"Mercy Heavens, what the Hell happened to you?"
Isobel waved a hand over her head as she remained hunched at her desk, riffling through files. "Hi, Martha. Not now, Martha. I'm only here for my editorial notes and then I'm going back home to bed." Where the heck had she put them? They were supposed to be right here on top of the piece about the missing school kids in Mexico up for sweeps...
Irritated, Isobel jerked straight with a huff. "It's not here."
"My editorial notes." Grumbling, Isobel slumped into her seat, pressed her fingers to her eyes and massaged them in slow, careful circles. She would not lose it in the office. Not in front of the people she worked with. There might only be a dozen members on staff, but that was twelve people too many to witness her experiencing a mental breakdown.
"Did ya check with Cheryl?"
"No, Cheryl wasn't in last Friday. I must've submitted them already and completely forgot. I'm losing my mind."
"Honey, you look about as lost as a Kardashian without her camera crew." Martha leaned against the paneled divider of Isobel's cubicle, her cherry red hair twisted up in a complicated but elegant knot that would've taken Isobel hours to accomplish and would've promptly come apart an hour later. She had baby-fine hair that, despite exhaustive efforts, couldn't carry a kink or a curl for more than a few seconds. Eyes slid over Isobel from converse sneakers, worn sweats and greasy hair. "Ben wants to see you in his office. Pronto."
Isobel's head, heavy as a boulder balancing on a twig, fell back with a groan. "I told him I wasn't feeling well. I can't stay."
"Tell it to the boss." Martha jerked a thumb over her shoulder. 'But I can come boost you in twenty if he's taken to holding you hostage."
A grateful smile softened the hard edges of Isobel's face. "I appreciate that, Martha, but I think I can handle him." Taking another second to compose herself as Martha scooted back to her cubicle to answer the constantly ringing phones, Isobel made the quick trip across the bull pen to Ben's office, situated between the copy room and kitchenette.
Tapping a knuckle on the door, Isobel inched it open. Seeing her, Benjamin Leung Ben's fingers skittered to a halt over the buttons on his phone, his pinched face brightening. Hastily he hung up and stood to greet her. It always amazed her to see such a large belly on such a skinny body.
It must've wrought absolute havoc on his spine...
"There she is. Just who I was looking to see. Glad you stopped by."
"Hi Ben, look I can't stay. I only came in to get my notes for the Juarez piece due Wednesday," she said, scooting inside but she left the door open with the intentions of making a quick exit. Boxes piled up the sides of the walls and were stuffed under or against any available nook they could find. How he worked in such conditions boggled her. She hated clutter and chaos.
A workspace like this would suffocate her.
"Oh, it's fine. I found it with your files. I'll take over on that for you. I know you're not feeling well, but...it's kind of important. Can you sit?"
"Okay."
Ben rushed forward, clearing a stack of files off of one of the two guest chairs and swooped it out for her to lower into the dust covered cushion. He was all anxious, nervous energy as he plunked himself down behind his desk and set the points of his elbows atop it, hands together as if in plea or prayer. "I'm going to be straight with you about some things, Isobel, The Herald has faced a tough year. A tough few years...sh!t, a decade, if I'm totally blunt."
Isobel murmured a soft apology though she'd already known the paper had been walking a razors edge since the expansion of online news. It was perhaps the worst kept secret. Everyone knew and no one said anything. So long as paychecks rolled in, no one really cared. Except for maybe Isobel.
She loved this small but promising little paper. The Herald was all about 'world issues' and she'd admired their ambitions to tell the stories that mattered.
"In fact," Ben sighed, "the news industry as whole has faced a rough ten years. Print readership is on the decline, papers are closing and some pretty accomplished journalists are losing their jobs as readership migrates to online vultures with their trendy/flashes celebrity headlines. It's a goddamn crisis that is forcing many to adapt and change with the times. We've been a little reluctant to follow suit." Slender fingers tugged on the collar of his shirt, giving a flash of a gold chain with a jade Buddha. "Now I see I've got my back to a wall with little choice. I accept the inevitable, or I sink further into irrelevancy."
Isobel crossed a leg, flexed her foot until she felt a satisfying pop. "I understand, but what exactly does this have to do with me?"
"A lot of our competitors have been revising content in order to target a more specific—and generally younger—audience who want their news delivered in bite sized packages and to pay close attention to trending hype on social media," he said. "It's the millennial market driving the news. We need to tap into that vein if we're going to keep a pulse within to next year." Ben's narrow brown eyes shifted to her face but had trouble holding there. "About your fiancé..."
The hard jab of shock caught her unexpectedly and she rocked back in her seat. Oh god, please no...
After confronting Kyle yesterday she'd watched, boneless as the views climbed on the YouTube video, hitting a staggering two million in a matter of hours. After that point she'd stopped checking, stopped punishing herself, but never had it occurred to her that it would spread into this area of her world. The only area she counted on to be stable, and safe and sane.
"I've seen it," she whispered.
Ben nodded, his hair bouncing atop his round head. "I assumed so, considering your call this morning."
"I'm sick," Isobel asserted.
"Of course you are." Sympathy coloured his voice but desperation shone in his eyes. "Considering delicate circumstances, I wanted to run an idea by you before we rolled ahead with it. I'd like to do a segment on the hazards of 'viral scandals' with you as the face of the feature; the heartbroken and humiliated fiancée, a promising, capable and attractive young woman who's been crushed in little over twenty-four hours. We could give this real heart and depth...empathy, by sharing your side of the story and showing other young adults how an act of a moment can destroy a lifetime."
"How...how did you..." God, her voice sounded like she'd flossed her windpipe with barbed wire.
"The staff Christmas party," Ben said, guessing the rest. "He's a good looking kid. Hard to forget.
Right. She'd brought him along, introduced him to the team. Which meant everyone knew. Every single person out there knew!
"It's not what we usually do, I know, but this is the kind of stuff kids today eat up. This could be big for us."
"No."
"Isobel, please—"
"I said no."
His shoulders slumped and his hands flattened atop his desk. A restless thumb beat a steady tempo. "As your boss, I'm going to have to ask you to reconsider."
Her heart kicked back into a fast, uneasy rhythm, tears blistered the back of her eyes, but she blinked them away, holding the fragile threads of herself in place. Preserving what remained of her dignity.
"Fine, I've reconsidered and you're no longer my boss." Isobel lurched to her feet, stiff as an old woman, and shouldered her purse. "I quit."