First Love

I Can Do It (part 3)

It was 9:45 p.m. I didn't know exactly how we pulled it off, but somehow we did. The results were amazing. I didn't hesitate at all to send Jack's article to Mr. Howard and Mrs. Babcock because I knew that the product was better than expected.

Soon after we decided to carry on with the improvement of the article, I explained to Jack the ideas I had for the task and how I wanted to use his lifestyle to attract the readers. For that we had a small conversation about his hobbies, general surfer lifestyle and how he had chosen writing as his career due to its schedule flexibility. I had to admit that getting to know your author was helpful, that way an editor could make an even better job. I learned interesting new facts about the blue eyed surfer writer and I (in exchange) shared some of mine. The intermission lasted little and afterwards it was all hands on writing.

We basically started from scratch. We had the same topic, the new aim and additions that we wanted to work with. We had a very clear idea of the style we needed to follow. Somehow it came out effortlessly.

Jack dictated and I wrote, since I was a better typer, and it gave me the opportunity to do some editing at the same time. After we finished the first draft, he read it to me outloud and he made some corrections on the flow. Jack then read the rejected article and we noticed some ideas that were lost on the new version, so we looked for a way to integrate them to the new paper. Later we printed it, read it again and I did some old style editions by hand.

Considering that we were working together the corrections were minimal and now we had to focus on word count. Since the article had been already approved, design had worked on its final presentation for the magazine. There wasn't much chance to lack or exceed in words. We made the needed corrections and adjustments before placing the new article in the template that the publishing department had given me. Assuredly we printed the final version to make sure we weren't missing anything. To our eyes and critical thinking the article was completely perfect. With confidence empowering us, I sent the article to my bosses and waited for their comments.

It was 9:50 p.m. and we haven't heard a word from them.

I texted Jason telling him that the article was finished and in his inbox. He rapidly replied that they were reading it.

Great, they were still together.

The suspense was killing me. I called Jason to hear the final feedback.

"Hey, it's me Kylie. I wanted to hear your comments on the article."

"I'm sure you did a fine job. Amanda can't seem to put it down. I think she's reading it for the second time already." He responded with some kind of unknown humor on his voice. I doubted he was mocking me but it made me feel uncertain.

"It's that good?" I had to ask. I had a mental image of Amanda with a red marker circling all the mistakes that she found on the article. Now I was curious to where they were. Could they still be in the office at this hour? Doubtful.

"Can't say it is," Jason said to me. It wasn't the answer I was looking for, but I guessed he was being honest. The background silence was killing me. Jack sat next to me on his orange chair, crossing and uncrossing his fingers on the table top. I didn't notice when I started pacing behind him. Even worse when I tried to get distracted with something else and could only think of where Jason and Amanda where and what they'd possibly done together for all this time. They said they were going to look for an article to replace Jack's, but had it taken so long?

"God damn! The girl pulled it off." I heard Amanda say somewhere in the back.

"It appears the article's approved," my editor in chief said with laughter in his voice. Somehow he was enjoying this, and at the moment I didn't have the time to ponder why.