I…am…being fired.
“Are you alright?” he says an undetermined amount of time later.
No. No, I am not alright. I’m as far from alright as I could possibly be. I want to scream right now. Instead, I shove it back down and work on measuring my breathing before I faint.
The bottom just fell out of my life. I can’t afford to be unemployed. Not now. Probably not ever.
My gaze falls on the small coffee stain on the right thigh of my wrinkled pants and anger the likes of which I’ve rarely felt before rises to the surface. It’s a perfect visual representation of my life: unnoticed and under appreciated. Had I known what was in store for me today I would’ve gone to the dry cleaners to pick up the clothes that had been there for weeks because I’ve been working overtime. I would’ve worn the Nars Inappropriate Red lipstick and my Chloe suit, the one my sister bought me for my birthday, the one that makes me look somewhat like a badass bitch. And I would’ve most definitely washed my hair.
Instead, I find myself getting fired in the same wrinkled Banana Republic grey pantsuit I’ve worn all week with my hair in a ponytail because dry shampoo can’t actually perform miracles no matter what they tell you looking like your run-of-the-mill basic bitch.
A dry, nervous chuckle bursts out of me. “Why?”
As my mouth is forming that word, the answer hits me with crystal clarity. My mind conjures images of the bathroom kiss, and heat blankets my neck.
“Why what?”
“Why am I being fired?” I clarify over the grinding of my molars. Just because I’m willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good doesn’t mean I’m about to roll over and play dead on command. I want to hear it said out loud that I’m being fired over a kiss.
He makes a confused face. “For starters”––his head bobs to the left––“it was the initial tweet.”
Tweet? What tweet? Until it dawns on me, and my eyes falls shut as my insides knot.
“It wasn’t even a full tweet,” I mutter. “I only reposted my original article. It was more like a…a twit.”
“The man had just died, Carrie. You didn’t even wait twenty-four hours.”
Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have tweeted the police report and mugshot, but if you don’t want that to do the time don’t do the crime.
“And I apologized––”
“After you doubled down.”
“Because people were speaking about him like he was some kind of Demi-God.”
“And to many people, he was,” he fires back, the rising volume of his voice indicating he’s losing patience with me.
An explanation is in order here. The one big story I broke, the one that earned me the job as Ben’s bitch, for lack of a better term, was a story I broke fresh out of school.
A famous NFL quarterback was rumored to have beaten his girlfriend so badly she sustained serious injuries. Single handedly, I tracked her down, gained her trust, and got her permission to write her side of the story. Eventually, she turned over a video recording of the fight to me exclusively. Turns out, she’d been recording his visits since the first time he’d pushed her around. Crack reporting if I don’t say so myself. I can still feel the adrenaline rush of chasing that lead.
At the time, the story was mostly buried. News outlets were playing wait-and-see. The story came as a shock to his millions of fans, many of which had a hard time believing it about their golden boy, and they didn’t want to be caught having to issue a retraction and possibly alienating viewers.
All that changed when I published the story of his past behavior, including the video of how it all went down. The story went viral and plausible deniability was no longer an option. The video evidence explicitly showed Mr. NFL Superstar was neither set up, nor the victim of a woman seeking a fat settlement. He was an abuser.
In the end, he essentially got off. The case was dropped when the victim refused to testify. I never blamed her for taking the payout––coming out as a victim of abuse against a major celebrity usually ends with the victim being threatened and victimized further––but it was disappointing. The NFL benched him for a year. He paid fines. There was a lot of talk about changing the code of conduct. Sports analysts debated whether he’d be cut from the team and who would have the courage to pick him up. But ultimately, the team kept him on the roster and all was quickly forgiven and forgotten when they went on to win another Super Bowl.
That was four years ago. This weekend he was killed in a jet ski accident.
The news coverage was round the clock. Pundits and super fans kept going on and on about what a great man he was so I felt it necessary to even the scales a bit, to remind people he wasn’t all that simply because he could throw a ball.
Have you ever been ratioed on Twitter? Yeah, it’s not a nice thing to have happen. I received an avalanche of replies to my tweet, all of which were beyond vile and probably illegal in some states. The angry villagers came after me with pitchforks and knives. I just didn’t expect Ben to join them.
“So we’re all going to ignore his criminal history because he threw a ball really well?”
“He did a lot of good for the community, funded a number of very successful charities––”
“He was an abuser.”
“And he paid for that.”
“Not nearly enough.”
“Carrie––“
“Ben…” I plead in my most pathetic voice. “Ben, please…” Desperation is setting in. When Ben sets his mind to something, he can rarely be convinced to abandon his position. One of the reasons he’s so good at his job. “You can’t fire me for this. I was on my personal Twitter account on my own time.”
“Carrie, not only can I––check your contract––but I have to.” He points to the ceiling. “Order came from up above.”
“God wants me fired?”
A fleeting smirk replaces his blank expression, then he shrugs. “In a sense.”
After that, an awkward silence falls in which I’m not sure if I want to cry or commit workplace violence. Ben continues to stare back, trying to give nothing away, but it’s all in his eyes. The distance makes my stomach roil. He’s not coming to my rescue. He’s really cutting me loose.
His chair slowly swivels right. Then left. And for the first time since I walked into his office four years ago for my interview and nearly swooned at the mere sight of him, I want to rearrange his face to look less pretty.
I’ve taken one or ten for the team, forgone an actual life in pursuit of the story while Ben claimed all the credit. And for what? To be canceled at the first sign of trouble.
“I’m getting death threats,” I tell him. And that’s the truth. People are crazy about their sports heroes.
Sinking deeper in his office chair, he runs his fingers through his salted brown hair. “Yes, that’s…unfortunate.”
It doesn’t look like he means it. In fact, it looks like he doesn’t give two turds either way.
“Look”––he sighs tiredly. Like I’m an inconvenience he wants to be rid of as quickly as possible––“lay low for a while. We can revisit in a few months. Say…after the storm dies down.”