Natalie
“That's really old school,” Michelle comments, looking at me as I place my tape recorder on my desk.
“It was my father's,” I tell her, looking at the old recorder with a knot in my throat. Inside it, there's a tape, and inside that tape there's a recording… One that I made secretly.
If you thought I was acting like a true Machiavellian when I told Hunter I wanted to meet at Asakura’s, you don't know the half of it. You see, I had the tape recorder going all throughout the night I spent with Hunter; and, despite the fact that this recorder is almost a relic, it still picks up everything and that quite easily, which means that this tape contains every single word Hunter told me. Yes, even his confession about his past with Logan.
“Is that your interview with Mr. Handsome?”
“Yes…” I whisper, not taking my eyes off the recorder. I know that with what I have in there that I can make a killing… Just imagine the amount of newspapers the Gazette would move if we published this? I mean, an exclusive story like this—it’d go around the world like a storm!
“Let me hear it,” Michelle says suddenly, getting up from her seat and walking around her desk. She reaches for the recorder and I just act out of instinct; I grab it and press it against my chest, looking at her apprehensively. “Wow, girl, calm down. What's in there?”
“There's, uhm, private stuff in here too…” I mumble meekly, warm blood rushing to my cheeks and coloring them in a violent red.
“OH MY GOD! You're such a slut, Natalie!” She laughs, placing one hand on my shoulder and squeezing. Once more she tries to reach for the recorder, and I clutch it to my chest even more tightly.
“It's nothing like that,” I say, even though my private workout in Hunter's gym is on the tape as well. I listened to it last night, and let me tell you… We put on quite a show. We were so loud that I bet anyone walking past the gym heard my moans and screams of pleasure. Oh, well.
“Yeah, right.” She rolls her eyes at me, an amused smile on her lips, but she walks back to her desk and sits down. Propping her feet up on the desk, she laces her fingers behind her head and leans back against the seat. “Was it interesting? The interview, I mean.”
“Yeah, it was… perhaps too interesting,” I reply, sighing heavily and running one hand through my hair. I have no idea about what I should do. Can I really write about what Hunter told me? He didn't confess about his past because I was interviewing him, after all, he did it because… well, because he trusted me. I don't know if I have the guts to break that trust just because I want to further my career. I'm not that Machiavellian.
“What are you two yapping about?” Fat Ed asks us, stepping through the doorway to our office. His shirt seems tighter than usual, his paunch stretching the fabric thin, and I realize that he’s been growing even fatter these past months. Now that he’s close to retiring, I guess that he has already started to let go. Not a good strategy, in my opinion; he’s already fat, and with all the amount of smoking he does… That’s just a disaster waiting to happen.
“Nothing,” I tell him quickly, putting on a fake smile as I try and cover my tape recorder with a copy of today’s newspaper. He glances in that direction as I do it, and I can’t be entirely sure if he didn’t notice that I was trying to hide something. “We were just discussing the profile I have to write on Hunter.”
“I see,” he whispers, looking from me to Michelle, the way he’s narrowing his eyes letting me know that he’s trying to peer into our very souls. “Did you find anything interesting?” He continues, once again turning his gaze toward me.
“Uhm, well,” I start, my heart suddenly jumping into a trot, “not really. I mean, I have some interesting material to work with, but nothing earth-shattering. He’s just another boring boxer, but I guess I can write a quality article out of the things he told me.”
“I see,” he growls, his eyes on mine for what seems like an eternity. Then, without saying a word more, he simply turns around and leaves, only leaving behind the stale smell of his cigarette smoke.
“Now that was some high-quality bullshitting,” Michelle whistles, glancing at me sideways. “What’s inside that tape, Natalie?”
“Something the world doesn’t need to know,” I say softly, looking up at her and smiling. She looks back at me for a few seconds, and then just nods.
“Do what ya gotta do, girl.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, opening the recorder and pulling out the tape. I stare at it and then, grabbing it tightly, I lean back against my seat and raise my arms up, almost as if I were preparing to make a free throw. Flicking my wrist fast, I let go of the tension in my fingers and the tape flies away in an arch, landing straight inside the trash basket in the corner of the office.
“Three points,” Michelle says, clapping her hands together. “You should’ve been a basketball player.”
“Thanks,” I whisper, even though I’m really not in the mood for jokes. I just threw into the trash the opportunity of a lifetime, so yeah, excuse me if I’m not in the best of moods right now.
“Hey,” she calls me softly, “it’s alright, Natalie. Not every story has to be a story.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some things are better kept in the shadows… We’re journalists, I know that. But we also have what I like to call common sense. Never put your job in front of your common sense. Or integrity, for that matter.”
Who’d have thought that Michelle, the laziest journalist in the whole Gazette, a cynical hard-drinker, would be the one imparting me with her wisdom?
“Thank you,” I merely say, smiling.
God bless her; I’d go crazy without Michelle.