I never thought I'd be here. Standing outside the Editor-In-Chief's office. After I'd been let go so unceremoniously.
But there's no other option. There's no other choice in the matter.
Magnus doesn't know that I'm here. I haven't told him. It's what I need to do. For Magnus.
For our baby.
The door opens and an Assistant Editor that I don't recognize walks out. Mom's been replacing a lot of the people in the top spots lately. But now it makes sense.
What she's doing is pure and simple character assassination. And a lot of old hands at the Daily Journal wouldn't have stood for it. They'd have either refused to do what she was asking and been fired, or resigned.
They certainly wouldn't be crawling back here for a desperate attempt at mercy.
At least that's what it seems like to me—a desperate attempt—as I walk into Mom's office.
No, she wasn't expecting me, okay. That's why she looks surprised. I didn't call ahead or do anything.
"I need to talk to you, Mother," I tell her.
She's silent. She wasn't expecting this.
Good. Maybe I have the element of surprise. Maybe I can penetrate through that shell.
"I need to tell you something," I say trying to draw strength from the silence.
But it's like Mom reads my thoughts, you know?
Because she breaks that silence with a simple, "What is it?"
I take a sigh. And I say the words that I'd never thought I'd have to utter.
"I'm sorry, mother," I say. Now she really is surprised and her eyes go wide. "I should've never crossed you in the first place."
Mom looks at me in silence.
"I should've done what you said when you said to do it, but I didn't," I tell her. "I should've realized the kind of monster that Magnus was."
"That Magnus is," my mother says, bringing me back to the present tense. "He hasn't changed."
I wince. This feels like a betrayal. Maybe if I say nothing then Mother will take my silence as consent.
"But I don't know why you say such a thing, baby girl," Mom says in a sing-song voice as she stands up from her desk and walks around it. "Magnus is by all definitions, a perfect man."
My eyes flash and I look to her. How can she say such things?
I watch her as she walks to the door to her office and closes it.
"He's handsome. He's kind. Gentle. With a generous and compassionate soul. He's fun. Distracting. Engaging. Lively. Irreverent, but when he falls in love with you, well, you better be holding onto something," she says, looking straight at me. "Am I right?"
She's expecting an answer. But I can't answer. I came to beg for forgiveness and save Magnus. He would be enraged if he knew I was here.
But I can't let that stop me.
"I'm waiting for an answer, girl," Mom asks, harshly. "He's very easy to fall in love with, yes?"
I sigh.
I can't lie about this.
I nod my head. "Yes," I say. "He is very easy to fall in love with."
Mom smiles.
"I know," she says. "That was the plan all along."
I look to her. She has more surprises for me than I did for her.
"Oh, Magnus was the perfect man for any woman," Mom says out loud, walking to the window to her office overlooking the hustle and bustle of Times Square. "But I never liked men. I never liked the man who was your father. I only married Magnus for his wealth and connections. I honestly don't know why he stayed with me."
And then the part that shocks me the most.
"We never even consummated the marriage. He never once stuck that fabulous cock that he must be pleasing you with inside of me. I never let him," Mom says.
That can't be.
Mom looks at me and I notice something for the first time.
A complete lack of emotion. A lack of morals. Or compassion.
It’s like staring into a soulless pit of darkness.
“Yes, girl, I lied to you the entire time. Magnus never once cheated on me. But you can figure that out by now that something didn’t add up, I’m betting,” she says to me with a cruel smile. “He was a fool to stay with me as long as he did once we married.”
"But why did he marry me?" Mom asks, turning around. "Magnus, for all his good qualities is a simple soul. He fell in love with me."
My heart catches.
"Well at least he thought it was love. It was unrequited lust. He was young and I was scheming. I got him to marry me and I kept him at bay. We were only married for a very short time, as you remember, but he was kind and patient. He didn't want to rush me into the first time we had sex. What he didn't realize was that I was sleeping with Laurel every day and every night," Mom says, telling me with a smile. "He'd leave for the day and Laurel would come over at lunch and we would fuck in our bed. Maybe I wouldn't have done that if I liked men, but I was always about the women."
I sigh deeply. It's frustrating and sad.
But also very, very scared.
This person who is in front of me is finally the true nature of my mother.
There was always flashes of her cold, calculating visage that’s on display for me now. Times that it came out only to be shrouded again as she put on her facade.
But this is the most dangerous form of psychopath. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She has no compunction against right or wrong. She knows on a rational level that she’s in the wrong - but it doesn’t affect her at all.
Perhaps the most dangerous form of evil ever. I need to get the hell out of here.
"At first, Magnus tried to work through it,” Mom recollects to herself as well as me. “He tried to save what he didn't realize was a sham of a marriage," Mom continues. "I think he liked the idea of a family, Penny."
Who wouldn't?
Right, don't answer that.
"But eventually he saw the light and realized he had to get rid of me. Laurel and I always knew it was a gamble and that we couldn't ensnare Magnus forever, but we were surprised by how cleanly and without emotion he was able to move past me," Mom replies. "And how neatly he removed me from the money that Laurel and I were expecting from the divorce settlement."
So that was it. Could this whole thing come down to something so tawdry and evil as trying to siphon money through a divorce?
"I mean, Laurel was supposed to run for Governor with that money," Mom explains matter-of-factly, as if this justifies her behavior.
"But Magnus didn't want to play ball, so we have to destroy him instead," Mom finishes. Then she adds as an aside, "It's too bad, really. But that's the way the world works."
How can one woman be so fucking evil?
Don't answer that. You won't be able to, hun. This is literally the most bored I've ever seen my mother, you know?
Like she doesn't care that she's about to destroy this man's life.
That she's about to destroy the life of my baby by taking away his father;
I can't let that happen.
I can't let this slide.
"You won't get away with this," I say quietly.
Mom looks at me and her eyes flash with an evil glint. "Not so sad that you crossed me now, are you, Penny dear?" she asks me.
"You think you're going to stop me?" she asks taking a step closer.
"I can't let you destroy an innocent man's life just because he had the misfortune to get duped by you, Mom," I say with gritted teeth. "I'll tell everyone what you just told me."
"And who do you think will believe you?" Mom asks. "Who do you think will believe an out of work journalist who is also a petulant child over her mother who is an Editor-In-Chief of the largest newspaper in the country and the mayor of New York City?"
But she forgets.
I have the bullet that Natalie invented.
The one with the recorder. I'm wearing it.
I smile.
I mean, you didn't expect such deviousness from me, did you? Well, when you're playing the stakes that I'm playing for, you gotta up your game. Or something like that.
Mom's eyes travel down my body and she takes a step closer.
"Or do you think I don't know that you're wearing a little bullet in your cooch?" she asks me.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I can't move. Mom flashes a smile.
"You think you're recording this?" she asks me. "You don't know that my computer flashed the moment you walked in a picture that showed where you had a recording device? That I turned on a white noise machine. That all you recorded is garbage noise?"
I'm shaking.
I don't know what to say.
I feel an utter sense of defeat. My last card.
“I knew you'd try something like this ever since you met that bitch Natalie,” Mom continues on.
Oh my God. What is going on here?
Is she following me?
"Ever since you left work here I've had you followed, in case you were wondering," Mom confirms for me. "You think you're clever, girl, you have no idea how out of your league you are."
I'm shaking. She's defeated me. Completely.
"Now go, and get out of my sight before I decide to destroy you as well."
I want to leave, but my knees don't move.
"Go and get the fuck out of my office, daughter," she says with the grating and harsh voice of a monster.
Holding back tears, I get my knees to move and get out.
Magnus