Page 35 of Power Play

“I know how to spell,” I mutter, wishing I could slam my office door in his face. With my luck, the damn thing would probably fall off the frame. “I took up Hooked on Phonics at least fifteen years ago.”

He doesn’t laugh at my feeble attempt at humor. “You spent two-thousand words praising him in that article, Charlie. Two-thousand.” Pointing at the discarded papers on my desk, he adds, “That’s two-thousand words too much for a player whose good days on the ice are solidly behind him.”

I don’t like where this is going. Softly, I ask, “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying thatThe Cambridge Tribuneneeds ratings, Denton. We need to spark a fire, cause a stir. We’re being left in the goddamn dust right now and I can’t let that happen.”

Yeah, Ireallydon’t like where this is going. Not to mention the fact thatThe Tribunehas always been in the dust. This isn’t anything new. There are no phoenixes waiting for a cyclical rebirth from the ashes at this company.

Fisting my hands against my thighs, I mutter, “You want me to turn this article into a tabloid spread.”

Josh jerks his head in a barely-there nod. “I want you to turn that article into something that’s gonna catch fire and putThe Tribuneon the map.”

Whatever I feel for Duke has no play in this. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like paparazzi fodder. Sure, I may have felt slightly different about the situation a week ago, but even then I hadn’t planned to trash the guy in the news. My intention hadn’t been to slam him, but to shed light on a player’s long-term career in the NHL. There’s always a downturn, it’s just a matter of when.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I clasp my hands together tightly in my lap. “I’m not comfortable with that, Josh. He’s not a bad guy—”

The coffee mug slams down on my desk, liquid splashing over the rim as Josh literally explodes. “It’s not about what you’recomfortablewith, Denton. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. We are five months away from shutting our doors.”

Five months away from not having a job. A million and one thoughts filter through my head, all of them related to my meager savings account. “Maybe we can find a way to increase subscription volume,” I throw out, opting for the positive approach. “Kick off a social media campaign. Get on Instagram.”

“It’s way too late for Instagram.” Josh is pacing now, his feet thudding heavily across the carpet as he sharply cuts around and renews his path to the door and back. “We need something big. You need to make this article something big. It needs to be something that’ll be picked up byTheHuffingtonPost, maybePeople. Hell, ifTheDaily Mailsinks its claws into it, we’ll be golden.”

All from one article about a man who has never made headlines for anything other than his stick play? Sure, there’s been the rare which-supermodel-is-he-dating-now crap, but the media has always been more focused on his stats.

Not on his personal life.

I feel a little nauseous at the thought of being the vehicle that tears everything down for him.

“Josh, I can’t do this.”

My boss stops mid-stride. He’s got that edgy flare to him again, the one that emerges moments before he cuts loose and flies off the handle. “I’m pushing up your deadline from this Friday.”

“You have my piece,” I tell him, pointing at my desk. “Four days early, even.”

“It needs to be rewritten. I’m telling you, Denton, this shit has got to be good.”

I’m not sure he even knows what he’s asking of me at this point. “What if I don’t?” I burst out. “What if I won’t rewrite it, and you’re stuck with these two-thousand words?”

“You’re fired.”

He says the words so succinctly that my mouth drops open. All I can do is blink back at him.Fired?“I thought my punishment for failure to deliver the copy was demotion.”

“I’ve changed the rules,” he says, sounding a whole lot like Duke from the other night. Josh’s short, squat body swaggers over to my desk and grabs for the article. I’m almost not surprised when he proceeds to tear the paper into shreds, letting the pieces fall into the garbage can.

Shrrripp.

There goes page number one.

Shrrrrripppp.

Page two.

By the time he’s working on page three, anger seeps out of my ears like those on cartoons I used to watch as a kid.

“New deadline is Wednesday, Denton. If that article isn’t on my desk by three p.m., you can pack your things. You’ll have the weekend to apply to those jobs you like so much at theBoston Globe—if they’ll take you.”

With that, he turns on his heel and stalks from the room. With him, I swear he takes every bit of oxygen. I’m having a hard time regulating my breathing, for one very good reason: I’m so screwed.

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