I want to lose myself in Springsteen's “Badlands,” but instead my thoughts keep going back to Liam and his forty acres in the desert.
He was respectful, polite, and welcoming, yet distant. His eyes were razor-sharp and his voice was smooth like velvet. I pick up my phone and open the Dragon Anywhere dictation app.
I have gotten used to making verbal notes about my research and stories while I sit behind the wheel.
Now I want to jot down some thoughts while we crawl through Pasadena.
“His hair fell softly to his eyes as he spoke. His voice was soothing and relaxing, reminiscent of the voices used in those meditation apps. He put me at ease and I wonder if he does this with others. He mentioned that he has no idea who Matt Lipinski is and yet I believe that it's one of his identities. How many does he have?”
Of course, not all of these facts and observations will be included in the story if it's ever published by Coast.
For now, I’m just jotting them down for myself.
“After what happened with Alex, after walking in on him having sex with his boss and finding out that he has been seeing her longer than he has been seeing me, my world has been upside down. Maybe that's why I became so intoxicated with Liam. I wanted to be with someone who is the opposite of Alex. I needed to take my mind off my heartache and the pain. That's what rebounds are, right?”
I dictate everything that happened at his home. My impressions of walking into the place, seeing him for the first time riding a horse, and my surprise at who he was.
I include whatever details I remember.
The kitchen was open concept and there were no cabinets.
The plates and dishes were all handmade and neatly piled on open shelves.
The floor-to-ceiling window walls gave expansive views of the desert.
The fact that I did not stay there long enough to see the setting sun.
I don't even hesitate to describe what it was like to kiss him. These notes are just for me.
I don't know why I even want to remember. I have never been much of a journal keeper until I started to use the dictation app on my phone to record my thoughts.
It has only been a few months, but somehow it has organized my thinking and made my stories so much more succinct, detailed, and true.
What about the D. B. Carter story?
Corrin, my boss and the woman who hates me more than anything in the world, expects me to have a proposal for her on Monday morning.
D. B. Carter is a reclusive, best-selling author who no one knows anything about and yet I'm supposed to find out something about him in seventy-two hours or at least enough for a proposal for a story.
I found a lot more.
I have a whole story actually.
The only problem is that I can’t write it.
The story is not an exposé on some corporation that's polluting our rivers or oceans. It's not an investigation of a corrupt political figure.
It's a piece about an author who is a hermit and wants his identity protected. I was supposed to find him and get him to agree to the story.
I did the first part, but not the second. Now, I have to figure out if I'm willing to tell her the truth about what happened or just tell her that I wasn't able to find anything at all.
In either case, the story can’t be written if he's not willing to go on the record about anything.
Reporters can't report anything that the source says is off the record. This is the basic rule of journalism.
At least, ethical journalism.
I guess I can write the story of how I found out who he was, but what will be the point of that?
Who is Liam…
Oh, wait, I don't even know his last name.
So much for me being a good reporter, huh?
I guess I could ask Alex, but why would it matter?
The story for Coast Magazine is supposed to be about who D. B. Carter really is. It requires an interview about him telling me about his writing, his publishing process, and anything else about his career that his fans and other readers in the world would be interested in.
Yet as soon as we saw each other and he recognized me as the woman from the engagement party, he told me that whatever we talked about would be off the record.
That's the way that it has to be.
I get home later that night, spent and exhausted. My apartment is a mess with dresses all over the bed and closet. I don't bother cleaning anything up and head straight to the bathroom.
I need to wash everything that happened over the last few days off and get to sleep. After a quick shower where I just let the water run through my hair without actually washing it, I get out and get straight into bed.
When I wake up the following day, it's the afternoon.
Somehow, I had slept over sixteen hours.
I stare at the popcorn ceiling in my studio apartment and listen to the neighbors downstairs fight over their relationship, just like they normally do before they make up and have sex. They have two kids who play out front and like our other neighbor’s cats as much as I do.
My parents hate that I live in this apartment so much that they have never even stepped foot in it. They don't want to know anything about it except when I am planning on moving.
I can't afford to move.
Of course, I could take their money just like my sisters do and relocate to a better neighborhood with better neighbors, but what would be the fun in that?
No, really. I like being independent.
I like living on my own and on my own money.
I know that my parents are millionaires, but that was after years of hard work on my father's part, working so many hours throughout my childhood that I barely saw him at all.
He's an attorney and he probably missed ninety percent of my school events.
I don't mind, at least not anymore.
I understand. I'm a workaholic myself.
Unfortunately, journalism doesn't pay as much as law, especially big corporate law with wealthy clients.
That’s probably why my father still wants me to become an attorney.
But I'm a journalist.
I’d love to work for The Los Angeles Times, but for now I write lifestyle pieces for Coast Magazine.
I've talked to a few reporters for bigger papers and was shocked to find out how little they got paid. So, in that regard, I'm happy that I have the position that I have.
For how long I will have it, I'm not so sure.
I spend the rest of the afternoon at home, cleaning up my apartment and trying to figure out what I'm going to tell my boss tomorrow at the meeting.
Corrin is a few years older than I am and there was a time when we were friendly. Her uncle owns Coast Magazine and she is my direct superior, deciding which stories get printed and which ones get shut down.
We've never really talked about it because she refuses to admit that she treats me any differently from any other employee, but we had a falling out when we all went to a bar one day.
Corrin chatted up Alex first, but when she went to the bathroom, he bought me a drink.
After that, Alex and I spent the whole evening together and became inseparable.
That's when Corrin started to hate me.
This whole thing is so petty and stupid. It fulfills the worst of female stereotypes like the fact that two women can't work together if they are separated by jealousy over a man.
Well, she can have him.
I didn't mean to take him from her, he was never really taken, but I guess she had dibs.
Now I wish that I never even talked to him.
My life would be so much simpler.
3
Emma
The following morning, I dress in one of my favorite work outfits – a blue blazer with a white blouse and a pencil skirt.
I accessorize the outfit with the most comfortable pair of black pumps along with a thick gold bracelet and a delicate gold chain.
I get to work half an h
our later and spend the time meditating quietly in my cubicle.
When everyone else starts to gather around, I look for Corrin.
Surprisingly, today she comes in late. Normally, she's never late, arriving promptly at eight. Today she doesn't get in until ten, making me extremely nervous.
On the way into her office, our eyes meet and she waves me over flashing a ten-minute sign with her fingers.
Exactly ten minutes later, I knock on her door.
“Come in,” she says without looking up from her screen, feverishly typing something.
She looks frazzled and distracted.
I'm about to sit down when suddenly I see Mr. Matthews, Corrin's uncle and the owner of Coast Magazine, sitting in the corner with last month's issue across his lap.
“Oh, excuse me,” I say. “I can come back later.”
“No, Emma, please sit down,” Corrin says, turning her attention to me.
“You remember Mr. Matthews? I think you met at last year's Christmas party.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, shaking his hand.
He's in his sixties with a thick head of white hair, dressed in a sharp three-piece suit that fits him extremely well.
He doesn't look uncomfortable in it like some of my other colleagues, but rather like someone who's been wearing one for four decades. His hair is cut a little bit longer than most men his age and his face is tan with only a few lines. Overall, Mr. Matthews looks really good for his age. Hell, he looks good for someone ten years younger.
“I was just telling my uncle about the story that you're working on for D. B. Carter,” Corrin says.
The tone of her voice is very singsongy, unlike the way that she talks in real life. I can hear that she's nervous and that she's trying to please her boss.
“Um... actually, I did want to talk to you about that,” I say, hesitating.
“If we could get an interview with D. B. Carter and a story about him, that could really help with our subscriber base. I don't think I have to tell you this, but nobody's really reading magazines anymore. It may cost a lot less to publish them, but the circulation has been decreasing for years.”
Of course, I have heard the rumors, but it still catches me off guard to hear someone in his position admit that.
“I thought that it was going okay,” I say. “I mean, you've hired all of these additional interns and we're putting out so many more stories every month.”
“Yes, we're doing all that just to stay afloat,” Corrin says.
“Anyway,” Mr. Matthews cuts her off and smiles at me. “Let's not dwell on what we can control and let's focus on what we can. Who knows, maybe Ms. Emma Scott's article will be so well received that it will get picked up by all the big news outlets out there and will get 3,000 new people subscribed to our magazine.”
Holy shit, I say silently to myself.
I had no idea that things were so dire.
They both stare at me and I try to make myself as small as possible so that I could possibly squeeze through the crack in the door and disappear.
Unfortunately, I have no such luck.
“So, tell us what you have so far,” Mr. Matthews says and I swallow hard.
I don't know what to say. I came here to tell Corrin that I don't have anything.
That I had a lead on the story and that it led me to a dead end. But standing here before them with all of their hopes hanging on me, I open my mouth and change my mind.
“I found him,” I say. “I got an address from someone on a forum. I totally thought it was a joke, but I drove all the way out to Joshua Tree and discovered that, no, it's actually him.”
“Really?!” Corrin gasps.
I like the look of shock on her face. She had written me off a long time ago as both a stupid girl and a bad journalist, and it’s nice to see her so surprised.
“I’ve had a chat with him. He told me that a publisher offered him three million dollars for a three-book deal, but he turned it down because he was making so much money in self-publishing. Not many people do, but he's one of the really successful ones.”
“Wow. He turned down three million? How much is he really making?”
“About six million a year in profit and he's in control of his whole brand. He hires his editors and he makes his own covers. He does everything.”
“Holy shit,” Mr. Matthews says. “Maybe I should give up on this magazine and start writing a fantasy series.”
“It took him a while to get to this point and a good deal of books, but he told me about the whole process.”
“Why is that?” Corrin asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you said that you had no idea who he was. Then you found him and you just knock on his door. He lets you in and tells you everything about his business? Why?”
“Corrin, tone it down a little bit,” Mr. Matthews instructs.
“No, Uncle, I'm just curious. I don't mean any offense,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air.
“None taken,” I say.
I wonder if I should go into it further, but a part of me doesn't want to.
I don't want to tell them about the personal connection that I have to Liam.
Without that, Corrin is right, the story doesn't make sense. I don’t want to tell them anything else but then I might lose my job. I hate that I need to give them more.
“Actually, I met him earlier. He was at my engagement party. He went to school with Alex.”
I look at Corrin more closely to see her reaction to Alex's name, but her face is still and unmoving.
“We talked briefly, but that's it. When I went out to follow that address, I had no idea where it was going to lead me.”
“You never mentioned the story to him at the party?”
“No,” I say. “We were both very surprised by the coincidence.”
“Well, I would be very surprised if this wasn’t a coincidence,” Corrin adds.
I agree and say, “He claimed that he had no idea who the guy was that gave me his address on the forums. Other than talking to me, he is quite a recluse. He only attends a few writers’ conferences and never gives anyone his real name or his real identity. There are no pictures of him anywhere.”
“So, what's different about this?” Corrin asks.
“I don't know. Maybe he’s tired of hiding?” I suggest.
“And he’s okay with the story?” Mr. Matthews asks.
I pause, not sure how to respond.
“He went on the record with you?” he clarifies.
“Yes,” I say confidently even though I'm feeling anything but that.
“Well, good. It means that he trusts you to give his story justice.”
Corrin and her uncle talk about the deadline for this month's issue and eventually give me by the end of the day to write a draft of the story.
“I can’t do it that quickly,” I protest.
“You have to. Just start writing and I’ll help you polish it up,” Corrin says.
I walk out of that meeting in a trance, putting one foot slowly in front of the other. There’s only one thought running through my head. What the hell did I just do?
4
Emma
I sit at my desk for a long time, staring into space. When I snap out of it, I look through my emails and various social media.
I scroll until my fingers hurt.
Then I look at the clock.
I only have five hours to get them the first draft.
Why did I say all those things?
I feel like I'm in shock. The world is buzzing around me and I don't know what to do.
I wanted to impress them.
I wanted to show Corrin that I'm capable of doing actual research.
I know that she doesn't like me and writing the story is not going to change that. This isn’t about that.
It is about the magazine being my job. If I lose this job, then I will have to go to my parents and admit defeat. I will have to ask them f
or money and that is something that I cannot do.
Besides, I did work hard to get the story.
I did do the research and I did find out where he lives.
The one thing that I was not expecting was to discover that he was someone I already knew.
I need to talk to someone, but no one knows the details and I'm not sure anyone can really advise me.
My sisters will tell me not to write it because they don't understand the pressure that I feel to keep this job. Besides, it also just happens that I love it.
I get to write for a living and I get to tell important stories.
Is this an important story?
There are people all over the Internet speculating about D. B. Carter's real identity.
Do they not deserve to know the truth?
But what about Liam?
He told me that everything that he said is off the record and as an ethical journalist, I need to abide by that request.
It's not that I can't print anything that would make him look bad; it's that I can't print anything that he said was off the record.
I open the Word document and start typing. Instead of focusing on him, I focus the story on me, my investigation, my initial interest in this reclusive author, and how I went about finding out who he was.
I have 2,000 words and I use about 1,500 of them getting to his house. I know that my story is not the story that the readers would be most interested in, but it's all I can write with a clear conscience right now.
Walking by my desk, Corrin glances at the screen.
She leans over with her mug of black coffee firmly in her hand and then says, “This looks good. Send me what you have.”
“No, it's not ready yet. These are just my basic thoughts.”
“I know. I'm going to take that into consideration, but Mr. Matthews wants to push up the publication of the story to this month's issue. Subscribers are dropping off like flies and he really thinks that this sort of interesting investigative piece could really turn the tide.”
I feel all the blood drain away from my face.
I wanted this to be a big story.
I wanted to find out the truth and to write about it.
I wanted this piece to make me famous.
All the Secrets Page 2
