AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hi, Chad. It’s Meredith. Please call me; we need to talk.”
I end the voicemail and open the Instagram app to check on him. Ordinarily, I would not give two shits what an ex-boyfriend is doing while I’m at work, but under the circumstances…
The most recent photo in Chad Wheeler’s feed is him with a tall, tanned blonde cavorting on the beach in Puerta Vallarta. There they are, parasailing. In another photo, they make duck faces at the camera. What a jerk. Chad would never agree to snap selfies with me. Gee, maybe that should have been my first clue that we weren’t right for each other.
Stupid. Why am I so, so stupid?
My self-flagellation soon gives way to uneasiness in my gut when my eyes land on a food photo. Oh…oh no. The picture is innocuous enough—an outdoor cafe with great lighting on a pretty Mexican dish of shrimp, cilantro, rice, and lime wedges. However, the thought of shrimp assaults my senses.Oh no…not now!
I dash to the employee restroom, where I empty my stomach of my sad, dry-toast breakfast.
That absolute asshole. He broke up with me a month ago, saying he’d met someone else whose job gave her more freedom to travel. He couldn’t handle how much I was tied to my desk at work; in the last year or so, he’d had enough.
Chad and I started out with plenty in common. We met through the University of Montana’s journalism program. When his trust fund kicked in after graduation, he’d started his own super-slick music review aggregator website that exploded overnight, thanks to an obnoxious amount of expensive advertising.
I chose the more traditional path of applying for a job at a local newspaper with dreams of becoming an investigative reporter for the Associated Press.
It was a matter of time before our paths began to diverge. I just didn’t think it would happen that quickly.
And now, a month later, I should be playing the field again. Instead, I peed on a stick, and my life is linked to Chad forever.
He’s the last person I want to talk to, but it’s a moral imperative that I must. The anxiety of telling him is only exacerbating my nausea. Sure would be nice if that asshole would call me back.
When I exit the bathroom, my editor, Donna, looms nearby.
“Go home,” she says, one eyebrow raised.
“But my notes…I have to file the story.”
“You’re sick. A story about old men arguing about stop signs versus roundabouts can wait.”
“Donna, it’s not a stomach bug. I’ll be fine. I swear.”
“Go. Home. You’re as white as a sheet.”
“But…”
“Get some sleep. Leave your notebook with Jessica or another reporter; they can make something of it.”
Sure, Jessica could. So could Holmes or Franny. Not to brag, but I have freakishly perfect handwriting. Anyone’s would be in comparison to Jessica’s chicken scratch.
Holmes, the silent man, already has too much on his plate and is constantly turning stories in way past deadlines. He gets away with it because his prose is stunning. Franny, the fourth staffer in the newsroom, has fashioned herself the crime reporter, so she’s got her own thing going on.
Still, there’s no way in hell I’m giving Jessica my byline. If I’m the one who has to sit through meeting after meeting, then I’ve earned the credit. Donna can pry my notes from my cold dead hands.
Jessica makes a face of wondering why she got dragged into this.
I stuff the notebook into my bag and do my best to give Jessica a smile. “I’ve got it handled. I can file the story from home.”
Jessica nods and says she’ll check up on me later.
“Stay away,” I hear Donna warning Jessica as I head out the door. “I don’t need anyone else here going home sick. Rumor is there’s a brand new news website launching soon by someone here in town, and we need to put our heads together and devise a plan. I need everyone on top of their game.”
I shake my head as I walk home to my basement apartment in downtown Darling Creek.
The great thing about Donna is she’s both the editor and publisher, so she’s not beholden to a clueless stuffed shirt on how to run a paper. The problem with Donna is that she runs this tiny town’s newspaper office like the New York Times metro desk in 1973.
I’m so annoyed that I’m being sent home. I’ll miss the daily staff meeting, which means I’ll end up with some crap assignment nobody else wants. But I’ll suck it up and do it because this is how I pay my dues. I’ve got only one path to the Associated Press, and it ain’t paved with trust fund money.
