C5 Audrey

My faucet is leaking again. “Crap.” I bang on it, hoisting my bag up on my shoulder to avoid the spray, but it doesn’t help the slow and steady drip. My little duct-tape fix from last night isn’t holding up. It’s soaked through. Shit, I’m going to be late… and on my second week at the Globe. I crouch down low and open the cabinet. Where is it… aha! I grab the duct tape and start wrapping it around the pipe. Hopefully it’ll last another twelve hours. Then I shove a clean towel under the cabinet and hope it won’t be soaked through when I get back home. I make it out of the tiny room I rent, past the closed door of my neverawake, constantly weed-smoking neighbor, and downstairs. There’s mail on the stoop. Of course there’s mail. I grab it and rush back in to my landlord’s door on the first floor. Pierce owns this brownstone, and rents the converted bedrooms upstairs out to students or penniless young professionals. “Mr. Pierce?” I half-scream. He’s hard of hearing. “You’ve got mail! I’ll put it outside your door!” There’s a thud inside. “Is that you, Audrey?” “Yes!” “Noted,” he calls back. His voice is rusty, like always, and his choice of words makes me smile. The old man barely says thank you. Time for the tough conversation. “My faucet is leaking again! Any news on the plumber?” Another thud inside, and then his heavy footfalls. “Yes, yes, I called him yesterday. He’s on it,” Pierce says.

Which, if I know my landlord, means he forgot and is about to call the plumber right now. “Thank you!” Then I have to race to the subway. I make it to the Globe with a few minutes to spare. Walking through the prestigious lobby, past the gold-framed articles of legend, the sleek logo behind reception, and pulling out my employee keycard… even now, two weeks in, it makes me feel giddy. This job is like winning the lottery, and not even the paltry salary can make me think otherwise. I ride the elevator up to my floor with a smile on my face. Ridiculous, perhaps, and I’m sure the stressed journalists and department heads who ride with me think I’m nuts. But I’m just a junior investigative reporter at the Globe who just got the greenlight to investigate my first story. And probably a little bit nuts too. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and my smile widens. It’s past eight thirty, when he drinks his first cup. Carter: You’re wrong. Flavored creamer makes it worse, not better, and I’ll fight anyone who tells me otherwise. I type my reply as I walk through the long hallway on my floor. Audrey: I told you to only do one-and-a-half pumps. Did you put two? It ruins it if you put two. Carter: Do you think I have time to measure out a half-pump? Audrey: You have time to text me, so yes. Carter: Touché. Over the past weeks, our texting has grown from tentative hellos to a frenzy of banter. Never about anything serious, and rarely about our own lives. But we have differing opinions on almost everything. I sit down at my desk in the open landscape, and while my computer turnson, I send him another one. Audrey: You know, I still don’t know what you do for a living. Is that weird? Carter: I’ve told you. I rescue women from bad blind dates. Audrey: No, you said that’s your hobby. Not so good at remembering all your lies, are you? Carter: It’s the number-one problem for superheroes, actually. Trouble keeping up with multiple identities. Leads to a lot of early retirements. I grin down at my phone. He never says what I expect him to say. Always thinks of something different, something unexpected, doesn’t like the way I take my coffee, disagreed with my choice of date location last weekend. We haven’t seen each other again since the bad date. I don’t know if I want to, either. This, our texting friendship, is… perfect. Exactly what I need. Someone to shake me out of my rut. Exposure therapy. “You look happy,” a voice says to my left. “Too happy. Do you remember what story you’re supposed to be working on?” I turn toward Declan. He’s my deskmate and he’s always, always, in the newsroom early. He looks over at me with a vaguely disapproving frown, his round glasses low on his nose. Like me, Declan is a junior reporter. He carries a leather satchel to work and yesterday he rocked a sweater vest. I think he fancies himself a journalist in the ’40s, but I hope to one day win a Pulitzer, so Lord knows we both have journalistic dreams. “I remember,” I tell him. “How’s your piece coming along?” He pushes his glasses up. “Great. I’m going out after lunch to interview members of the church.” “They agreed to your request?” He hesitates, but then he turns his chin up. “They will.” I smile at his resolve and set about opening my email inbox. I start the day by reading through all the official memos from the editor-in-chief andfrom the executive team. Today’s is short. It mentions the acquisition of The New York Globe by Acture Capital. It’s a hands-off venture capital firm. The announcement is phrased in pretty terms, but I read it with a sinking pit of despair. Print media is being sold to investor funds, one after one, and we all know how the worst of them treat newspapers. They lay off employees, rack up subscription prices, and bleed the company into bankruptcy. Declan breaks through my mid-morning read-through. “Booker read through the draft of the Johnson article you helped with yesterday.” “She did?!” He nods, but he looks pleased with himself. “Yes.” “Did you see her read it?” “Yep.” “Declan,” I say, “please. How did she seem?” He finally relents and turns toward me with a shrug. “She said it was decent.” “Decent,” I breathe. “Really?” “Yes.” It might not seem like a lot, but decent is basically great in Booker’s terminology. Tara Booker is the editor of investigative journalism and my direct boss, although she usually concerns herself with the reporters who don’t have junior in front of their names. “Did you get statements from the victim’s family?” Declan asks. I nod. “Yes. I’m going to write it up today.” “Should make for a good piece,” he says, and that’s the most friendliness I’ve gotten out of Declan so far. What is this? My birthday? I allocate an hour to my solo project. It’s a story I’ve been following for months, about a bodega in Queens that’s being illegally shut down because of rising rent prices. The owners had tried to take it to court, but because they didn’t have the right paperwork—and no money to pay for an attorney to help them with it—they didn’t get past the initial hurdle. So the construction company who wants them out will get away with it. It’s the type of David-and-Goliath story that makes my blood boil. I work straight through lunch, the words flowing, and I barely notice when a shape leans against my desk. “Audrey,” a sharp, feminine voice says. “Take a break.”