Secret: No one really knows the real me.

“Savannah!” a short, thick woman yelled across a huge office filled with different cubicles and offices. “Savannah Shiver, I need to speak to you right now!” She held some folders in her arms, tapping her long red fingernails against, becoming impatient.

“Coming!” I replied, running out of a office with a huge folder in my arms. I squeezed past two men, talking to one another, and practically ran into another woman at the same time. I turned the corner, seeing the woman standing there, holding the folders. “Sandra, I’m sorry, I was trying to get these together –“

”Savannah, Lauren was fired this morning,” she replied, looking down at one of her folders. “She didn’t turn in her article and next month’s issue is due this afternoon. I need you to create a filler. Do it about anything but don’t do one of your usual articles. Write an editorial, I don’t care. We need a two page filler.” With that, she turned around, walking back to her huge office on the other side of the building.

“Savannah, your proposal is missing,” another woman said, walking up to me. I sighed, running back to my corner office. I almost knocked another lady down on the way but finally reached it. I flipped through papers, looking for the proposal I wrote on a new teen branch of the magazine that I work for. As I looked for it, people kept coming up to me, asking for other things. Do I look like I have three heads on my shoulders – no I don’t.

“Savannah, you have a phone call on line 3!” a woman said over my speaker phone. That alone freaked me out. It’s like the voice of God coming over you. Sarah, the operator here has a voice that I wouldn’t allow a dog to listen to. If a dog could answer a phone and hear her, the dog would probably hang itself with it’s tail.

“Savannah Shiver, can I help you?” I asked, answering the phone while throwing papers in the trashcan. “Hello?” I look down at the phone, realizing I didn’t press the blinking light. I’m so brilliant sometimes. “God, Savannah Shiver, may I help you?”

“Savannah, it’s Tracy in New York. Creative needs your new press photo emailed to them A.S.A.P,” Tracy said. I sighed yet again. What more do I need to do before I actually have a minute to sit down to myself

“I’m on it,” I replied, hanging up the phone. I closed my eyes as I sat down at my computer, turning my Finding Nemo screensaver off. I might be twenty six years old, but that movie is awesome.

I open a file on my computer, looking at a picture of myself. Christina, my main boss in New York, had a photographer take pictures of all the writers to that will be placed by our articles in the magazine.

I hate how I look. I look so, so very plain. I’m your typical plain Jane, with a touch of glossed over style. I have to have some sort of style or look even if I’m a writer and editor. Even in this business you have to maintain some type of look so readers won’t think they are taking advice from a fat loser, which I typically think that I am. I’m definitely not super model material. My auburn brown hair looks kind of funny against my tan skin. My body style is definitely not comparable to people like Jennifer Aniston or Gwyneth Paltrow. I’m fat. Of course, I’m not Wynonna Judd or Rosie O’Donnell fat, but I have weight problems. I have hips and, as Sir Mix A Lot would say ‘Baby Got Back!”. Being tall helps with the weight problems. I don’t look as much as I weigh and in some cases, that’s a good thing. People have told me that I’m beautiful but I disagree. I think the only beautiful thing about me are my green eyes. They have this green shade to them that looks like sparkling emeralds.

I don’t think that I’m pretty enough to be in print, let alone one of the fastest rising magazines in the world. Of course, Kiss & Tell was no Cosmo or Glamour but it definitely gave them a run for their money. Kiss & Tell was named the fastest growing women’s magazine the previous year, coming in third. For a magazine that had only been in publication for almost a year and a half, the results were remarkable.

And that’s where I work.

After being raised in, coincidently, Savannah, Georgia, I graduated high school and left for New York City where I majored in Journalism at New York University. While working there, I became close to one of my professors who just happened to be a former owner of Glamour, but had sold her stocks in it. She was starting her own magazine, and that is how I became a part of Kiss & Tell. We have offices in New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

Finally after much hesitation, I emailed the Creative offices in New York my photo. I didn’t want it in the magazine but it’s a sacrifice I have to deal with to have the job that I love. I took a sip of my cappuccino before picking up a folder, carrying it across the hallway. “Becky, here’s the proposal you wanted,” I said before walking back to my office. I didn’t want to spend too much time in there with Becky as she read it. I felt like I was making a huge mistake by writing up that proposal.

“What proposal is that?” I heard a woman ask, looking at the folder Becky held in her hands. I looked over, seeing Becky opened the folder, looking over the writing and smiled.

“A proposal she worked up to talk the head people in New York City about branching off into a teen version of the magazine or at least to think about it.”

“Oh really? What a good idea. I wish I would have thought of that.” She said while crossing her leg. “Talk about someone that’s working her way up the ladder.”

“She’s definitely doing that.” Becky replied, looking back at me to see that I was staring at them. I quickly looked up at my Lizzie McGuire calendar on the wall in my corner office. “When Sandra retires later this year, I can almost guarantee that Savannah will be taking her spot. Sandra will never give me the job, and Savannah is her protégé. Savannah has worked under her since Kiss & Tell was just an idea in New York. Her work is just superb. I don’t know much about her personal life, but she must be one hell of a life if it’s anything like what she writes about.”

I snorted to myself, looking back at the picture on the screen – they couldn’t be more wrong.
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Later that afternoon, after leaving the Kiss & Tell offices, I head across the street to my small, part time job of being a editor at Atlanta’s biggest newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I usually only do it a few hours a week, helping a lady by the name of Diana. Once in a while they will call on me to write up a article or interview someone, but that’s very rarely. They get a lot of their news from the Associated Press organization, so there aren’t that many real journalist that work there, except for the ones that cover the local news.

Diana is a interesting lady. She’s in her mid thirty’s and has a thirteen year old son who is more hormonal than a dog in heat. He will flirt with anything that doesn’t have a penis and I’m not just saying that. He’s hit on me, and that says a lot considering I’m not that attractive. She is always sitting me up on dates when I really don’t care for the dating scene. Sometimes I have to say yes, just for the simple fact that I have to be on top of the things that are happening in women’s lives and the dating world today for Kiss & Tell.

“Hey Diana,” I said, walking into her office. I put my bags down in a chair and walked over, looking at the layout of the entertainment section that she designed. “That looks really good.”

”Thank you darlin’,” she replied in her thick Southern accent. I shook my head, walking over to the computer to look over the articles. “So what did you think of Allen last night?” she asked, talking about the thirty-nine year old accountant she had set me up with the night before. “Savannah?”

”He was a nice,” I replied, trying to shy away from the subject.

“What was wrong with him?”

”I’m not picky about guys,” I replied, picking up a pen and pointed at the screen, “Misspelling –“

“What was wrong with him Miss Shiver?” Diana asked, looking at me. I turned around in the chair and stared at her.

“He was boring. He was too old for me and he had long ear hair that just totally disgusted me. He’s too involved in his work that he doesn’t take time to groom himself,” I replied in one long breath. I looked back at the computer and sighed, not wanting to hear her reaction. I hated doing this every single time she set me up on a blind date. “I’m sorry Diana, just, he wasn’t my type.”

”What is your type?” Diana asked, walking to the other side of the room. “You’ve only had one serious boyfriend in your whole life.”

”Two,”

”Right, the one in New York and then that singer guy,” Diana said, as she snorted, “Savannah, you don’t know what your type is. If you’re so picky about the guys you surround yourself by, then why don’t you just go out and find yourself the guy that you want and you fight for him!”

”Diana, I don’t need a man in my life to be happy,” I replied, standing up from the chair that I was sitting in. “I mean, I’m happy with my life. I have a great life.”

“Savannah –“

”I just,” I said, pausing as I thought what to say. “I’m not interested in these business guys that you set me up with. They bore me with their talks of stocks and bonds and their unbelievable thirst for marriage and a little housewife. That’s not me. That’s not who I am and I don’t want a boyfriend or husband that wants that.”

“So they’re too old for you?”

”Yeah, I mean, a guy is fine, but I don’t need a guy to father me. I had a father.” I replied, looking at the computer. “Shall we get to work?”

”On one condition,” Diana replied, pointing at me with her red ink pen. “I will find you the perfect guy. He won’t be too old and he won’t be a business man.” I rolled my eyes at her. I hated her matchmaking skills. “Deal?”

”Deal,” I replied, as we shook hands. I didn’t want to make the deal but I was ready to get home to my oh so very exciting life that everybody seems to think I live.
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My life.

People at work seem to think I live this perfect life. I have a great job and I almost always have a smile on my face. I go on dates with business or political guys from Atlanta and I always go to the biggest parties here. I don’t know why they seem to think this, it’s really beyond me.

I was born in Savannah, in the middle of a hurricane. I was almost named Bertha, after the hurricane, as disappointing as that may sound until a nurse talked my mother out of it. I never met that nurse but I would love to give her a hug and thank her for saving me from a life of misery with a name like that. Instead, I was named Savannah Georgia Shiver on July 24, 1977. My parents had a great sense of humor since my brother was named Dallas Texas Shiver.

I had a fairly normal life until the Spring of 1987 when we went on vacation to Florida. We were driving down Interstate 95, on our way to Orlando, when we were involved in a major wreck with two semi-trucks. My parents and brother were killed instantly and I was the only one that survived. I was in a coma for two weeks but finally came to with no real damage except for a broken leg and a broken collar bone.

After the accident, I pushed myself away from society, becoming home schooled by my Grandmother, my father’s mother. I was depressed, always visiting a psychologist twice a week. After finishing high school through tutoring, I went on to New York City to NYU and the rest is history. My grandmother died six years ago, just as I was finishing up my college career. With her dying, I had no real family left, so I’m almost alone.

Except for my daughter.

I have a five year old daughter named Nichole, after my mother. She is my everything. My life revolves around her and work. That’s why I don’t really care for Diana’s blind dates. They have nothing to offer me, that I want or don’t already have. I have money because I have a good job. I have a daughter that I love unconditionally and I have a great, three bedroom apartment in a little suburb in Atlanta. We have our little family and we don’t need a man to come in and screw things up. I don’t want to fall in love because every time I love someone, I loose them – except for Nichole. She’s mine and nobody can ever take that away.