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After thoroughly scanning the area for paparazzi, Bishop deemed it safe for me to leave. He would be waiting at the rear exit when I was finished. Maggie’s whole setup was designed to get clientele in and out without them ever being seen.
I grabbed the bag containing the donut, hopped out of the car, and waited at the door for Maggie to buzz me in.
Chapter Two
Remi
What did my audience want? Gossip. Scandal. Juicy tidbits. A peek inside celebrity lives. An occasional sprinkling of feel-good stories where celebrities made a difference in the real world. Warmth and humanity could only be doled out in small doses.
Social media had preconditioned my audience to respond to entertainment delivered in neat 30-second sound bites. How did I keep them engaged enough to read an entire article that might take 5 minutes? Humor. Wit. Sensationalism. And, it needed to be written at a fifth-grade reading level, at least according to my boss.
I was writing a feature story about another reality TV family that just wouldn’t go away. It was my third time writing about them. I’d rather poke my eye out with a rusty nail dripping with tetanus, but I had no choice.
So far, my article was more vapid than the family it was covering. I took a deep breath. Instead of getting frustrated, I needed to view this as a challenge. If I could take this story and spin it into gold, I’d prove what a talented writer I was. I needed to stop tormenting myself by recalling my degree in investigative journalism and ignore just how far I’d drifted from my dreams.
The article was technically finished. I’d hit my word count, but it contained nothing of value. It needed something more. Just like my mom used to finely chop up vegetables to hide in the meatloaf, I always tried to sneak into my pieces some tidbits of wisdom, some truths, or moral lessons that a tiny segment of my audience might pick up. This piece had nothing.
I had to attempt to redeem it. The problem was that this family didn’t excite me one bit. I didn’t watch their reality show. I didn’t follow them on social media. My greatest wish was that they’d fade into obscurity, so I’d never have to write about them again. For now, I was stuck covering them — it was trying to craft sophisticated entertainment out of The Three Stooges.
I stared at my laptop screen. It was seemingly impossible. My brain screamed with defeat. It was like turning meatloaf into chateaubriand.
Speaking of meatloaf again, I was getting hungry. Maybe a Twix bar would kick-start my creativity. I leaned over to reach into my purse, which was shoehorned in the bottom right drawer of my desk, when my phone rang.
Darn, it was my boss. “Hi, Caroline.”
“In my office.” She wasn’t one to mince words.
“Okay. I’ll be right...” My voice trailed off. She’d already hung up.
It was fairly unusual to be summoned to her office, but I wasn’t worried. My job here was secure. I produced quality pieces and my output was consistent. Maybe, fingers crossed, she had a new assignment for me.
I snatched a pad of paper and a pen from my desk and wound my way through the newsroom. The newsroom was a giant open space crammed with bumper-to-bumper desks, each containing at least two monitors. For as hectic as it all looked, it was a controlled chaos. Phones rang constantly, but most people wore headsets as they worked, so only a few one-sided conversations could be heard.
Caroline’s office was only one floor up, so I took the stairs. She was on the phone when I arrived at her open door, so I knocked lightly on the door frame to get her attention. She looked up and waved me into the chair in front of her desk while she finished with her call.
My boss wasn’t a stylish person. She looked like she spent a grand total of about five minutes on her appearance each morning. Her pin-straight, but thick blonde hair was cut in the shape of a helmet around her head. Her clothes were loose and boxy and always seemed randomly selected. She never wore a stitch of makeup or any jewelry.
Her appearance wasn’t a priority; she channeled all her energy into her job. And she was absolutely amazing at it. She wasn’t just my boss; I considered her a mentor as well. Plus, she’d taken a big chance on me. I owed her so much.
She hung up the phone and glanced up at me. “Would you close the door, please?”
I closed the office door and then returned to my chair, inhaling deeply to calm the skittering of nerves that had settled over me.
She looked me directly in the eye. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this office.”
I nodded my agreement.
She got straight to the point. “Mindy Blakedale is retiring. Losing her is a blow. She’s been the beating heart of Hollywood Exposé for 12 years. Of course, we’ll milk it for everything we can, but we have six months to transition to the new face of Hollywood Exposé.”
I had met Mindy a few times but never worked directly with her. She was a minor celebrity in her own right and Hollywood Exposé treated her like a queen. She mingled with the peasants only when necessary. It helped that she was married to a famous movie producer who came from old Hollywood royalty. She was a true industry insider.
She folded her arms on top of her desk. “Jack Hoffman and I have been discussing her replacement.”
Mr. Hoffman, as most of the staff called him, was the CEO and controlling shareholder of Hollywood Exposé.
Caroline tapped her thumb twice against the desktop. “As you know, Margot was being groomed as a successor to the position, but then she got snapped up by WCAU. The fool. She’d be sitting pretty right now if she wasn’t so damn impatient.”
My mind was racing. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but why was Caroline telling me all this? Was it even possible that I was going to get the mother of all jobs at Hollywood Exposé? A silent squeal of amazement rippled through my brain, but I shut it down quickly. I needed to be on my game. Professional.
