“Then give me an angle that would make it interesting. We don’t need more sunshine and rainbows about the mayor. We need something to get people to buy the newspaper. You might think this job is easy, but every day more newspapers are closing. If we’re going to stay open, we need more than the small-town mayor is getting married. We need something to grab attention.”
I nodded and chewed the inside of my lip. Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I thought it was a good idea. Something that would be an easy series. But Gretchen had no interest in it.
The meeting wrapped up a minute later, and again, I had no assignments. I shoved my notepad into my bag and slung it over my shoulder as Gretchen stopped in front of me.
“Come see me,” she said, walking out before I could reply.
Shit.
A few snickers followed me out of the room, but I ignored them. What choice did I have? Most of them were regular columnists. I was still a freelance reporter. The other freelancers worked throughout the Thousand Islands region, writing stories and publishing in a bunch of local papers. With a sixth grader at home and an ex-husband who wasn’t reliable when we lived under the same roof, I couldn’t travel to chase a story.
I knocked on Gretchen’s door, even though she’d just left the conference room and told me to follow her.
She looked up, surprised that I was there, then waved me in. “Close the door.”
I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut to stop the tears. I already worked three jobs to afford my apartment and keep Mikayla in the activities she enjoyed. Losing this one would mean saying no to something.
“Have a seat, Casey,” Gretchen said, gesturing to the chairs on the opposite side of her desk.
I sat, letting my bag slide to the floor. I folded my hands in my lap, belatedly remembering the stain on my shirt.
Gretchen didn’t miss it. Her lips pursed, but she didn’t comment. “Your article about back-to-school was good.”
Not what I expected her to say. “Thank you.” When Gretchen assigned the article to me, I was flattered. With a sixth grader, I was well versed in the intricacies of back to school. Gretchen’s words, though not untrue. She was a single woman with no kids, happily so, and shuddered at the idea of having to ever go back to middle school.
I’d worked my ass off to write a good article. One that covered the expense of school supplies, the added load on parents to handle all the things expected of students, and the lack of time for working and single parents, and that exposed the pressure on the teachers who didn’t receive enough funding to provide for their classrooms and were frequently using personal funds to create spaces that were comfortable for the students.
I was proud of the article. I interviewed teachers and parents, getting both sides of the story and presenting a position I felt was fair. My own daughter struggled the first few weeks in middle school with the increased responsibility. My opinion, and that of the parents I spoke to, was that the elementary school teachers hadn’t prepared the kids for the change, and I suggested changes to help students succeed at all levels of education.
“That’s what I want to see,” Gretchen said, again surprising me. “You have to have a perspective. You can’t just write articles that do nothing. There has to be a reason for the article.”
“I understand.”
Gretchen was quiet for a minute, her hands steepled in front of her, elbows on her oversized glass desk. Her desk was the neatest I’d ever seen in a newsroom. A single box sat in one corner, empty. A laptop was closed in front of her, no cords visible. A single pen rested next to the laptop, lined up perfectly with the edge.
Gretchen leaned back, crossing her ankles and her arms.
“What do you know about the mayor’s first marriage?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know anything about it. I’m not obsessed with him like you said. I don’t have a crush.”
She shrugged, uninterested. “You know what divorce is like. You’ve been through it, recently from what I hear.”
I wasn’t sure if she expected me to respond until she met my gaze and her brows went up. “Yes. Last year.”
“The mayor is boring. Writing another article about how great he is isn’t going to get people to pick up the paper. You know what life is like after a divorce. I’ve never bothered with the confines of something like marriage, but I’ve read enough about the damage a divorce can do to a person. What can we find out about the mayor?”
“His divorce was a long time ago from what I know.”
“So? The ex never lived here, right? Has anyone spoken to her? Maybe she’s not over him. Maybe he’s getting remarried because of the scandal between him and the bride. From what I’ve seen, no one ever came forward and said it was her in that picture, but it obviously was. Did she trap him? Or did he trade a marriage with her for funding that summer camp of hers?”
“Nothing like that happened,” I argued.
Gretchen’s brows arched expertly. Her lips curled up at the edges. “Since you seem to know so much, you can surely find out more. Use your connection to them. We need a reason to write this story. I think you can make it good, but we need more brainstorming. More ideas. Or the story is dead before you start.”
“I understand.”
“Find out more about the mayor, and the bride, and…” She trailed off as she opened her laptop. She tapped a few keys, then continued. “Be back Friday at eleven. I’ll put you on my calendar. If you have a good enough pitch, I’ll let you roll with a four-article series. If not, I’ll hand it over to Mike.”
