Page 15 of Common Grounds

I clear my throat, forcing myself to come fully back to the conversation. “Well, sir, the corgi story is live and doing decently well—”

“We need better than ‘decently well,’” he interrupts.

I take a deep breath to gather myself, and a beat to remind myself not to jump across the conference table and strangle him. “Right. Okay. There’s a beauty pageant taking place at a local nursing home—”

“Millennials don’t want to read about old people. Next.”

“I could cover the kitten adoption at Pawesome Pets—”

“Did that two months ago. Next.”

“Maybe the local honeybee farm—”

Randall whacks the table again, and I jump. Ethan, the five other reporters, and the three editors in the room all wince with sympathy in my direction.

“We need something better. Something more cutting-edge. Something with some teeth,” Randall insists.

“Those kittens sure had teeth,” Ethan mutters, rubbing his forearm at the memory of being bitten by one when we were there covering the adoption event at the start of the summer.

I sigh. “With all due respect, sir,” I start carefully, then eye everyone sitting around the room with their shoulders slumped, trying to make themselves smaller to avoid his scrutiny.

Each meeting this summer has been progressively worse, with more and more insinuated anger and violence. As far as I’m concerned, the table-smacking condescension has gone on long enough. Someone should say it, and I’m just about miserable enough in this job to be the one to do it. I clear my throat and start again, louder this time. “With all due respect, asking for a fluffy story to also be cutting-edge is a bit of a paradox, don’t you think?”

Randall goes completely still. “How so?” he asks deliberately.

Ethan raises his eyebrows at me in a look that clearly says, Now you’ve done it.

But it’s too late. I’ve started, and I intend to finish. “What you’re asking for doesn’t exist. You want a story with some teeth. You want it to be new and exciting. Stories about puppies and animal adoption and happiness in a nursing home are not going to be any of those things. If you want something with some teeth, you have to go for the grittier stories.”

Randall regards me for a moment.

Then another moment.

And another.

The silence stretches on so long, it starts to press in on me, but I refuse to slump my shoulders and make myself smaller like everyone else in here. I’m right, and we all know it.

Well, everyone except Randall.

He steeples his short, blunt fingers in front of his thin lips. “And I suppose you have an idea for one of these grittier stores?” His voice is scary quiet.

I try not to gulp. Now is not the time to show weakness. “I do, actually. The local school district is facing allegations of misusing school funds. This is something the community would care a great deal about, considering it’s their tax dollars at play. And with layoffs at the local news outlets that used to cover this sort of thing, we could make a name for ourselves by adding these types of stories to the site.”

Randall presses the tips of his fingers into his lips and stares at me, unblinking. Everyone else around the conference table avoids my eye contact like they’re afraid to be associated with me. I fight to keep my gaze on Randall. He’s the type of man who does not like to be questioned, but he appreciates when someone is unwilling to yield. So, I try not to yield.

Finally, he narrows his eyes into slits and takes a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what, Darlis,” he says as if he just devised the best, most evil plan to take over the world. I fight against a shudder as I wait for him to continue. “You bring me a pitch for a—how did you put it? A fluffy story. One that will bring in the readers. Then, you write it. One million clicks. You get that, and the school funds story is yours.”

Holy shit. He’s giving me a chance. A slim chance, but a chance, nonetheless. I straighten even further in my chair and try hard not to smile.

“But,” Randall continues, and any triumphant grin I was trying to hide is forgotten. “If you don’t get me my million clicks, you’re on letter-to-the-editor duty for two months.”

Ethan gasps, and I take a gamble with a look at him. His dark skin is ashen, and his brown eyes are wide. It’s well-known that formatting and responding to letters to the editor is where journalists’ careers go to die in this place. My gaze flicks to Josie—the current resident of the letters-to-the-editor black hole—across the table. She’s looking straight at me, her expression a mix of sympathy and relief.

One million clicks? Is that even possible for a tiny, local web magazine? Surely, if there’s anything this Millennial knows about the internet, it’s that anything can go viral if it has the right combination of emotional pull and public interest. Can I make something like this go viral?

But then, I wonder, does it even matter? Responding to letters to the editor or writing this garbage—what’s the difference? My career is dead already, anyway. At least if I take this shot, there’s a possibility of digging myself out of this hole.

I nod once, resolute. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

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