Happenstance(53)

She told me I couldn’t pursue the story—and I won’t.

But if she decides to chase it down or give it to an experienced reporter, their work will be half completed once I show them the picture I’m carrying in my apron. I might not get the byline, but I can still be helpful. Although it’s going to take some fancy footwork to convince Karina that I didn’t actively seek out the opportunity to take this picture. It fell into my lap.

I’m sure she’ll totally believe me.

Right after she tells me “Me Plus Three” is a masterpiece.

A girl can dream.

I stop at the edge of a desk of the woman who always whines about the lack of soup and wait for her to go through her spiel, but she doesn’t. Instead, she is joined by the staff writer behind her in an ambush I see coming from a mile away. “So…Elise, right?” They give me that wink-wink, shoulder juggle that implies we’re girls so we’ve just gotta dish. “Can you settle a bet?”

“I don’t know. Do you want a sandwich?”

The second girl laughs at my abrupt change of topic, but girl one appears miffed. “Those guys who came here to see you last week. Some of us swear that one of them was Tobias Atwater. Was it? I’ll win ten bucks if the answer is yes and it will go straight into your tip jar.”

I don’t have a tip jar, but I keep that to myself. “Yes, that was him. He’s my…friend.”

The second girl throws a handful of paperclips in the air in victory. “I knew it. I knew it.”

That’s when I realize half the office is groaning, while the other half celebrates. My face turns piping hot in a matter of seconds and all I want to do is abandon the sandwich cart and run like hell. The whole humiliating moment reminds me that I am not their equal. I haven’t done the work to reach their level and I’ve been trying to attain it anyway. The easy way. But they’ll never see me as anything but the person who delivers their lunch, unless I do the work.

Do I have it in me? I don’t know. Four years of school?

I can barely keep a job for four months.

That’s why, with my impulses screaming at me to run and never come back, I take a centering breath and remain right where I am, tossing a turkey on wheat to the bespectacled man on my left. Doing my best to keep my composure, I shove my cart to the end of the row and skirt past it, determined to tell Karina what I have to say. Finish up my workday— And stick. I’m going to stick out this job. Maybe I’ll find it inside of me to start attending classes, too, but I can’t keep quitting and running.

The laughter and high fiving are still ongoing behind me, so I walk faster, faster, my pulse loud in my ears, until I’m pushing into Karina’s icy cold office. I’m so distracted by what’s happening on the floor and searching for a way to divert my own thoughts from the ruckus, that I don’t see Karina waving at me. Not right away.

“Elise—”

“I know you told me not to proceed with the story—and I won’t. I swear. But you need to know what I overheard on Saturday night. A conversation between the deputy mayor and—”

I’m halfway through blurting out what I need to tell her, when I notice she’s frantically waving her hands at me. A split-second before my mouth snaps shut, she’s ending the call, which was on speakerphone, with a punch of a finger.

She stares at her desk for long moments, then shoots to her feet and begins to pace. “Oh fuck, Elise. What did you just do?”

“I…don’t know. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were on the phone. I just…” I shoot a helpless glance back over my shoulder. “Was it important?”

“Was it important?” she enunciates, stabbing a finger into her desk. “That was the assistant to the deputy mayor, Elise.”

The blood drains straight out of my upper half, pooling inside of a stomach that has gone completely hollow. “What?”

Karina drags a hand down her features. “This is bad.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah. Oh my God.” She throws her hands wide. “I wasn’t just going to let the story drop, Elise. I was on it. Unlike the Post, apparently, no one is leaking us any major stories that involve the actual governor and his wife. Not without establishing a line of trust and communication, which I was in the process of doing. It needed to be a credentialed Times writer to publicly make the connection between Local 401 and the deputy mayor’s office. These things don’t happen overnight.”

All I can do is stare as Karina paces behind her desk. I’m going to be sick.

I’ve just outed myself to God knows who over the phone. I might have screwed Karina’s chances of effectively covering the story in the process.

“Alexander and the mayor just released a statement claiming their servers were hacked and the emails were obtained that way. But if that’s a lie…if your hunch is correct and those damning emails are being leaked by the deputy mayor himself…what is his end game? Getting his competition out of the way in time for the election, so he can run without the incumbent breathing down his neck? And it suits Crouch to have this damning information continue to go public, because once the mayor is out, he’ll have friends in high places and he’ll win the stupid feud at the same time. It makes sense. So much for the gala over the weekend serving as a truce offering.”