“Carl, do you have any feedback on my article?” I ask. “So I can do better for the next one? Obviously I wrote more than you were looking for, but?—”
He sighs and leans back in his chair, exasperated with me. I don’t think he has any right to be, I’m just asking for guidance from the person who is supposed to be guiding me in thisinternship, but clearly he’s got no interest in mentoring me in this moment. “No one cares about some stupid Rubik’s Cube competition. Frankly, the fact that we’re even announcing the winners is overkill, but you told them we’re running an article so now we have to print something.”
“It doesn’t even name all the winners anymore, though. Most of the competitors were kids, I thought it was a good community feature,” I say. “That’s why I took the initiative …”
“I want initiative in filling the coffee pot and helping out around here, not stepping into roles you have no business being in. I have real reporters to write the stories, I need you to get the coffee and file paperwork. I don’t recall even telling you that you could go to this thing.”
“You said ‘fine,’ so I thought?—”
“You thought wrong. Now go accept my changes to make it into an announcement and send it to the copy desk like I told you to. Or is that too much for you to handle?” His voice has gotten louder with each sentence, and I’m sure everyone in the office can hear him.
“I can do that,” I mumble, turning away before I do something to further humiliate myself, like burst into tears. I shuffle back to my desk, face flaming and eyes burning. I can hear the other journalists snickering around me.
I accept Carl’s changes and send the sad little non-article over to the copy desk. I can’t bring myself to completely delete my original story, though. I move it, along with the photo of the four relay winners, into the “Research” folder on my desktop. Maybe the next intern who sits here will see it and think it’s worth reading, at least.
Chapter Four
My dorm room door flies open and Ronnie comes in like a whirlwind, blond waves haloing her head and her signature perfume clinging to her clothes. I drop my phone on the quilt next to me so she doesn’t see the picture of the hot cubers that I’ve been staring at. I can’t get them out of my head, and I don’t know why. No guy has ever had a hold on me like this before.
“Were you staring at your phone again?” Ronnie kicks her shoes off and climbs up onto my bed, bouncing up and down on the mattress in her socked feet. “What is in that magic little box that is sucking up all your attention?” She gasps and claps her hands together. “Is it a guy? Do you have a secret boyfriend you’re texting?”
“What? No! Nothing like that,” I insist, then let out a groan when she pins me with a look that says she knows I’m keeping something from her. She’s caught me staring at my phone all week and has threatened to pry it out of my hand so she can see what has me so captivated.
“I’m going to get it out of you at some point. You might as well make it easy on yourself.” Ronnie drops to her knees and sits facing me. “Come on, talk to me about it. You’ve been more miserable than usual this week.”
“I haven’t been miserable.” I can’t make eye contact, instead pretending to be very interested in a loose thread on my bedspread.
“Clearly you are if other people are asking me if your mom died or something,” she argues.
“I haven’t been that bad.”
If I don’t give Ronnie something, she’s going to keep pestering until I confess that I’ve been staring at the photo of the Rubik’s Cube team on my phone, daydreaming about my article having been a hit, Carl sending me to cover Nationals, and them looking out into the audience and seeing me, their faces breaking into big grins as they wave from the stage, then leaping off the stage after they win and wrapping me up in a huge group hug before taking me up to their hotel room to ravish me. And I am absolutely not going to tell her all of that, because it’s weird and pathetic, and I don’t even know why I keep doing it, so I lean over and grab my laptop off my desk.
“It’s not that big a deal,” I tell her. “It’s just my article from last weekend.” I pull up the story and hand the computer to Ronnie.
Ronnie tilts the screen so she can read it easier, nodding as her eyes scan the article.
“This is really good. It actually makes a Rubik’s Cube competition sound fun to watch, which is something I never in a million years thought I’d say.” She hands the laptop back to me. “What’s the problem?”
“My editor ripped it to shreds.” I open a browser window and tap out the address for theTribune. The full URL for the final version of the cubing story auto-populates from my browsing history, and I hand the computer back to her. “This is the published version.”
Ronnie’s eyes widen as she reads the two sentences that made the cut. “Yikes.”
“I didn't even get a byline for it,” I groan, falling back against my pillow and flopping my arm over my eyes. I don’t even want to see my ceiling right now. I need darkness to wallow in my failure.
“Well, that’s not fair! You did all that work, suggesting the story and going out there and spending all day at the competition and interviewing all those people. And your original article is good! They should be thanking you.” Ronnie closes the laptop and slides it back onto my desk, her eyes dark with indignation.
“Welcome to the world of unpaid internships,” I mutter. “And the way it’s going right now, I’m not sure they’ll let me come back for a full reporting internship next year. Or even give me a good reference letter.”
Maybe I should start looking for a backup plan. I just can’t see myself graduating in two years with a job offer from theTribunelike I’ve been imagining since I was accepted to the internship. I’ve only just started my sophomore year, so there’s plenty of time for me to figure something else out, but still. I feel the pressure.
“Okay, first, your editor is an ass,” says Ronnie, holding up a finger.
“Carl is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,” I counter.
“Doesn’t matter. Still an ass,” she says, shaking her head. She puts up another finger. “And second, we need to get you out of this funk. Get up.” She climbs off my bed and goes to her wardrobe, rifling through it and pulling out dresses and tops.
“No thanks,” I tell her. “I like where I am. It’s comfortable.”
