Page 98 of And Now, Back to You

“I wasn’t aware I needed to explain myself to you, Delilah.”

“You do when you send me out into the middle of the mountains for coverage and then don’t let me actually perform that coverage.” Some of my patience slips. “What’s going on here, Keith?”

“A severe lack of professionalism,” he bites out. “Or do I need to remind you about your little slipup?”

My face warms. “No, you don’t need to—”

“I made a decision this morning to go in a different direction with the broadcast and somehow”—Keith continues, infusing his words with a hefty dose of sarcasm—“you’re still reporting the weather. How is it that you managed to convince everyone to do as you please, Delilah? Hmm? Did you bat your eyelashes for someone other than the weather boy? Maybe that Neanderthal of a cameraman? Did you flip open that empty little head and—”

“That’s enough,” Jackson interrupts, his face a thundercloud. His hand grips the phone so tight his knuckles turn white. The arm across the front of my chest tenses. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

“It’s fine,” I say faintly, my throat tight. Keith has always been abrasive, but he’s not usually so cruel. I guess the takeover really did push him over the edge. He’s never handled challenges to his authority well.

Jackson shakes his head, blue eyes flashing. “He doesn’t get to talk to you like that, Delilah.”

Keith stutters over the rest of whatever his sentence was going to be. He laughs awkwardly and then, “It was a joke, of course,” he says.

“I’m not laughing,” Jackson says.

All my fight leaves me in a rush, embarrassment filling the space it left behind. I want this conversation over. Reality has popped my soap bubble of empowerment, and I’m back to scraping the floor for crumbs of acknowledgment. I thought this assignment was going to be a fresh start for me, but it’s just more of the same in different packaging.

“Take me off speakerphone,” Keith orders. “This is a private conversation. I do not consent to recording.”

I pluck the phone out of Jackson’s hand before he can argue with me about it, ignoring the way his eyebrows knit together.

“No one is recording you,” I tell Keith, wedging the phone between my shoulder and ear. I slip out of Jackson’s hold. “And if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. I was the one who came up with the idea. I convinced the rest of the team to do it.”

If anything, that little lie only makes Keith angrier. “I don’t care whose idea it was. They’re supposed to follow my orders. My vision. And that doesn’t include you.”

My lungs feel itchy and tight. I’m not on top of a mountain. I’m underneath it, an unbearable, unending weight on my chest.

“Will it ever include me?” I manage.

Keith goes silent. I hear the squeak of his chair in the background, the low murmur of the newsroom. I imagine him there at the station, gazing out from behind his glass wall like some untouchable warlord, just the way he likes it.

What did I do? I want to ask. What did I do to make you hate me so much?

“Just do your job, Delilah,” he says. “And we’ll see about the rest.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” I try to say, but he’s already hung up, not interested in my answer.

I sigh and lower the phone, letting it hang limply by my side before I offer it back to Mark. “Thanks for bringing that by.”

“I also got an earful, if that makes you feel better.”

In an odd way, it does. I always assumed Mark and I were on opposite sides. Or, at the very least, I was on one side and Mark was an apathetic third party floating somewhere in the middle—like Switzerland, or one of those dragon paddleboats out in the harbor. Utterly unbothered. It’s a bit of a trip to have him suddenly, very aggressively standing next to me.

Behind me, Jackson’s phone starts to buzz. I wonder if Keith is making his way down the roster. I turn to watch him over my shoulder, swiping open his phone and answering with a soft, comfortable hello. He’s wearing the smile he reserves for his sisters, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

I turn back to Mark. “I’m sorry you got in trouble.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” He gives me an unexpected grin and I find myself smiling back. If nothing else comes of this trip, it’s nice to know that I have people standing in my corner now. That I’m not as alone as I thought I was. “It was nice seeing you stand up for yourself, Delilah. You should do it more often, yeah?”

“We’ll see,” I say. “It kind of sucks.”

Mark laughs and heaves himself out of the chair, slipping out the door with a wave over his shoulder. I busy myself with the various odds and ends piled up on the desk, trying to contain my mess to one side while Jackson takes his call with his sisters. I try not to listen but I catch a bit of it, phrases like Addie, calm down and Yeah, I wish I was too and Have Aiden make you a milkshake.

I smile down at the table. A chocolate milkshake sounds really good. Whipped cream and extra sprinkles. I wonder if it would make this hollow feeling go away.