Chapter 1
CHAPTER
ONE
It’s fifteen minutes until the Monday meeting and time to regret all my choices.
“Hi, is this Chloe? This is Caprice Phipps with the Mile High Observer.” I flip through hangers in my closet, land on an olive blouse I don’t hate, and yank it over my head.
“Oh,” the woman on the line says as I readjust my earbud. “Hi.”
I zip my skirt and clear my throat, zeroing in on my lucky pair of Louboutins.
I used to be better at this. I’d show up to the office early, dressed to the nines and armed with five or six leads on a spreadsheet.
Spend some time bantering with my colleagues about the previous week’s stories before we’d settle into a friendly pitch competition.
Randall gets the final say, of course, but I always had a selection of solid features to choose from.
But here I am rushing around at home, smoothing my hair into a ponytail and still trying to scrape together one pathetic idea.
“Listen, I know it hasn’t been long since we last talked, but we had so many comments about you and Greg after our feature, I thought a follow-up might be—”
“Yeah, don’t bother,” she says, flicking the words off her tongue like they taste bad.
I pause, ears perking up as I sit on the bed to fasten my shoe straps.
“Oh . . . did something happen?”
“You bet it did.”
The corner of my mouth tugs, but I don’t rub my hands together quite yet. I glance at my smartwatch and wince at the thought of running in these heels. If this story goes the way it sounds like it’s going, though, it’ll be worth it.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I say. “I’d been hoping to write a part two about you guys after the wedding.”
She snorts. Greg and Chloe had been the darlings of my Valentine’s Day feature last month.
They were supposed to get married at Loveland Ski Area’s annual Mountaintop Matrimony ceremony after literally running into one another on the slopes the year before.
She had a concussion—he scooped her up and skied down the mountain for help, then lied to the ski patrol about being her boyfriend just to stay with her and get her number.
Honestly, Valentine’s Day is not my thing, and I’d kind of phoned in the feature. But apparently they were the meet-cute story everyone else wanted to hear. I’ve had more comments and emails asking for an update on their nuptials over the last few weeks than anything else I’ve written for months.
“Yeah, I found Greg in bed with two other women the morning of the wedding,” Chloe snarls.
I try not to squeal. This just keeps getting better.
I might be late for this morning’s meeting, but I’m going to dash in there with a story that’ll make Randall salivate.
Scandal, sensation, a happily-ever-after in ruins because of a degenerate man.
This is the kind of thing I live for—and it also sells ad space.
“Oh, Chloe,” I say. “I’m . . . so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am,” she huffs. “He actually had the balls to invite me to join them.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Oh hell yes. I’m already writing the feature in my head—a Valentine’s Day postmortem with a twist no one saw coming.
Our readers will be scandalized, and my editor will love it.
I’ve been searching for the right lead to position myself for a raise, and I think I might have just found it—right until the moment Chloe bursts into tears.
“I thought he was everything. I just wish I’d never even met him!”
Her words echo through my head and sink into my chest, slowing the world down.
Suddenly, I’m aware of each breath moving in and out, each thud of my heart.
My gaze flickers involuntarily toward my closet.
To the garment bag barely visible in the back, holding a beautiful champagne-colored dress.
Quietly, I rise from the bed, closing the doors on the wedding gown and the ache in my heart.
I grab my keys and glance at my smartwatch.
“Girl, believe me . . .” I say to the woman sobbing quietly in my ear. “I get that.”
By the time I blow through the front doors of the Observer, I’m a full ten minutes late. I ignore the judgy look Tracy shoots me from reception, hurrying past her for the conference room, though the temptation to slink into a ball under my desk is strong.
On the speed-walk from my apartment, I tried to manifest some other leads.
Yesterday, I had three in the running, but they fizzled one by one.
Love—or love gone wrong—became kind of my brand last spring after I published a series of controversial articles about Unmatched, a dating app for married cheaters.
Lately, though, it’s started to feel less like a brand and more like a pigeonhole.
I slip into the conference room in the middle of Randall’s review of last week’s hits and misses, grateful to find an empty chair at the end of the table.
We make eye contact as I sit, but his gaze is neutral, so I let myself breathe.
He’s going over the stories that got pushed because of the primary elections.
An opinion piece on downtown taco shops, an update on local population growth, and a feature of the local band Cognitive Distortion.
“All right, so I’ve got a stack of assignments up for grabs,” he says, pushing back in his chair at the head of the table. “But before I get into those, let me hear what you’ve come up with.”
I place my laptop in front of me, opening up the spreadsheet where I organize my pitches, trying hard to swallow despite my throat being bone dry.
“I’ve got a lead on nefarious funding for downtown construction projects,” my colleague Brian says, taking the stage.
Randall nods, giving him an instant green light.
Of course. Ever since Brian broke a story about a member of the Colorado House of Representatives blackmailing interns at the state capitol, he’s been Randall’s golden boy.
“E-scooters being used by crime rings,” Adrienne offers. “And I got a tip this morning about a brand of cannabis being recalled at thirty-plus dispensaries.”
Randall pauses, then nods again. You can’t go wrong covering the marijuana industry in Denver. “Fine. Just be sure you’ve got actual police reports for the scooter thing.”
Jana sits forward in her seat next to me. “I want to do a feature on the cats of Coors Field.”
There’s a twitch in Randall’s right cheek. Otherwise his face reveals nothing. “Didn’t you already do that last spring?”
“Yes . . . But I want to do a follow-up on the fan-led spay and neuter campaign.”
He runs a hand over his face. Jana might be our interim sports reporter, but she’d dedicate an entire section to animal welfare if she could.
“Fine. Whatever. But how about you also give us a perspective on the Rockies’ prospects after spring training.
” He shifts slightly, turning toward me.
“How about you, Caprice? What’s cooking this week? ”
It kills me how optimistic he sounds. So far, no one’s hit on the type of story Randall really craves—a thrilling insta-headline like the one I practically held in my hands half an hour ago. Unfortunately, I’m not about to either.
I look again at my spreadsheet with its three dead-end ideas, then raise my chin and attempt to pull something out of thin air.
“Um, I was thinking of doing a piece on how much dating sucks in Denver . . . maybe try to turn it into some kind of series?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel how uninspired I sound.
Randall’s face falls. He glances around the table, then pinches the bridge of his nose without looking at me. “Is that really the best you can do?”
The way he says it, I’m not sure if he’s speaking to me or the entire room. But my cheeks are already on fire, and I’m too mortified to look up from my screen. I work harder than anyone else at the Observer—I have to as the only Black woman on staff. And I hate how much this stings.
He closes his laptop. “All right, we’ll lead with Brian’s construction story unless Adrienne’s cannabis turns into something bigger.
But I also want one of you to cover the public school board meeting this week.
Two of the board members nearly got into a fistfight last month, which should have already been on everyone’s radar.
Adrienne, take Jeremy with you when you’re looking into the e-scooters thing and see if you can get some photos to go with it.
The rest of you, I want follow-ups and reader opinions on every piece we’ve printed for the last month.
If we have to rehash the Sylvester murder again, go ahead, but we’re not going to fill these pages with fluff.
” He turns directly to me. “Caprice, I want you on the assignment desk. Also, I’m going to need you to cover the Denver PetExpo this weekend. ”
“What?” Jana and I echo in unison. The assignment desk is a low-level punishment typically reserved for interns and new hires.
You slog through every Observer voicemail, email, and social media account, sifting through the complainers and conspiracy theorists looking for real tips.
That alone tells me where I stand with my boss.
But it’s an unspoken rule in our newsroom that Jana always covers anything dog or cat related.
She’s literally obsessed, and I’d rather clean the office toilets.
Randall turns to Jana, barely blinking. “You said you’d be gone this weekend for your grandfather’s funeral?”
She shoots me a look, sucking in her bottom lip, and all I can think is her grandpa better really be dead because my weekend plans did not include tromping around an event complex that smells like dog pee.
“Great,” Randall says, rising from his chair and looking around the table. “If anyone needs help drumming up ideas for next week, you can check with Caprice.”
Brian shoots me a smug look, and I close my eyes. His dumb construction story isn’t even interesting—it just sucked less than everyone else’s. I force myself to wait a beat as Randall exits, then fly out of my chair and follow him down the hall.
“Okay, look,” I say before I’m even through the door of his office. “I know I can do better—”
“I’d get cracking on those reader emails if I were you,” he says, breezing behind his desk. “Tracy said we were about seventy-five deep after this weekend.”
I close the door behind me, ignoring his directive. “I had a much better pitch this morning—”
“Then next time, I suggest you share it.” He sets down his laptop and gives me a hard look. “The Observer has done the dating column thing. We stopped for good reason.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “All right, that’s fair. I’m just—I’m trying to stay on brand.”
He studies me across the desk and softens a little. Randall looks like a slightly heavy Colonel Sanders, with snow-white hair and a matching goatee, though I doubt he’s even sixty. Sometimes he can be a real hardass, but in this moment, he’s looking at me more thoughtfully.
He sinks into his chair. “What is your brand, exactly?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He leans back, steepling his fingers. “What kind of journalism do readers expect from Caprice Phipps?”
I falter a moment. I’ve been struggling with this question for months now. Which is probably why he asked. And for a heartbeat, I even consider sharing an idea I’ve been sitting on for almost a year. But instead I say, “Um . . . sex and dating?”
“Why?”
My skin flushes hot. “Because I’ve had success with that topic in the past?”
He doesn’t say anything, and I become preoccupied with a smudge on the wall behind him that looks a little like a skull. And the fact that my left shoe feels too tight. And I should probably get on those emails like he suggested—
“Caprice.”
I meet his gray-blue eyes and let out a long, shallow breath. There’s a reason Randall is an excellent editor. Not only does he have keen intuition, but he also has a delicate way of pointing out the most suffocating elephants in any room.
I clear my throat. “You know, I think I might be missing my calling as a barista,” I say, sinking into one of the chairs across from him.
He chuckles and smooths his mustache. “You might be. Though after a successful, viral takedown of Denver’s married cheaters, writing people’s names on paper cups seems like a waste of your talent.”
“But covering a pet expo definitely isn’t.”
He shrugs. “Guess if you’re fixing lattes, we’ll never know.”
I shoot him a glare.
“I’ll take mine extra hot, with a double shot of espresso and two pumps of—”
I smack his desk. “Baristas probably get paid better.”
“Better than a staff writer at a regional weekly,” he says, calling out our mutual employer. “But maybe not a feature writer at, say . . . Denver Editorial.”
My lip curls. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You still could.”
He holds my gaze and I don’t look away, even as I feel my insides shriveling.
“Is it time to go over this again, Randall?” I say to the smudge behind him.
“The last time I tried to improve my prospects, I received an inbox full of death threats. I’m a woman of color, and I live alone.
I’m not interested in putting career ahead of personal safety. ”
“I’m not saying you should.”
“Great, we’re on the same page. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sift through reader emails and write up a nice selection of copy you can print without a byline.”
“Is that really what you want?” he asks, watching me rise from the chair.
I force myself to meet his eyes, but I don’t answer.
“I’m not putting you on the assignment desk as a punishment,” he says, folding his hands. “Sometimes being on the front lines can help. There are so many leads, it can break you out of a rut.”
“You think I’m in a rut?”
“I think you can do better than sex and dating.” He pauses, glancing at the closed door. “And unlike some of your colleagues, I know you can do better than the Observer.”
I raise my brows and lower my voice. “Careful, Randall. If your office is bugged, you’ll be working an espresso machine with me.”
He chuckles, but his eyes are serious. “Caprice, we both know you’re destined for bigger things.”
My voice shakes as I turn away. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I like it here. The pace is good, my coworkers are tolerable. Even if the pay does suck.”
“Bring me the right story and you’ve got yourself a raise,” he says as I open the door. “It doesn’t need to be sex or dating. Your strength is human interest.”
“Sure.” I snort. “I’ll get right on that after I cover Denver’s puppies and kittens.”