for three thirty this afternoon. I can’t imagine why she wants assistants there, but she does. Your function will be to occupy a chair.”
    She lifted the new cup of coffee I’d made her and took a sip.
    â€œUgh,” she said, spitting it back into the cup. “This is horrible. You’re going to have to learn to make a decent cup of coffee if you’re going to last in this job.”
    Â 
    When I filed into Mrs. Whitney’s huge corner office for the staff meeting along with, it seemed, virtually everyone else who worked at the company—there were more than fifty people filling the big beige and gold room—I tried to hide behind one of the other assistants and chose a seat in the far corner of the room, as far as possible from where Mrs. Whitney sat near the door. I took out my notebook and kept my head down, relieved I’d let Maggie talk me into cutting long bangs that, if necessary, would cover half my face. I bent my head and let them hang down now, but even so, when everyone was seated and quiet and the meeting finally came to order, I looked up only to find Mrs. Whitney staring hard at me.
    Mrs. Whitney looked exactly the same as I remembered her, impressively tall and erect even sitting down in her office chair. Her hair was short and white, and her dimples showed even as she sat with her lips pressed together. She seemed if anything younger than she had when I worked here more than twenty years ago. She was even wearing the same clothes—possibly the exact same clothes—as she’d worn when I last attended a meeting in this office: black patent leather Ferragamos, pearls, and a burgundy wool dress that might have