Jamie felt like she was floating high among the wispy, white clouds that hung in the sky. Thanks to her impromptu coffee date with Erin, she’d been able to turn her angle on the story pretty easily; it seemed to go over well with her boss as well. Aimee had been waiting at Jamie’s desk when she finished her live hit.
“Jamie.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement.
“Aimee, hi, how can I help you?” Jamie stretched an arm behind her head to reach for the battery box of her IFB. Realizing it was just out of reach, she spun around in front of the news director. “Do you mind?”
Aimee didn’t reply. Instead, she pushed off the edge of the desk and helped Jamie unhook her wiring. Once it was off and back in Jamie’s hand, she turned back around. She held the little black box up in a small gesture.
“Thank you.”
Aimee shook her head. “It’s no problem. Look, I wanted to talk to you about your story.”
Jamie nodded. “Of course, what about it?”
Aimee leaned back against the edge of Jamie’s desk, crossing her arms in front of her. “Jamie, I’m not exactly thrilled with how you pitched your angle.” Jamie nodded solemnly. “Furthermore, you should know that it does not meet the standard that this station adheres to.” Another nod from Jamie, but she knew better than to speak before Aimee was done.
“But I need to give you a round of applause for how it turned out. We were in a room full of a half dozen other reporters this morning, and you were the only one that found a different angle. Different from every other narrative we’ve hadfor a case like this in the past, and certainly different from our competitors. Well done.”
Jamie felt like she could fly. She’d known her story angle was a risk, but she also had a gut feeling that it would turn out the way she wanted it to.
“Thank you, Aimee. Of course, I understand how I went about things was uncalled for, and I do apologize.”
Aimee nodded, pushing off the desk, and started to walk back toward her glass-walled office.
“Let’s not make it a habit, Ms. Garrison.”
Jamie nodded, though she knew her boss couldn’t see her. Looking down at her hands, she smiled.
* * *
Jamie unlocked the door to her small but modest apartment, stepping inside the safety of her warm, one-bedroom home. She shrugged her purse off her shoulder, hanging it on one of the hooks by the door. With a small sigh, she slipped both her heels and her long coat off, tossing the coat on the arm of a nearby chair.
She made her way toward the bathroom, relishing the way the carpet tickled her sore feet. Flipping the light on, she moved to start the shower. Jamie had used a nightly shower as her decompression habit for years now. Her ex-husband, Dylan, had never understood why she needed twenty uninterrupted minutes in the bathroom, especially not when he’d usually been home for hours already. Back then, she’d explain it was about shaking off the day. But in truth, it had always been about carving out a little space for herself.
Dylan didn’t believe in things like space. Or queerness. Or boundaries, if she was really being honest.
Her grip tightened against the edge of the bathroom sink as her thoughts drifted back to him, uninvited. She didn’t think about him often anymore, not since the move from Colorado. But when she did, it always came with a strange sort of dissociation, like watching someone else’s life through a fogged-up mirror.
It still stung sometimes, thinking about how it all ended. Not the divorce—that had been inevitable once the cheating came to light—but the slow unraveling that came before it. All the times he dismissed her identity as something childish or inconvenient. All the ways he chipped away at her confidence under the guise of “protecting her career.”
Soon, steam filled the small room, and Jamie slipped out of her clothes and into the warm spray of the shower. There, under the running water, Jamie closed her eyes and let the stress of the day wash off her and down the dark shower drain. She tilted her head back to get her hair wet and began running her fingers through the small tangles that had accumulated throughout her day. She felt each small tug on her scalp as she did so; the hot water bore down on her body, slowly turning her milk-pale skin pink.
Without opening her eyes, Jamie spoke softly to herself. “I had a good day. My story did well. I met a new person.”
Recapping the simple highlights of her day was something she’d learned in therapy after her separation from Dylan. Releasing those thoughts while she washed everything else away always left her feeling lighter.
She reached for the shampoo and lathered it in her hands. Her thoughts drifted to Erin. It hardly seemed like the same woman her fellow reporters told horror stories about. And why had Erin seemed so interested in her? It wasn’t unusual to see new faces at pressers. Surely that couldn’t be it.
Jamie sighed and shook her head. Thinking about Erin wasn’t helping her unwind. She focused on finishing her routine, letting thoughts of the attractive, clearly queer PIO fall from her mind.
After a long, hot shower, Jamie padded barefoot through her apartment, her hair wrapped up in a towel and a robe tied securely around her waist. As she entered the kitchen, her stomach rumbled softly. Right on cue.
Jamie thrived on routine. Sure, her job was full of unknowns; the type of stories she covered varied from light and fluffy pieces to crime stories, political pieces, and even a hard-hitting journalistic report or two. But at its core, her job was the same every day: show up, find a story, report the story, and go home. The content changed, but the tasks expected of her never did.
Jamie pulled two Kraft singles from her fridge and pulled a loaf of breaddown from the top of it; Friday night was grilled cheese night. She buttered the bread while the pan began to heat on the stovetop, and Erin kept coming to mind.
Jamie wasn’t straight. No, she was, and frankly always had been, a very proud bisexual woman. Moving out of state for college right out of high school was meant to have been a time of experimentation for her, but she’d met Dylan only a few weeks into her first semester at the University of Colorado.
Often, Jamie felt like an imposter within the queer community. She’d never even kissed another woman before, so how could she don rainbow gear and march in pride festivals? Jamie’s logical side knew her lack of experience didn’t erase her identity, and even if she only ever dated men for the rest of her life, she knew that she was attracted to women.
