Chapter 15
DEBBIE
It’s a few minutes before two o’clock when I pull into the parking lot for the Hingham Household newspaper.
The office is in a small strip mall next to a Chinese restaurant and below a massage parlor.
I didn’t eat that much at Rochelle’s house, because I was avoiding the sandwiches, and I have to admit that Chinese food and a massage sounds pretty good right about now.
Maybe I’ll make a stop after Garrett and I talk about whatever was so important that it couldn’t be done over the phone.
The words Hingham Household are etched in black lettering on the glass door, although a few of the letters have rubbed off so that it reads Hin ham Househo.
I turn the knob and enter the small space, walking past the few scattered desks leading to the lone office occupied by Garrett Meers.
I had always imagined that the offices of a newspaper would be big and bustling, but this place is the opposite of that.
It’s small and carpeted and usually so silent, you can hear a pin drop.
It smells vaguely of cigarettes, which is strange since I don’t think anyone who works here smokes.
The only one who is here today is Garrett’s secretary, Sierra.
She’s so gorgeous that it’s not surprising that I’ve seen Garrett checking her out when he thinks nobody is looking.
Sierra looks up briefly when I enter the office, but she doesn’t say a word and even avoids eye contact.
I find that odd, because usually that girl can’t shut up.
And something else about the office sets off an alarm bell in the back of my head:
Bernice isn’t here.
Bernice is a senior editor at the paper, and even though Garrett is the editor in chief, Bernice makes all the important decisions. I generally submit my column directly to her, and I’m not convinced Garrett even reads it.
It wouldn’t be strange for Bernice not to be in the office, because I’m sure the last thing she wants is to sit at that creaky wooden desk all day.
However, the emptiness of her desk is what strikes me as a red flag.
There are usually stacks of paper on her desk, a nameplate, and a photo of her daughter grinning at a state fair. All that has vanished.
“Hi, Sierra,” I say. “I’m here to see—”
“Go on in,” Sierra tells me, since she has obviously been expecting me. It’s yet another slightly disturbing red flag.
I knock on the door to Garrett’s office, even though it’s slightly ajar.
He calls for me to come in, and I slip into his broom closet of an office.
Garrett is in his early forties, maybe a year or two younger than I am, and he’s always clean-shaven and well dressed.
He likes to project the image of the paper being more important than it is.
After all, who is he dressing for when we are the only ones here?
“Hi, Debbie.” He tries to smile, but only the left side of his lips turns up. “Have a seat. Please.”
I oblige, taking the seat in front of his desk, smoothing my dress so that the hem stretches over my knees. I can’t push away the sinking feeling in my chest. “Is everything okay? Where is Bernice?”
Garrett opens his mouth, but instead of answering that question, he just shakes his head. “I need to talk to you about a column you did a little while ago.”
“Okay…”
“There was a woman who wrote to you, talking about a problem with her husband,” he reminds me.
“And this is the advice you gave her…” He picks up a printed copy of the Hingham Household off his desk, which is already dog-eared on the offending page.
“You said, ‘Your husband is using money as a way to control you. You don’t need his permission to get a job. You don’t need his permission for anything!
My advice is that you should speak to a divorce lawyer. ’”
I remember the column well. I don’t often tell women to leave their husbands, believe me.
I’m not a licensed therapist, and I certainly can’t offer that kind of advice based on the tiny snippet presented to me in letters from readers.
At least half of the women write in with complaints about their husbands, and I can never tell them what I really think, although I’m always itching to do so.
But what that woman was describing was so egregious, I couldn’t help myself.
“Yes,” I say. “The financial abuse guy.”
“Well, she left him.”
I nod, pleased. “Good.”
“Not good.” Garrett looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Debbie, what were you thinking? You can’t tell complete strangers to leave their husbands.”
“Isn’t my job to give advice?”
“Right, about gardening or getting stains out of shirts.” His voice is completely exasperated. “You can’t tell a woman you’ve never even met to get a divorce!”
“I can if he’s so clearly abusive!”
“You don’t know that…”
“He wouldn’t let her have her own credit card.” I tick off the man’s sins on my hands. “He put her on an allowance even though she’s a grown woman. He wouldn’t let her get a job of her own. What sort of decent husband treats his wife that way? Would you treat your wife that way?”
“It’s none of your business, Debbie.”
“None of my business!” I burst out. “Garrett, I write an advice column. That’s what I do. People ask me for advice, and I give it to them. It’s up to them if they follow that advice.”
“Not anymore you don’t.”
I stare at him. “What?”
Garrett lets out a long sigh and massages his temples. “The husband is threatening to sue us. This guy means business. The only way he would retract the lawsuit is if I fired you. And Bernice.”
Well, that explains Bernice’s empty desk.
“Why did you have to fire Bernice?” I feel terrible about that most of all. She’s a single mother with a daughter in college. At least I have Cooper’s income to lean on. “I’m the one who wrote the column.”
“It was Bernice’s decision to print the letter,” he says. “She knew what she was doing.”
“It was good advice.” I clutch the hem of my skirt in my fists, which have suddenly grown sweaty. “That woman needed help, and I told her the truth. You’re really going to fire me for helping a woman who was being abused?”
“This is a family-oriented paper,” Garrett reminds me. “That’s what our advertisers expect. You can’t tell people to get a divorce. You just can’t, Debbie.”
“So you’re just going to give this asshole everything he wants so he doesn’t sue you?”
“Actually, I agree with him. You should not have gotten involved. If Bernice had shown me the column, I would’ve told her not to print it.”
I’m sure Bernice did show him the column, but as usual, my lazy boss didn’t bother to look at it.
Now that Bernice is gone, he’s screwed. Who will put the paper together?
I doubt he even knows how. But I’m sure he’ll find some other sap to do all the work while he sits there pretending he’s important.
Garrett rises from his seat, his spine abnormally straight. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now. Sierra will escort you to the door.”
“Escort me?” That buzzing in my head starts up again. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
He doesn’t answer that question. What I really want to say is that if I did want to stir up some shit, I doubt scrawny little Sierra could stop me. Luckily for him, I plan to go quietly.
I have a desk in the office, although I’ve barely got anything in it. Sierra babysits me while I grab a legal pad out of the desk and a few pens. I also have a color photograph of Cooper with the girls in my desk drawer. Nobody offers me a box, so I just carry everything in my arms.
“I’m sorry, Debbie,” Sierra says, looking uncomfortable, “but I have to ask you for your key.”
I had forgotten I even have a set of keys, but I check my key ring, and sure enough, there is a mystery key that I suspect opens the door to the office.
The buzzing in my head grows louder as I work it free and hand it over to Sierra’s waiting hand.
She goes through the rigamarole of testing it to make sure it’s the correct key and that I’m not giving them a fake one.
As if it wouldn’t have been super easy to make a copy if I wanted to.
It’s funny that they’re so worried about the key. That isn’t the thing they should be worried about me having. At the thought of this, the buzzing suddenly stops.
“Sorry about this,” Sierra says. “I always liked your column. You gave really good advice.”
I hug the legal pad to my chest. “Garrett doesn’t think so.”
“Well, it’s just so important that the paper is family oriented,” she says. “The sanctity of marriage, you know?”
“Uh-huh.”
“There’s nothing more important than the bonds of marriage,” Sierra says sagely. “So you can’t violate that by telling a woman to leave her husband. And our advertisers feel the same way. Without them, the paper would be done. You know that.”
“Yes,” I say. “I do know that.”
Sierra walks me all the way to the door and makes sure that I leave without a fuss.
As I trudge back to my car with my meager belongings, I can’t suppress a jolt of sadness.
Even though it was just a silly little local paper, I enjoyed my job.
I liked giving advice. My own life has felt like a mess, but when it came to other people, I always seemed to know exactly what they should do.
It’s time to start taking my own advice.