“Stop! Just…stop.”
I slammed my mouth shut. Then I stared at her, wishing like hell I could think of something to say. And she looked back at me, obviously waiting for something. Anything. But what? She’d just told me to shut up. But maybe she wanted something else.
“I, um, I had a really great time,” I said. I knew the moment the words left my mouth what a disaster that was. And sure enough, she sighed and grabbed hold of the door. “And I’d really like your phone number.”
“Yeah, a great time,” she said, her tone excruciatingly dry.
“It was!”
“Bye, Rob.”
“But—”
The door shut—thud—right in my face.
I’d completely blown it.
Chapter Five
Three Years Later
Heidi
There are no worse words in the English language than, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”
I was sitting in my boss’s office at theIndianapolis Sun, the premier newspaper in the Midwest, or so they liked to claim. But just like every other print medium in this digital world, it was slowly crumbling under the weight of technology. And I was the latest cog to be tossed aside.
“You can’t fire me,” I argued. “I’m responsible for most of your digital content.”
That wasn’t exactly true. I managed the freebie interns, made sure they got their content in on time, and rewrote half of it when it came in awful. Hank, my boss, gave me a sad look.
“Actually, that’ll be my job now.”
I blinked. “You’ll hate that.”
He nodded. “Yeah. And any help you can give me would be really appreciated.”
Help?Like do my job for him without pay? My face must have told him what I thought about that idea because he hastily switched tracks.
“And we’re not firing you. We’ll still take articles from you if they fit. Weren’t you looking at law schools?”
No, I wasn’t. My last year working here had taught me that I loved journalism. It was my parents who thought I should go into law and kept sending me school catalogs. Probably because lawyers got paid while journalists didn’t.
“You’re asking me to be a stringer,” I said. To send in articles that filled column inches but paid shit. And had zero benefits. “I can’t pay my rent on that.” Not when interns were doing all the grunt work for free. The only things that paid real money were cutting-edge articles that took ten times as much time to research and write. For the same amount of time, I could make triple at any fast-food restaurant.
“And I have a mortgage and two kids,” he returned. “I know it sucks, but at least you’re young enough to switch careers.” He looked at me mournfully. “I’ll write you a really good letter of recommendation. You’re smart, organized, and a great writer. The world’s your oyster.”
“My world is going to be asking people if they want fries with that.”
He didn’t argue, which was immeasurably worse. So I had two choices. I could continue to sit here and fight or I could suck it up, face reality, and see if I could make it as a stringer. For a little bit, at least.
“Okay, I’ve got some ideas for articles. Tell me which you’d like first.” I began rolling out my ideas, one after the other, starting with ones I’d already researched before. He shook his head. I switched to other ideas, my chest getting tight with panic as I moved steadily through sketchier concepts. By the fifth one, he held up his hand.
“Heidi, these are all about a twentysomething’s perspective on life.”
I nodded. “That’s why you hired me. To get the younger demographic.”
He exhaled loudly. “Yeah, my mistake. Your age group doesn’t buy newspapers, and my demographic doesn’t care what yours thinks.”
