“Good ideas often arrive before permission.”
“So do lawsuits.”
Marie Louise ignores that. She picks up the printed article and looks at it, not like she’s angry now, but like she’s measuring the distance between what we meant and what we made. “The piece you write at the end needs to be neutral. Not fawning. Not defensive. It isn’t an apology dressed up as journalism. It’s about the station, the work, the training, the choices they make under pressure, and Watch Manager Hart as a professional doing her job.”
“Show her skills, not her gender,” I say.
“Yes.”
I nod slowly, because that part does make sense.
“And there may be a diary element.”
I stare. “A what?”
“A light one.”
“No.”
“Not confessional.”
“No.”
“Something human. A reporter learning what he didn’t know.”
“I can learn things privately.”
“Historically, that doesn’t appear to have been the case.”
She turns to her notebook and writes something down, and the sight of that worries me because ideas become significantly harder to kill once Marie Louise has put them in ink. “There are visuals, too. Not ridiculous ones. We are not putting you in a helmet and asking you to look humbled beside a fire engine.”
“Good.”
“Unless it happens naturally.”
“Marie Louise.”
I try not to imagine myself standing in a fire station surrounded by people who can carry things the size of doors while I make notes and pretend my lungs are having a normal day. Unfortunately, once the image appears, it stays. It develops. It gains sound.
Firefighters laughing.
Me dropping something.
Watch Manager Philippa Hart looking at me like she’s deciding whether I count as a learning opportunity or a workplace hazard.
Marie Louise’s eyes brighten as if she can see the same picture and finds it much more entertaining.
“You’re enjoying this,” I say.
“A little.”
“Unprofessional.”
“Possibly.”
“I could complain.”
“To whom?”
