Diary of a Domestic Goddess. Elizabeth Harbison

I can,” she said, meeting his gaze evenly. Let him try and figure out what she meant for once. “In the office or at home, I can do my job.” Though in truth, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of that. Sometime over the past few days the world had changed without letting her know. She wasn’t sure what her place in it was anymore or what she could do with what she had.

      Cal leaned back in his chair. “If you can be half as determined to keep up with the times as you are to prove I’m wrong, you might succeed here.”

      “Really?”

      “Sure. If you can stop being Donna Reed, I think you might have something to say to the women in our demographic.”

      She had to smile. He wasn’t quite as icy as she’d thought at first. Behind the slick veneer there was a thinking man who wanted to succeed.

      Of course, she knew that from the moment she first saw him. And she confirmed it when she went home that night and looked him up on the Internet. Henry Carl Panagos had been the youngest editor in chief ever on Sports Life magazine and he had lifted sagging sales by changing the format to shorter, punchier pieces and adding quick-reference charts of the professional sports seasons past and present. He’d also taken the innovative step of having some of the sports greats themselves do profiles of up-and-comers, including New York Giants great linebacker Lawrence Taylor on Ray Lewis.

      In fact, in four years on the job Cal hadn’t appeared to make a false step.

      So what was he doing at Home Life of all places?

      Kit could only surmise that Breck Monahan had sent the boy wonder over to perform a miracle.

      Well, she was going to be an integral part of that miracle. “Who exactly do you see as the women of our demographic?” she asked him.

      He leaned forward, as if ready to launch into a favorite subject. “Women like you. Your age. Your situation.”

      “Meaning…?”

      “Working mom. Someone said you have a kid.”

      “I do. I have a son.”

      “And—” he hesitated for just a fraction of a second “—no husband, right?”

      She hesitated, as well.

      She wasn’t sure what either of their hesitations meant.

      “Not anymore.”

      He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “There are ten million single mothers in the U.S.”

      “At least.”

      “To say nothing of fourteen million working mothers with partners and five million stay-at-home moms.” He’d done his research, that much was obvious. And it was impressive. “That’s thirty million readers to whom our magazine could and should be completely relevant.”

      He was right. Thirty million potential readers under the age of sixty trumped twenty-one million potential geriatric readers. “You’re right.”

      “So find out what interests them and do it,” he said. “Entertainment, sex—I don’t care what, just make it relevant. Find the writers who will make it relevant.”

      “Okay,” she said slowly, gathering her nerve. “With that in mind, I want to keep writing my column.”

      The word no showed up immediately on his face, and she hastened to add, “What I mean is, a new column. New slant. But I want to keep writing.”

      He lifted the copy of her column that he’d just set down. “I don’t think you’ve got the tone I’m looking for.”

      “No, Edith didn’t have the tone you were looking for. You have no idea what I can do.”

      He took a short breath and looked her over. “Tell me about it.”

      “I know what you want now,” Kit told him confidently. She’d been in the business world long enough to know how to play businesswoman. “And I can deliver.”

      “Can you?”

      “Absolutely.”

      “Why do you want to?”

      That threw her off. “I beg your pardon?”

      “Why do you want to do this?” he repeated.

      “Do what exactly? Write the column?”

      He nodded. “If you’re already working as the managing editor, why do you want to add more work to your load?”

      “Well…” She was unsure whether or not she should tip her hand but decided she had nothing to lose. “That part of my job accounts for a third of my income.”

      “You realize that’s not a particularly compelling reason for me to keep you on in that area.”

      “Yes.” She wasn’t good at this business of constantly selling herself. “But in turn I’m sure you realize that you have a particularly motivated worker here. One you should recognize as a serious bargain.”

      He looked amused. “How do you figure that?”

      “It’s to my advantage to make myself as difficult to replace as possible. If I can do two jobs for one price, then why would you want to sack me and hire two people to replace me?” Not to mention that those columns, under her own name, would make a nice portfolio if/when she really did have to leave this place.