Marie Louise looks at me for a long moment.
“That is exactly the sort of thing a man says before making a bad decision.”
“I’m offended.”
“You’re a journalist. You’ll recover.”
I point at the printed article on her desk. “Also, the woman in question currently thinks I’ve written an underlying sexist article about her professional competence. I can’t imagine she’ll be overwhelmed by the urge to tear my clothes off.”
“No,” Marie Louise says. “I imagine the urge will be more arson-adjacent.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I thought so.”
I glance back at the article, my fingers brushing along my jaw.
If I keep talking like this is funny, I do not have to look directly at the fact I’m being asked to walk into a fire station where my name is probably already being used as a swear word.
“What exactly is the proposal? I go there, interview them, write a thoughtful piece about the station and try not to be murdered with a hose?”
“That was my first thought,” Marie Louise says.
I look up.
She has gone still in a way I deeply mistrust. Her eyes shift to the window, then back to me, and I can almost see the idea forming. It is the editorial equivalent of watching storm clouds gather over a picnic.
“First thought?” I ask.
“I’ve got a better idea,” she says, with the sort of smile that has never once improved my life.
Marie Louise sets her pen down and straightens in her chair with the expression of a woman who has already rearranged my immediate future and is now simply waiting for me to notice. “Instead of going in for one tidy interview and producing a polite feature everyone forgets by Friday, you’re going to spend proper time with them.”
I stare at her. “Define proper.”
“Two weeks.”
For a moment, I assume I’ve misheard her, because that is the sort of number people use when they’re discussingholidays, jury service or recovering from minor surgery. Not an article.
“Two weeks,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
“At the fire station.”
“Yes.”
“With the firefighters.”
“That is generally where one finds them.”
I sit back. “Marie Louise.”
“AJ.”
“You cannot send me to a fire station for two weeks.”
“I absolutely can.”
