Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
After a good 15 minutes or so of crying so hard she couldn't catch her breath, Lizzie just suddenly stops. Maybe she’s going to roll right through the whole Kubler-Ross stages of grief. She was already angry. She gets up and searches around the newsroom for an empty box and finally finds a printer paper box with a top. There is one ream of paper remaining, which she decides is the least the Sentinel can give her, and begins pitching everything on her desk into it. Old notebooks with scribbled notes of stories? Did she really need those? She knew she wasn’t in a place to make any reasonable decisions so errs on the side of keeping them knowing she can always throw them away later. Her RBG mug that she kept her pens in, and her, “Good Punctuation Saves Lives,” travel mug with the classic, “Let’s eat, Grandma,” and “Let’s eat Grandma,” had to come with her. It had been a gift from her dad who has been drumming proper punctuation into her head since before she could read.
It was pretty incredible that in under 20 minutes she managed to pack up six years of her life into a single box. Feeling a bit like Mary Tyler Moore in the final scene of her show, she puts on her coat, picks up her box, takes one last look around the newsroom and walks out. She doesn’t turn out the lights, however. She isn’t feeling like saving the company any money.
Lizzie realizes when she gets home that she never called Sarah back. After taking off her coat, she wonders if noon is too early for a glass of wine, decides it is not, and pours herself a glass of a red she’s had around for a while. She sits down on the couch with a loud sigh and calls Sarah.
“So what happened?”
“Yeah, I’m out too,” Lizzie replies, taking a big sip of wine.
They’re both silent, not sure what to say. They’ve been cubicle mates for the entire time they worked at the paper, hired only days apart.
Lizzie finally breaks her silence as she drains her glass and pours another. “You would have been impressed at my Aaron Sorkin-esque moment I think,” she says laughing, already a tiny bit tipsy.
“What? Do tell!” Sarah replies, literally on the edge of her seat.
“Oh I just laid into him about the corporate takeover of newspapers, and how newspapers are the cornerstone of democracy, and how they didn’t care, they may as well have been selling ham, or something like that.” She starts laughing. “I honestly can’t believe I pushed back like that. So not my usual style.”
“I’m so glad you did! I’m sure I really intimidated them when I burst into tears,” Sarah says. “I was so mad, but that’s how it came out.”
“Oh, I cried too, just afterward.” They’re both quiet again. “I can’t believe I'm not going to see you every single day anymore. Honestly, that’s the only part that makes me sad. Everyone else has been gone for a while, but it’s been you and me from the beginning.”
Sarah is choking back tears. “I know, that’s what hit me too. And the paycheck, as crummy as it was, we need it. We just bought this house. No one’s hiring journalists now, all the papers are in the same boat. What a completely useless set of skills I now possess.”
“I know, why didn’t we go to law school or become dental hygienists?” Lizzie posits. “I don’t know what I can do. I was barely able to afford this apartment between my salary and the freelance work I’d pick up here and there.” On that note she pours a third glass of wine. “People don’t become wealthy blogging anymore, do they?”
Sarah laughs. “I think that was only in the movies. I have yet to meet anyone who made a killing as a blogger.” Sarah is hesitant, but then speaks up. “You do have an option you know...”
“Nope, not going to happen.”
“You could still be a writer though...”
“No, there is no way I’m going to do that. And besides, he can’t afford to pay me, he’s barely getting by himself. I think it may even be worse than he lets on.”
“Your dad has wanted you to come back and take over the Gazette since you finished grad school. Maybe there are things you could do that he hasn’t, a fresh pair of eyes, ones that are more savvy to social media and the internet. It could be something to think about.”
“Go back to the Cape, live with my parents, and try to save my dad’s paper? I’m suddenly feeling like George Bailey setting out to save the Bailey Building and Loan,” she jokes.
“Lizzie, it’s not a bad idea. Even if just for a little while, to see what could happen.”
“What about my apartment?”
“Sublet. Next question?”
“To whom?”
“Lizzie, plenty of people would love that apartment, as a matter of fact, there’s a woman who Adam works with who is here for nine months working on a project and doesn’t want to get into a year’s lease. Bang! Problem solved! Next?”
“Jack.”
“Ex-Jack?”
“Yes, he’s moving back to Cranberry Harbor and I’d have to see him all the time and I am currently not liking him very much.”
Lizzie gets up and begins pacing around her apartment. She loves this sweet place, how could she leave it? There had to be work for someone with a Master’s degree in journalism. Maybe she could teach? That thought sounded laughable, were people still going to school for journalism or had they wised up in the last 10 years?
“I thought things were going along pretty well with the ex, like you were friends?”
“I don’t really want to get into it right now, but I’ll just say this, Penelope.” Lizzie says, a bit sadly.
“Oh, hmmm, okay, well, when you’re ready to talk, I’m here. I should go, lord knows what Wyatt has gotten into, he’s awfully quiet.”
“He won’t be after Christmas,” Lizzie teases, referencing the guitar she bought him.
“Oh my, you are going to pay, my friend…”
Lizzie laughs, “Talk soon! Love you.”
“Love you too, you rat.”
Lizzie puts her phone down, and lies back on the couch putting her feet up on the coffee table. She knows she needs to call her parents, clearly after three glasses of wine she’s not driving back to the Cape. But first she decides she's going to take a nap and hope everything looks better after.