“What do you mean, ‘it’s lackluster’?” I demand on Monday afternoon, four days after my shit-tastic dart game with Duke.
Josh makes a show of perusing the printed copy of my article, flipping through the pages way too dramatically for my tastes. He tosses the stapled stack onto my desk. “It’s no good, Denton.”
My hands fly to the pages. Red ink mars the entire copy. “Can you tell me why it’s no good?”
Josh readjusts his Red Sox baseball hat. “It’s got no pizazz. No life. I could have been reading about root canals I was so enthralled.”
What is it with this guy and the dentist? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I have bigger fish to fry. You know, like possibly losing my job.
“What sort of ‘pizazz’ are you looking for?” I throw in finger quotations because, what the heck. I’m four days away from being demoted to Josh’s secretary-in-training anyway. Just the thought of having to sit in his office all day sends dread trickling down my spine.
I plow forward. “Not only did I speak to him personally, but I attended a game, on his dime. I spoke to his teammates”—okay, one teammate whom I’d stalked all weekend on Twitter—“and I’m telling you, that article right there has more information on Duke Harrison than any other publication has put out since he last won the Stanley Cup three years ago.”
Josh doesn’t bother correcting me on any of that. He simply flicks up the brim of his hat, drags his coffee mug off my desk, and slurps the liquid down. Gross.
“It’s bland, Denton. B-l-a-n-d.”
“I know how to spell,” I mutter, wishing I could slam my office door in his face. With my luck, the damn thing would probably fall off the frame. “I took up Hooked on Phonics at least fifteen years ago.”
He doesn’t laugh at my feeble attempt at humor. “You spent two-thousand words praising him in that article, Charlie. Two-thousand.” Pointing at the discarded papers on my desk, he adds, “That’s two-thousand words too much for a player whose good days on the ice are solidly behind him.”
I don’t like where this is going. Softly, I ask, “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that The Cambridge Tribune needs ratings, Denton. We need to spark a fire, cause a stir. We’re being left in the goddamn dust right now and I can’t let that happen.”
Yeah, I really don’t like where this is going. Not to mention the fact that The Tribune has always been in the dust. This isn’t anything new. There are no phoenixes waiting for a cyclical rebirth from the ashes at this company.
Fisting my hands against my thighs, I mutter, “You want me to turn this article into a tabloid spread.”
Josh jerks his head in a barely-there nod. “I want you to turn that article into something that’s gonna catch fire and put The Tribune on the map.”
Whatever I feel for Duke has no play in this. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like paparazzi fodder. Sure, I may have felt slightly different about the situation a week ago, but even then I hadn’t planned to trash the guy in the news. My intention hadn’t been to slam him, but to shed light on a player’s long-term career in the NHL. There’s always a downturn, it’s just a matter of when.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I clasp my hands together tightly in my lap. “I’m not comfortable with that, Josh. He’s not a bad guy—”
The coffee mug slams down on my desk, liquid splashing over the rim as Josh literally explodes. “It’s not about what you’re comfortable with, Denton. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. We are five months away from shutting our doors.”
Five months away from not having a job. A million and one thoughts filter through my head, all of them related to my meager savings account. “Maybe we can find a way to increase subscription volume,” I throw out, opting for the positive approach. “Kick off a social media campaign. Get on Instagram.”
“It’s way too late for Instagram.” Josh is pacing now, his feet thudding heavily across the carpet as he sharply cuts around and renews his path to the door and back. “We need something big. You need to make this article something big. It needs to be something that’ll be picked up by The Huffington Post, maybe People. Hell, if The Daily Mail sinks its claws into it, we’ll be golden.”
All from one article about a man who has never made headlines for anything other than his stick play? Sure, there’s been the rare which-supermodel-is-he-dating-now crap, but the media has always been more focused on his stats.
Not on his personal life.
I feel a little nauseous at the thought of being the vehicle that tears everything down for him.
“Josh, I can’t do this.”
My boss stops mid-stride. He’s got that edgy flare to him again, the one that emerges moments before he cuts loose and flies off the handle. “I’m pushing up your deadline from this Friday.”
“You have my piece,” I tell him, pointing at my desk. “Four days early, even.”
“It needs to be rewritten. I’m telling you, Denton, this shit has got to be good.”
I’m not sure he even knows what he’s asking of me at this point. “What if I don’t?” I burst out. “What if I won’t rewrite it, and you’re stuck with these two-thousand words?”
“You’re fired.”
He says the words so succinctly that my mouth drops open. All I can do is blink back at him. Fired? “I thought my punishment for failure to deliver the copy was demotion.”
“I’ve changed the rules,” he says, sounding a whole lot like Duke from the other night. Josh’s short, squat body swaggers over to my desk and grabs for the article. I’m almost not surprised when he proceeds to tear the paper into shreds, letting the pieces fall into the garbage can.
Shrrripp.
There goes page number one.
Shrrrrripppp.
Page two.
By the time he’s working on page three, anger seeps out of my ears like those on cartoons I used to watch as a kid.
“New deadline is Wednesday, Denton. If that article isn’t on my desk by three p.m., you can pack your things. You’ll have the weekend to apply to those jobs you like so much at the Boston Globe—if they’ll take you.”
With that, he turns on his heel and stalks from the room. With him, I swear he takes every bit of oxygen. I’m having a hard time regulating my breathing, for one very good reason: I’m so screwed.
I don’t want to do this to Duke, but what choice do I have? It’s either my job or my integrity, and never before have I been so torn between the morally right and the morally wrong.
You’re better than this.
I am better than this. But I’m also struggling to get by, and while Duke has millions of dollars at his disposal, I have a one-room studio and a Prius that took me three years to save up the funds to purchase.
“Jesus, you look like crap,” Casey exclaims, waltzing into our shared office with bagged lunch for the both of us. “What the hell happened when I was gone? You look like someone stomped on your cat.”
“I don’t like cats,” I point out weakly, nearly breaking into tears when she hands me a Dunkin’ Donuts Styrofoam cup, as well as a bagel and a chocolate donut. I plan to eat the donut first, you know, for emotional support.
Casey takes a seat at her desk, swirling around so she can look at me. “Yeah, I know,” she says, falling back into our regular rhythm, “otherwise we could be lesbian lovers and marry.”
I don’t have the energy to play the game.
Instead I stuff my face with the donut and plot my next move.
A move that, no matter how much I wished it wouldn’t, includes the NHL’s golden boy, Duke Harrison.
