The List (44 page)

“I didn’t tell anyone at the paper,” I protested. “I was afraid it would get out.”

“Listen, Adrienne. I don’t want to stomp all over your accomplishment. It’s just . . .
you’ve been here long enough. You know what’s wrong with this place, but now you’re
just happily feeding the fire. More than that, you
are
the fire. You just gave the
List
the biggest story in its history.”

Seeing my hurt face, Julia backtracked a little.

“Look, I’m in awe of what you did. It’s a huge deal. Everyone was saying Stanton would
run for president the next cycle. He could have been elected even. And now look at
his career. It’s amazing what you did, and don’t think I’m not proud of you. I’m just
surprised you didn’t do it for someone else. We always talk about how much we hate
this place, how they treat us like ditzes. The other reporters act like we got naked
and screwed the big boss to get in here and don’t belong. That’s why we’re shoved
all the way back here.” We both looked at the wide hallway separating us from the
rest of the newsroom.

“Even Upton admitted to not reading our section,” she continued. “And you once said
yourself that in all the months you’ve
been here, Justin Cushing never even said hello to you. That’s not normal behavior.
Other publications wouldn’t tolerate it, but here they do. So what do you do when
you have the biggest story of the year sitting in your lap? You deliver it directly
to Upton. And at his house of all places. You could have used it to land a huge
New York Times
job. I mean, don’t you detest this place?”

I hadn’t even thought about selling the story to another paper. I would have had to
quit the
List
and then I guess I could have dangled the story as bait and parlayed it into a spot
at the
Times,
but it had never crossed my mind.

“You hate it, don’t you?” asked Julia again.

Did I hate the publication that had just helped slingshot my career higher than I
could have alone? I didn’t. I recognized that there were some deep flaws in the system,
but everyone who worked there knew that. We didn’t have shackles on our feet. We had
great bylines and great titles and could leave if we wanted to, for, as Julia said,
a huge job at the
New York Times
or somewhere else. But we didn’t. We stayed. Because, as Elsa had said so many months
ago, the
Capitolist
was the place to be right now. I knew that, and Julia, as irate as she was, knew
that, too.

When my article broke, I saw what the
List
could give me, instead of me just feeding the beast with nothing in return. I had
been on every major television network, interviewed by dozens of other papers, and
talked about like I was some sort of seasoned veteran. And it’s what I had wanted,
but I wasn’t going to admit that to Julia.

“Listen. I think I’ve gotten fifteen hours of sleep this week. I’m not in great shape,
and honestly, I really need my friends. I need you,” I said, hoping that my voice
wouldn’t crack.

“You’ve barely spoken to us these past couple of days,” said Julia. “Look, it just
won’t be the same anymore. You’re going to leave the Style section and join what they
deem to be a far more
important team. And let’s be honest, we’re the only ones who have ever been nice to
you, until now.”

That was true. The “until now” part was also accurate.

When Isabelle came back to her desk, she slapped me on the back with just a little
too much strength and said, “Good story. Amazing stuff. Who knew a Style girl had
it in her.”

Before I could answer she was talking to Alison about going on a wine-tasting limo
ride the first Saturday in August. Soon they all had their heads down again, pounding
out short piece after short piece that Upton wouldn’t read.

After an hour searching Twitter and three calls to Congress, Libby stood up and rolled
her head in a circle. “Argh, that should hold Hardy for about ten minutes.”

She looked at my exhausted, pathetic face and smiled.

“You look tired,” she said, throwing a Diet Red Bull in my general direction. I opened
the can and drank the whole thing down.

Isabelle watched me. “Remember when I said it was possible to have lunch with Upton
and not cry?”

I nodded.

“Well,” she said, turning back to look at her computer, “I was right. Not only can
you have lunch with him without shedding a tear, you can also sleep over at his house.”

Julia laughed before shaking her head apologetically. “It’s just too weird.”

“It’s a bit traitorous, really,” Libby chimed in. “It’s almost like you’ve run off
to work for Al Qaeda or something.”

Al Qaeda! She was equating me breaking news for our place of employment to committing
war crimes against my own country?

“I’m kidding, Adrienne,” she said, walking over and touching my ghost-white cheek.
“Lighten up.” She sat on my desk and flicked through my notepad full of scribble and
Arizona
addresses. “I think we’re all just surprised. You not only just kissed
List
editor ass and became one of the chosen ones, you also turned on a colleague. She’s
horrible—trust me, there’s no love lost—but she still works here.”

“Worked here,” Julia corrected Libby, not bothering to look in my direction.

“Libby, she’s a colleague but not like you are,” I said, swallowing back tears. “She
murdered Isabelle’s TV career, she did everything in her power to keep Mike from moving
up on the White House beat, she told the higher-ups that Julia was a moron within
only weeks of starting—she’s terrible. I only did exactly what she would have done.”

“Yeah,” said Alison from her desk. “But since when do you want to be like Olivia Campo?”

I excused myself, walked to the quiet area by the bank of elevators where I had wiped
Isabelle’s tears so many months ago, and cried alone. No one came after me.

Later that day I watched Isabelle, Libby, and Alison stand up to walk to Starbucks
together, and they didn’t pause at my desk. After a few more minutes, Julia got up
to join them. I just sat and stared at my empty section, trying to cover the page
alone. At 3
P.M.
, I sent Upton and Hardy an email saying I was working from home for the rest of the
day, and, surprisingly, Upton wrote me back and told me to take the rest of the day
off to prep for a few evening TV appearances. It was the first time I had ever left
the newsroom to go home during daylight hours.

I called Payton as I was driving to Middleburg. I hadn’t slept in my own bed since
the Friday before we flew to Arizona. She listened as I told her about the Style girls
snubbing me. “Isabelle and all my friends rejected me for feeding the beast, and Upton
called me ruthless,” I said.

“Ruthless, no. I wouldn’t call you ruthless. But I would call
you smart. And hungry. More determined than I ever thought you could be.” She took
my silence as a cue to keep talking. “As for the Style girls, maybe they’ve just been
there for too long. They’ve seen too much and have lost perspective. If you had been
there for three years rather than nine months, you might have handled things differently.
Maybe you would have quit your job and taken the story elsewhere.”

No, I didn’t think so. I understood the
Capitolist
for what it was. But to Payton, I just said “maybe.”

“I’m proud of you,” she repeated. “There were times when I didn’t think you had the
balls to go through with publishing the story and the attention it would bring you.
But look at you. You just decapitated two people’s careers. Not bad for the little
sister.”

I hung up the phone and drove toward the old gas station where James had surprised
me and past Baker’s store, where I had first spotted Olivia. That all seemed so long
ago. I thought of myself huddled in my car looking curiously at her as she leaned
back on her expensive BMW in her red down coat. I knew nothing about Olivia then.
I didn’t even know she was married. And now I had been in her home, had seen the house
she grew up in, had kissed her husband. What if I hadn’t been restless that night?
Would I ever have put the pieces of her affair with Stanton together? Call it luck,
or fate, I was glad it had happened. And I was happy that after nine months of putting
in my dues at the
Capitolist,
I was no longer the nervous girl afraid to get branded envelopes from the supply
closet. Isabelle was right. I could have lunch with Upton without shedding a tear.
I could also sit in his glass office and listen to him laud my abilities without feeling
unworthy.

I drove slowly up to the gate, letting the sensors take a moment to register my car.
It was the first time I had ever arrived
home from the
List
during daylight hours. It was almost August now and everything moved slower. I loved
the long summer days in Virginia, the way people lived outdoors and just relaxed,
even me.

Three horses were grazing in the field behind the barn when I pulled up next to it.
I got out of the car and walked over to the fence to call Jasper over. More interested
in eating than in greeting me, he ignored my whistles and I gave up and turned the
corner to climb up the barn stairs to my little refuge. My heels sunk into the worn
wood and I pushed my weight against the unlocked door and smiled at the rows of family
pictures on the wall and an old blanket in a pile on the floor. After being stuck
in the city for a week sleeping on a couch, I was very happy to be home. I kicked
off my shoes, changed into shorts and flip-flops, and collapsed on the sofa. I closed
my eyes. The world was quiet and still, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I must have fallen asleep for a few minutes because when my BlackBerry rang, I was
jolted awake, my neck cracking loudly as I straightened my head. I missed the call
but it started ringing again, right away. I looked down at the blocked number on the
caller ID. Not many people called my work phone from blocked numbers except the White
House. Suddenly reality came sprinting back. I still had a job. I couldn’t just spend
my days napping now that I broke the Stanton story. I had to keep going, keep breaking
news, writing bigger articles, and proving myself to be ruthless, just like Upton
said. I picked up the phone and tried to sound like I hadn’t just woken up.

“Adrienne,” said a voice I instantly recognized. “I need to see you.”

S
andro. I was listening to him breathe. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to ask
him a million questions, bury my face in his arms. But I could barely respond.

“Let’s meet at the Goodstone Inn,” he said after I managed a weak hello. “I’d like
to see it. I’ve never been and clearly, I’ve been missing out.”

“You’re calling me because you want to see the hotel . . . ” I repeated softly.

“And because I want to talk. There’s a lot I have to say to you.”

A lot to say? He was going to leave her. I knew it. But the Goodstone? Could I really
meet Sandro there? What was he going to do, walk around the Bull Barn screaming with
rage while I twiddled my thumbs hoping for him to ravage me? The Goodstone was a bad
idea. We needed to meet somewhere more neutral, like on my bed.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Sandro,” I said hesitantly. “There’s just a lot
of weird energy there—I don’t think that’s the best place for us to talk. But if you
want to see Middleburg, you could come here. To my house.”

“Fine,” he said in a monotone voice. “I’ll see you in an hour. Text me your address.”

The phone went dead. An hour. He was going to be in my house—well, barn—in one hour.
How was I going to take myself from looking like a bedraggled lunatic to a silver
screen starlet in one hour? I texted him my address, casually mentioned that I happened
to live on the second floor of the barn, not the really nice house next to it, ripped
off my clothes, ran to my dresser, and grabbed my super-boosting water bra and a teeny
pair of underwear that screamed “I’m here for the taking.” A quick shower, a cup of
dry shampoo, a heavy spray of Insta-Tan, a mélange of three kinds of lip gloss, a
set of twenty sit-ups, and a bath of organic perfume later and I looked nearly human.
I wasn’t going to stop traffic but at least I wasn’t a lying adulteress like his wife.

I paced across my bedroom, nervously flicking a pen between my fingers. I had so much
to say to him, so many unanswered questions. My mind was racing with apologies and
declarations and confusion. I still felt something for Sandro. A lot of something.
But as I walked through the room perfumed and covered in fake tanning spray, I admitted
to myself that it wasn’t the same feeling I’d had before I left for Arizona and wrote
the article. Sandro had been such a part of breaking Olivia’s story that he now felt
less like a part of mine.

I walked to my dresser and strapped on the gold Cartier watch I got for college graduation
and looked at the mother of pearl dial. I only had eight minutes until Sandro was
scheduled to pull up and I was still pacing in my underwear. Flinging open my closet,
I reached for the yellow dress I wore the day I met Victoria Zajac. It had brought
me luck then, made me calm and confident when I needed it the most. I prayed the magical
sundress would bring it all home again now.

I was ready—insanely nervous, but clothed. Should I go to the window and watch him
drive in? Or was that too voyeuristic?
Maybe he would see me and change his mind. No, I would do this properly. I would just
let him walk up the stairs to my apartment, pray he wasn’t allergic to horses, and
open the door.

A quiet little voice in my head was whispering that the whole scenario could go in
the opposite direction and that Sandro could walk in with guns blazing and curse the
day that I was born, but I chose not to listen to that little voice.

Sandro was five minutes late. Then seven. He wasn’t going to come. He’d had a change
of heart. I would have to subscribe to
Spinster
magazine and learn how to kill bugs on my own. As I was about to cry off my three
coats of mascara, I saw my parents’ gate slowly open and a black SUV drive through.
It pulled up next to my father’s truck and I ran away from the window and stood exactly
five paces from the door.