Chapter Seven
Lily
Our magazine’s offices were housed in those of our parent company — a media conglomerate which, like all the others, was still trying to figure out how to gather the right kind of material and deliver it in all the different possible ways they could. If I had my way, it would be me, a keyboard, and a press pass. But the dreams I had of being a gonzo journalist growing up were replaced by an understanding as I watched some of my favorite writers either get crushed by social media or succumb to it. We were all free agents now, responsible for a relationship with our own fan base, something that, in the not so recent old days, would have been considered completely unethical.
I knew how to work it. Discuss the philosophy of ethics all you want, what mattered was eyeballs, especially those that kept coming back. If they came back to my words, on an actual paper page or a screen, or on VR goggles for all I cared, that was fine. But a pretty face often trumped good writing. I wasn’t going to apologize for being born with a pretty face, because women in this business have a shorter window than men. It did mean, though, that I needed to retreat to my office occasionally. My male co-workers could be brutal.
Still, it was a mistake to get isolated. The whole point of the open office craze was collaboration, team, no place to hide and get complacent. I could agree with that to a point, which is why the morning my article hit, I made sure to get out in the open floor. Anyone who worked in the building could come and go, picking a work station, finding one of several roughly circular spaces with chairs facing each other over a few scattered low tables, getting their jobs done either with noise-canceling headphones or by barking questions and answers to each other as they fact-checked and raced deadlines.
That morning it was my turn in the crosshairs. One of the young, good looking men in the office who hadn’t had a chance yet to let his sides spread into the usual pillowy rolls, took the first shot.
“Hey, double-u squared! Why didn’t you use your golden lasso of truth on Starr?” he called to me.
I got the Wonder Woman reference. “Don’t you remember? You asked to borrow my lasso to tie up your girlfriend and ask if she’d been the one who trashed your article last week on the message boards. And rightly so, might I add.”
He laughed, but his cheeks were glowing, and he didn’t try again. When dealing with an insecure straight male, the ego card works every time. The trash talk game is a thousand times more challenging amongst women. I’m not saying it’s because we’re smarter, though I’d be happy to get into that debate. For us, it’s operating on about four hundred emotional levels at once, and half of them risk going overboard, creating hurt feelings that can’t be solved by handing them a beer, which often ends with creating enemies. I made a mental note to have a six-pack sent to this guy’s desk. He did call me Wonder Woman, after all.
“Honey, more power to you, but you could have given us some warning. We might have had time to get some talking points out!” It came from Dolores’s shrill voice.
The fake, squawking laughter that followed hurt my ears, even as I joined in. Dolores had come over with three female coworkers … the office’s wannabe queen bee with that week’s trio of sycophantic suck-ups trailing behind her.
I kept the full-teeth smile stretched across my face, just like hers. “Oh, Dolores, you haven’t gotten so slow you need a memo yet, right?”
We all squawked again, and I watched as all of the men in the office spread further away from us, some basic instinct not telling them why, but telling them just to go.
“Definitely not so slow I’d let a bunch of sweaty walruses block me out of my interview, Lily!” Dolores fired back.
I kept my teeth showing and added an oh stop flop of my wrist, as her friends kept laughing and tossing nervous looks at each other. “Oh, it’s lucky you weren’t there, sweetie—they’d have tried to mate with one of their own!”
The pitch of her friends’ laughter hit fire alarm status, and I saw the corner of her mouth twitch at my jab while she winced at their noise. She actually raised a hand to shut them up. It was like a movie. They reduced to a titter on command as Dolores raised the white flag. “Well, good job, honey. I almost wish I’d have written it myself.”
I almost let her escape, but followed up with, “Thanks, Dolores. If you’d have written it, people might be talking reasonably instead of acting like I nuked the Eastern seaboard.”
She put a gentle hand on my forearm then, and it was the first sincere moment I think I’d ever seen from the woman. “I mean it, Lily. I was jealous when I read it. It’s impressive writing. You okay?”
“I’m fine, now, thanks.”
We smiled at each other, claws retracted, and they wandered off. A familiar voice behind me said cheerfully, “Jeez, you’re a bitch.”
“Thank you.” I turned and my friend, Alicia, gave me a hug. She was one of our best photographers. She could go from getting a superb action shot on the field to making a studio portrait of an athlete for one of our in-depth exposés, and the prints would sell like beer during a playoff game.
“Want coffee?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Hey, intern! Coffee!” she demanded.
I put my hand to my mouth to stifle my amusement. Alicia was almost a foot shorter than me and skinnier than a ballerina, but I swear her voice boomed enough to make laptops rattle and turn sideways all the way across the gigantic room.
A college boy hustled over to us with a pair of cappuccinos and Alicia scoped him out from stem to stern. “Thanks. You’re cute.”
He smiled and blushed a little. Still looking at him, she leaned toward me. “I could spread him on a cracker and eat him.”
I laughed and said to him, “Go away before she tries.”
We watched his little butt hustling away in his jeans.
Alicia pouted. “Too baggy. I want to see more.”
“That’s the style,” I said.
“It’s a stupid style. So, that was a hell of an article.”
“Yeah.”
“You know what I think?” she asked.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“You need to come out with me more. We used to blow off steam together. What happened to that?”
“Oh, you know,” I muttered.
“Right, your five-year plan. But it’s not going to work if you burn out.”
“I know. I take my time off. Just not so much in the clubs and bars.”
“What else is there?” she questioned, sipping her cappuccino.
“Even photographers can read a book every once in a while.”
“No way. Attention deficit disorder isn’t just a male condition. Besides, I’m a visual girl,” she retorted.
“Want to hit a museum together?”
She made snoring sounds. I laughed.
“Seriously, Lily, you need to get out.” Her voice dropped to a croak. “Get drunk. Have some fun. Meet some guys.”
“After that article, does it seem that’s what I’m interested in doing?”
“Yes,” she stated matter-of-factly.
I gave her a wincing, squinty look.
“Ha, I knew it. How long has it been since you went out? Since George, right?”
“No comment.”
“Jeez, Lily, that’s what, a whole year?”
“Look, I don’t care about being a monk for awhile. I’m a journalist, like my dad was, and right now the only thing I’m thinking about is my career. It’s important to me,” I reminded her.
“Look, your dad was a giant. I get it. Shit, I still read his old stuff, and I hate reading. Four Pulitzers? Nobody does that. Those are some shoes to fill, Lil.”
“I’m not trying to compete with him, but there’s nothing wrong with making your parents proud, right?” I asked.
“I’m not saying there is. Just, look, we may not be the same, but I know my work suffers when I let things get out of whack.”
“You think my work’s suffering?”
“God, no. I love that article. It might be the best thing you’ve ever written. Just don’t tell me there’s not something else going on, ‘cause I know you, Lily.”
Just then Parker Starr burst through the outer door, the same intern following behind him. The intern shouted, “You can’t just come in here! Look, I’m going to have to call security. You have to get cleared.”
“Do what you gotta do,” Parker said over his shoulder.
“Parker?” I said.
He stared at me. I walked over to him. In my heels, I was still a few inches shorter, but I did my best to stare him right in the eyes and I didn’t back down.
“It’s okay, uh—” I directed toward the intern.
“Jeff.” He reminded me of his name, for the gazillionth time.
“Jeff, thanks, I’ve got it handled.”
“Oh, do you?” Parker questioned with a condescending tone.
I gave him my best Oh, big man trying to intimidate a lady look, and he closed his mouth and folded his arms.
“Follow.” I pointed at the ground behind me, acting a lot more pissed than I really was, as though he’d violated the inner sanctum of our secret society, and I strode away toward my office, four-inch stilettos not slowing me down. I got to the hallway and told the security guard at the desk, “He’s with me.”
We got into my office.
“What the fuck was—” he started.
“Would you mind closing the door?”
“I’m not going to be here long enough for it to matter.”
I stared at him. He glared back at me and balled his fists. I didn’t take a step back, though part of me wanted to. Instead, I lifted my chin, as though daring him to try.
He turned and closed the door with a slight click, then returned to his question.
“Why in the hell—”
I cut him off.
“Come, sit,” I commanded.
I went over to one of the couches in my office and sat. He looked like the top of his head might fly off with a jet of steam shooting straight up underneath. Then he walked over and sat opposite me.
“I—”
“Want something to drink?” I asked.
He took a deep breath, then it was like everything let out at once, and he fell back into the couch and laughed. “Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
I smiled my best innocent smile at him, and he looked into my eyes and grinned at me. Whatever effect I thought I might have been trying to make on him was nothing compared to what I felt at that moment. It was Parker. He wasn’t the same boy I’d interviewed years before, the one I’d fallen for. He was a man now, but it was still Parker.