The Knockoff (25 page)

From: Leslie Dawkins ([email protected])

To: Eve Morton ([email protected])

Hi, Eve,

You might not remember me. You hired me two months ago as an assistant producer for Glossy.com. Last night you abruptly fired me. No explanation given. I had been working for days on end. I was tired, but I didn’t let that stop me from doing my job.

You enjoyed firing me. You smiled the whole time.

I know that I have what it takes to succeed at this job. I have a dual degree in computer science and English from UPenn. This job was MADE for me. You need bright young women like me in that office. Right now you are breeding a staff of robots, there just to do your bidding.

It’s not normal to force your staffers to be your friends. It’s not normal to make us all stay late and play games. It was weird that you made us all play Truth or Dare.

We’re not sisters. We’re not family.

I wanted to be your employee.

You made the wrong decision. I hope that my voice can speak for all the young women you have laid off.

You can’t treat people like they are disposable.

You can’t make people work 24 hours a day.

You can’t call us dumb and retarded and lazy and expect us to want to work for you.

You can’t shush someone when they ask you why they are being let go after they have worked their ass off for you.

I don’t want to work for you anymore, but I did want to give you a piece of my mind about how poorly you are leading Glossy.com. I am fine with burning this bridge down all the way to the ashes because it is a bridge I never want to cross again.

I deserve to have a last word.

Leslie Dawkins

Imogen felt a surge of embarrassment for the young woman. Was she drunk when she wrote the email?

“What is this?” she messaged Ashley, copying and pasting the text.

Ashley replied with a frowny face emoji. She appeared in Imogen’s office a minute later, sighing and looking less perky than usual.

“I’m surprised this hasn’t happened yet. It’s like a kind of a trend these days. When people get fired or they don’t get a job, they shoot off these public rants. I’m sure it will get picked up on a website soon.”

Imogen was horrified. Wouldn’t someone want to bury something like this, move on quietly? Ashley correctly read Imogen’s expression.

“My people overshare. I’m sure you’ve figured that out,” Ashley said, referring, Imogen assumed, to millennials as “her people,” not Upper East Side WASPs, who traditionally did not overshare. Imogen nodded, indicating she should go on. “People actually end up getting job offers from other places after they do something like this. It’s ballsy, but it can end up working in someone’s favor.”

“How so?”

“Some start-ups want to hire people who aren’t afraid to put themselves
out there. It’s kind of like blasting your résumé out to a million people. You’re bound to hit someone who is hiring.”

“But it
is
humiliating,” Imogen countered.

“Humiliation is relative these days. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. All she said was that Eve was a crappy boss and that was why she was let go. There are worse things that can happen to you on the Internet.”

“So what do we do?”

“Oh, we ignore it. If anyone calls for comment we say that we don’t discuss current or former employees. These things have a life cycle of about twenty-four hours…even if they get picked up by another website,” Ashley said casually.

“Damn. I’m late for my lunch.” Imogen stood and grabbed her cashmere camel coat. “I hope people just delete this. Maybe no one will forward it or repost it? It’s silly.”

That morning, Imogen had scoured her closet for the perfect outfit to wear to Shoppit for lunch, finally settling on a copper-colored Chloé pencil skirt with a Peter Pilotto embroidered top paired with an oxblood Kensington Mulberry bag and Vera Wang black suede pumps. Chic and conservative without being stuffy or, as Eve would so kindly put it, “old-fashioned.” She ran a brush through her hair sitting at her desk, happy she’d had the roots touched up over the weekend. She swore the gray began creeping in faster over just the past six months. Gray made some women look sophisticated. Imogen didn’t think she would be one of those women. She would be a blonde until they shut the lid of her coffin.

Shoppit had offices in a loft space downtown. Rashid informed her that the company had plans to move at the start of the new year into a new space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, carved out of the old Domino Sugar Factory. For now, they had half of a building on Greenwich Street. Reception for Shoppit was on the ground floor.

“Hi, Imogen,” a perky Asian girl with an egg-shaped head and large red glasses said as she walked through the door.

“Hello,” Imogen replied with what must have been a look of utter surprise.
Do we know each other?
The girl giggled.

“We take people off guard sometimes when we just blurt out their name,” she said. “It isn’t magic or anything. Your name is in our system to go see Aerin and it has an image of you that we pulled from Google. We just think it’s nice to greet guests by name when we have the time.” She lowered her voice. “It creeps some people out though.”

Imogen moved back half a step as she laughed along with her. “It definitely creeped me out a little bit.”

“Do you mind signing in on the screen there?” She motioned to a sleek white tablet on the desk in front of her. “It will print out your badge for you. It already has your name and stuff, but it wants to take a picture of your ID. Just hold your license under the little red light.” Imogen pulled out her New York State driver’s license and held it under the blinking red dot. A name badge slid out of the side of the tablet. The girl handed Imogen a small gray piece of plastic no bigger than her thumb that looked like the kind of key fob she used to enter the gym in the Robert Mannering Corp. building.

“This will tell you where to go. It makes noise and vibrates a little. Do you want a water for your walk?” The girl gestured toward a refrigerator stacked with individual boxes of water similar to the one Rashid had given her at DISRUPTTECH!

Imogen
was
a little bit freaked out as she ran her thumb over the smooth plastic shape, especially when the small gray object spoke to her with a perfect Oxford British accent. “Please proceed to the right elevator bank. You will be going to floor number four.” Behind the desk, the girl’s eyebrows bobbed in delight at the technology.

“These are new. They’re programmed to know who you’re seeing and how to get you there. It also knows where you are. It has a GPS so it lets us know if you go anywhere you aren’t supposed to go. It will open any doors along the way. I just think they are the coolest.”

“The coolest.” Imogen nodded.

She walked to the right elevator bank and held the device up to her face. It looked entirely unremarkable, just a piece of plastic with three small holes on one side that must have been a speaker. Once she was in the elevator it politely reminded her to push the button for four. At the fourth floor she entered a brightly colored lobby-like space with a couple of low-sitting couches, but no reception area. The
walls were covered in scribbled marker and there were glass doors to the left and to the right.

“Please travel through the set of doors to your right.”

Imogen did as she was told. The voice was soft, just loud enough that she could keep it in her hand and have her arm resting alongside her body and still hear it, but not so loud that it could be heard by anyone more than two feet away from her. As she approached the glass doors she heard a small beep and the click of a door unlocking, undoubtedly the magic of her little toy.

“Please proceed straight.”

Open and airy with battered concrete floors, the Shoppit offices confirmed every urban legend about start-up work spaces Imogen had ever heard. Eager young people sat at rows and rows of desks, not unlike the ones at Glossy.com, but also on couches and in beanbag chairs. Some stood at their desks, like Eve. Others took it a step further and appeared to be walking on treadmills right at their desks. In a completely clichéd moment someone zipped by on a scooter. No one paid Imogen much mind as she strolled among them. At the end of the floor was a wall of glass offices. “Turn right,” her device told her as she was about to reach the wall. She walked past four offices and was advised to stop as she came to the one at the corner.

“You have arrived,” it informed her. The words felt heavy.

Imogen looked up to see Aerin Chang sitting on a chair in the far right corner of the office. The back of the chair leaned against the glass, making it look as though she could topple, at any moment, into the river down below. The girl’s smile was bright and welcoming as she gestured to the table and a platter of macarons and then beckoned Imogen through the door. She stood and walked over, leaning in for a hug and then laughing.

“I feel like I know you after looking at all your Instagrams and that made me feel like we should hug, but then I remembered we had never met in person.” Imogen laughed too, realizing that she felt exactly the same way.

“I can’t even look at your Instagram. I get so jealous,” Aerin said.

“No. Yours! So jealous.” Imogen laughed back.

Aerin had a look of studied indifference. She wore a casual pair of
waxed leggings with a graphic T-shirt and an Isabel Marant leather jacket with a pair of to-die-for high-heeled studded boots. Sitting on her shoulder-length black hair was a Rag & Bone fedora. She was petite. Despite her four-inch heels she barely reached Imogen’s shoulder. An amazing art deco emerald ring adorned the middle finger of her left hand. Her ring finger was bare except for a thin tan line.

“I asked my assistant to stop by our macaron stand before you got here. I remembered that you liked my post about them.” Aerin fished a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. “She wrote down the flavors: Lemon Meringue, Pistachio Dream, Mocha Raspberry Frappé.” Imogen leaned over to grab a pale yellow cookie.

“That one is Lemon Meringue.” Aerin clapped her hands in delight.

Imogen bit into the cookie and sweetness tap-danced over her tongue as she felt all of the tension about this meeting melt through to the beautiful wood floor.

“These came from your macaron stand?” Imogen said, confused.

“Yes. Isn’t that wild? We have an actual macaron shop right here in the Shoppit offices. We have nine floors in total with all sorts of amenities. The macarons aren’t free but they are very, very cheap. The barbecue joint and the taco stand are free, as are the cafeterias…obviously. We have a hair salon that does five-dollar shaves and ten-dollar haircuts. There is an arcade on the second floor and a gym in the solarium on the roof. We’re getting a noodle shop soon. Everyone is really excited about the noodle shop.”

It was like Main Street, U.S.A., in Disney World.

“Sit, sit,” Aerin said. “I’m happy you came by. I asked someone to grab us salads from the chopped salad bar in the cafeteria. We stole a chef from Facebook recently! He’s sooooo good. But we can go out if you want.”

Imogen shook her head. “I’d love to stay here.”

Aerin settled into the chair opposite her. “Good, good.” She tapped out a quick email on her iPhone. “The food should be up in a few minutes.”

“So, I have to ask you.” Imogen cleared her throat. “Why did you want to meet me?”

“I knew my invite was strange.” Aerin buried her head in her
palms. “I feel like a weirdo.” Imogen could tell that Aerin didn’t really feel like a weirdo. She exuded a calm confidence in everything that she did. Her brown eyes were steady in their assessment of Imogen.

“I love meeting new people.” Imogen flicked her hand downward to underscore the point. “In fact, my friend Rashid had meant to introduce the two of us. He just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Rashid from Blast!?” Aerin’s eyes widened. “He rocks. He is like a weird super genius with the absolute best taste in clothes.”

“He said the same thing about you.”

“Noooooo.” Aerin waved her hand back and forth as if sweeping the compliment away. “He is the genius. He can take the smallest idea and turn it into a multibillion-dollar company. I swear it.”

Imogen glanced around. “It looks like you’re already running your own multibillion-dollar company.”

“Not billion…just yet.”

Aerin was at ease with herself in a way not many women were. She was humble, but didn’t shrink from the compliments. She sat taller when she began talking about her company, telling Imogen about how she started out as the fourth employee at Shoppit when they were working out of a buddy’s apartment in Long Island City, Queens.

“I grew up in the suburbs of Saint Louis, where fashion meant the Gap. Don’t get me wrong. I
love
the Gap, but I wish I’d had a few other options. I don’t just mean expensive stuff either. I wish I could have browsed the stalls in Chinatown, finding two-dollar sandals, or the table vendors in SoHo selling ten-dollar necklaces. That’s what Shoppit is all about. We are trying to create a truly global fashion marketplace that will benefit big brands and small brands and kids in Missouri who just want to accessorize. Fashion is an industry that builds walls up and my personality is the opposite of that. I am all about breaking those walls down. Fashion is a lifestyle now. For centuries fashion was inaccessible.”

Imogen knew Aerin was dumbing things down for her, but she was still impressed. She loved that the woman didn’t once mention traffic or revenue or data. She talked about a creative concept and the love of that concept. That was what
Glossy
was to Imogen in the
early days. It was a way to showcase the very best of fashion to people who didn’t get to live in that world day in and day out. Imogen said as much to Aerin.

“I knew we had that in common,” Aerin replied.

“But don’t you ever worry that we are giving too much away on social media? When you show so much of your personal life?” Imogen asked, and she didn’t regret the bold question when it came out of her mouth.