Slipping out of my nasty thoughts, a little sigh escaped from my lips as I pulled up my favorite gossip Instagram site. TheMessy Mandypage was just beginning to load, when a tap came on my clear glass office door. Looking up, I found Jason Gold my production manager peeking in, along with someone else, a young woman I didn’t recognize.
Closing the laptop, I waved Jason and his guest in.
“Hey Silver,” Jason smiled and ushered in the girl who was just about my height, and had grey eyes. She was sporting a casual off white business suit that looked too big for her body. Dani had been shopping at somebody’s thrift shop. She was skinny and wearing grey ballet flats whereas I had on high heels. Her bronze-colored skin that matched my own seemed to glow from the natural light outside my window.
“Hi, Jason, what’s up?”
I stood and came around my desk to lean against it.
“Well, we finally found you an assistant.” Jason offered this news with a shrug as if I wasn’t supposed to have already had an assistant like all the other people covering sports and news atGood Day, Sacramento!
Without an assistant, I’d been tasked with doing a lot of my own research, and topic finding. Being a woman in sports journalism was sometimes hard enough with people assuming you didn’t know anything about the topic at hand.
The young woman appeared to be shy and finally Jason introduced her. “Well Silver, this is Dani Parker. Dani, this is Silver. You’ll be reporting to her and she’ll fill you in on everything else you are needed for.”
I watched as Jason checked the time on his watch before making his exit.
There was no way I wanted this to be awkward, so I quickly volunteered to give my new assistant a tour around the studio. We went everywhere, and I even showed her the cafeteria. During our tour, she opened up a little more.
“I’m still looking for an apartment,” she said. “I just moved here a few weeks ago. I’m staying with an old college friend.”
“You’ll find something soon, I’m sure,” I told her as we stepped onto the elevator.
“I hope,” she smiled. “Sacramento is so different from Raleigh.”
“I’m originally from Texas,” I told her as I hit the button for the fourth floor.
“I know,” she said.
“Huh?”
“When I took this job, I did a little background research. Your Linked In profile…”
I gave her a dazzling smile. “That’s what I need.”
“What?”
“Someone who’s great at research.”
She gave a mock salute before I delivered her to her new desk. “That’s me! Research girl!”
“Perfect,” I smiled. “Well this is you. I’ll be in my office but we should have a brain storming session later. I’ll send you an invite on your Outlook Calendar.”
“Any idea what we’re looking at?”
“I have a few ideas, luckily we know it’s all sports related so that makes things easier.”
“Good deal,” Dani smiled.
When I got back to my office, I pushed the button for the privacy screens. When I was sure no one could see into my office, I opened my laptop and then set about creating some topics I wanted to go over with Dani so that she could research them. I was just about to open Outlook when I remembered I hadn’t gotten my fill of Messy Mandy.
Opening the browser up, I pulled the already open page up and began to scroll. There were stolen pictures of Rhianna and her new bundle of joy. Another was some crazy quotes about living life, loving life and maybe doing a little scamming to make your dreams come true. Clicking on that link, I read some of the comments and started laughing my ass off. People on the internet were wild. However, the very next picture sobered me the hell up.
There were pictures of Kelton Kline coming through SMF. The reason that I knew it was Sacramento International Airport was because there was a giant red rabbit in the background of the pictures. I wasn’t shocked to see his stupid ass face.
Perfect face, I thought.
No what was shocking was the woman beside him and the headline in question.
