"How?"
"Just you wait."
"Ah. The man of mystery."
"Yes, it drives the babes crazy."
"How about playing that song again," Emma says.
"You need to sleep."
"One more time, Jack. Come on."
So I turn off the lights and Emma makes a place for me in the armchair, and we snuggle there in the faint green glow of the disc player and listen again to "Shipwrecked Heart." Halfway through, Emma grabs the back of my head and kisses me in an arresting manner. This continues as she scissors a bare leg across my lap, adroitly pivots her hips and climbs on top.
Maybe it's the late hour, or maybe it's Jimmy's song. Either way, I owe him.
When a newspaper is purchased by a chain such as Maggad-Feist, the first order of business is to assure worried employees that their jobs are safe, and that no drastic changes are planned. The second order of business is to attack the paper's payroll with a rusty cleaver, and start shoving people out the door.
Because newspaper companies promote the myth that they're more sensitive and socially responsible than the rest of corporate America, elaborate efforts are made to avoid the appearance of a bloodbath. Mass firings are discouraged in favor of strong-armed buyout packages and accelerated attrition. At the Union-Register,for instance, our newsroom has sixteen fewer full-time employees today than it had when Race Maggad III got his manicured mitts on the paper. That's nearly a thirty percent cut in the city-desk payroll, and it was achieved mainly by not replacing reporters and editors who left to work elsewhere. Consequently, lots of important news occurs that we cannot possibly keep up with, due to a shortage of warm bodies.
Two years ago we lost a terrific reporter named Sarah Mills to Timemagazine, which was probably inevitable. Sarah had done outstanding work covering the charmingly crooked municipality of Palm River, and her stories had kept two grand juries occupied for a whole summer. Ultimately three city councilmen were marched off to jail, while the vice mayor fled to Barbados with the comptroller and $4,777.10 in stolen parking-meter receipts.
So we were all disappointed to see Sarah go, though we were glad for her success. Weeks passed, then months, and still no one was named to fill her job, leading to speculation that the job no longer existed. Sure enough, the reporter who covered Beckerville was asked to "temporarily" pick up the Palm River beat as well. Unfortunately, the city councils of both towns met every Tuesday night and, unable to be in two places at once, our harried correspondent was forced to alternate his attendance.
The politicians in Beckerville and Palm River aren't exceptionally astute, but they soon figured out that every other meeting was pretty much a freebie and composed their venal agendas accordingly. In short order both city councils raised property taxes, hiked garbage fees, rezoned residential neighborhoods to accommodate certain special interests (a tire dump in Beckerville; a warehouse park in Palm River), and then rewarded themselves with hefty pay raises. All of this was timed to occur when our overworked reporter was absent, covering the other town's meeting. He dutifully alerted his editor, who said nothing could be done. Maggad-Feist had imposed a hiring freeze at the Union-Register,and Sarah's position was to remain open indefinitely.
Eventually the Beckerville/Palm River reporter got so frazzled that he, too, left the paper. Both his beats were promptly heaped upon the reporter assigned to cover the Silver Beach city council, which, in a foul stroke of fate, also met on Tuesday nights. For the corrupt politicians in our circulation area, it was a dream come true. While Maggad-Feist was racking up a twenty-three percent profit, the unsuspecting citizens of three communitiesloyal Union-Registerreaders whom MacArthur Polk had promised to crusade forwere being semi-regularly reamed and ripped off by their elected representatives, all because the newspaper could no longer afford to show up.
The priorities of young Race Maggad III became clear when out of the blue he announced that the headquarters of Maggad-Feist was moving from Milwaukee to San Diego. A corporate press release said the purpose of relocating was to capitalize on the dynamic, high-tech workforce in California. The truth was more banaclass="underline" Race Maggad III wanted to live in a climate where he could drive his German sports cars all year round, far from the ravages of Wisconsin winters (the annual salt damage to his Carrera alone was rumored in the five figures). So Maggad-Feist picked up and moved its offices to San Diego at a cost to shareholders of approximately $12 million, or roughly the combined annual salary of two hundred and fifty editors and reporters.
The chain's methodical skeletonizing of its newsrooms affected even Emma's career trajectory. She was hired at the Union-Registeras a copy editor and swiftly promoted to assistant city editor, with the promise of more big things to come. Then the editor of the Death page unexpectedly dropped dead of a heart attack. This happened while he was on the phone with an irate funeral-home proprietor who was complaining about an ill-worded headline that had appeared above the obituary of a retired USO singer (Mabel Gertz,77, Performed Acts for Many GIs).The stricken editor expired silently and perpendicular, the telephone receiver wedged in the crook of his neck. Nobody noticed until an hour after deadline.
The next morning Emma was summoned to the city editor's cubicle and informed that, as the junior member on the desk, she'd been chosen to "fill in" on the Death page. Thanks to previous staff departures, her new duties would also include the Gardening and Automotive sections of the paper. I think young Emma truly believed the city editor when he told her it was "a golden opportunity." She also believed him when he said it was only a temporary move, and that she'd soon be back on the news desk, editing significant stories. Time passed but Emma didn't make a fuss because she was a trouper, not a troublemaker. That's changing, though, and I'm considering taking some of the credit.
"Abkazion didn't want to pay for your plane ticket," she's telling me, "but I straightened him out."
I'm impressed; Abkazion is a tough customer.
Emma says, "I reminded him what happened at Robbie's going-away party, when he got bombed and pulled me into a broom closet."
Robbie Mickelson was our environmental writer. He left the paper after it was decided the environment was no longer in danger, and his beat was eliminated.
"The broom closet? That's pretty cheesy," I say.
"I nailed him in the testicles with a bottle of Liquid-Plumr. He couldn't have been more contrite."
"You're definitely getting the hang of middle management."
We're eating breakfast at an IHOP, of all places. The sight of Emma demolishing a tower of buttermilk pancakes has left me unaccountably enchanted. Everything she does, in fact, is downright fascinating. The way she folds one corner of the napkin, for example, before dabbing maple syrup from her lips ...
"Jack, get a grip," she says.
But it's too late for that. I'm already in the barrel, and the barrel's going over the falls. God help me, I've got a crush on my editorthe woman whom I vowed to outwit, demoralize and drive out of the newspaper business. My mission has been derailed by raw straightforward lust, and I couldn't be happier.
Emma says, "It's the story, Jack. You're just jazzed about the story."
"Jazzed."
"High," she says.
"I know what it means, and you're wrong. If the story goes bust tomorrow, I'll still"
"Don't say that. The story's good."
"Emma, what do you think is happening here?"
Pensively she taps her fork on the empty pancake platter. "I wish I weren't your boss," she says.
"And I wish you weren't so elliptical."
"There's no mystery, Jack. I just don't know what to do."