There was an awkward pause. Wendy wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She felt like an enormous failure. What would she tell Roy and Shy? She’d dragged them away from England against their will, only to wind up getting fired? Was it because of the Gucci sneakers? Her boring outfits? Her addiction to reading about the dead woman on Brookliner? Wendy glared at the white ceramic bird perched on the top shelf of the glass bookcase opposite her desk. She hadn’t put it there. Did Lucy Fleur have a camera hidden inside it? Had she been spying on her?

As soon as Lucy Fleur hung up, Manfred practically kicked her office door down. “You’re going to love it at Enjoy!,” they said. “Gelato on tap. Afternoon yoga. Remember the December chocolate issue last year? I gained ten pounds just reading it.”

Wendy did not remember the December chocolate issue. She didn’t read the other magazines produced in the building. She imagined Enjoy! was one step up from an in-flight magazine.

She clicked back to the Home for the Holidays space she needed to fill in for Enjoy!’s upcoming December issue. Examples from previous issues were a feature on homemade throw rugs and one on rearranging your furniture to accommodate extra family members. Wendy thought about the things she and Roy and Shy had brought with them from England. Roy’s framed fish portraits, which he’d picked up in a gallery in St. Ives in Cornwall and was completely obsessed with even though he didn’t fish for sport and rarely ate fish. His books, which he’d been collecting for forty years and took up most of the moving truck. Shy’s pink fuzzy rug, which probably had fleas. Wendy’s collection of tacky commemorative royal family mugs. The old chairs. The dining room table with its one tarnished brass leg. Their décor wasn’t particularly stylish, but their home looked like a home.

“Shout if you need help.” Gabby, with whom Wendy now shared a cramped, windowless office, stood up and did a few squats. Gabby was Wendy’s physical opposite, with cascading black curls, huge brown eyes, and an extremely ample midsection. She wore a purple batwing dress. There were pictures of desserts pasted above her desk. Enjoy! staff were encouraged to get up from their desks and take a breather whenever they needed to. They were also encouraged to sample recipes in the test kitchen, learn to weave or snowshoe, drink hot chocolate with caramel sauce, and generally Enjoy!.

“I love the new chairs, don’t you?” Gabby asked.

Wendy rocked back and forth in her padded white leather desk chair, reminding herself not to sound snobbish. “Much nicer than upstairs,” she said, even though they were exactly the same. “The chair in my old office made marks on me bum.”