Chapter 6
I hadn’t been issued a badge yet, so I made a pit stop on my way to work and picked up a box of doughnuts, which I presented to Frank, the security guard in the lobby.
I didn’t have the money to spend, but it never hurt to get on people’s good sides, and he had been underwhelmed by my lack of a badge.
“For me?” he asked, his face lighting up. I nodded as he selected a cream-filled one and took a bite. He closed his eyes and let out an mmm sound. His eyes were shining when he opened them. “These remind me of the quesitas my abuela made when I was a kid.”
I didn’t know what quesitas or abuela meant and did a bit of a double take at the unfamiliar language. “Where did you grow up?”
“Puerto Rico,” he said fondly. “These are the only doughnuts with the same flaky texture.”
“Then Frank is short for . . . ?”
“Francisco. But here . . .” He shrugged. “Better everyone thinks I’m from Italy—the southern part.” I felt a surge of compassion for him. I, of all people, knew what it was like to be rejected from a job based on a demographic factor.
I patted his arm, told him his secret was safe with me, and found myself smiling as I rode the elevator up to the typing pool.
There were few problems a box of Montgomery Donuts wouldn’t fix.
Maybe I should bring Miss Kelly some. And when I reached my desk, there was a copy of the previous evening’s edition of The Washington Digest sitting on the keys of my typewriter with a piece of paper clipped to the front page.
I picked it up, squinting at the messy pencil script on the note. “Your first front-page story,” it read. “Thanks for the edits! -JF”
My lips curled up into a wide grin, which I quickly adjusted to a neutral face as I saw Miss Kelly watching me with a raised eyebrow.
Besides, I told myself, it wasn’t like I wrote the story.
I’d had front-page bylines in The Diamondback with some frequency, despite the grudge the editors held against me for the error of being born a woman. This was nothing.
Except it wasn’t, and I knew it. I could feel it.
I was going to break into the actual newsroom.
And something told me I wouldn’t have to go to The Washington Post to do it.
And then? Who knew. Maybe even The New York Times wasn’t entirely out of the question.
I thought of Patricia spreading her arms and declaring herself a city girl—but hacking it in Washington was a world away from doing the same in the city that never slept.
“Miss Greenberg.” Miss Kelly’s crisp voice interrupted my daydream of a prewar brownstone and the most renowned newsroom in the world.
I shook it off. “Yes, Miss Kelly?”
“You’re here to work,” she reminded me. I looked around—more than half the desks were still empty. Even without owning a watch yet, I knew I was early.
“Yes, Miss Kelly,” I said, trying to imbue in my tone that I felt properly chastised.
But I also kept the note from Fields out of sight.
I wasn’t fraternizing—especially not in the sense she meant it now that I knew all about Louise’s fate.
But I got the impression she wouldn’t approve of me using my degree to edit either.
I pocketed the note, moved the evening edition to the side, and sat, resuming work on the article I had left unfinished the previous afternoon.
She stood over me for a few seconds, then crossed the room to a girl I hadn’t met yet who apparently wasn’t typing fast enough for her liking.
At least that wasn’t an issue for me. I glanced down at my fingers flying over the keys on the workhorse of an Underwood at my desk.
I preferred my teal portable Royal from college, but the keys of the newspaper typewriters did have a satisfying click to them.
A couple of hours passed somewhat tediously before a hand slapped several pages down next to me. I looked up to see Fields offering a winning smile. “Feel like another front-page story, college girl?”
“What is it?”
“Cuba again. The president wants to tighten the trade embargo even further. Choke Castro some more.” He leaned closer.
“Between you and me, it’s all vindictive after the Bay of Pigs.
” The failed attempt by the CIA to remove the new dictator the previous year—and subsequent declaration of a Communist state—hadn’t gone over well with our commander in chief.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about his demeanor just made me itch to take him down a peg. “Trade embargoes are boring. And you’re awfully confident it’ll wind up on the front for someone who overuses em dashes when a comma would do.”
He laughed. “A Communist government ninety miles off our shore is never boring. But this is why we’re such a good team. Guaranteed above the fold with you on my side.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side.”
He leaned down closer. “Not even your own?”
I looked at him sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Nothing. I just assumed you wanted to use that degree of yours to write.”
“Eventually,” I said primly. I pulled the page I had been working on from my typewriter, even though it meant I would have to start again from scratch, and wound a fresh sheet through the roller. “A girl’s gotta start somewhere.”
I picked up the first page and got to work, then realized he was still standing over my desk. “Are you going to watch me type the whole thing?”
“Does it bother you?”
“Yes,” I said tartly. It was impossible to type with accuracy with someone watching you. Everyone who had ever sat at a typewriter knew that.
“Sorry,” he said, suddenly looking embarrassed. “I’ll—uh—I’ll be back for it, then.”
“I can just put it in the pile to go upstairs.”
“No, I uh . . . I like to take it up myself.”
I thought back to him reading through my handiwork as I left for lunch the previous day. “You mean you like to check and make sure I didn’t mess anything up.”
“No—I mean—I—”
“Fields, leave her alone,” Patricia said. “Do you just like this desk or something? There are twenty girls here who can type your articles for you.”
“There are twenty girls here who went to secretarial school,” Fields said. “There’s one who has a journalism degree. And I like my work perfect.”
“Everyone in here is perfectly capable,” Patricia said. “Now go on. You’re going to get Judy in trouble if Miss Kelly catches you down here.”
“I can handle Miss Kelly.”
“Can you?” Patricia asked. The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, and if Patricia had been a man, I had the feeling it would have come to blows. There was no love lost between the two of them, that was for sure.
“How long do you need?” Fields asked me, folding first. “I’ll come back.”
I looked at the pages in front of me. “Seven hundred words?”
He let out a low whistle. “You’re good. Seven twenty-two. But it’s supposed to come in at seven, give or take five.”
“You want me to cut twenty-two words?”
“Seventeen would do. If you can. If not, the copyeditors will.”
I rolled my eyes. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
“You did yesterday’s in under ten.”
“Yesterday’s was three-quarters the president’s words. This one, I assume, is all yours.”
“Touché,” Fields responded. “I’ll get a cup of coffee and come back.”
Patricia was still standing at my desk when he walked away. “Why don’t you like him?” I asked once he was safely in the stairwell.
She made a wry face. “I’m not 100 percent convinced he wasn’t the one who got Louise in trouble.”
“Fields?” I asked, incredulous. Yes, he was cute, but in the same way a Jack Russell terrier was. Enthusiastic, sweet, and yappy as hell. And while I was somewhat enjoying lobbing insults his way, I couldn’t picture him abandoning a problem he had made.
Patricia shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know he doesn’t follow the rules like the rest of the reporters do.”
“I thought you said they’re all trying to ‘fraternize’ with us typing pool girls?”
She shook her head with a grin. “I didn’t mean that rule.
I meant he just comes down here and picks and chooses who types his articles—like the rest of us aren’t good enough.
And the way he said he’d handle Miss Kelly if he got you in trouble—you’d be out of a job, and he still wouldn’t think it was his fault. ”
She had a point. Though I minded his version of rule-breaking less than she did—as long as it didn’t get me fired.
In my experience, journalists who followed rules often missed out on crucial story leads.
I thought back to how I had snuck into classes I wasn’t enrolled in to see if there was any truth to rumors that students were cheating.
I could see Fields fibbing his way into something if it meant he’d break an interesting story.
And I could respect wanting someone with a keen eye reading his work—especially when that someone was me.
But the reality was, that didn’t matter.
The clock was ticking, and I wanted to have this article done before Fields returned to claim it.
I didn’t think he would have much sway with the editors as a junior reporter, but it didn’t hurt to have someone male in my corner who was going to praise my abilities.