“I want three hundred words on the artist and sculptures. Minimum of two quotes from bystanders. Copy for Wednesday’s edition.”
I heard Paulina stem a chuckle. Rather than leaving, Wallace stood there, waiting for a response.
“I think he’s got a problem with the assignment, Wally.” Paulina. Chiming in at the perfectly wrong time. Wallace raised his eyebrows. I avoided eye contact with both of them.
“Is that true?” he asked. I said nothing. Paulina was right. I hated writing obituaries and I sure as hell didn’t want to interview bumpkins from North Dakota about metal insects the size of commercial airliners.
“You want me to be honest?” I asked.
“It would upset me if you weren’t.”
I looked at Paulina. She was pretending to type.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for this piece. No offense to spiderphiles, but to be honest you’re really not getting my best work right now. And I think you know that.”
Wallace put his thumb to his lip, chewed at the nail.
“So you’re saying you’d rather work on more interesting stories.” I nodded. This was thin ice. I was asking the editor in chief of a major metropolitan newspaper for, essentially, more responsibility. After less than a month on the job. There were probably a thousand people who’d kill to write obituaries at the Gazette, but I’d worked damn hard to get here and screw it, I could do better.
Finally Wallace said, “I’m sorry, Henry, really, but this is all I have right now. Believe it or not, these stories are important. You want…” But all I heard was blah blah blah, trust me, blah blah blah.
“You see what I’m saying?” Wallace asked. I couldn’t hear Paulina anymore; she was in full eavesdropping mode. I didn’t move, didn’t nod. I knew what he was saying, but in my heart I didn’t believe it. Then right as I was about to open my mouth, an unexpected voice rang out through the newsroom.
“I have something Parker could help me with.”
Three heads turned to stare. The voice belonged to Jack O’Donnell, and he was staring right at me. Thankfully I peed after lunch.
A slight laugh escaped Wallace’s lips, and with a flamboyant wave of his hand he directed me toward the elder reporter.
Before I could even register that Jack O’Donnell-Jack freakin’ O’Donnell-was talking to me, my legs had stumbled over to his desk. He was leaning back in his chair. A light gray beard coated his face. His desk was covered in Post-it notes and illegible scribblings. A photo of an attractive woman at least twenty years his junior.
“So you’re looking for more action?” he said. My chin bobbed and I muttered a “Yes, sir” beneath my breath. I could smell tobacco and coffee coming off his breath in waves. I wondered if I could bottle it and bring it back to my desk.
O’Donnell slid his hand under a pile of paper and removed a notepad. He scanned it, then ripped off the top sheet and handed it to me.
“Not sure if you’ve heard, but I’ve been working on some copy about criminal rehabilitation.” I nodded again, kept on nodding. “You all right, kid?” I nodded some more.
Jack sighed an okay under his breath. “What I’m doing is profiling a dozen ex-convicts, a kind of ‘where are they now’ of the scum of NewYork. Then hopefully tie that into a larger investigation about the criminal justice system and its effectiveness, or lack thereof.” More nods. I was getting good at it.
When I asked, “What do you need me to do?” my voice cracked worse than a fifteen-year-old working at the drive-thru. I coughed into my fist. Repeated myself in a much deeper tone of voice.
O’Donnell tapped the paper, underlined the name, address and phone number on the page.
Luis Guzman. 105th and Broadway.
“I’ll call Mr. Guzman to tell him an associate of mine will be coming by for an interview. I’ve already spoken to his parole board, and they’ve confirmed it with Luis. They put pressure on ex-cons to do this kind of thing, put a happy face on the correctional programs. Don’t be afraid to lean on him if he’s reluctant to talk. I simply don’t have time to interview all twelve of these people by deadline. Give me the transcript and pick out some choice sound bites. Then give copies to me and Wallace. You get what I’m looking for, I’ll give you an ‘additional reporting by’ credit on the byline.”
“Wait, so I’ll be working with you on this?”
“That’s right.”
“Directly with you on this?” O’Donnell laughed.
“What, you want me to push you around in a stroller? Guzman did a few years for armed robbery, but records show he’s been a model citizen since parole. Half a dozen good, usable sound bites, and you’re done. Think you can handle that?”
I nodded.
“I’m assuming that’s a yes and you don’t have Tourette’s syndrome.”
“Yes. To the first question.”
Jack looked me over, clapped his hand on my elbow. Wallace liked the shoulder, O’Donnell the elbow. When I got my first page-one story, maybe I’d slap people on the neck to be original.
“You do this right, Henry, I might need some more additional reporting down the line.”
This time nodding felt right.
4
I lay awake that night, my mind swimming with memories I wished could be forgotten, swept from my head and air-brushed from reality. But that would never happen. The dreams would haunt me for years. The helplessness I felt that night months ago would never leave. Yet any nightmare paled in comparison to the truth.
It was in February, about three months ago. I was finishing up a term paper, trying desperately to boost my GPA a final few tenths of a point to impress employers, as though a tenth of a point was the difference between the New York Gazette and the Weekly World News. Three sleepless nights in a row and my brain was stringing up yellow tape and preparing to go on strike. Mya and I had been fighting all week. Something about unreturned phone calls. She was in New York, I was in Ithaca. It doesn’t matter now.
Hang-up after hang-up, words we’d eventually regret. At eleven forty-five with Flaubert in my mind and sleep deprivation settling in, Mya called me childish. To say it was the straw that broke the camel’s back is like the skipper on the Titanic saying “Oops.”
I called her a bitch. I told her I was sick of our relationship. I was tired of her crap. She said I was an asshole. I told her she was right. And then I hung up on her.
I memorized the last page of blurry text and let my eyelids mercifully close. And I wondered, not for the first time, if it was worth it.
Then at 2:36 a.m., a time now branded in my subconscious, my phone rang. I answered it. It was Mya. I said hello. I heard heavy breathing on the other end, the sound of shuffling. A whimper. She was crying. About us, surely. But there were no words. I hung up without thinking twice. And then I turned my phone off.
The strains of “Love Me Do” woke me at seven-thirty. I laughed at the irony of the lyrics. I barely remembered last night’s phone calls.
After swigging from a cup of cold French vanilla, I turned on my phone. There were four messages waiting for me. I felt a twinge of guilt as I dialed voice mail. I remembered hanging up on Mya while she was crying. The girl who’d shared my bed so many nights, who’d asked me to make love to her, who held my hand when I needed it. How could I have been so cruel?
The first message froze my blood. It was filled with static, the words nearly unintelligible, but I could hear enough to make out a voice amidst the confusion.
It was Mya. And she was crying.
Please, Henry, oh, God, please pick up…
And then the call ended.
In a panic I listened to the next three messages. Two were from Mya’s parents, the last one from my father.