The B-Word

Part One

Chapter One

Harper looked around the room and groaned. The open office left nowhere to hide, and she was just about sick of the excitement that was mounting. Yet again, her boss Carmella Dixon was preparing to receive her latest future award winning author into the office, and all the assistant editors under her were foaming at the mouth, vying for attention, wanting to be the one chosen for this project. To make their names known and carry favour with their leader.

As a lowly proof-reader at a large independent publishing company in London, she was a zillion miles from ever getting anywhere near an editor role, and even further from a place as a published writer, her real dream. Which was heart breaking to her. She only took this job to have a chance to work in the literature world after several years trying to get published, which only left her with a room full of rejection letters. Her optimistic heart had hoped that she would walk into a job and people would see her talent. But it wasn't like that. It seemed the literature world was saturated with celebrities, often minor who wanted to publish a heavily ghost-written book.

Maybe it was being born to such a book lover, a mother who had named her after such an iconic writer, that made her so obsessed with the written word, but maybe it was more than that. She couldn't say. But for as long as she could remember, she had found her happiness between the pages of a book. She'd holidayed with a book stuck to her nose, literally blindly bumping her way on to ferries or planes, unable to put down her latest escape. It was more than a hobby, more than a passion. She had always believed that this was her life, that she was destined to be an author.

Sitting on the far side of an open plan office, proof reading what was often very poor prose was depressing. Especially when she had a pile of failed novels at home that often hadn't even garnered a letter of rejection, that she knew were better. It seemed that talent or pedigree meant nothing in the world of literature. Because, if there was one thing she had, she had pedigree. She had attended Cambridge for her primary degree, then the equally prestigious St Andrews for her Masters. She'd considered taking a turn to journalism, but it wasn't the investigation she liked, it was the creation, the growth, the depth, the descriptions. She loved being creative, that was her thing.

But despite acing all her courses, it had all run dry, because creative talent and enthusiasm didn't equal book deals. All she wanted was to have people appreciate her work, all she got was this.

She glanced around, usually she kept her head down, hiding from everyone else. But today the open plan office was buzzing. Some reality star was coming into the office to discuss his book deal, and it was likely to be a hit because it would be marketed that way. This man had no experience, hadn't written more than his name as far as she knew, but he was famous, in some capacity, and that meant more opportunity than she'd ever get through hard work and talent.

Bitterness wasn't a great attribute, but she couldn't fight it, she felt hard done by.

Carmella had a glass walled office that ran the length of the room, the rest of the room consisted of minute cubicles, barely big enough for a desk, separated by waist high partitions so that there was literally no privacy. She sat at the far end, away from the boss. Popularity and seniority saw people move towards her. After eight months of working there, Harper had given up on ever getting across the room. She was destined to be lowly proofreader until she quit or died.

Maggie and Daniel, the two highest placed assistant editors were skipping from their desks back and forth to Carmella's office gushing with enthusiasm that she couldn't believe was genuine, helping prepare the office for the arrival. She wasn't sure a male reality TV star would want canapes and non-alcoholic wine, but that was what she could see on display through the glass office wall.