by Monroe, Lila
My heart drops faster than an elevator plummeting fifty stories. “Wait,” I say slowly, “you’re working here?”
“Um, something like that,” Justin admits with a sheepish smile. All around us the newsroom is humming, the smell of coffee and toner and adrenaline as everyone rushes to file stories and hit deadlines. Julie, the Gazette’s business reporter and my beloved work wife, waves distractedly from her cube, her phone pressed to her ear as she types frantically away at her computer. Then she catches sight of Justin, and I watch her face darken into a frown.
“There you are!” calls a deep voice before I can react. When I turn around I spot my editor, Carl, wearing his usual hangdog expression. He’s in his fifties, and is the only person besides my own dad allowed to call me “kiddo” without it being somehow condescending. He’s dressed up today in anticipation of the big meeting, trading his usual rumpled, mustard-stained shirts for . . . a slightly less rumpled, coffee stained shirt. He’s even donned a tie printed with tiny typewriters and combed his thinning hair for the occasion.
This must be bad.
“It’s good to see you,” he continues, and I realize all at once that he’s talking to Justin, not to me. “I’m glad you could make it, and see the place for yourself. It’s a great team here. Committed to making this new arrangement work.”
I look back and forth between them, my lust-addled journalistic instincts beginning to come back online, and it only takes a moment before my creeping suspicion curdles into full-on horror.
Because my very important meeting today?
It’s supposed to be with—
Oh God.
Before I have time to react, Carl holds his hand out to Justin: “Mr. Rockford,” he says as they shake. “It’s good to finally meet you in person.” That’s when he finally turns to me. “Natalie,” he says brightly, his smile the tiniest bit frayed around the edges. “I see you’ve met our new boss.”
2
Natalie
“Who does that?” I wail after work that night, sitting across the table from my BFFs April and Poppy at our favorite watering hole on the Lower East Side. It’s a dive with a tiny, light-strung patio, a gruff, balding bartender, and improbably good frosé—which I need. By the gallon.
“I mean, seriously,” I demand, my voice rising from the indignation . . . and my third frosé. “Who does that?!”
“What, make out with their new CEO?” April asks, smirking as she takes a sip of her wine. She’s got a neon-pink Band-Aid wrapped around one thumb, an occupational hazard of her work as a floral designer. The pink scarf wrapped around her dark curls though? That’s all April.
“Make out with their new CEO,” I echo mournfully, “who just happens to be an actual cartoon villain.”
“I don’t get it, though,” Poppy says, popping a pretzel into her mouth. “What’s so villainous about him, exactly?”
“Well, I don’t know about him, specifically,” I admit with some reluctance. “But he’s a Rockford—as in the Rockford Group!”
“The massive media conglomerate?” April asks.
“Bingo,” I say, swirling my cocktail straw through my rapidly-melting frosé. “And also like, Rockford Stadium. Rockford Music Hall . . .”
“Rockford Hospital,” Poppy puts in helpfully, ticking it off on her fingers. “Rockford Park. The Rockford Collection at the Met. Rockford Towers . . .”
“Exactly,” I say, though it sounds like she could keep going all night long. “His family owns like, half the city, going back generations. And they’re notorious for buying up small companies that are sold for scraps and never heard from again. They count their money, while everyone else heads to the unemployment office.” I gulp the rest of my drink, setting the empty wine glass down harder than I necessarily mean to. “Ergo: cartoon villain.”
“He must have shaved off his curly mustache for just this reason,” Poppy jokes. “It was really interfering with the ladies.”
“Was it good?” April wants to know. “The makeout, I mean. Not his hypothetical curly mustache.”
I clear my throat, feeling my whole body warm at the memory of Justin’s hands and mouth and body, his knee between my thighs. Cartoon villain or not, the man knows how to kiss. “It was fine,” I say, not quite looking at them. “It was . . . a makeout.”
“Uh-uh.” Poppy smirks, clearly not buying it.
“OK, it was fully the best damn kiss of my life,” I admit with a groan, dropping my head into my hands. “But it doesn’t matter! Keeping this job—this job that I have spent the last half-decade of my life busting my ass to get, if you’ll recall—is the only thing that matters. Luckily, he spent all day cloistered away with the senior editors. So, I just need to pretend it never happened, that’s all. And hopefully he’ll do the same.”
“If you can keep from sliding off your chair in pitch meetings,” Poppy teases.
My mouth falls open, faintly scandalized. “You’re filthy!” I chide, throwing a peanut across the table as April bursts out laughing.
“Sorry, sorry,” Poppy says, cheeks pinking a little. “I’m taking my work home with me. My latest client is a total kinkster—the dirtier the better.” She raises one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Let me know if you’re looking for a freelance job, by the way.”
“Tempting.” I grin. Poppy runs a Cyrano business, writing love letters—and texts, and emails—for hire. She’s brought dozens of lovelorn couples together—plus, landed herself a hot boyfriend in the process. Not that I’m jealous. Much. “How are things on the romance side, anyway?”
Poppy smiles. “Great! I have a proposal coming up next week. I’ll send them to you for the wedding flowers if she says yes,” she adds, nodding to April.
“All we need is a divorce lawyer, and we’re a one-stop shop for all your relationship needs,” I quip.
“Don’t jinx it!” April protests, ever the romantic. “Nobody wants to hear the D-word before they even make it down the aisle.”
I shrug. “Just good planning, to me.”
“Well, we all know about your priorities,” April replies.
I tick them off, “Career, Pulitzer, walk-in shower, trip to Europe.”
“And a man?”
“I’ll allow it, eventually,” I grin. “Maybe I’ll meet him in Rome, celebrating my Pulitzer win.”
They laugh. “Maybe Justin likes international travel . . .” Poppy says slyly.
I groan again. “Way to bring me back down to earth with a bump. Apparently, we’re all sitting down with him to evaluate our ‘place in the process,’ ” I say, doing the requisite air quotes. “If I can’t figure out how to impress this guy and wind up getting tossed out on the mean streets of Midtown, I just might need that extra kinky freelance work.”
“Oh, it sounds like he’s already impressed,” April puts in with a wicked grin.
“I’m sure you’ll have a stellar evaluation,” Poppy agrees.
“I hate you both,” I tell them, but can’t hold back the smile. “Just for that, you’re buying the next round.”
After another round—and another round of “What am I going to do?”—I head home. It’s still warm out, so I take my time strolling over the Brooklyn Bridge, as the sun sinks in brilliant pinks and oranges over the river. I’ve lived in New York City my entire life, and while it’s easy to get cynical about the tourists and the trash, I don’t think I’ll ever get over how beautiful it is at moments like this. This town is more to me than just the culture and the energy and the fact that you can get literally anything delivered at any hour of the day or night.
It’s home.
Back at the apartment, I curl up on the couch with leftover ramen and this week’s New Yorker, queueing up some old Norah Jones on Spotify as my three-legged rescue cat, Sally Albright, yawns and stretches on her perch on the windowsill. I love my little third-floor walkup with its tall, narrow windows and exposed brick walls, the mismatched dishes and the vintage chaise lounge I scored on Craigslist a
nd wrestled up three flights of stairs all by myself.
OK, with a little help from a food delivery guy. But still. I’m the one who charmed him into it.
I look around, feeling a pang. I can barely scrape together my rent as it is, between my salary at the newspaper and extra freelance writing gigs. How am I going to afford it if I lose my job thanks to Rockford restructuring?
Then again, maybe I’m overreacting. After all, what kind of reporter jumps to conclusions before getting all the facts? They’ve been giving us pep talks ever since the news of the takeover came down: business as normal, blah blah, dynamic efficiency, blah, no major changes ahead. It could be the truth, or just a steaming helping of BS.
It’s time to do some research.
I open my laptop and type Justin’s name into Google. He comes up right away, a bunch of gossip column items plus an Instagram that has me rolling my eyes so hard I can practically see my own brain: Justin sunning himself on his family’s yacht with Tom and Gisele. Justin celebrating his 30th birthday with a buyout of Eleven Madison Park. Justin—oh, God, just kill me—with a swimsuit model on each arm at some swanky club opening, all of them cheesing for the camera.
This is the hot, bashful guy who was so funny and charming earlier today? The one who made my knees weak and drove me to extremely uncharacteristic public makeout action?
I guess it goes to show you can’t judge a guy by a five-minute conversation.
Or a three-minute makeout, either.
I know I should quit now, while I’m barely ahead, but I keep scrolling, scanning a Wikipedia entry on the origins of the Rockfords’ fabulous wealth—steel mills, railroads, a strategic marriage or five—plus a few articles from the business section on their various mergers and acquisitions. It turns out the Rockford reputation isn’t actually as bad as I thought.
It’s worse.
The more I read about the Justin’s family, the more the pit in my stomach turns into a yawning chasm. Their usual MO is to buy up struggling newspapers and magazines before immediately “pivoting to video,” laying off the entire editorial staff, then shutting the operation down entirely and stripping it for parts. They did it last year in Chicago, and again in Philadelphia with the Courier.
And now they’re coming after the Gazette.
Or rather, Justin is.
I groan. I know my taste in guys isn’t the best. In college, I would always wind up hooking up with the cute, brooding guys who played guitar in a band and had, let’s just say, elastic opinions on commitment. And, since I’ve been busting my butt to get a journalism job, I haven’t had time for much more than ill-advised coat-check room fumbles with cute, brooding guys who played drums in a band (noticing a theme here?). But still, getting my panties in a twist for some hipster guy with tattoos is acceptable. Par for the twenty-something course.
But getting hot and bothered for the corporate spawn of Satan? Not allowed.
Even if he does kiss like a depraved angel.
I sigh, slamming my laptop shut. I don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow when the axe falls. But luckily, I have twelve more hours to imagine it, in excruciating detail.
Goodbye, dream job. It was nice while you lasted!
* * *
I get into the office early the next morning—all the better to show off my diligent work ethic, right?—and find the newsroom already buzzing, and not in a good way. “What’s going on?” I ask, hurrying over to where half a dozen of my colleagues are crammed into Julie’s cube like NYU freshmen girls in a cab at two a.m.
“Boss man decided he wants to play journalist,” Julie tells me darkly, passing over a plate of blueberry muffins that Lori, our copyeditor and resident purveyor of baked goods, must have made. “He’s not just going to be running the board, he’ll be playing editor-in-chief, too.”
“Getting involved with all the tiny details,” Lori adds. “Like staffing.”
Uh-oh.
I shoot a nervous look at the corner office. Blinds down. Door closed. “Has anyone been in there yet?”
Julie shakes her head. “They’re going by department. Arts just got decimated. I heard he’s going to lay off at least a third of the staff this week alone.” She takes a swig from her coffee cup in a way that makes me wonder if perhaps it holds something stronger than just a nice French Roast. “At the Courier, it was half.”
I help myself to two muffins—with pink slips looming, I’m not exactly in a position to be turning down free food—and shuffle back over to my desk, painfully aware that as the last one hired, I’m probably going to be the first one to go. God, what am I going to do? Journalism is the only career I’ve ever wanted. The only thing I’ve ever been any been any good at. But with the way things are going in the industry lately I’ll be lucky if I can get a job writing listicles for some third-rate Buzzfeed knockoff. A full-time salaried position like this with health benefits? Ha! It’s no coincidence it’s taken me five solid years to even grab hold of this low rung on the ladder. I’m not prepared—or solvent enough—to take another five.
I take a paper napkin leftover from last week’s sad salad desk lunch and start frantically making a list of potential pitches: Ten Times This Random Baby’s Constipated Face was All Of Us. Thirty-Three Plastic Happy Meal Toys You Probably Played With For Two Seconds if You Were Born in 1994.
“Natalie?” One of the editors appears by my desk. “Rockford wants you in his office.”
Gulp.
I abandon my list—Eleven Bonkers Political Opinions Kanye West Expressed in the Time It Took You to Read This Headline—and skulk across the bullpen like a prisoner about to face a firing squad. Julie shoots me an encouraging smile. Lori salutes me, muffin in hand. These are more than just my work colleagues, I think with a pang—they’re my friends. Hell, they’re my family. I can’t bear to lose any of them to some soulless corporate suit like Justin Rockford.
Well, I guess he’s not a corporate suit, exactly. When I push the door ajar, he’s hunting through a file box, wearing those same red sneakers as yesterday, paired with dark wash jeans and a charcoal featherweight cashmere sweater pushed to his elbows.
I hate that he’s so handsome. My stomach turns over, despite everything.
“Um, you wanted to see me?”
Justin looks up. “Thanks for coming in,” he begins, though it’s not like I had much choice in the matter. “Listen, about yesterday . . .”
“What about yesterday?” I say brightly. “I can’t think of anything that happened that would require talking about. Especially anything that might be professionally embarrassing or awkward to discuss with my new boss. Can you?”
Justin gives me a private smile, and I swear I see relief in his eyes. “No, I can’t think of anything,” he agrees. “Just wanted to make sure. How’s the mood out there?”
“It’s OK,” I manage, as he crosses back to the desk, holding one file in his hands. Is it mine? What does it say? I can’t help but notice his hands—elegant but still strong-looking, like they’d be equally capable of signing complicated contracts and hauling firewood at some remote-but-still-luxurious cabin in the woods.
You know, the kind of place you might take a woman you made out with in an elevator for a weekend of apple-picking and hot sex.
Pull it together, Natalie.
The voice in my head sounds suspiciously like my mother’s, blunt and no-nonsense and not here for any rich-boy bull. What do I think I’m doing, having seasonal fantasies about the person who’s probably about to fire me and everyone I work with?
“I mean, not great, actually,” I blurt. “Considering everyone here knows you’re planning to sell the whole company for scrap metal and move on.”
Justin blinks, obviously taken aback by my slash-and-burn approach to our first professional meeting. “I wouldn’t put it that way,” he says, sitting back in his chair. “Obviously there’s a certain amount of streamlining and optimizing that needs to happen whenever a company absorbs a new entity, bu
t—”
I try to make sense of his vague management-speak, but it sounds like he’s reciting the table of contents of a business textbook written entirely in Mandarin. “Look,” I interrupt finally, surprised by my own forwardness. A big part of being a reporter is being unafraid to ask the tough questions, but this is blunt even for me. “I don’t want us to waste each other’s time here. I just need you to tell me if my friends and I are all about to get canned.”
If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s read people, and for a second I can see Justin panicking as he tries to find a way to let me down easy. “I—” he starts before breaking off awkwardly, and I hold up a hand to stop him.
“So, that’s a yes.”
My heart drops. I can see everything I’ve spent my whole life working toward evaporating in front of my eyes, that feeling of missing the subway doors closing by half a second and watching the train disappear down the track. It was nice while it lasted, this whole succeeding at my dream career thing I had going. But it’s over now, thanks to him.
“According to the paperwork I got from HR, you were the last one hired,” Justin says, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Which means, well . . . It’s not personal, Natalie. Despite . . . You know,” he clears his throat. “The thing that doesn’t require discussing. These decisions were made days ago. This is just business.”
He’s wrong. This isn’t just business. This is my life!
“Do you have any idea how many puff pieces I wrote to get here?” I ask him, biting back desperation. “I staked out Justin Bieber’s hotel from behind a dumpster all night long—in February!—just so that I could start doing real, serious reporting. If you don’t believe me, look at my stats. The profile I wrote on the mayor’s chief of staff last spring is still getting clicks. Give me a chance. You won’t be sorry!”
Justin shakes his head, looking frustrated. “Natalie—”
“I’m not leaving this building,” I tell him, aware that I’m sounding increasingly desperate. He can probably smell the flop sweat from clear across the room. “I’ll write whatever you need me to write. Hell, I’ll scrub the floors. But the Gazette is my home. The people out there, they’re my family. I’m not going to give any of it up without a fight.”