Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) (4 page)

She saw through the glass on the door that he was on the phone, but he saw her and waved her in.  Like an old-time editor, he had the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder and was shuffling papers around on his desk while talking.  Nicki wondered why he didn’t utilize the speaker phone feature; his office had a door, so it’s not like he would be letting confidential information out.  Or, at the very least, he could have used the earpiece instead.  It would have been a lot more comfortable than what Neal was doing now.

But she supposed that was what he liked to do.  She knew from the times she’d spoken to him on the phone that he didn’t like being on
it
and ended conversations as quickly as possible.  Maybe if he used the speaker
,
he wouldn’t feel that way.

She entered the office, careful not to make noise with the door, and sat across from Neal in one of the
cushioned
chairs that faced his desk.  Finally, Neal said in his booming voice, “Yeah.  Get on that and call me back.”  He hung up the phone and gave Nicki a weak smile.  “Whatcha got for me, rookie?”

If Neal hadn’t been such a likeable guy, she would’ve been pissed that he called her rookie all the time.  In all fairness, though, Neal had given her a chance that a lot of other people never would have.  When Nicki approached him
one
year ago, she was working three different jobs—one as a waitress in a pizzeria, one selling makeup door to door, and another answering phones for a used car lot.  Working the three jobs kept her busy and kept the bills paid; they also kept her in shape and she got a lot of makeup on the cheap, but she had no social life.  Worse yet, she had no future
and the pay wasn’t great
.
  She knew she liked writing, had always dreamed of being the
next Poet Laureate of Colorado or winning the Nobel Prize for Literature
but was squandering those skills on things like sending emails to her faithful makeup customers, jotting down phone messages, and writing down customer orders.  Enough was enough.  So she made an appointment with Neal and begged him for a writing job.  He couldn’t do that, he said.  She had no experience
and no degree
.  He suggested that she shadow one of his reporters, though, to see if she still liked the job after.  So she did.  She shadowed Diane
Glick
, the Features reporter, for two weeks.

Neal had probably thought she would have given up, but instead she was more excited, especially when she saw how bored Diane looked by the job.  Nicki watched
the woman
, all the time wondering why she wasn’t having more fun.  When
Nicki
met with Neal again, she told him she was just as excited as ever.  And she suspected he could use the help.

“Look,” she said, “I’ll write for free.  You can look over my articles and tell me what I need to do to improve.  I just want the chance to do this.”
  She loved that—for the most part—Diane had been her own boss, in charge of organizing her own day.  She got to meet new people and share with the community her insights on the goings on of the town.
  Neal relented and told
Nicki
she could give a court report once or twice a week, summarizing the various little things that happened.  It wasn’t long before she realized that he had all that information already, as the court’s docket was available online.  So she instead began adding more information, a little here and there, to the more interesting stories
, facts not included on the docket
.  He began spending a good hour a week with her, coaching her about how to write a
solid
news story.  If she again heard him say, “Who, what, where, when, how, and why,” she thought she’d puke.  But she started asking herself those questions as she sat to write her articles, and she finally had her first article published
three months ago.  Two months ago, Neal said he couldn’t keep publishing her work…unless he paid her.  So she was now published as a freelance journalist, getting paid by the article, and Neal continued coaching her. 
Since
she’d grown tired of writing articles that wouldn’t get published because they weren’t what Neal was looking for, she’d started running her big ideas past him before spending the time
writing
.  And because she knew Neal hated the phone, she
tried to do
that in person at least twice a week.

In Neal’s office, Nicki
glanced
at the lined light green sheet in her steno pad to report what she’d learned
but looked up before speaking
.  “Well, here’s what I’m thinking might turn out to be a pretty interesting story:  Jason Edwards pleaded not guilty to one count of criminal mischief and
four
counts of arson.  I don’t have all the details yet, but I
want to follow this one.  He’s accused of setting fire to a guy’s house in
Colorado Springs
last week
.”  She looked back at her notes
.  “A guy named Charles Baker.  All I know right now is apparently the Baker guy was sleeping with Edwards’s brother’s ex.”  Neal nodded.  “I want to know how the cops figured it out and why they’re accusing Edwards and not his brother.”  Neal smiled but said nothing.  “What?  What am I missing?”

“The police have an APB out on Edwards’s brother too…a guy by the name of Michael Sterne.”

How did Neal already know this stuff? 
“Sterne?”

“Half brothers.”

“Oh.”  Nicki wrote this new information in her pad.  God, sometimes Neal made her feel so stupid.  But that’s why he was mentoring her, she reminded herself.  She was
learning
.  “So they suspect Sterne was involved too?”

Neal ran his thick hand through his hair.  “Oh, they
know
, I’m sure.”

“So is this worth following?”

“Why not?  More action than we usually see here in
Winchester
…even though it didn’t happen here.”  He smiled.

Nicki’s brown eyes lit up. 
Yes.
  “So do you want me to type up the initial information from court this morning?”

“Yep.  Email it to me when you’re done.”

“Will do.
”  She felt giddy.  This story had to be
the one
.  She stepped into the
reporter
pool and found the cubicle with the computer and phone that was used by all freelancers.  Fortunately, no one was using it right now or else she would have had to use another “official” reporter’s cubicle, and that was never pleasant.  Those reporters and the girl on wants ad—all six of them, including the sports guy—were territorial.
  In fact, Nicki was surprised they didn’t piss all over their cubicles to drive away offenders like herself, just like dogs in the wild.
  There were two extra cubicles but only one that was equipped to handle a reporter, and being able to use it was always a crapshoot.  Sometimes, Nicki would write her story at home and email it in that way, but the computer here was more powerful and faster than her little notebook.

She booted up the computer and settled in.  While the computer warmed up, Nicki texted Sean on her phone: 
Its a go!
  She hated not putting the apostrophe in
,
but texting had made her lazy when it came to punctuation.  It didn’t matter—Sean would know what she meant…if he bothered to read it.

She composed a two-paragraph story, then emailed it to Neal.  It had taken her twenty minutes as she picked at it.  She tried to catch everything Neal would change before dropping it in the paper.  She knew it was his job and he certainly knew better than she, but it was still aggravating having her words changed.

Then she scribbled
a few to dos in her steno pad.  She wanted to talk to a police officer and she thought she might want to talk to Edwards himself.  She could do those things tomorrow and maybe have another article (or two) in the paper this week.

She checked the time and realized she needed to hurry home, grab a bite to eat, and then get in uniform. 
Napoli
awaited her.

Chapter Five

NICKI HAD QUIT
her job answering phones at
Crown
Auto
Plaza
—p
reowned car hell as fa
r as Nicki had been concerned—o
ne month after Neal had taken her under his wing.  If she wanted to attend court hearings, she needed a good chunk of the day to do it.  But writing for the paper alone wouldn’t pay the bills.  She continued waiting tables at
Napoli
Pizzeria and selling makeup to make ends meet.

Nicki hadn’t
minded
working for
Crown Auto
, but she’d slept with one of the mechanics there a few months before and had regretted it since. 
Ken
had been nice enough but definitely not her type (read:  lousy in bed)
,
and
he
became obsessive after
she’d broken it off
.  She didn’t want to hurt his feelings
,
but he didn’t get it when she said she was no longer interested.  He kept asking, no matter how many times she said no.  So being gone from
Crown Auto
helped.  She blocked his number on her cell phone and that was it.  Well, that and he came to her apartment one
Saturday
after she quit, and Sean
had been
hanging out with her.  Ken probably assumed Sean was her new boyfriend and didn’t stay long
enough to find out for sure
.  She could have kissed the
BAMF
on Sean’s knuckles for scaring Ken off.
  Of course, it wouldn’t have taken that much for her to kiss his
fingers
anyway.

Crown Auto
might have been history, but she still worked for
Napoli
five nights a week, Tuesday through Saturday.  The tips from
Napoli
were her most significant source of income.  She also ran her little tail off every night of the week, because even slow nights were busy compared to most places
—
Napoli
was a favorite of locals and tourists alike, and the place rarely had an empty table during the week. 
So she kept in shape without having to work out on a regular basis. 
And since Nicki had been working there for five years, she was the senior waitress (God, she hated that moniker) and could get whatever hours she wanted.  And she met a lot of good-looking guys at her job.  That was always a plus.

So she squeezed into her black and red uniform.  It wasn’t the most attractive, but she did what she could with it.  The top was short sleeved with a stiff collar, and the pockets had red pipin
g.  The back of the shirt said
Napoli
in script
on a
diagonal from the waist to just below the underarm.  It was a button-up shirt, so Nicki usually wore it so that she could show just a little cleavage.  She was only a C cup, but she found that if she kept the shirts snug, her C looked good enough to keep the guy’s gaze off her eyes for part of the time (usually when she was writing something down).
  It didn’t hurt that she wore a necklace whose heart pendant nested perfectly atop the swell of her two breasts.
  Her waist was also small enough that anything larger than C would have looked like too much.  The black jeans that went with the uniform had red piping down the sides, so half the time she felt like she was in a high school marching band.  But
they
were
mostly black, so
they
looked pretty cool
, and they also hugged her ass, another feature she was proud to display
.  She wore black sneakers with the ensemble.  Over the years she found that athletic shoes were the best—they had more cushioning so her feet didn’t ache after an eight-hour shift.

Tuesday nights were the slowest, and she’d only had five tables since she’d arrived. 
It had better pick up soon
, she thoug
ht, because she’d be getting three
more
people
in the next half hour.  But, as always, by the time her help arrived—one waiter, one waitress, and a busboy—the
place was buzzing and ready for them all.

A couple of hours into their steady stream of customers
, three bikers walked in the door. 
Would they want to sit at the bar or could she persuade them to sit in her section?  She’d always gotten great tips from bikers, so she tried to snag them when she could.  Mandy and Brian could barely handle what they had, so she’d be happy to take these guys off their hands.  She walked to where they stood, by the sign that asked them to
Please Wait to be Seated
, and
said
, “Are you hungry or just need a little something to quench your thirst?”  She wore a flirtatious smile and waited for them to answer.