The Knockoff Read Online Free PDF Page A

her. “Come over if you want, Imogen.”
    “Eve,” Imogen called out. “Please take this with you.” She hoisted the pink monstrosity of a beanbag chair out of the corner and into Eve’s arms. It was heavier than it looked. “It doesn’t belong in here, darling,” Imogen said firmly.
    When Imogen made it into to her seat she saw her lonely iPhone was still perched at the top of her handbag. It squawked at her as if it knew that all of the other devices had been invited to the meeting. Sitting on the keyboard was a black bracelet like Ashley’s: “Good, Great, Gorgeous,
GLOSSY.com
!” Assuming it was some freebie from the marketing department, Imogen tossed it in the bin. Her computer screen was a mess of blinking notifications. She right-clicked her mouse and let out a small gasp. The monitor lit up like an arcade game, icons on the bottom bounced excitedly up and down and notification messages dotted the upper left side of the display, one after another. Her email in-box was at capacity. Imogen felt a distinct loss of control. Her eyes didn’t know where to look first. How could shereach Ashley, her new assistant? She needed someone to clear her in-box. There was no longer an assistant’s desk outside her office, and the exuberant girl was nowhere to be found.
    Quickly scrolling through the most recent ten messages, Imogen realized that everyone had worked through that morning meeting. During a time when she thought she was supposed to detach from her electronics, brainstorm with her colleagues and plan their day, everyone else had been sending “Reply All” emails.
    It felt as if Imogen had been in one meeting and the rest of the staff had been in another. An entire subtext was missing from her experience of the conversation in the conference room.
    The photo shoot they discussed was already scheduled. A photographer, not the one she recommended, had been booked. Hair and makeup were still outstanding.
    Wait.
    No.
    She scrolled up.
    Hair and makeup had been booked. The cost for catering was too high.
    This was déjà vu in reverse.
    She picked up the phone sitting on the desk and dialed Eve’s extension. It went to the voice mail of a man with a gruff Long Island accent. Of course Eve didn’t have the same extension she had when she worked for Imogen. Did Eve even have a phone on her desk? Where was Eve’s desk?
    Imogen depressed the receiver with her index finger, hit zero for reception and was immediately diverted to an automated system requiring her to enter the first four letters of a person’s first or last name. She typed in three-eight-three.
    “To reach Eve Morton, please press three or dial six-nine-six.”
    No answer. Imogen hung up and tried again.
    When she finally picked up, Eve’s voice on the other end of the line was cautious, surprised and laden with a hint of suspicion.
    “Hello?”
    “Eve. It’s Imogen. I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
    “Why are you calling me?”
    Was the girl daft? She repeated herself, slower and slightly louder this time. “I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
    “I can heeeeeeaaaar you. Why didn’t you just email me?”
    “It’s faster just to pick up the phone.”
    “No one talks on the phone. Email me. Text me. I am in the middle of, like, fifty things. Please don’t call.” The line went dead. No one talks on the phone? Eve behaved as though Imogen had just done something truly anachronistic, like send her a smoke signal or a fax.
    A blinking red dot on the upper quadrant of the monitor distracted her. She clicked. It was a notification that she had one of the company’s internal instant messages.
    Oh good. Her assistant, Ashley, had sent a message to check in.
    “You’re so cutez! ROFL!” That wasn’t exactly an offer of assistance. The message was followed by a short link to a site called Bitly. Bitly, Imogen reasoned by virtue of the adorable suffix, must be some kind of new kissing cousin to Etsy, the handmade crafts site that