Page 33 of Personal Disaster

Chapter Eleven

Poppy

“This pieceon the National Parks rate increases is excellent,” the editor at The Washington Record says into my ear. I’m standing outside the Department of the Interior’s giant concrete building in D.C., waiting to finish up this call so I can get in line at the hot dog stand.

“Thank you. I just got another quote from a local staffer at Interior, so that’s three separate sources.”

“Can we say senior staff confirm?”

“Mmm.” I chew on my thumb. “Not really. Administrative level, lots of eyes on papers, if that helps.”

“High-level access?”

“Yes, that works.”

“Put that quote in and fire the final version over to me. We’ll run it tomorrow. If it clicks, you can do another two in the same series. I want more the unintended consequences angle, that’s unique.” I do a fist pump in the air. “Plus people love park rangers.”

I roll my eyes, but he’s not wrong. The higher-concept a story, the more eyeballs we get on it. That’s just how the world works. Plus…more stories… Screw it, I’m going to ask for what I really want. “I might need to conduct more research. Get back out there on the ground.”

“Angling for another trip to Colorado?”

“Just a flight. Split the difference.” I’ll have a place to stay, I’m quite certain ofit.

“Sounds good. Get on the next flight. After you file your story, of course.”

My heart slams into my rib cage. “Of course.”

He gives me a top three list of story ideas he could maybe get closer to the front of the paper, then I end the call and go and get myself a well-deserved hotdog.

I eat it on the way to a coffee shop, where I finish the article and fire it off. Then I dig into my emails. As part of my commitment to listening more than writing, I’m putting daily questions out there on Twitter. Asking people to DM or email me their stories, and I share them on their behalf, protecting their identities. Less reporting through a filter, more like a…narrative conduit.

Or something. I don’t want to make it a bigger deal than it is. But it feels good. Today’s question struck a nerve. I shared my own reality of having to work two and a half jobs, and asked people to share their own stories of struggling to make endsmeet.

The answers are raw. College lecturers who need to use food stamps. A single mother who takes her son with her to nanny other children overnight because it’s the most hours she can get. But through most of the answers, there’s an unexpected thread—one of pride, like, this is insanity but they do it anyway and survive. Today feels like I’m finally figuring out what questions to ask. That they don’t always fit with how I understand the world to be is disconcerting, though.

I grab ten more answers and schedule them to tweet out over the next hour, then I hop over to Expedia and search for flights to Denver. Another hit to the credit card, but I find a sale, and pray for the expense form to be approved sooner than later.

The cheapest flight is the last one that night. I call Marcus, but his phone goes straight to voice mail, so I throw stuff in a bag and decide to surprise him instead.

On the flight, I get an idea for a question of the day—how far people have traveled from where they live, and where they were born. It needs some polish, though. I don’t want to weight it with my own bias. I’m still chewing on that when Iland.

Marcus is still out of cell range, so I grab a free shuttle to the cheapest hotel around the airport.

I ask the driver about the furthest he’s traveled from where he lives. He says probably Florida, for a family trip to Orlando. I ask him if I can tweet his answer, and he laughs. “Sure, lady. Whatever floats yourboat.”

Maybe that’s not the best question of theday.

Dig deeper, I remind myself. It’s easy to write the simple stories. But they don’t grab readers by the guts and shake them hard. That’s what I want todo.

Easier said than done, like almost everything worth doing.

I check in and fire Marcus a text to callme.

He does ten minutes later, and it’s ridiculous how happy I am to see his name on my screen. “Hi,” I say, pressing a hand to my belly to make the butterflies stop rioting. “Do you have any plans for breakfast in the morning?”

“Uh…” He clears his throat. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“You were?” I slowly push off the worn floral duvet on the double bed, the butterflies all flopping hard. “Where areyou?”

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