The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(38)
I try to remember what Rafael told me, trust that Hearst will appreciate me coming here and confessing to spying for Pulitzer, that he’ll repay my honesty with forgiveness. All I can do is hope he won’t fire me.
“Come in,” Hearst calls out from the other side of his office.
I walk inside, closing the door gently behind me.
“May I have a word?” I ask him.
“Of course.”
“I need to talk to you about something. I—I haven’t been honest with you from the beginning.”
“I’m surprised to hear that. How have you been dishonest?”
“When I originally came to you asking for a job as a journalist, it was at Mr. Pulitzer’s behest. He wanted a spy in your newsroom and he proposed that I attempt to secure a job here and report back to him on the inner workings of the Journal.”
“I see. And what did you give him?”
“Details about the stories we were working on here and there. The fact that the Clemencia Arango story was wrong, for one.”
“What did he offer you in exchange for the information? Money?”
“A job when it was all over. I originally wanted to work for Pulitzer. I’ve admired the work he has done at the World for some time. I secured a meeting with him, but he wasn’t looking for another girl reporter, at least not one with my lack of experience. I knew it would be difficult to get a job in New York, but this is the center of journalism, and if I’m going to make a name for myself, it’s here.
“When he offered me a job, only if I was able to get work at the Journal, I thought about telling him no, but honestly, I wanted the opportunity he offered me too badly. So, I took it. I’m sorry. So sorry. You’ve given me chances when no one else did. I shouldn’t have betrayed that.”
Hearst is silent for a moment.
“You’ve done good reporting here, Grace,” he finally says. “You’ve grown as a writer. I don’t like that you were spying for Pulitzer. I figured there were World plants here—it’s inevitable with how many staff we have rotating out between our two papers and I certainly have my own at his newspaper—but I never imagined one of them was you.”
The rivalry between Hearst and Pulitzer has always seemed to be something Hearst takes in stride. Where Pulitzer is genuinely angry about Hearst’s challenge, Hearst treats the whole thing like a game he can win. Perhaps that’s the difference with growing up with wealth behind you, cushioning your every daring move, and having to make your own way in the world.
“I understand if you want me to clean out my things and leave. I understand if you can’t have a spy in your newsroom.”
“I don’t know that it needs to come to that. Have you told Pulitzer you’re done spying for him?”
“I have.”
“And will you be loyal from here on out? I’m willing to give you one more chance, but you need to devote yourself to the Journal. I need to know that I can trust you. That when you’re assigned a story or privy to sensitive information, you will guard it. If you’re going to write for the Journal, then I will accept nothing less now than your absolute loyalty. Do we have a deal?”
Relief fills me. From here on out, I will be a model employee for the Journal. I vow it.
“We have a deal.”
* * *
—
I follow up my piece on the Junta meeting with an undercover stint as a maid at one of the hotels on Fifth Avenue, my stunt reporting days never behind me. I’m hunched over a typewriter putting the finishing touches on the story—and detailing the moment when one of the odious male guests got a little friendlier than appropriate—when a shout emerges from Hearst’s office, sounding through the newsroom.
“We have Spain, now!” Hearst exclaims, drawing the notice of all the staff.
I rise from my desk and edge closer toward his office door.
“Get me Chamberlain,” he says, calling for one of his editors. “Send a telegraph to our correspondent in Havana. Have him wire every detail he has about this case. Notify our correspondents all over the United States that it’s their job to get signatures from the women of America. We want the important ones to sign first. Then send the signed petition along with the names of the signatories to the queen regent demanding this girl’s pardon. Alert our minister in Madrid. The Spanish minister wants to go after our correspondents? Let’s see how he does when faced with the women of America. We must bring as much attention to this as we can. This is how we open the country’s eyes to what’s really happening in Cuba. Much more effective than editorials and political speeches. We’ll save this girl no matter what it takes.”
“What’s going on?” I ask Michael, one of Pulitzer’s former reporters who has since jumped ship for the Journal, as he emerges from Hearst’s office. “I haven’t seen Hearst this excited since the Journal solved the East River murder mystery last month.”
Michael grins. “Hearst just received a cable from Havana. There’s a girl being imprisoned in the Casa de Recogidas. George Eugene Bryson and George Clarke Musgrave went down to the prison themselves to investigate. She’s Cuban. She’s a lady, and she has no business being in Recogidas. She’s been there over a year awaiting trial. She’s only nineteen years old. Bryson’s been sitting on this story, afraid international scrutiny will make her situation more precarious. But he’s finally decided to file it under the byline of Marion Kendrick. Hopefully, that’ll leave his name out of it and keep him from being expelled from the country while still raising the attention we need for the situation.”