Forty Degrees Below

Chapter 4

For Jake, it had been a long time since he'd given himself the pleasure of hanging out at a coffeehouse in downtown Columbia. He watched the people drift up and down South Ninth Street and felt on the cusp of something new and exciting. He'd not felt that in a long time. Not since he'd worked back in New York.

He sat sipping his coffee as his thoughts drifted back. Being a born and bred Columbian, New York presented the same excitable thoughts. Working for Forbes, as a journalist was somewhere new, different, and exciting. He'd never stepped outside of Missouri before then, let alone travelled to the 'big apple', but he was younger, more impressionable in those days.

He met Mercedes when she worked down at the Corkbuzz, a local wine bar just 'round the corner from his business that he used to frequent often at the end of the day. She was working part-time as a waitress in-between acting jobs.

Two things attracted Jake to her. The first wasn't her looks so much as her gravelly, New York accent, and how she used to say, "get outa hea" that always used to make him laugh. He was sure she'd picked up on that fact, because she used to find an excuse to bring it up as frequently as she could, and then steal a glance across at him to gauge his reaction. That's how he'd learnt she'd liked him.

The second was the way she wanted to plan everything in minute detail, the attention to detail was something Jake never possessed. He could see that could drive many people insane, but he admired that about her. For if anything looked as though it would require any forethought or planning, it went over to Mercedes with his blessing.

They'd started dating soon after, and before long she'd moved into his apartment in Lower Manhattan complete with thick New York accent. For Jake, this helped him endure his journalistic job a little longer. The downsides were outweighed by the romantic upsides of the relationship in its first few months. Six months down the line, though, it all started to change for them.

He took to the job in a big way. He'd had a way with words, and soon gained a reputation for bringing insightful, penetrating reviews. If there was a tough assignment Jake was on it, and he was soon singled out as the man with the ability to come away with it in the can.

Although he loved the improvised aspect of the job like persuading industry leaders to spare him time for an interview, what he didn't enjoy was the routine. The routine was boring, and boring equalled putting it to the back of your mind, preferably losing it entirely. Unfortunately, for him, routinely made up the majority of his job: writing up interviews, deadlines, procedures.

Like Jake, Mercedes had never left her home State, and romanticised about stories that Jake would tell her, and fantasised about making a fresh start in Columbia, Missouri. She was tired of the noise, pollution, crowds, and lack of acting jobs in a city where her face wasn't unknown.

This coincided with Jake's itchy feet. He was getting frustrated with the wage. He discovered that the kind of fees he could demand as a freelance reporter were far more than the kind of exposé he was bringing into Forbes. He wanted to spread his wings and try it alone. So, they headed to Columbia to make a fresh start.

He was a born Missourian, so it wasn't exactly a fresh start, but his thinking was this: if he were going to do something so radically different, do it in familiar territory where the connections are already in place, where he knew the lay of the land. That way he would have the best opportunity to get the new venture off of the ground.

He found that getting successful industrialists to give him some time was relatively straight forward, especially if the article would end up in Forbes, Fortune, or The Economist. Anything to raise the profile of the company, and their ego's.

Writers, artists, and thinkers were a different breed. They weren't driven by personal power, or glory, but by something far deeper, more mysterious, and challenging.