Page 18 of The Business Trip

“He’s hot, even though he’s kind of old,” I added, and Steph laughed and replied, “I agree that he’s good-looking—and he’s closer to my age.”

It became a running joke between us. If I told her I had a date, she would say, “Are his initials M.R. by chance?” and if she was going on a trip, I would sometimes quip, “Tell Mark R. we said hello.”

So when Steph didn’t show up to work and our dayside executive producer, Nora, pulled me aside as I was getting my afternoon cup of pick-me-up and told me about the texts Steph had sent Bruce, I immediately thought that I might try to get Steph back to herself through humor. When I returned to my desk, I picked up my phone and texted her.

I hear you’re out this week. Should I reschedule that meeting with Mark R.? He’ll be very disappointed but I’m sure he’ll get over it

It took over an hour as I distractedly worked on some web stories for our site, but finally my phone pinged.

Yes, please reschedule with Mark R.

I knitted my brows together. So formal? I tried again.

Mark R. says to call him as soon as you can, he misses you

Silence. I followed that up with another.

Are you dissing Mark R.? You know he’ll turn into the Hulk

I thought the reference to one of Ruffalo’s famous movie characters might make her smile.

It wasn’t until that night when I was home doing yoga with a YouTube video in the living room that my phone pinged. Hitting stop on the video, I came out of a cross-legged twist pose to see her name and a text.

I am very busy this week, I asked you to reschedule the meeting. I should be back next week

I’m sure the shock I felt would have been obvious in my slack-jawed face, if there were anyone around to see it.

I didn’t know how to react or what to say, so I didn’t reply at all. But as I hit play on the yoga video again and moved into downward dog, something started gnawing at my gut. This situation felt off. I vowed to pull Bruce aside the next day and ask him what he thought.

CHAPTER 16Bruce

The Tuesday After the Flight

There had been no further word from Stephanie since the texts yesterday saying she was out for the week. I was resigned to running the newsroom.

A part of me enjoyed being the full boss when Steph was gone. It gave me practice in case I wanted to be a full-time news director. But another part of me felt the weight of responsibility. I was the final gatekeeper on anything that went on our air. There was no one else above me to lean on. General managers usually came up through the sales side and didn’t have newsroom editorial experience, so they stayed out of day-to-day decisions.

At the manager meeting, we did the usual whip-around to each person to hear what was happening in their departments—staffing for the day, story ideas, what was trending on digital, what special projects we were working on. I felt a lot more in my groove today. I was prepared to run the meeting, unlike yesterday.You got this, I told myself. My McDonald’s coffee was next to me. The daily cup of joe was like an old friend; it comforted me.

We wrapped the meeting and had about ten minutes before the nine a.m. one with the whole newsroom. I stayed in the conference room to check some of the relentless emails that were always rolling in. I noticed Lucy, the digital manager, seemed to be taking a long time to pack up while everyone else walked out. When they all departed, she softly closed the door and turned to me, a worried look on her face.

“Bruce, can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure.” It came back to me that she had been texting with Steph. Did she have news? And how would I tell her to not talk about this with Dave or anyone else? I really couldn’t get into trouble with Dave. Not now, not when the spotlight was possibly on me for the news director seat. I gulped a bit, thinking that I had violated what he had asked of me.

“It’s about Steph,” Lucy began. She sat down and started jiggling her leg up and down.

“Yes?” I knew Steph and Lucy were pretty close, and had seen them laughing together over stuff that I was pretty sure was entirely female-centric, so I had stayed out of it.

“You know about the running joke I have with Steph regarding Mark Ruffalo, right?”

I didn’t, but nodded anyway.

“Well, yesterday Nora told me that Steph was acting loony tunes, so I texted Steph about Ruffalo in a joking way. You know, said she had a meeting with him and should I push it back, that kind of thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So she texted me back,” Lucy continued, “as if ‘Mark R.’ was a real person in our newsroom. She told me to reschedule the meeting and then started kind of blowing me off. I don’t know, Bruce, it felt super odd. Like creepyDatelineodd.”

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