Chapter five

Rather than her alarm waking her the next morning, it was Keira’s cell phone ringing incessantly that pulled her from her slumber. She rolled over on her mattress and grabbed her phone from where it was lying on the floor, plugged into the socket beside her. Elliot’s name was flashing up at her. It was another personal call; not coming from the Viatorum office line but his own number.

Keira groaned when she saw that it wasn’t even six a.m. She was used to early starts for work, particularly when traveling was involved, but Elliot seemed to be crossing professional boundaries more and more often.

Keira hit the green button.

“Have you been online yet today?” Elliot asked immediately, before Keira had even had a chance to speak.

“I haven’t even opened my curtains,” Keira replied a little drily, “so, no, not yet. Why?”

Elliot’s voice came through the other line, fast and somewhat manic. “It’s your article, Keira. The online version went live at midnight. It’s a hit! What do people say these days… it’s gone viral.”

Keira sat bolt upright, completely awake now. “Really?”

“I should never have doubted you,” Elliot continued. “You do know your readers. I suppose the heterosexual female twenty-five-plus demographic isn’t as straightforward these days as it used to be.”

Keira held herself back from saying “Told you so.” Even if she’d wanted to she wouldn’t have gotten the chance; Elliot was still speaking a mile a minute.

“I’m going to need you to commit to slightly longer hours. We have a really demanding schedule. Don’t worry, I’ll compensate you generously. We can talk raises once things have settled down a little, but for now we’re going to have to ride the wave, okay?”

“What wave?” Keira asked, frowning.

“The media have gotten hold of the story. They love the Romance Guru. Everyone wants to meet the real person behind the stories. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing with talk shows wanting to book you, hence me being on my personal line; I didn’t want to clog up the office number.”

Keira shook her head and rubbed the frown from between her eyes. “Are you serious?” she asked. Typically, her first instinct was fear. Where Elliot saw an opportunity, she saw spotlights and scrutiny.

“When it comes to Viatorum, I never joke,” Elliot replied. “Can you get in ASAP? We have so much to get through. Heather’s organizing the press tour as we speak.”

Keira was stunned speechless. It didn’t seem like she had much choice in the matter, and maybe that was for the best. If her instinct was telling her to run for the hills, then she ought to challenge it. There wasn’t a better way to gain independence than to stand solo in front of the world with her story! Besides, if she ever wanted to step away from the company and go it alone, she’d get far more success with a large fan base and exposure than she ever would by simply quitting.

And, Keira thought, a little slyly, she could certainly use this as leverage to increase her salary going forward.

“I’m on my way,” she told Elliot.

She hung up and jumped off the mattress, hurrying over to the suitcase that still contained all her clothing. Without drawers or a closet to put anything in, Keira had opted not to bring any of her stuff back from Mallory’s last night, instead deciding it could wait until after her shopping trip with Bryn. But she was regretting that a little now. She didn’t have anything particularly businesslike to wear. Even if she was just going to her usual office and usual desk with her usual colleagues today, she wanted to present herself a little better than usual. Maybe she’d get some new outfits with Bryn this evening as well as furniture.

Once she’d dressed, she hurried for the door. As she went, her phone began pinging with text messages from friends and family. They must have started getting up for the day and noticed that she was splashed all over social media.

When did u get famous? came a text from Shelby.

Sis, you’re a celeb!! Bryn sent. Followed by: You’d better not upstage me at my wedding!!

Keira smiled to herself as the messages poured in.

So that’s where I’ve been going wrong? I should’ve been approaching it the “Scandinavian way”? Maxine texted her.

Scandinavian love sounds great and all, but I do want grandchildren someday, darling, so there are going to have to be some strings attached, Mallory wrote.

Keira rolled her eyes and laughed to herself.

Even Felix sent messages of support, although Keira suspected he didn’t have any social media profiles and had just been prompted by Bryn to do so.

She smiled to herself as she dashed out of the apartment and hurried toward the subway.

“Hey! Romance Guru!” someone shouted.

She turned to see the coffee seller in his little truck.

“I got your drink ready for you! Caramel macchiato with cream!”

He waved an extra-large cup of coffee at her. Keira grinned and went over to take it.

“Thanks,” she laughed, reaching in her pocket for some cash.

“On the house,” he said with a wink. “Just tell everyone you get your coffee from Bobby’s, okay?”

“I will,” Keira said, taking the coffee.

If there was only one perk to come out of the exposure, free coffee wasn’t one to be scoffed at.

Keira strode away, coffee in hand, and headed down to the subway. Finally she got the chance to check her phone and see for herself what everyone else was reading about her. On all her social feeds there were positive mentions of her article, with thousands upon thousands of comments below from women who’d been inspired and empowered by her stories. Women who’d been ridiculed for breaking off engagements, ones who’d lost lovers due to jobs, due to distance, due to clashes over money and careers. She’d had no idea so many people felt so isolated because of their bad luck in love, and that she’d inadvertently created a community where they felt able to reach out and share their stories.

When she checked her work emails, she was shocked to see that some journalists had managed to get directly through to her, rather than going via Heather or the receptionist, and she had numerous requests for appearances and advice.

Coming up, over and over again, was this term: The Scandinavian Way. Everyone was acting like she’d invented the light bulb, and she didn’t want to claim credit for something she’d merely observed. She’d never meant to start a trend or to get famous.

As the train jostled her about, Keira could hardly believe what she was reading, or what was happening. She was touched and overwhelmed by it all.

And as if to make everything more emotional than it already was, a message came through on her phone from Milo. She didn’t even hesitate before opening it.

Great article! So proud of you!

Keira grinned to herself. Not for making Milo proud, although she was glad he’d enjoyed her piece, but because for the first time after meeting a guy and breaking up, she didn’t feel her heart sink when reading his text.

Quickly, she wrote back, Thank you! Busy atm, but catch up soon.

Then she rode the rest of the way to work, her mind spinning with excitement.

*

Keira entered the office to find it in a frenzy. The phone was ringing off the hook and people were dashing about all over the place. Elliot immediately came out of his office, grinning, and whisked Keira into the conference room before she had a chance to catch her breath.

She walked in and saw the room was full of people, all unfamiliar.

“Uh… hello,” she said, tentatively, as Elliot pulled a chair for her.

“Keira, so great to meet you,” a man with dark auburn hair said. “I’m Rick, your new publicist. This is Sally.” He gestured to a woman with thick curls and bright red lips sitting beside him. “She’s my assistant and will handle your timetable.”

“Nice to meet you,” Keira said, shaking each of their hands in turn. “And the rest of you guys?”

“The new editorial team!” Elliot beamed, throwing his arms wide.

“Team?” Keira asked. So far, Nina had been the editor of Viatorum, then as things had picked up she’d been given a group of interns to assist her, but nothing like this, nothing professional. Keira realized then that Nina wasn’t sitting around the table with the editorial team. “Where’s Nina?”

“At her desk,” Elliot said, simply, as though it were a bizarre question to ask.

“She’s still editor, isn’t she?” Keira asked. The thought of her friend being demoted because of her success sat uncomfortably with her.

“Of course,” Elliot said. “She’s editor of the print part of the magazine. Which now accounts for approximately ten percent of our sales. It’s all about the Internet team now, the only subscription model, the social media bite-sized articles. That’s what the new team will be handling from now on.”

Keira looked around at all the unfamiliar faces. It felt odd that Elliot hadn’t thought to promote any of the people they currently had in the office, or to have Nina oversee the online editing. It didn’t seem fair. She understood that Elliot would want the best and brightest money could afford, but she’d never have gotten to where she had if no one had taken a risk on her.

Rick cleared his throat then. “Shall we get down to business? Sally, can you give Keira the low-down on her publicity appearances?”

Sally seemed like an even more efficient version of Heather, if such a person could exist, because she appeared to have preempted Rick’s question and turned her attention to a neat notebook sitting in front of her.

“Breakfast New York, News 24, Daily Roundup, Good Morning USA, Helen & Phil In the Morning, Katie & Joe In the Evening…”

As she listened to Sally reel them off, Keira mind boggled. All these talk shows and new organizations wanted her on their shows? She started to feel sick with nerves.

“Are you good at press work?” Rick asked, once Sally was finally finished listing TV shows.

“I have no idea,” Keira told him. “I’ve never been on TV.”

“That’s fine,” Rick said in his no-nonsense business tone. “I’ll train you. Sally, book Keira onto Helen and Phil In the Morning for tomorrow. That’s a great teething show. The interviews are short and quite informal. And importantly, prerecorded. So it’s a win-win. We’ll move onto live once we’ve seen how you perform there, so Sally, get some afternoon slots lined up as well.”

Sally didn’t even waste a second. Her cell phone was up to her ear immediately, and within moments she was talking rapidly into it. Keira could hardly get her head around how quickly everything was moving. She looked over at Elliot, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat, clearly loving the sudden increase in pace and pressure. Unlike Keira, he thrived on this kind of stuff. But Keira couldn’t help but feel a bit like some kind of pawn in a game. She’d always felt like that with Viatorum, even when it had just been Elliot and Nina calling the shots. But now with this whole team of people scheduling her life it felt even worse.

“We’d better get to work on the training,” Rick said then, folding up his papers and standing.

“I have to leave at five tonight,” Keira suddenly blurted. “I have a shopping trip with my sister.”

Everyone stopped and looked at her suspiciously.

“Uh, yes, of course,” Rick said, smoothing his jacket down.

Keira could tell immediately that they’d been expecting her to give up all her free time, that they hadn’t even given a second thought to what she wanted. They’d all just assumed she’d go with the flow, follow their demands and have no input of her own.

Rick looked at Sally. “Make sure everything winds down by five.”

Sally nodded.

With the meeting adjourned, the new editorial team rose to leave the conference room. Keira was about to leave when Elliot addressed her.

“Can I have a moment of your time, Keira? Privately?”

Keira looked at Rick, who seemed to be the person calling the shots these days.

“Of course,” he said, even more stiffly than when she’d asked to leave at five.

Everyone left the room and it was just Elliot and Keira left.

“What’s up?” she asked him.

“I know this is all a bit much,” Elliot began. “Your article has caused a stir.”

“Among the staff?”

“Oh, I don’t care about that,” Elliot said. “Jealousy can be a great motivator. No, a stir amongst advertisers.”

“Oh,” Keira said, a little confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re willing to pay vast sums more to appear in Viatorum than they used to. I mean there’s a bidding war going on for advertising space in our next issue and on our website. We’re getting a lot of attention.”

“That’s great,” Keira said. “What’s that got to do with me?”

Elliot laughed. “You’re not very business savvy, are you, Keira?”

She shrugged. “There’s a reason I became a writer.”

“Good point.” He chuckled again. “Keira, I’m saying you’re bringing increased revenue into the company. So you deserve a reward.”

It began to sink in then. “You mean like a bonus?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, then slid it across the glass table top to Keira.

She picked it up. It was a check. Keira read the sum.

“Five hundred dollars? Thanks, that’ll pay for my new furniture.”

Elliot frowned. “No, Keira. It’s five thousand dollars.”

Keira almost choked. She did a double take at the check. Indeed, the figure was five thousand, not five hundred.

“Wow. Well… I don’t know what to say. Thanks so much.”

Elliot nodded. “If you keep this up, Keira, there’ll be plenty more where that came from.”

Feeling triumphant, Keira folded the check and put it in her pocket. Maybe going viral wasn’t all bad. Though the thought of being on TV terrified her, the check in her pocket certainly went some way to make up for it.