on the Deeps’ lobster boat.”
Leah looks back at her notepad, where she’s been scribbling in impossibly neat handwriting. She looks sick for a minute.
“Well, I guess she was wrong,” she says, and goes back to jotting. This damn woman is unshakable and I’m almost out of viable reasons to defend my senior editor status. I cut a hard left into the Star parking lot and Leah’s pen drags across the lines. She flips the page and starts over.
THE S TAR OFFICE is a ground-floor, two-room affair. The burgundy carpet is musty from when a pipe burst once and flooded the place. None of the furniture matches and the overall effect is more junk shop than hub-of-all-news. When Charley opens the door to her office we get the stink of the eight thousand cigarettes she smokes in there. Her face is remarkably smooth for a lady with so much rat poison in her lungs, though her long, tapered fingers are stained yellow at the tips. “Let me see if you managed to keep your thumb out of any of those photos, Winters,” she says.
“I already found the best one,” Leah says. I’d try to one-up her but good Christ, it’s starting to look like I’m outmatched. Leah shoves the camera in front of Charley. It’s the shot I took of Billy pulling a dour face next to the cut trap rope. Billy’s face has come out looking serious and the angle is clear: young man can’t believe after hauling and hauling he’s found nothing at the end of his rope. All three of us press our heads together to look at the image on the screen.
Charley says, “Good. Now write it.”
Leah sits down and spreads her notes out at a wobbly desk that might have once been a lady’s makeup table. She waves me over. I shake my head and wave her over.
“I’ve got the notes,” she says.
“I’m senior editor,” I say.
She refuses to stand up but instead wheels her seated body over by pulling at the carpet with her heels. She rolls until she’s right up in my face. She has the sort of lashes that create the illusion of an unbroken black outline around her eyes. “Okay,” she says. She flips through her pad. “Why don’t we lead with the budget vote?” This is a perfectly reasonable suggestion that I’m not going to take because I’m in charge.
“I think we should lead with the complaints about the dead boats in Deep’s yard,” I say.
“But that’s minor news compared to the vote!”
In my best Barbara Walters voice I say, “I think we should lead with ‘The Disappearance of the American Fisherman.’ ”
She gives me a deadly look.
“Who’s in charge?” I say, and Leah’s face crumples. It’s unfair, I know, but I’ve been working here four months longer than her, and so I get to be Bernstein, be Dustin Hoffman. That leaves Robert Redford for Leah.
Listen, I know that in real life both of those guys went on to be successful. I know Woodward wrote books and dedicated his life to service and the news and was, after all, the one who initiated contact with Deep Throat and probably the more famous one when you really get down to it. But have you seen the movie? How cool Dustin Hoffman is as Bernstein? The way he flirts with ladies and shows Woodward how to edit copy? How he kicks his feet up on the desk and has a mouth no one in the newsroom can handle? Have you counted how many cups of coffee he drinks and fully appreciated the extinct sort of rogue journalist he was?
“You are in charge, Quinn.” Leah puts her pen down on the desk. A white flag if ever I saw one in this office that is, in and of itself, one gigantic white flag. I look at Leah with her copious notes and straight posture. Leah with her half-decent headlines, pulled from thin air. The truth that I already know but don’t want to admit is that she is Dustin Hoffman. She is Bernstein, who goes solo and cracks the pretty lady. Gets the interview. Runs the show. I don’t stand a chance. I’ll always be the guy who fumbles around and catches a few lucky breaks. Lurks in
Leah looks back at her notepad, where she’s been scribbling in impossibly neat handwriting. She looks sick for a minute.
“Well, I guess she was wrong,” she says, and goes back to jotting. This damn woman is unshakable and I’m almost out of viable reasons to defend my senior editor status. I cut a hard left into the Star parking lot and Leah’s pen drags across the lines. She flips the page and starts over.
THE S TAR OFFICE is a ground-floor, two-room affair. The burgundy carpet is musty from when a pipe burst once and flooded the place. None of the furniture matches and the overall effect is more junk shop than hub-of-all-news. When Charley opens the door to her office we get the stink of the eight thousand cigarettes she smokes in there. Her face is remarkably smooth for a lady with so much rat poison in her lungs, though her long, tapered fingers are stained yellow at the tips. “Let me see if you managed to keep your thumb out of any of those photos, Winters,” she says.
“I already found the best one,” Leah says. I’d try to one-up her but good Christ, it’s starting to look like I’m outmatched. Leah shoves the camera in front of Charley. It’s the shot I took of Billy pulling a dour face next to the cut trap rope. Billy’s face has come out looking serious and the angle is clear: young man can’t believe after hauling and hauling he’s found nothing at the end of his rope. All three of us press our heads together to look at the image on the screen.
Charley says, “Good. Now write it.”
Leah sits down and spreads her notes out at a wobbly desk that might have once been a lady’s makeup table. She waves me over. I shake my head and wave her over.
“I’ve got the notes,” she says.
“I’m senior editor,” I say.
She refuses to stand up but instead wheels her seated body over by pulling at the carpet with her heels. She rolls until she’s right up in my face. She has the sort of lashes that create the illusion of an unbroken black outline around her eyes. “Okay,” she says. She flips through her pad. “Why don’t we lead with the budget vote?” This is a perfectly reasonable suggestion that I’m not going to take because I’m in charge.
“I think we should lead with the complaints about the dead boats in Deep’s yard,” I say.
“But that’s minor news compared to the vote!”
In my best Barbara Walters voice I say, “I think we should lead with ‘The Disappearance of the American Fisherman.’ ”
She gives me a deadly look.
“Who’s in charge?” I say, and Leah’s face crumples. It’s unfair, I know, but I’ve been working here four months longer than her, and so I get to be Bernstein, be Dustin Hoffman. That leaves Robert Redford for Leah.
Listen, I know that in real life both of those guys went on to be successful. I know Woodward wrote books and dedicated his life to service and the news and was, after all, the one who initiated contact with Deep Throat and probably the more famous one when you really get down to it. But have you seen the movie? How cool Dustin Hoffman is as Bernstein? The way he flirts with ladies and shows Woodward how to edit copy? How he kicks his feet up on the desk and has a mouth no one in the newsroom can handle? Have you counted how many cups of coffee he drinks and fully appreciated the extinct sort of rogue journalist he was?
“You are in charge, Quinn.” Leah puts her pen down on the desk. A white flag if ever I saw one in this office that is, in and of itself, one gigantic white flag. I look at Leah with her copious notes and straight posture. Leah with her half-decent headlines, pulled from thin air. The truth that I already know but don’t want to admit is that she is Dustin Hoffman. She is Bernstein, who goes solo and cracks the pretty lady. Gets the interview. Runs the show. I don’t stand a chance. I’ll always be the guy who fumbles around and catches a few lucky breaks. Lurks in
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