Three
Serious journalists don’t pout, especially when they work for one of the country’s top media organizations, so Nadine kept her lower lip firmly against her teeth. Then she typed sulk into the thesaurus and checked over her options. Funk. Fret. Mope . None of them worked. Aggrieved. Yeah, that tied together her dual feelings of unfairness and WTF at being transferred—really, demoted—to night web editor after the Dot Voline travesty. She supposed she should be grateful she hadn’t been fired. Good journalism jobs were few and far between, thanks to deep cuts in the industry over the last few years.
“How’re you doing?” Lisanne came up with a bag of peach rings and poured a hefty amount into Nadine’s waiting palm.
“I am aggrieved,” announced Nadine, trying it on for size. “How’s the feature on people creating a sea change in the business world?”
“As expected. Half of them used the term accelerate innovation like they invented it.”
“Are they eating their own dog food?”
“No, but they’ve bootstrapped thought leadership to enhance dynamic connectivity.”
“No one said that,” said Nadine, feeling better.
“Truly, the guy building the menstrual app did. Want to get a coffee before starting your punishment night shift?” That did make Nadine pout, and Lisanne rolled her eyes. “Come on, you big baby. Look how happy you’ve made Raj. The bags under his eyes have disappeared for the first time since I’ve known him.”
“I heard that,” called Raj, who had been moved into Nadine’s old obituary role. “Since I’ve only been on a normal sleep schedule for a day, you can thank the vitamin C eye patches Myriam bought me last week. She said I looked like a raccoon.”
Lisanne stuffed her mouth with peach rings and glanced at Nadine. “Come on,” she said in a lower voice. “I have news.”
This was tempting. Nadine grabbed her wallet. She deserved a little treat.
The Herald was on Adelaide Street, close to what Daniel referred to as the locus of power in an ironic tone, but with slightly less exorbitant leasing rates. Although the most efficient coffee hit was the Tim Hortons in the PATH, the underground mall/tunnel/maze below Toronto’s downtown, on nice days, they frequented a tiny café on Queen Street infamous for its sullen baristas.
“You never answered me about the night shift,” Lisanne said, putting a hat on over her blond hair. She was so pale she burned instead of tanned and was permanently at war with the sun. “Although I know you just started.”
“It’ll be fine.” Nadine wasn’t fully comfortable sharing how much it bothered her to have been moved, the same way she’d downplayed other things that truly mattered, such as her fear of the death threats and their impact on her reporting. She liked Lisanne, but the work part of work friends too often got in the way of full trust.
“Will it?”
“Sure. No one will call me Lady Death.” Unfortunately there would be few other benefits. The long hours of quiet last night gave Nadine plenty of time to relive the if-onlys that refused to die since she ran Dot Voline’s obituary.
If only she had trusted the tiny part of her that said it was better to be sure than first.
If only she had called Daniel.
If only she hadn’t looked at her phone in the first place. By morning, the hoax had been revealed, and she would have known it wasn’t Owens and McPhail that had put out the notice but a troll with a fake Owens&McPhail account.
The shame of trying to explain to Daniel why she’d run the obit without confirming Voline’s death had been intense. “I wouldn’t expect this kind of carelessness from someone right out of school,” he’d said. “Let alone an experienced journalist.”
“You said to focus on being first.” She’d instantly regretted her defense.
“In a way that maintains our integrity,” he’d said with a disbelief so great it was like she’d announced an obit for the tooth fairy. “Obviously. The second paragraph of every New York Times obituary is the confirmation of death from a reliable source. Do you think they do that for fun?”
“No.” What made it so much worse was that he was right, and she had talked herself out of her own initial doubt. She hadn’t trusted herself.
“Nadine. We are doing our best to accommodate your…” Daniel hesitated as if trying to square what he truly thought with the potential liability that might come from saying it out loud. “Your inability to cope with the pressure of the political beat. I thought this would at least be within your capacity.”
“I had death threats from a man who showed up at my apartment and was also going to dox me,” she reminded him. “It was the risk to my safety , not the work.”
“Which we dealt with in accordance with our policy,” Daniel said with the displeasure of a man who had been over the same ground a multitude of times. “You didn’t suffer any physical harm, and you agreed it was handled to your satisfaction.”
That didn’t change how she felt the day she opened her email to find a photo of herself in her pajamas taken through the window of her apartment with the eyes X’d out and YOUR NEXT written on it.
In her shock, the misspelling of you’re had been almost as disturbing as the message. How could you trust a person—realistically, almost certainly a man—who couldn’t be bothered to spell-check his threats? That kind of person was capable of anything, especially when he was arrogant enough to send it from his own personal and easily traced email.
The message had come after a story she’d run about changes to an immigration policy, which had resulted in a record number of hateful comments and emails from people who thought reporting on something meant endorsing it. Nadine was no stranger to shitty messages from shitty people. She and her colleague Kenzie had created a bingo card where they’d crossed off insults as they came. It took less than a week to fill the card, some squares showing four or five crosses. When Frank Paxton, the politics editor, had noticed, he’d shrugged.
“Need a thick skin for this job,” he said. “I like to think the more comments we get, the better the story.”
“Great,” Kenzie had muttered. She took a buyout package in the semiregular round of layoffs that had come the next month, and Nadine continued to hide how much the constant barrage of insults bothered her. Frank didn’t have much patience for feelings at work, and she’d learned early there were enough people looking for a gap in her armor that she needed to appear impervious.
However, the one thing Nadine never received—and one of two things she and Kenzie hadn’t the stomach to put on the bingo card—was a death threat from a man who subsequently knocked on her door. She’d recognized him instantly from the online search she’d done after receiving the email.
Nadine had done everything by the book. Took photos of him lingering outside her apartment and a blurrier one of him in her hall through her peephole that she forwarded to her manager and HR. Waited for them to agree that, boy howdy, it sure didn’t look great. They’d contacted the man, who admitted everything and insisted the email was a joke and he was only visiting a friend who lived in Nadine’s building. They’d extracted a promise not to contact Nadine again and told her the problem was solved. Nadine heard it had been presented at a conference as a textbook method of dealing with such issues.
They hadn’t even canceled his subscription, for God’s sake, telling her there was no point as he’d probably get a new one under another name.
And fair enough, the man had left Nadine alone after that. It didn’t stop her from having nightmares about opening that message or having to grip her keys between her fingers every time she left the elevator. Her apartment, which had once been so cozy, shifted between feeling like a prison, a fortress, and a target. She couldn’t afford to move but added more locks on the door and windows, which she covered with thicker curtains and no longer opened for fresh air.
When she began to censor herself over anything a reader might disagree with, she knew things had to change. The fear impacted her reporting, and that was unacceptable.
“Next,” drawled the barista. His name tag read “Gary.”
They stepped up to the counter and ordered a plain black decaf for Nadine and a monstrosity of whipped cream and flavored raspberry syrup for Lisanne. The barista stared at Lisanne without expression as he rang in the order, the charms on his septum ring jingling merrily.
“Did you see that?” Lisanne whispered as they left. “He almost smiled. I’m sure he gave me extra maple sugar dust.”
There were three grains topping Lisanne’s cup.
“Are you going to tell me your news?” Anything to get Nadine’s mind off replaying the discussion with Daniel.
“It’s huge.” Lisanne glanced behind her like a spy, then led Nadine down an empty side street. “A few weeks ago, I saw a discrepancy in the earnings report of one of the big pharmaceuticals that didn’t make sense. Daniel gave me the go-ahead to look into it.”
Lisanne took a quick sip, so Nadine had time to compose her face to that of a supportive friend. She took an extra second to struggle with, then hide the envy bubbling up inside her. It was good for Lisanne, but Nadine wanted to be breaking stories too.
“That’s amazing,” she said.
“This could make my career,” said Lisanne intently over her whipped cream. “If I’m right, hundreds of thousands of people have been affected.”
Nadine tried to react with enthusiasm, because Lisanne was right to be excited and to expect her to be keen as well. “How are you approaching it?”
Lisanne launched into a discussion of her next steps, which included asking Ying from the data science team for help. “It’s the first time the Herald will be working on something with datasets this big,” said Lisanne. “Daniel was so encouraging. He said it’ll be groundbreaking.”
Nadine gave the appropriate responses, her entire body overheating. She never thought she would feel stuck in place—worse, like she’d taken a huge step back—as Lisanne was about to launch herself up to the next level. Nadine wanted that. She deserved that. She’d worked as hard as Lisanne, and she hated that a man had succeeded in silencing her. She hated feeling like a failure and fragile.
Lisanne tossed her cup as they approached the office. “Are you sure you can handle this new job? You look tired, and I hear nights are rough.”
Lisanne meant it out of concern, but Nadine’s id and ego took it as a challenge as her superego told her to chill out. The situation didn’t improve when Lisanne kept talking.
“Hopefully a break from more intense reporting means you can go back to your real work soon.”
She gave a little wave and left Nadine seething at the door. Lisanne was only parroting what Nadine herself had said, but it was different when Nadine said it.
Too riled for her desk, Nadine decided to go to the Herald ’s research library for five minutes to recalibrate. It was usually empty apart from Irina, who tended to ignore everyone who came in. Except for today.
“Ah, it’s you.” Irina smoothed down the front of her dress when Nadine appeared in the doorway. “I was disappointed in your Dot Voline obituary.”
There went any hope of peace. Nadine accepted she was cursed before she said, “I bet Dot Voline wasn’t too happy either.”
Irina waved her hand. “Foolishness. We all die, and that’s not the first time an obituary has run early. Daniel did it at the Telegram .”
“Really?” Nadine perked up. It might be poor-spirited to take consolation in the mistakes of others, but she was at rock bottom with few comforts. The universe owed her a brief gloat over Daniel’s fallibility.
“Yes, but his was at least well researched. Yours was not.”
Nadine tried to lower her professional hackles. “I didn’t write it. It was in Tom’s approved files.”
Irina gave her a withering glance. “You are the editor. It is your responsibility.”
“Not anymore,” Nadine muttered.
However, Irina was not a woman to bend to anything as weak as commiseration. Not when there was an error to be corrected. “You didn’t mention the controversy.”
Nadine stopped backing away. “Controversy?” There had been a cryptic comment under the obit before it had been expunged from the site, but Nadine hadn’t given it much thought. The comments section was so often a garbage fire. “That note about Thirty Pieces of Silver was true?”
Irina gave a surprisingly insouciant shrug with her narrow shoulder, like a French actress before swinging her kitten-heeled leg over a Vespa driven by a man named Alessandro. “Someone believes it is. It seems like something to look into.”
With that, Irina picked up the phone and held it to her ear without dialing or speaking, an indication the conversation was over.
Frustrated, Nadine stomped back up the stairs to her own desk, cursing herself for thinking she’d be allowed sanctuary anywhere in this office. Did Irina go home at night depressed if she hadn’t ruined someone’s day? Did she have a little dartboard with people’s faces on it to choose her victims, and why was it always Nadine?
Back at her desk, she tapped dully at her keyboard as her colleagues began to leave for the evening. Words appeared and disappeared, leaving ghostly reflections on the screen. Written and rewritten, combined and recombined.
Irina was right. That comment was intriguing, and the old Nadine would have been curious enough to look into it. She used to be keen and eager to get to the bottom of things that piqued her interest. She used to be interested .
It was bad enough that she prematurely ran Dot Voline’s obituary. But if Irina was right and it was inaccurate? That was unforgivable, as was Nadine’s own lack of initiative. Was she losing her drive? She couldn’t let that happen.
She gave up typing and grabbed the hearse, spinning the toy’s wheels thoughtfully with her finger. Raj, who had been moved to her obit role, hadn’t cared when she asked to take it, too busy looking askance at a memento mori from some long-gone Heraldian’s trip along the Nile.
“Are these necessary?” he’d asked, picking up the mummy-shaped vase.
“Not at all. Feel free to tell Irina you dumped them because you have no respect for the Herald ’s history,” Nadine said casually, rearranging the figurines to bring the coffin pencil holder front and center. An animated corpse handed over a pen when the lid lifted.
“Irina?” He’d grimaced. “They can stay.”
Nadine spun the wheels again. She had a lot to do. So why was she putting down the Hot Wheels hearse and typing “dot voline controversy” into her search engine?
Because she was curious, and she welcomed the feeling. After all, knowing things made her feel safe, as if knowledge was a protectant against life’s ups and downs, an emotional pepper spray. She would redeem herself by finding out what she’d missed in that obit.
She clicked on a photo of Dot Voline wearing a zebra-striped caftan and so many necklaces they formed a scarf. Nadine studied it carefully. Voline’s hair was carrot red, and huge square glasses covered her eyes. She looked like she would be a nightmare on an airplane and a delight on a cruise.
It took an hour for Nadine to decide that either Irina was wrong—doubtful—or there was more to this Voline scandal than met the eye. The physical evidence for a controversy was sadly lacking. There was only one reference in a profile to “whispers about the inspiration for her breakout book, Thirty Pieces of Silver, which might have reached Canada’s upper power echelons.” That was vague enough to mean nothing.
Out came her fidget hearse again, with the soothing clickety-click of its little wheels. She could ask her old politics editor, Frank, who was walking around the deserted office checking the empty desks to see what people were working on. Rumor said he could read upside down. Usually his expression was jovial. Unobserved, his eyes were cold and his mouth thin. No, it wouldn’t be wise to remind people of her error with the obit.
Luckily, there was one person outside the Herald who knew the truth.
Tomorrow, she’d pay a visit to Dot Voline.