Kate White - You On Top: Smart, Sexy Skills Every Woman Needs to Set the World on Fire

Copyright 2006 by Kate White

Excerpt from Lethally Blond copyright 2007 by Kate White

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: October 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-56849-4

Nonfiction

Why Good Girls Dont Get

Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do

The Nine Secrets of Women

Who Get Everything They Want

Fiction

Lethally Blond

Over Her Dead Body

Til Death Do Us Part

A Body to Die For

If Looks Could Kill

I t was the weirdest phenomenon and I couldnt figure out what was causing it. Several years ago I started to receive e-mailsand letters, toofrom guys Id once dated but hadnt set eyes on in years. The message was pretty much the same with each one: Hi, how are you, I just wanted to write and see how you were doing after all this time. Theyd mention what they were up to professionally, how many rug rats they were raising, and a few other tidbits. Some of them were guys Id had only a few dates with; others had been more serious crushes. There was even one lettera Christmas card, actually, with a schmaltzy illustration of a horse-drawn sleigh charging through the snowfrom this real bad boy whod stomped on my heart so hard you wouldnt think he even believed in Christmas. Id never expected to hear from him again in this lifetime.

Why are they doing this? I wondered. Maybe, I thought jokingly, theres some kind of nostalgia hormone that floods the male body after the age of forty. Another possibility was that their daughters were all going to want internships in the magazine business at some point and the fathers were laying the foundation.

Then, one day, somebody offered me an explanation Id never considered. I was catching up over lunch with a male editor who used to work for me, and I mentioned the phenomenon just to get his take on it. No sooner was the story out of my mouth than he tossed his head back and laughed out loud.

Kate, are you nuts? he said, when he was done chortling. Dont you see the real reason theyre getting in touch?

Obviously not, I replied.

Ill tell you exactly why theyre doing it, he said. They think you know all this amazing stuff about sex now because youre the editor in chief of Cosmo. Theyre totally intrigued.

I burst into laughter. I wasnt at all sure whether he was right but it amused me greatly to think of some former minor boyfriend perusing Cosmo coverlines like How to Touch a Naked Man and Sex Hell Go Wild For: Awesome New Bed Tricks That Actually Double His Pleasure, thinking hed give me a call in the hope I might share what Id learned.

Well, I wont be sharing that wisdom with any of them. But I have to admit that I have learned a ton in the years Ive been editing Cosmo. Yes, some tantalizing facts about sex because thats one of our specialties. But Ive also learned a lot about men, love, human behavior, success, office politics, and just plain life in general. Some of it Ive gleaned as Ive been editing all the articles weve run on those subjects; other tidbits Ive picked up from the fascinating people Ive met and the intriguing situations Ive found myself in. I feel like a big sponge absorbing this amazing stuff that I would never have learned otherwise. My job at Cosmopolitanwhether Im dropping into a cover shoot, giving a luncheon for an author, or writing Cosmo coverlineswould be incredibly exhilarating regardless, but picking up all this information has been a terrific bonus.

The funny thing is I never even applied to be the editor in chief of Cosmo, and when the job was first offered to me, I was nearly knocked over by a wave of ambivalence. It all began on a Sunday in August, while I was relaxing at a weekend home my husband and I have in Pennsylvania (to be honest, I was baking a blueberry pie for my family, which in hindsight seems like a really absurd thing to be doing the day youre tapped to run a magazine like Cosmo). The phone rang; I picked it up with floury hands and was shocked to hear the voice of my boss, the president of our magazine division. She sounded peppy on the phone, so I was pretty sure I wasnt about to be canned; yet, on the other hand, it was highly unusual for her to phone me on a Sunday, so I knew something major was cooking (besides my damn pie).

Whats up? I inquired, my legs going all rubbery on me.

She asked me to drive into the city and meet with her that very afternoon. She had something special to share with me, something she thought Id like. I was running Redbook magazine at the time and the first thought that flashed through my mind was, Oh shit, Im not the editor of Redbook anymore.

Leaving my husband and kids behind, I headed back to Manhattan. In the car I ran through possible scenarios in my head and even rehearsed dialogue in the hopes that I wouldnt say anything dim-witted when informed of my new professional lot in life.

Kate, wed like you to run our New Media office, I dejectedly imagined my boss announcing to me.

Great, great, I would reply, while fighting the urge to dry-heave. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity.

As soon as I arrived in my bosss office, she asked me to sit down. It was clear that whatever was going to happen would happen mercifully fast. Within four seconds of my fanny hitting the seat cushion, she told me that the company was offering me the job as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. I was absolutely dumbfoundedshe might as well have announced that the company wanted me to fly a hot-air balloon over the Atlantic as part of a corporate promotion. The current Cosmo editor, who had taken over when Helen Gurley Brown retired, had been in the job only a year and a half, and I hadnt heard even a morsel of gossip suggesting she would be jumping ship. As soon as I recovered from my initial shock, two feelings rushed through me like water through a hose. One was pure exhilaration. I was being handed the chance to run the most successful womens magazine in the worldand I hadnt even had to go through the typical torturous recruitment process in which you prepare a million ideas for the magazine and wait weeks for the company to get back to you. It would be thrilling to head Cosmo. The challenge would be an instant antidote to the mild career malaise Id been experiencing over the past year or so.

But at the same moment I also felt pure terror. Id been the editor in chief of several national magazines and had a good track record, so I was certain that Id be able to handle the day-to-day responsibilities that came with overseeing a big magazine. But I worried that Cosmo wasnt the right match for me. In my most recent jobs Id been editing for a reader who was older, married rather than single, and not nearly as feisty as the Cosmo girl. I wondered if Id be able to make the magazine as exciting as it had to be. Plus, there was so much at stake. I knew from being in the company that American