Nothing about speaking to a journalist. Nothing about discussing her own experience. Nothing preventing her from talking about why she quit, as long as she didn't name clients or reveal how the sausage was made.
She texted Callie in 3B:
Emmy
If an NDA covers "client information and proprietary methodology" but not employee experience or general business practices—can I talk to a reporter about working conditions without naming anyone?
Callie
Generally yes. NDAs that try to silence employees about non-proprietary working conditions face enforceability challenges. Specific language matters though. Send me the clause.
Emmy photographed the relevant page and sent it.
Callie
This is narrow and specific. You're protected as long as you stay away from client names and matching processes. Who wrote this? The restrictive covenant is almost elegant.
Emmy smiled despite herself. Only Callie would find beauty in a non-compete clause.
She set the contract down. Picked up her phone. Pulled up theBoston After Darkarticle that had detonated her life—Petra's byline at the top, neat and professional, with a contact email underneath.
Emmy opened a new message. Typed three sentences. Hit send before she could talk herself out of it.
Petra called back within the hour.
The skeleton situation had escalated.
Emmy saw it the moment she turned onto her parents' street—or rather, she saw them. Plural. Because Sour Bill Henderson, in an act of provocation so audacious it bordered on art, had acquired a second skeleton.
Adam had his Eve.
The original twelve-footer stood in its usual post, wearing what appeared to be a Grant Knight jersey, topped with a Santa hat. Someone, possibly Bill, possibly Bill's equally unhinged wife Deirdre, had sewn red felt hearts onto the jersey.
The new skeleton was shorter. Maybe ten feet. Female, if the dark wig and veil were any indication. She was positioned next to the original, her bony hand resting on his bony arm, and someone had placed a bouquet of plastic roses in her other fist.
Emmy's father was standing on the porch, arms crossed, staring at the display with the focused horror of a man watching a nature documentary about parasites.
"He's gotten worse," he said when Emmy reached the steps.
"I can see that."
"The veil, Emmy. There's a veil. He's married them." Her father's voice cracked with outrage. "I've been filing complaints for three years. Seventeen letters to the HOA. Seventeen. The man is untouchable."
Inside, the house smelled like roasting chicken and pine. Her mother had put a wreath on the kitchen door—the same jolly Saint Nick hook she'd used every year since Emmy was eight, though the wreath itself was fresh, real pine that dropped needles onto the floor. Her father had stuck a small label to it: Knock at your own risk.
Dinner was quiet. West and Brynn weren't coming—they had their own thing tonight, West's text had said, with the vague evasiveness of a man who was probably assembling a crib and didn't want his father researching the structural integrity of every brand on the market. Her dad talked about Grant's stats from the Jets game. His completion percentage. His fourth-quarter efficiency rating. The way his footwork had improved since October.
"He's playing hurt," her dad said, cutting his chicken with surgical precision. "You can see it in his left shoulder. He's compensating."
"John." Her mother's voice was mild. "He's a professional athlete."
"Professional athletes are just bodies that haven't broken yet. It's a statisticalinevitability."
Emmy ate. She didn't add anything. Her father's obsessive tracking of Grant's health used to irritate her. Now it just made her chest ache—this man who'd been worrying about Grant sincehe was seven years old and never stopped, not for one day, not even when that boy grew up and became someone the whole country watched on Sundays.
After dinner, her dad retreated to the living room to monitor the skeleton through the front window and compose what he described as "another strongly worded but legally nonactionable email to the HOA board."
Emmy helped her mother clear the table.
