Look Again (2 page)

Chapter Three

The alarm went off at six fifteen, and Ellen got out of bed in the dark, staggered in bare feet onto the cold tiles of the bathroom, and hit the shower, letting the hot water wake her. Even people who counted their blessings never counted them in the morning. For one thing, there wasn't time.

She finished dressing by seven so she could get Will up and dressed before preschool, which started at eight thirty. Connie would arrive at seven thirty to feed and take him, and Ellen would hand Will to her on the fly, like a domestic relay. Mothers ran this race every morning, and they deserved the gold medal in the most important event of all, life.

"Honey?" Ellen switched on the Babar lamp, but Will was sleeping soundly, his mouth partway open. His breathing sounded congested, and when she stroked his forehead, it felt hot to the touch. She told herself not to worry, but once you've had a sick kid, you hold your breath forever.

"Will?" she whispered, but was already wondering if she should send him to preschool. A crust had formed around his nostrils, and his cheek looked pale in the soft light from the lamp. His nose was a ski slope that was the beginner version of hers, and people often mistook him for her biological child, which she liked more than she should. She found herself wondering if Timothy Braverman looked like his mother, too.

She touched Will's arm, and when he didn't move, decided not to send him to school. Perspective was in order, and construction-paper snowflakes could wait another day. She didn't kiss him because she didn't want to wake him and instead patted Oreo Figaro, sleeping at the foot of the bed, curled into a Mallomar. She switched off the lamp, tiptoed from the bedroom, and went back to her room, to use the extra fifteen minutes.

"Don't you look nice!" Connie said with a smile, coming out of the dining room, and Ellen grinned as she tiptoed down the stairs. She had used the time to change into a tan corduroy jacket, nipped at the waist, and brown suede boots worn on top of her jeans. She had even done a better than usual job on her makeup, blown her hair dry, and put her liquid eyeliner back in rotation. She was going to see Marcelo this morning and wasn't sure if she wanted to look hot, employable, or both.

"Will's running a low fever, so I figured he'd stay home today."

"Good decision." Connie nodded. "It's twenty degrees out."

"Yikes." Ellen crossed to the closet and grabbed her black down jacket. "So stay inside, take it easy. Maybe you can read to him?"

"Will do." Connie set down her tote bag and slid out her newspaper, folded in half. "I loved your story today, about the old man who trains pigeons."

"Thanks." Ellen tugged her coat on and fought to get into her sleeves. Maybe the cropped jacket had been a bad idea.

"The other sitters all read your articles, you know. I'm like a celebrity."

"Sell autographs," Ellen said, with a smile. She knew that the sitters were curious about her, the single reporter with the adopted kid. Like that song on Sesame Street, she was the thing not like the others.

"You'll be home regular time?"

"Yes. Thanks for everything." Ellen felt a familiar tug inside her chest. "I hate when I don't get to say good-bye to him. Give him a kiss for me, will you?"

"You know I will." Connie reached for the doorknob.

"Tell him I love him."

"Gotcha." Connie opened the door, and Ellen stepped reluctantly outside. A frigid wind bit her cheek, and the sky was a dull pewter. She wished she could run back inside, send Connie home, and take care of her own child, especially when he was sick. But the front door was already closing behind her, leaving her outside.

She didn't remember about Timothy Braverman until she got into work.

Chapter Four

Ellen entered the building with a lunch-truck coffee and flashed her laminated ID at the security guard. She wanted to hit the ground running on that follow-up story, but her thoughts kept returning to Timothy Braverman. She made her way through the dim hallways of the old building and finally popped out into the newsroom, an immense, bright rectangle that ran the length of a city block, its ceiling three stories high.

Sunlight filtered in from tall windows covered with old-fashioned blinds, and blue banners that read CITY, NATIONAL, BUSINESS, NEWS DESK, ONLINE, and COPY DESK hung over the various sections. She started down the aisle to her desk, but everyone was collecting in front of the glass-walled editorial offices that ringed the newsroom, gathering around Marcelo.

This can't be good.

She caught the eye of her friend Courtney Stedt, who detoured to meet her midway up the aisle. Courtney was her usual outdoorsy self in a forest green fleece with jeans, but her expression looked uncharacteristically grim. The office earth mother, Courtney was the one who got sheet cakes for everybody's birthdays. If she was worried, something was wrong.

"Please tell me this is a surprise party," Ellen said, and they fell into step.

"I can't. I have a journalist's respect for the truth."

They reached the back of the crowd, and staffers filled the aisles between the desks and borrowed each other's chairs. The crowd was collectively restless, with low talk and nervous laughter. Ellen leaned back against one of the desks next to Courtney, and thoughts of Timothy Braverman flew from her head. Unemployment had a way of focusing the brain, because of its direct connection to the mortgage lobe.

Marcelo motioned for order, and everyone quieted, a sea of heads turning to him. He was tall enough to be seen over everyone, with a lean frame, and his thick, dark hair curled unprofessionally over his collar, in a raggedy line. Strain showed in his dark brown eyes, and a fork creased his forehead. His eyebrows sloped down unhappily, and his pursed lips spoke volumes.

"First, good morning, friends," Marcelo said, his voice deep and soft, with a pronounced Portuguese inflection. "I'm sorry to surprise you first thing, but I have bad news. I'm sorry, but we have another round of layoffs to make."

Somebody cursed under his breath, and the crowd stiffened. Ellen and Courtney exchanged glances, but neither said anything. They didn't have to, which was the friends part.

"I have to make two cuts today and one more by the end of the month."

"Two, today?" someone repeated, echoing Ellen's thoughts. Her chest tightened. She needed this job. Someone else called out, "No chance of a buyout?"

"Not this time, sorry." Marcelo began rolling up his sleeves in a black shirt, European-cut, which he wore without a tie. "You know the reasons for the cuts. No newspaper has the readers it used to. We're doing everything we can here, with blogs and podcasts, and I know you guys are working very hard. None of this is your fault, or management's fault. We can't dance any faster than we are."

"True, that," someone murmured.

"So we have to deal with the reality of more cuts, and it's terrible, because I know you have families. You'll have to find another job. Relocate. Take kids out of schools, spouses from jobs. I know all that." Marcelo paused, his somber gaze moving from one stricken face to the next. "You know, when my mother used to spank me, she would always say, "This hurts me more than it does you." But, sabia que nao era verdade. Translated? I knew it was bullshit."

The staff laughed, and so did Ellen. She loved it when Marcelo spoke Portuguese. If he could fire her in Portuguese, she would be happy.

"So I'm not going to tell you it hurts me more than it hurts you. But I will tell you that I know how you feel, and I do." Marcelo's smile reappeared. "You all know, I've been laid off by some of the best papers in the world. Even by the Folha de Sao Paulo, my hometown paper."

"Way to go, boss," a page designer called out, and there was more laughter.

"But still I survived. I'll survive even if this paper lets me go, and I'll never quit the newspaper business, because I love it. I love this business. I love the feel of the paper." Marcelo rubbed his fingerpads together, with a defiant grin. "I love the smell of a good lead. I love finding out something nobody else knows and telling them. That's what we do, every day, on every page, and I know you love it, too."

"Hear, hear!" somebody called out, and even Ellen took heart. She loved the business, too. She'd grown up with the newspaper on the kitchen table, folded into fourths for the crossword, next to her mother's coffee cup, and she still got a charge when she saw her own byline. She had never felt so right for any job in her life, except motherhood, where the pay was even worse.

"But this business doesn't love us back, all the time, and especially not lately." Marcelo shook his glistening head. "After all we do for her, after how much we love her, she's a faithless lover." He flashed a killer smile. "She goes home with other men. She's always looking around. She strays from us."

Everybody laughed, more relaxed now, including Ellen, who almost forgot she could lose her job.

"But we love her still, so we'll stay with her, as long as she'll have us. There will always be a place for the newspaper, and those of us, the crazy-in-love ones, we will put up with her."

"Speak for yourself!" cracked one of the business reporters, and everybody laughed, relaxing as Marcelo's expression changed, his forehead creasing again, so that he looked older than his forty-odd years.

"So I will make the hard decisions, and I have to cut two of you today, and another one at the end of the month. To those of you I have to let go, please know I won't hand you off to human resources and forget about you."

Somebody in front nodded, because they all had heard that he had helped place one of their laid-off business reporters at the Seattle Times.

"I think you're all terrific journalists, and I'll do everything in my power to help you find another job. I have friends all over, and you have my word."

"Thank you," a reporter said, and then another, and there was even a smattering of applause, led by Courtney. Ellen found herself clapping, too, because Marcelo reached her at a level she couldn't explain merely by good looks, though it helped. Maybe it was his openness, his honesty, his emotionality. No other editor would have talked about loving the business or taken the reporters' side. Marcelo's eyes swept the crowd, meeting hers for a brief moment, and Ellen got so flustered she barely felt the nudge in her side.

"Down, girl," Courtney whispered, with a sly smile.

Chapter Five

A ladies' room is a girl headquarters, so it was only natural that Ellen, Courtney, and another reporter, Sarah Liu, would end up talking about the layoffs by the sinks. A photographer had been let go after the meeting, so they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Courtney and Sarah were in News, but Ellen was in Features, traditionally the most dispensable of reporters. She washed her hands, and the water felt hot, though it could have been her imagination.

"Marcelo won't fire anybody in Sports," Sarah said, and anxiety speeded up even her normally fast speech. She was slim and petite, with pretty eyes and a small, lipsticked mouth that never stopped moving. "I think it's going to be a reporter, either News or Features."

"One more to go today," Courtney said, and her Boston accent made it, One ma ta go taday. "I think it'll be News."

"No, it can't be. They need us." Sarah raked a hand through her glossy black hair, layered around her ears. Diamond studs twinkled from her earlobes, and she looked typically chic, in a tailored white shirt with black slacks and a skinny, ribbed black sweater. "They can't get it all off AP."

"That's why God invented Reuters." Courtney chuckled, without mirth.

Ellen reached for a paper towel and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her lips flattened to a grim line, and she'd swear she had more crow's-feet than when she got up. Her extra makeup emphasized the hazel green of her eyes, but she felt like she'd dolled up for her own firing.

"You're just wrong, Courtney," Sarah was saying, and it reminded Ellen of why she'd always disliked her. Aggressiveness was an occupational hazard in journalism, and Sarah never knew when to turn it off. She said, "They need news reporters, with Iraq and the new administration."

"Why? It's not like we have somebody in the White House pressroom." Courtney shook her head. "And it's our turn, because they already cut in Features. Remember Suzanne?"

"She deserved it," Sarah said, and Ellen tossed away a paper towel, her stomach a clenched fist.

"Suzanne didn't deserve it. None of us deserves it."

"If it's News, it won't be me, it can't be." Sarah folded her arms. "I'm too well sourced in City Hall, and they know it."

"It'll be me," Courtney said, and Ellen turned to her, hating the sound of it.

"No, Court, they can't let you go."

"Yes, they can, and they will. Bet me." Courtney's gaze, devoid of eye makeup, looked resigned. "Look, it is what it is. My uncle used to set hot type with Linotype machines, and he and his friends lost their jobs when computers came in, in the seventies. The cuts that everybody went through in production have come to editorial, that's all." She shrugged. "I need a vacation, anyway."

"It won't be you." Ellen managed a smile, but she knew the truth. "It'll be me, and we all know it. Marcelo thinks Features is kitten-up-a-tree, so I'm outta here. At least I'll get canned by somebody hot."

"There's the upside." Courtney smiled. "I heard he made Philadelphia magazine's list of the most eligible bachelors."

Ellen rolled her eyes. "I can't believe they do those stupid lists."

"I can't believe they use the word "bachelor.""

Courtney and Ellen laughed, but Sarah was deep in thought, then she looked up.

"It's gonna be you, Courtney."

"Sarah!" Ellen frowned. "Don't sugarcoat it or anything."

"She said it herself," Sarah shot back.

"That's not the point." Ellen turned away, ashamed of her next thought.

Courtney's husband owned three summer camps in Maine, and Sarah's was a thoracic surgeon. She was the only one who didn't have a husband, like a salaried safety net.

"El, you look kinda sick." Courtney eyed her. "You gonna barf?"

"No, Boston, I'm not gonna barf." Ellen shook her head. She was going to lose her job today, and that damn white card gnawed at the edge of her thoughts. "Look, let's calm down, okay? We'll know any minute which one of us is getting let go. It doesn't help to obsess."

Sarah turned to her. "Oh, get real. You know Marcelo will never let you go. He's hot for you."

"He is not." Ellen felt her face flush.

"He looks at you from his office, like you're the one behind glass, like a fish in a bowl." Sarah's eyes flickered. "Like a little blond fishie."

"That's ridiculous," Ellen said, but Courtney placed a hand on her shoulder.

"El, here are my famous last words. You're single, he's single, and life is short. I say, go for it."

Suddenly there was a knock at the bathroom door.

And the three women looked over.