Chapter Forty-Eight
Sin
Done
“You can go on in, Sin,” Kathy's assistant smiles up at me from her desk, where she's been doing her best to pretend she isn't dying to know what’s going on. I leave the box I carried up with me on the floor by my chair.
There have been no more invites to gossip in her office since the whole press pass battle. We’re back to her staff meetings are the only meetings scheduled. I was surprised when she put me on her calendar so quickly.
“Have a seat.” She gestures to the seat on the other side of her desk and avoids my eyes as she waits with undisguised impatience for me to cross her ridiculously large office.
I sit down. I’ve been so afraid of this for months but now that it’s here, I’m strangely calm.
I’m not going to wait for them to decide my fate.
“What can I do for you, Sin?” She keeps scribbling in her notebook.
“Why did you hire me?”
Her head pops up. “Sin, you’ve got to grow up.
” She takes her glasses off and rubs her eyes.
“You think I’m trying to hold you back. I'm just trying to save you from destroying your career. We are here to speak truth to power, but we also have to be rational. This newspaper has an owner, a board, and shareholders. I am accountable to them.”
“I understand how corporate media works. But shouldn’t we still try to tell stories for the people who are counting on us to inform them of what's happening in the world? None of the things we write about happen in a vacuum. We owe our reading public the truth.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “You can’t be this naive. Newspapers only exist because businesses needed a way to advertise. If we piss them off, it’s lights out.”
She sighs. “You’ve always thought you were better than everyone else.
You ran off to New York with stars in your eyes and got your ass handed to you.
I gave you a job when you needed one. You should be thanking me.
Pretty privilege may have been enough in New York.
Here you’ve got to have more to offer than charm and a nice ass.
I’m honestly disappointed. I expected better. ”
I’m not bothered when people imply I used my looks to get to where I am. What kind of fool would I be if I didn’t use every talent and gift I have to make my way in a world that was designed without me in mind?
But I won’t let anyone tell me I haven’t worked my ass off for every single thing I’ve attained.
I’m a Black woman in an industry where only three percent of the other journalists look like me.
I’ve had to be exceptional to get opportunities that people with half my credentials get handed just for showing up.
I put a palm down on her desk. “If I’d known I was coming to work for cowards and liars, I wouldn’t have taken your call that day and said yes to a job I was overqualified for with a boss who doesn’t have half the accolades I do.”
Her eyes go wide and her back arches as if she's been struck by an arrow. “Are you trying to get fired?”
Her question makes me feel like a deer in the headlights.
I didn’t see it coming but I’m not scared of this fork in my road.
My indecision resolves itself, and I make my choice.
“As if I’d let you fire me.” I move my finger in the space between us and suck my teeth so loud I know my grandmother in heaven is proud as hell. “I quit.”