Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
THEN, June: ten months ago
I could feel Lacy’s eyes on me. From the desk beside mine, her gaze narrowed on my profile, assessing and judging whenever she heard another Congratulations !
All brains, no polish: The Burden of Ivy Leagues had been a big deal for the Hall Beck Post . It made other writers hope they might get an assigned article from the board, and editors hope their work might finally be appreciated by their own school.
Perhaps that’s something I’d rolled in motion now.
I had handed the final draft in two weeks ago. After a few more minor corrections, and a long approval process with HBU, it had gone to print in this week’s issue.
Both mine and Lacy’s gaze trailed after the editor, who’d stopped by my desk to pat me on the back with celebratory words. When he was gone, in my peripheral vision I could see her chair spin in my direction.
“Is there anything you cannot do?” she asked, drawing my eyes to her and the unexpected smile on her lips. Fake, I figured.
Lacy and I had always been cordial with each other, but we both knew we weren’t… fans. She had a great style, a great writing-voice, which meant she always managed to get exactly those articles that I’d wanted. I’d been a little surprised not to see this one on her table.
She probably had been, too.
Lacy’s head tilted at my lack of an answer, and she brushed her blonde hair to one side. “ Seriously . I mean, The New York Times , now this?” Still, her words seemed like praise, and I failed to spot the usual bitterness in her tone.
“Thank you,” was all I managed to say, hoping to keep the conversation civil, our fake smiles in place and for us to move on. To turn back to our respective screens and ignore each other like we had for most of the past three years.
But—“How was it?” Lacy continued asking. Her smile hadn’t faltered, if anything had turned sly and knowing. Of what, I wasn’t sure. “I can imagine it’s hard, right? Finding someone who’s willing to snitch on something they pay so much money for every year. Would they still be able to justify spending it once they become aware it’s… all brains and no polish?” She pondered the question, eyes drifting off into nowhere like she was really considering.
I had tried not to. And I hated that she knew exactly what I’d been struggling with—what I’d only overcome because I’d had Henry’s help.
I took a deep breath. “Apparently so. They said what we’d hoped they would. It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
Lacy’s dark brows lifted in sync with her smile. Like I’d finally taken the bait. And that I still wasn’t sure of what killed me. “Yes,” she agreed, nodding grandly. “They said what we wanted them to.”
Another voice saved me from scrambling for a reply. “Paula?”
My gaze snapped to Eddie in the door right behind my screen. My smile turned genuine, expecting congratulations and well done s. But he didn’t seem happy enough for that sort of conversation, instead forcing a polite half-smile onto his lips and saying, “Let’s talk for a second.”
Gesturing toward the hall, I followed him out. I could feel Lacy’s blue eyes on me until I’d closed the door behind me.
Edward Smith went quiet as we walked to his office. Past the rec room and media labs and stray classrooms. Again, he beckoned me inside, and I started worrying when he almost closed his door. Only left it slightly ajar.
He sat on one side of his desk. I sat on the other.
For a while that felt too long, we looked at each other. His hands folded on the table between us, his jaw twitched. His eyes narrowed.
When I finally went to ask, “I’m sorry. What’s—” He cut me off.
“You’ve got sources on the record, right?” The question shot out of him like a bullet out of a loaded gun. Like he’d tried to find a better wording but couldn’t hold off any longer. “You quoted accurately, Paula?”
My brows pulled together. I didn’t know why my heartbeat picked up. “Of course.” My head shook in confusion. “Of course. Why—?”
“Someone complained. That you misquoted them. That they never said what you wrote. That—”
The ringing in my ear was louder than Eddie.
My face fell. Something inside of me shattered.
What?
What?
What?
“Paula? Do you understand? I’m not talking about some whining after realizing what they did and regretting it. They didn’t beg me to scratch their stuff out of the article. They went straight to the SPJ ethics committee. Filed an anonymous complaint.”
I knew it was Mark before he’d said names. Before he’d told me who had accused me of lying and bad-faith journalism, and who had left a permanent stain on my record.
I knew it was him because I’d had a feeling and ignored it. Because I’d told myself it would be fine, what could go wrong? a million times, instead of figuring out where that feeling had come from. Well, anything that could’ve gone wrong, did.
“I’m looking into it, but now I’m in trouble with the school board because they’re in trouble with Harvard.” Eddie’s hands ran across his face in frustration. “Paula, I don’t know how I could let you write again.”
“I thought they loved it,” I croaked.
“They did. Until they found out you lied—”
“But I didn’t!”
Even after what I’d deemed an accurate and damage-reducing account of the interview, Eddie’s features didn’t seem less distressed. He didn’t seem more open to letting me stay at the paper. He seemed like he had made up his mind, or at the very least that he couldn’t change anything about the outcome.
“Paula,” he sighed. “My hands are tied. Unless the source withdraws the complaint, or it’s been without-a-doubt disproven… let this die down. Focus on your classes and assignments, forget about writing for the Post for a while. Until they won’t have my head for seeing your name in a paper again.”
Which, apparently, would be two-hundred-and-sixty-four days later. When he’d decided to give me Henry’s profile.