He clicks off and dials up his next source, which will be much the same drill. I can tell he’s smiling by the tone of his voice and I’m sure his sources feel it too.
“Donna, Jack at the Examiner… yeah, great to hear your voice. So, I’m wondering if Bill has time for me this week… yeah, of course, you and I should meet and go over all the hot takes. You thinking a cocktail…?”
Now I want to gag because as soon as Jack gets on the phone with a woman—any woman—his voice changes and he starts talking in this gravelly, quieter voice, like he wants to melt them into submission. I guess it must work. But it doesn’t change my opinion of him as an arrogant guy who’s evidently spent too long staring at himself in the mirror because he’s clearly in love… with himself.
“Charlie, my man! You so owe me. And I’m gonna collect.” He goes on and on like that, sweet-talking everyone in sight and making them think he’s their friend. Then he pounds them with a story that makes them look like crooks.
I put on headphones to tune him out.
I’ll admit, he’s very good at his job. He makes people want to tell him things, even things that are going to make them look very bad when the details are published in a major newspaper. It's kind of a gift. Even over the phone, it’s like people can feel his smile and appreciate his good-looking face.
Jack has more bylines than anyone in the bureau. He just has a nose for where to find stories and he’s so good at working his sources. The editors love him, and they make room on Page One for whatever he writes, even before they've read it. They simply start every day assuming he’ll have at least one story, and generally, he does.
You’d think he might look back and remember what it felt like to be an ambitious junior reporter like me and maybe cut me some slack, but apparently there’s not enough room in his head for those memories and his fat ego. If he was just slightly less irritating, I might not outright hate him.
I realize that it probably sounds like I’m thinking about him way too much for a guy who irritates the hell out of me. It seems like I’ve fallen for his charms too and I’m looking for an excuse to daydream about him. I’m not. I legitimately can’t stand the guy. Or his body spray or whatever the hell he uses after the gym.
I turn my attention back to the news feeds. I shouldn’t let him get to me. This is our morning routine. It’s just the way he is. I’m long past reminding him that he didn’t need to do my work for me, that he should just leave it. And he’s long past failing to remind me of my place on the bureau’s ladder—the bottom.
But his point is still well taken. I need to make a bigger effort to get here on time. Tomorrow will be another day.
For now, based on how my morning has gone so far, I get ready for whatever drubbing this one has in store.
4
Linden
The conference room hums with idle chitchat, masking the voice of anyone in particular as we get settled in for the meeting. We reconnect with perfunctory stories about our weekends. Pauline drops down in the chair next to mine and I’m grateful. She’s about ten years older than me and she’s been at the paper since she graduated college, starting as an assistant in the London bureau and moving to a reporting job in the Middle East before landing in LA.
“Hey, you do anything good this weekend?” Pauline asks.
“Eh, went to the farmer’s market, took a spin class, went to yoga. Nothing too exceptional. You?”
She drops her voice to a quieter whisper. “Well, it's a little crazy, but I actually did a photoshoot for Essence magazine.”
“Seriously?” I don't doubt that Essence would want pictures of Pauline in their magazine. She’s one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen and at almost six feet tall, she looks great in almost anything she wears. I’m just surprised. “Are you modeling on the side?”
She snorts. “Hardly. It was for a piece they're doing on black women writers.”
"Still cool. Was it fun?”
“Actually, really tedious. Standing under hot lights and having people fuss over whether my lip gloss was shiny enough is not my idea of a fun Saturday. But it might bring us some new readers.”
I’m impressed that Pauline’s motive wasn’t glamour but readership.
Stuart starts talking without waiting for everyone to quiet down. It’s his way of letting us know that whatever conversations we're having aren't as important as what he has to say. “Morning, team. I know some of you have news breaking on your beats, so I won't make this long.” I exhale a quiet sigh of relief. Maybe we wouldn't get to the part where he asks me in front of everyone else how my story is progressing.
The truth is, it's not progressing. I’ve been chasing after the head of the surf wear company for a month, trying to get him to agree to an interview. Something has changed, but I can’t discern what's different. But they’ve gone quiet. Usually, their PR flak is calling me weekly, bugging me to write even a tiny story about the company. If I can, I throw her a bone and write up something on their plans to launch a new board shorts line, but Zumalife just isn't a company that generates a lot of news.
For the first year, I wrote about retail and fashion; I didn’t even notice Zumalife. The company is small compared to some of the streetwear companies in Los Angeles and they seem to chug along selling the same board shorts and surf T-shirts year after year. The company has always seemed like a small fish, so I’d take the calls from the publicist and dutifully ask if anything newsworthy was happening, hoping the company would get bought by a bigger retailer so at least I could write about that. But so far, it's just been a quiet small company, desperate for any shred of attention from our paper. Unfortunately, I can’t write much more than the occasional story about quarterly profits or a new pair of shorts.
Unless they do something surprising.
In the past four weeks, I haven’t heard word one from the company publicist and she hasn't returned my calls. That’s unusual enough for me to wonder what's up. It’s possible that the company isn’t doing anything particularly interesting, but that's the kind of thinking that leads a person to miss a big story.
I need to get a meeting with the head of the company. If he's planning something, I need to know.
“Linden, anything on the promised Zumalife story?” Stuart asks, just as I’m getting comfortable with the idea that I’ll get a pass during this meeting.
“Um, I’m working leads on a couple fronts. I should know more a bit later today,” I say.
“What are the leads?” Stuart isn't going to let me be vague. I feel everyone’s eyes land on my reddening face.
“Well, I have a source at their manufacturing plant downtown, and he tells me they’ve halted production.”
“That's pretty interesting. Do you know why?” Stuart asks.
I shake my head. I wish I knew why. “It could be that they're moving overseas, maybe to cut costs or it could be a downturn in orders. That’s what seems likely.”
Stuart doesn't look pleased with the amount of information I have. “Anyone else writing about them?” He means our competition. I’d better hope that no one else doesn't get whatever story this is before I do.