Page 96 of Drop Dead
A hand like hers. Nadine let herself think of what she could change if she was obits editor before reality took over. She was the night webeditor, and no matter what Irina thought, obits wasn’t her job.
As she was rushing to get out before Lisanne left her meeting, Jillian Low, an advertising rep and chair of theHerald’s diversity committee, grabbed her. “Oh goody, Nadine. I was looking for you.”
“I only popped in. I’m on vacation,” Nadine said, trying to keep walking. No go. Jillian stood in front of her. Nadine should have known better than to mess with a woman who did sales for a living.
“This will only take a sec.” Jillian looked frazzled. “The committee has been tasked with testing the new diversity survey, and I need your opinion.”
“Why the committee?” Nadine asked. “Isn’t this management’s job?”
Jillian smoothed her short black hair behind her ears. “Why do you think? Do you know I’m the third person they asked to run this thing? Gabriela Ramirez told me she spent fifteen hours a week on diversity stuff. Unpaid and over and above her real work. Then they dinged her for not meeting her targets.”
Nadine couldn’t leave Jillian hanging and felt bad about letting down her colleagues. “Sure, email it to me, and I’ll look at it when I’m back.”
“Why not now?” said Jillian, handing her a paper. “All you have to do is fill it out so we know the questions are clear. Sorry, but I’m swamped and need this off my plate.”
Nadine took it. She might as well get it over with. “Fine.” She glanced through, then paused. “This section is about racial diversity.”
“It’s a diversity survey.” Jillian looked up from her phone.
“You don’t have anything for mixed.”
Jillian pressed her lips. “Management said it would mess up the data.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Oh my God, I wish I was. Remember when we said theHerald’s problems had to be tackled at the policy and management level, like how we hire and promote?”
Nadine put a finger to her chin and pretended to think. “Let me see.I believe they said it was out of our scope and we should…”
“Hold a diversity potluck to improve employee morale,” Jillian joined in. They laughed. Laughing was often their saving grace at work. Jillian took the sheet back. “I’ll try again,” she said. “Thanks.”
Catching sight of Lisanne’s hot-pink blazer coming down the stairs, Nadine waved a quick goodbye to Jillian and left, feeling guilty.
By the time she pulled into the driveway at Dot’s mansion, Nadine had gone through several cycles of berating herself for not talking to Lisanne before deciding to let it go. She’d text her tomorrow for sure. The more she wallowed in this, the worse it was going to be. Her mood lightened a bit as she pulled into the driveway, excited to tell Wes about her day.
He took the bag of takeout sushi when she came in. “Thanks for picking this up.”
“You’re not going to believe what I heard,” she said.
“Tell me.” He took the chopsticks out of the paper wrapper and split them open before handing Nadine a pair.
She stirred her miso and plucked out a tiny cube of soft tofu as she ran through Irina’s story.
Wes took some edamame. “That’s another thing connecting John Wilson with big crime to get projects passed and threatening people who don’t play ball. We’re getting close.”
She should look at the positives, but they didn’t have much time left to find what they needed. “We are.”
“Let’s have a glass of wine to celebrate.”
“Sounds perfect. Can I check something on your laptop since it’s out?” she called as he went to the wine fridge, which they’d stocked with a few bottles. “Mine’s in my bag.”
“Password is amell8.” He spelled it out.
“Amell is for your sisters, but what’s the eight for?” she asked curiously.
“They make me change the password every ninety days.” His voicewas muffled from looking in the fridge. “This is the eighth time. Red or white?”
Nadine wasn’t listening. She was too busy reading the story Wes had been working on and had left up in the main window. The excitement from her Irina news faded into sick disbelief at what he was typing straight into theSpear’s editorial software.
