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it held nothing but summer clothes and a handful of items clearly left over from last winter because they were too hideous to be purchased by anyone who could actually see.
    My hundred dollars bought a gauzy lavender and purple prairie skirt, a white cotton shirt, navy stretch pants with pockets over both hips that pretty much screamed WIDE LOAD, a brown sweater, and two summer T-shirts in the oh-so-palatable shades of vomit yellow and puke green. Sweet. I couldn’t enlist even Lily in this mission—she had a matinee and then a photo shoot for the Gap; they were doing a Stars of the Future ad campaign that would launch the following spring. The shoot went well into the night, which was why my sister had met me for coffee at my corporate cafeteria before her Monday-morning spinning class. Even without makeup and in gym clothes, she looked depressingly flawless.
    “When can you get back into your apartment?” Lily asked.
    My landlord had left another update on my cell voice mail. “Christmas. Maybe the week after.”
    Lily swallowed another baby-size mouthful of yogurt. “I’m sure you want to stay with James, but you can always stay with me if you want.”
    I had never actually informed Lily that living with James long-term was not an option due to his parents’ mandate. It just seemed too pathetic.
    See, here’s the thing about my sister. I knew she’d offer to share her airy brownstone apartment on West Seventy-fifth near Amsterdam Avenue, and I knew she’d do it with grace. One of the worst things about Lily is that in addition to being stunning and disgustingly accomplished, she is also genuinely nice. If she were a self-centered asshole, I could loathe her. But since she isn’t an asshole and I still detest her for all the things she is that I’m not, being around her kind of makes me hate myself.
    “Oh, I’ll work something out,” I said breezily, then polished off the second jam-filled doughnut.
    “Umm . . . you’ve got a little . . .”
    Lily motioned to her chest. I looked down. My new white shirt was smeared with strawberry jam between buttons three and four. I dabbed at it with a napkin, which only expanded the pinkish stain. Swell.
    We walked to the elevators.
Scoop
occupied floors seven and eight of a magnificently renovated fifteen-story building on East Twenty-third Street, overlooking Madison Square Park. Other magazines owned by the same European publishing conglomerate—including
Rockit,
a new
Rolling Stone
competitor I desperately wanted to write for but couldn’t even get an interview with—took up the rest of the building, except for the sleek floor-through cafeteria where we stood. I pushed both the up and the down buttons. Guess which one came first.
    “If you change your mind, just call me.” Lily gave me a little hug and stepped into the empty down elevator.
    A minute later, I stepped out of a jammed one heading up to
Scoop
and beyond. I waved to Brianna, the receptionist who had started only the week before. The walk to my cubicle took me past Latoya’s open office door.
    “Megan!” she called. “Editorial meeting in ten minutes.”
    I hoped the horror of her announcement didn’t show on my face. I’d been a bit too preoccupied with the smoked-out-no-place-to-live-purse-ripped-off-no-money thing to plan a pitch for a meeting to which I’d been entirely positive I would not be invited again.
    Ha.
    Debra Wurtzel, my editor in chief, managed to be both totally cool and completely intimidating at the same time. She was in her early forties, with jet-black blunt-cut hair that fell just above her shoulders. Her severe bangs drew attention to her piercing blue eyes, which were, as usual, rimmed in blue-black kohl. There were five tiny platinum loop earrings lining her right ear and one in her left. Today she wore black wool trousers, a fitted black blazer, and layered black tees. When the last straggler arrived for the editorial meeting—thank God it wasn’t me—she took off