“Your hyperbole is a little out of hand, Francesca,” he said.
“That you wouldn’t have a shot or that she’s the most beautiful?”
“Anyway,” he said. “You were calling me at two in the morning just to ask me that?”
Francesca sighed. “Well, I’ve called you at every other hour,and you’ve dodged me. I thought that Birdie Robinson might be a good entry point, a soft landing.”
“I have an idea,” Elliot interjected.
“I’m sure you do. Your problem is never ideas, O’Brien; it’s the ethical execution of them.”
He wasn’t surprised that his editor cut right to the heart of the issue; it’s what he loved about her if he wasn’t so terrified of her right now. He’d been working for Francesca since his start at theTimesin New York, and when she jumped to San Francisco to run the newsroom, she took him with her. But presumably, in her next breath tonight, she was going to can him, and so Elliot spun his brain like a kaleidoscope: he’d do anything, promise her anything, to keep his job. He knew that she’d let him off with warnings before. But now—now?—Francesca had been on a rampage (so he’d been told, as he’d been declining her calls) when she heard from a competitor that Elliot paid for intel required to break his story on the Senate bribery scandal last month. Even though he’d gotten his facts right. Even though the Senate was now opening an inquiry into the seven colleagues who’d laundered money from a corrupt overseas government.Sue me, he wanted to say to Francesca, but actually, she could. If theTimesbooted him, there, too, would go the60 Minutesgig, and then he’d be left with, like, a shitty newsletter that barely covered his monthly Wi-Fi bill.
“Let me pitch you,” he said, trying to keep his tone professional, not panicky. “If you hate it, then you can fire me. If you love it—or if I’m even in the ballpark of lukewarm—let me at least stick around and prove my worth.”
“Again, your problem has never been yourworth. Your problem is your ego.”
“I thought it was my ethics,” he said.
“O’Brien!” she snapped. “Cut the banter. Give me your pitch. You have one minute before my Ambien kicks in. Go.”
“Birdie got a love letter,” he said.
“I’m sure she did. I’m practically willing to send one to her myself. Can you ask what serum she uses for her skin?”
“Sure, if that will help my case, no problem.”
“It might, but it probably won’t,” she acknowledged.
“Anyway, let me clarify:Birdie got an anonymous love letter.And she wants to track down the guy—or girl, I suppose—who sent it. And I would like to pitch, or, I should say, my pitch is that you let me cover it for theTimes. Hit the road with her, kick the tires, rattle some ghosts.”
Elliot was working this all out in real time, flying by the seat of his pants. He didn’t stop to think, couldn’t stop to think, that revisiting Birdie’s exes—and, god forbid, reuniting her with some dude who might have gotten away—would gut him, puncture his otherwise steely armor that served him well professionally and honestly served him pretty well romantically, since he had no desire to linger in a relationship.
“I’m intrigued,” Francesca murmured. “What, exactly, is the plan? How would you craft the feature?”
“Features,” he said, because he figured that the more pages she gave him, the more chances he had to prove he was invaluable. “Still working on that with Birdie. I’m thinking we road trip it? Maybe take a quickie flight if we need to?”
“And I’m budgeting for that? I don’t see Ms. Robinson staying at the roadside hotels you’re used to.”
Elliot thought of the Birdie he knew as a kid. Rough-and-tumble, with scrapes on her knees from capture the flag, with sharp elbows during kick the can as her ponytail flew behind her and her Converse laces unraveled as she ran.
“Also still working on that. Let me talk to her.”
“Who else knows about this letter?” Francesca asked.
“No one? I mean, my sister.”
“So we won’t be scooped.”
“Not if you green-light me right now. Butright now, because I have to get to work.”
Elliot held his breath. He knew he was pushing his luck, but he also knew that a story had fallen into his lap that he, solely, could report. If he could land this plane, the headlines would be everywhere. His byline would be everywhere. Ironically, it would be the most widely read story of his career, and sure, it wasn’t the hard-hitting pieces that garnered him Pulitzer nominations (he had two), and it wasn’t even all that interesting to him other than the fact that it involved the unrequited love of his childhood (so it was actually extremely interesting to him), but Elliot had built an entire life around his work, and if he had to cover Birdie’s ex-lovers to salvage that, then so be it. Without his career, Elliot couldn’t even fathom what he’d do with himself. He was thirty-five, single, child-free, he had more airline and hotel points than any human should ever hope to accrue, and the only thing tangible he had for himself was his byline under headlines and a once-a-month-or-so60 Minutesgig.
“I’m not saying yes,” Francesca said. “But I’m not saying no. My Ambien kicked in, and I’m not dumb enough to commit to anything while inebriated. Call me by nine tomorrow with your plan.”
“Okay,” he said.Okay.
“And I want the name of her serum regimen too. That’s mandatory.” She hung up. Elliot exhaled a bubble of stress that was pressing against his breastbone.
