Page 29 of Demo
“What brings you to these parts of the woods?” She batted her eyelashes and leaned her crossed arms into the open window.
“Actually, I was just dropping someone off after a date,” I said.
A little pout on her downturned lips, she nodded, then pulled back, gripping her hands on the open window as she said, “Well, if it doesn’t work out. Call me.” And with a wink she backed away, pulling a little baggie from her pocket and shaking it at me, letting me know she had something I may be interested in.
But for once, I wasn’t at all interested in that.I have another high I want to chase, I thought to myself, as I looked up to see Lizzie staring out the window—no doubt having seen Ally at my window. A look of disappointment was in her eyes.
Shit.
Chapter 9
LYZBETH
AftergrabbingcoffeewithDee and filling her in on the meeting with the Kings the day before, we walk into the office and part ways. As I approach my desk I see the light on my phone blinking, which means I have messages.
I pick up the receiver and punch in my supersecret code: 1-2-3-4. “You. Have. Seventeen. New Messages.” The monotone machine voice tells me.
Shit.
I sink into my chair while my heart sinks into my gut. Having messages is questionable, but an obscene number of messages is definitely a bad sign.
The voice on the other end of the phone continues, “First. New. Message.”
It’s a woman. She speaks like a third-grade teacher who has had plenty of experience talking down to people. “Um, yes, Ms. Mitchell? I’m just calling to inform you that you have made a blatant error in your story. The one about the sexual deviant. I don’t know where you got your information from or how you even managed to get his name, but Martin Stockwell isnotthe person being charged with having sexual relations with a student ...”
No! No no no no…
Mr. Stockwell is the man who was honored by the Legal Aid Society last night. Oh God, my stomach is coming up my esophagus so quickly I almost barf it up.
“Next. New. Message.”
I cradle the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I roll my chair over to Zach’s desk and grab a copy of today’s paper off it and begin scanning the lead story as the next insult starts.
It’s a man. “Hey, ah, something tells me you got the name wrong in your story there on the front page. Just an inkling ...”
I find the name in the second paragraph. Yep, there it is in black and white: “Martin Stockwell is accused of forcing himself on an underage victim in a car in the grocery store parking lot.” Sweat starts beading up along my hairline. I want to die.
“Next. New. Message.”
“I can’t believe you call yourself a journalist. What kind of a reporter makes a mistake like that?”
I skip to the next message.
“Well, your paper has had some doozies in the past, but this one takes the cake.”
Next.
“What community college did you flunk out of?”
I put the phone back in the cradle before I can hear any more. And unplug it. I slink down in the chair and cover my face with the newspaper.
How could I have done that? How could I have switched the names like that? I feel a hand on my shoulder and the paper slides off my face, but I still have my eyes clenched shut. I know it’s Cherice. I can’t look at her because I know she’ll be calm, and I don’t deserve it.
I’ve seen her go absolutely apeshit for lazy journalism. Errors, grammar, spelling, factual inaccuracies—you name it, it’s happened, and she’s buried all of us for it. I’ve seen her ball up newspapers—and I’m talking the six-section Sunday editions with the coupon inserts—into a large ball and throw it across the room at an intern who made an error.
But when it comes to the big stuff, the colossal stuff, the stuff that even she knows is harder for the person who made the error to take than the editor who has to answer to it, she is good at letting you beat yourself up without any help from her.
“We’ll have to run a corrective story,” she says. “We’ll run it tomorrow. The same position, lead story.”
