***
After my meeting with Lacey, I go home and fire up Owen 2.0. Once I get over the whirring noise—the contraption sounds like it’s about to take off from a launch pad—and as I dial it down to its lowest, least-intimidating setting, I’m able to induce something like pleasure in myself. But Owen keeps intruding on my fantasies. This is one of the problems with being so inexperienced: I don’t have a wealth of mental material to draw from when it comes to pleasuring myself, and I’m not that good at inserting men I have never been with into the scene. The Maître D, for instance, or anyone from True Blood.
Later that night, I have weird dreams. Owen is chasing me around, begging me to take him back and begging me to look at his latest coin, something from Prague. When I wake up, I feel extremely hung over.
I glance at my bedroom clock and gasp. I only have an hour before I have to be to work. Given the commute—two trains and three blocks on foot—it’s going to be a hell of a sprint. I jump in the shower and jump back out before my hair can even start to get wet. I get into my clothes so fast that it’s like I’m doing it to win money during a challenge on a game show. Breakfast isn’t the most pitiful it’s ever been—which was once a handful of croutons and pickle chips—but neither is it sumptuous. It’s a dry bagel that I chomp through on the elevator down to ground level, leaving brittle flakes and crumbs in my wake. Oh well, I pay a ton and my place sucks, so they can clean up after me.
I manage to make it into the meeting room two minutes late. I’m one of the only ones there, which means either everyone else is late or I made a mistake and there’s no meeting today. Turns out it’s the latter.
My boss, Trinity, looks up and says, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Sam here to…wait, what exactly are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be covering the firehouse thingy? No, scratch that - that was someone else. Let’s talk. Readers are complaining that we’re not entertaining enough and drying out. Let’s come up with new ideas, and I don’t want to hear about anything you’re already working on.”
This dizzying display of confusion and managerial expertise at an end, I sit and put my purse down.
“So how’s it going?” says Trinity. “I can tell you’re bored so don’t bother lying to me. I just want to know what’s boring you.” She picks up a pen and starts chewing the cap while locking her eyes onto mine.
“Well, as long as we’re being frank,” I say, trying to come up with something to say. “I guess I’m bored by…everything?” I hate the rising note at the end of my sentence. I used to be driven, like all youth. Jesus, listen to me, I’m only twenty-five and I make it sound like I’m just counting the days until my retirement. But it was true. “Yeah, basically everything.”
Trinity puts the well-chewed pen down and crosses her arms. “So what’s going to make it better? You’re one of the best writers we’ve got, but it’s clear we’re not challenging you enough, or using your assets as best we can.”
Trinity continues to chewing the pen cap before she finally raises her head.
“So I’ve got some good news for you, cub reporter of mine. It just so happens that there’s a job, far off the local beat, that nobody else wants to do.”
“Oh, this sounds wonderful. Please tell me everything,” responding in a cynical tone. Was this what it had come to? She offers me a job that no one else wants?
“Don’t say it like that. This is good stuff. It won’t win you a Pulitzer, but let’s face it, that’s not really what we do here.”
She’s right. Our tabloid, The Inner Eye, is just a notch above The National Inquirer and about ninety rungs down from everything else. We write for people who think that David Icke’s lizard people sound outlandish and too stupid to even discuss, but who clamor about news of Bigfoot and the Illuminati. Pulitzers are most definitely not in our foreseeable future.
“It’s in Washington,” she said.
“Oh! Is it a political story? Why wouldn’t anyone want that?”
“Because it’s not a political story and it’s not Washington D.C. No, I’m afraid I speak of good old Washington state, the northernmost part that’s still habitable.”
“North of Washington is Canada and it’s almost all habitable. It’s not like the world stops at the top of Washington.”
“See, this is why it should be you! You already know half this shit.”
“I don’t even know what shit we’re talking about. I just know where Washington and Canada are.”
“I like you. I always have.” Trinity picks up the pen again, but doesn’t chew it this time. She scratches something down on a notepad. “There’s only one problem.”
As I see, there are far more problems, one of which is that I still have no idea what she’s talking about. “Which is?”
“You’re going to have to take Jarom.”
“Oh God. No.” Jarom is the tabloid’s main photographer. He has an insanely slobbering crush on me, which would be sweet if he wasn’t literally slobbering all the time. Well, maybe ninety percent of the time. Jarom wouldn’t be a bad looking guy if he could figure out how to keep his mouth closed. But when he’s deep in thought a silver ribbon of drool usually finds its way out onto the surface of whatever he is standing or sitting over.
“He’s our best photographer. When I told him you were taking the assignment he insisted that it be him. Frankly, I think the thought of you out there all alone makes him feel protective. Like he’ll be able to keep you safe. You don’t really want to deprive him of that, do you? Besides, how often does a guy like Jarom get to feel like a man? I mean, come on.”
“First of all, I absolutely do want to deprive him of that opportunity. Second, I haven’t agreed to take the story on, mainly because I still don’t know what it is. Third, it’s not my job to make him or anyone else feel like a man.”
“I think he’s got a little crush on you,” said Trinity, and she wiggles her eyebrows. “And if you don’t take this story I’ll totally fire you.”
“No you won’t.”
“No. I probably won’t. But I want you to take it, because there’s a problem. The state says they’re going to cut down a bunch of forest so they can build a sanctuary for endangered animals or something. But to do so they’re going to displace a ton of other animals that already use the forest for their sanctuary. Go out there and find me an angle.”
“Isn’t that already an angle?”
“Just in case that peters out,” says Trinity, “there’s something else. Something even better, and this is why I was so surprised that none of these babies here wanted to take it.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a rumor that an ex pro MMA fighter is living in the woods out there, and someone finally saw him. I personally think he’s hiding some kind of dark secret. Why else would someone leave a cozy multi-millionaire lifestyle with fans all over and women practically throwing themselves at them?,” says Trinity. “Regularly. We’ve got a contact out there. So I told this guy that I would send our best reporter and photographer out to get a shot of it and write it up. While, of course, doing whatever can be done with the animal sanctuary thingy.” Trinity holds her hands up, framing an imaginary photo between them. “I can just see it. Inner Eye captures ex-fighter!”
“I’m supposed to go out there and capture a professional fighter?”
“Ex-professional fighter. But it doesn’t matter. Your job is to go see what’s out there and write something good. I don’t care if you find anything or not. I don’t expect it to get all Blair Witchy out there, but you never know. Sounds like there really are some strange things going on out there.” With that, she opens her desk and pushes an envelope at me.
“What’s this?”
“Those are your tickets. I’m going to let you give Jarom the good news.”
“Wait, you’ve been planning for me to go all along - and you’ve just been giving me the impression that I had a choice?”
“Afraid so my dear. I knew this was the right job for you and you wouldn’t disappoint.” With that, she picks the pen up, starts chewing on the cap again, and I am dismissed.
I walk out, a little heated but also a little excited. This would be the most interesting story to hit my desk – and it could make headlines even. Before I let myself get too excited, I go down the hall to Jarom’s office. When he sees me at his window he lights up like a Christmas tree ornament.
Oh God. I can’t do it.
I promptly proceed down the hall to my own office and send him the most cursory email in history. “We have an assignment that came up out of nowhere. All I know is that we leave tomorrow. Please see Trinity for details.”
I move fast, but I’m not even out of my office when Jarom appears at the door. What kind of name is Jarom, anyway? Sounds Amish, but he doesn’t have a beard. But maybe he can’t grow a beard.
And he’s a cameraman. I’m pretty certain they don’t use cameras.
In any event, I am unprepared and annoyed when he bows deeply and says “I have never been so excited for anything.” He stares into the middle distance and I know what’s coming. He disappears within a daydream. Soon his mouth opens and I all but shove him out of my office before he can get anything on the floor.