Stella: So what’s your point? Rubbing it in?
Unknown: Believe it or not, making amends. You’ve been on your own for four years now, haven’t you?
Stella: Four and a half. Why? Have you been watching me?
Unknown: I saw you switched schools and majors. I see your byline sometimes now. The point is, you’ve been flying solo.
A bit of pride lifts my chin. I have. She flies with her own wings. That’s the English version of my home state’s motto and maybe it should be my personal motto, too.
Even though it’s been a turbulent ride, I’ve flown solo while most people my age are still taking handouts from Daddy and Mommy while their diplomas gather dust.
Stella: I’m fine.
Unknown: I hope you will be. But if the shit hits the fan, you can’t count on Tyler to take care of you. That’s why I wanted to remind you to reread the settlement your parents made me sign.
Stella: What good will that do me?
Unknown: Just read it, Stella. And I meant what I said. It’s a tough town, so watch your back.
I blink into the light from the phone screen but no other messages appear. I count to a hundred, trying to quiet my pounding heartbeat.
Finally, I slither from between the sheets where Tyler’s still sleeping and pad downstairs to my room.
I have to know. Although I showed Beryl the first page of the settlement document, which detailed the lump sum Dixon Ross had to pay into a trust, I dig through a small box of papers to find the rest of it.
I earn two paper cuts for my haste but finally unearth the creased sheaf, double-spaced and maybe twenty pages long. I shift the lamp on my shelf closer. Why have I never read this document thoroughly?
Because I was a minor. I didn’t initiate the suit or settlement.
Because I didn’t want this. I wanted Dixon.
Because I was heartbroken.
Because it’s not supposed to matter for another two-plus years.
The clauses and stipulations run for interminable paragraphs and my eyelids sag until I hit page sixteen. Disbursements. In other words, how do I get the money?
I thought I knew the answer to that.
Beneficiary may demand full payment or make a partial withdrawal from the trust at any time after Beneficiary’s twenty-fifth birthday, and must complete withdrawals or forfeit the remainder on Beneficiary’s twenty-ninth birthday.
Yeah. Like I’d freaking wait. But that’s just option A. Option B arrests me:
After Beneficiary ceases to be the legal dependent of Claimants in this contract, Beneficiary may petition Fiduciary for full or partial withdrawal of funds at any time four years after legal dependency is terminated.
Holy. Shit.
TWENTY-SIX
“Stella. A word.” Heath leans out of his office and jerks his head to summon me.
It’s not a request. It’s a command. I haven’t even turned on my computer yet and dread pools in my stomach as I feel what’s coming.
Good instincts, Stella, but not good enough. I should run, but instead I walk on heavy legs to his office.
Heath’s puffy eyes stare me down, waiting for me to break the silence. I clamp my lips shut against this interview tactic, my brain in overdrive to still every nervous tic or poker tell.
Heath holds all the cards and he knows it.
“You had an interesting night last night,” he begins, his voice low but threatening. I just nod. “Looks like you were pretty cozy with Tattoo Thief.”
He pushes a copy of the New York Post across his desk, open to a page with a photo of Tyler and me. Tyler’s head is bent, his lips graze my ear, and my smile is wide and convincing. I remember he was whispering courage to me, but from this picture and its suggestive caption, it looks like we’re on the verge of getting a room.
Heath waits for me to say something, so I start with a pale shade of the truth. “I, ah, have gotten to know the band better.”
“Bullshit!” Heath pounds his fist on the desk and I jump in fear and surprise. “You know what this picture tells me? It says you’ve had the kind of access any normal reporter would kill for, and you threw it away on a fling with the bassist.”
“I used that access,” I counter. “I gave you three stories on the band.”
“Two. One was crap. And what are you, their PR gal? If you’re spreading your legs for someone in the band and missing a story this big, you can’t be trusted. Especially not now that we’ve been scooped on the Kim Archer angle.”
I open my mouth to respond, reeling from “the Kim Archer angle.” I have no idea what came out in the media last night while Tyler and I were cocooned in his loft.
“Your last piece was fluff—a real reporter would have brought me that.” Heath stabs his finger on a photo of Kim Archer and her baby, both clad in ethereal white. They’re a stark counterpoint to the image of me in a glittering black dress with Tyler. I look like the evil other woman.
Heath narrows his eyes. “Or didn’t you know?”
I shake my head. I did know, but barely. Tyler didn’t tell me enough to write a real story, and even if he had, he confided in me, not a reporter.
“You could have filed a story last night,” Heath huffs. “You were there in the middle of the action.”
I quake. Heath’s right—I dropped the ball completely. When Kim released details to the media, I was so entwined with Tyler, so caught up in protecting him, that it never occurred to me to report the story. It would be like hanging my boyfriend’s dirty laundry out in public view.
Boyfriend? No. All I have are weak assurances of “not a fling.” He wants to know my secrets, yet he never trusted me with his until they went live on TMZ. I burn from the admission.
“What do you want me to do?” I whisper, fearing the answer. There’s no way I can offer Tyler’s story up like a sacrifice to appease Heath. Besides, the news cycle is already running with it. I’d be last in line.
“Nothing.” Heath’s face is pinched. “There are a thousand young writers who’d love an insider’s view of the New York music scene. HR is probably done packing up your desk by now. You’re fired.”
Heath swivels his chair and turns back to his computer monitor, dismissing me. I stand on shaky legs and walk to my desk where a banker’s box holds a few of my favorite coffee mugs, silly desk toys, and a bunch of press badges on lanyards from past events. My Indie Voice-issued laptop is gone.
This is all I have to show for this job? A couple hundred bylines, a brown box of worthless crap, and no thanks for the ridiculous hours I’ve put in over the past year? The gravity of what I’ve chosen—Tyler over my career—sinks in.
All I wanted to do was write a story that mattered. Not a story full of speculation and lies. I wanted to write about art, not gossip. But that’s what I would’ve had to trade to keep working here.
I want to believe I made the right choice. The only choice. I don’t want to turn into a slimy user like Heath.
Fuck it. I’m glad he fired me. I look around the newsroom and the rest of the reporters are hushed, heads down and just a few keystrokes filtering through the silence. Normally it’s louder than a cocktail party in here, everyone on the phone or shouting edits or razzing each other. But nobody cares enough about me to offer a word of condolence or a farewell.