Necessary People

by Anna Pitoniak

  See, the demands were obvious to us—we knew exactly what people liked to watch, and what they didn’t. The ratings bore that out, every single week. The audience liked clean takeaways. They liked black-and-white, heroes and villains. They liked the truth, but only kind of; they liked the truth packaged in a way to make them feel better about their own lives. Too much murkiness, and they are reminded of their own murk: their own mistakes, their own shortcomings, the times they, too, misbehaved and mistreated others. Those stories didn’t rate well. If you wanted people to watch, if you wanted to win the demo and get the blockbuster numbers that your bosses demanded, you needed a story with a good ending.

  And Stella had delivered that. Jamie field-produced the interview, and after several hours in the edit room, he emerged looking exhausted but relieved. “It’s good,” he said. “I was worried we’d have to redo the entire package, but the interview slots in neatly. It works.”

  “Nice job, guys,” Eliza said, as she walked past. “I just watched it. It’s almost like that interview was exactly what the story was missing.” She tapped her watch. “Ten minutes till show time.”

  The second half hour of the broadcast was devoted to the Danner story. It was my name and Jamie’s name that appeared after “Produced by” in the corner of the screen, and it was Rebecca’s voice that narrated over the B-roll. But it was when Stella and the CEO appeared on-screen that the energy changed. Everyone in the newsroom stopped talking and typing. They stared at the TV, rapt with attention.

  Whatever that thing is, I had once said to Jamie, I know I don’t have it.

  Stella asked the questions in a stern but fair-minded way, her head tilted at a thoughtful angle. The CEO leaned forward, contrite pain on his face. “Look,” he said, “I’m the father of two beautiful teenage girls. They are the strongest, smartest people I know.” It was a horribly hackneyed line, but when I glanced around the room, no one else was rolling their eyes. “Violence against women demeans all of our sisters and wives and daughters,” he continued. “The thought of it, frankly, makes me sick to my stomach. We will do everything in our power to prevent it from ever happening again. Not just in our industry, but in any industry.”

  The other parts of the segment—the interviews with George and Willow, footage of the hotel with Rebecca’s voice-over describing the assault—had been significantly reduced to make room for Stella’s interview. My stomach sank as it went on. The whole tenor of the story changed. Sin, repent, repeat. It was the most basic kind of story, the kind the audience loved most. The interview was what everyone would talk about the next day—not Willow, not the other girls. They wouldn’t be remembered for more than a few minutes.

  Stella pressed the CEO just enough to deliver some sizzle. “But how could you let this happen?” she said. “You’re in charge. Doesn’t the buck stop with you?” I blinked, feeling hot tears in my eyes. The meager territory I had claimed as my own, the little patch of land free from Stella Bradley’s shadow—it was gone, invaded, colonized. Our friendship only worked when we had our own turf. But now Stella had discovered the thrill of a big story. The appeal of the nice guy at the next desk over. I would never get these things back, not with her around.

  After the story ended, over the loud sound of the newsroom applauding, I said to Jamie, “You can’t honestly say that was an improvement over what we had before.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Of course it was. Do you know what I wanted to know, after we reported the story? So what. So what’s going to change? What’s Danner going to do about this? And now we’ve got that answer.”

  “But it lets them off the hook. It makes them look good.”

  “How does this make them look good? Everyone just learned that Danner was systematically enticing doctors with prostitutes.”

  “And we gave them a platform to gloss over all of that.”

  “It’s not our job to have an agenda against them,” Jamie said. “Our job is to report on what really happened. That includes covering their response.”

  After a beat of silence, Jamie said, “Look. I know you’re frustrated by the Stella thing. But you still produced a great story. This is still your moment.”

  It was a nice thing to say, but it wasn’t true. The applause wasn’t for me, nor was the champagne after the broadcast. Stella swept through the newsroom toward us, receiving a stream of compliments on the way. She threw her arms around Jamie. “My agent already e-mailed. NBC and CNN want a meeting. Can you believe it?” She laughed with delight. “Are we still going to dinner?”

  “Oh,” Jamie said. He stepped back. “I figured you’d want to stay and celebrate. We can have dinner another night, right?”

  Stella looked confused, but at that moment, Ginny Grass came over. “Oh, Stella. My God. You were fabulous. We need to talk.” Ginny rested a jewel-heavy hand on Stella’s forearm. “We’re adjusting our lineup, and I have something in mind for you.”

  Stella smiled. Her contract was set to expire at the end of the year. She held the best cards at the table.

  “Let’s have lunch this week,” Ginny said. “Better to talk somewhere more private.”

  Ginny kept her hand fixed possessively on Stella, like she was the owner of a Thoroughbred that had just won the Kentucky Derby. Which, I suppose, she was. Rumor had it that the bosses wanted a new host for KCN’s morning show. The executives had cycled unsuccessfully through a series of bland anchors. They needed someone with personality, with star quality, someone relatable to a millennial audience. Stella fit the bill. She was twenty-six years old. She would be the youngest anchor in KCN’s history.

  On Wednesday, I had an appointment to meet with a broker. I explained my situation: I’d had a roommate for the last three years, but now I wanted—needed—my own apartment. Where I wouldn’t have to worry about the other person railroading my career.

  The broker’s offices were depressing and sweatshop-like, in a nondescript part of Midtown. Low-walled cubicles that were completely anonymous, nothing except a computer and a business-card holder. The broker had responded to my e-mail in about thirty seconds.

  “Hmm,” she said. “With your budget, you’re not going to find much in Manhattan. Maybe a studio, way uptown.”

  “Uptown is fine.”

  “How about this?” she said, turning her screen toward me. “This is a good example of what you can expect for your price point. Up near St. Nicholas Park.”

  I squinted. The pictures were small and fuzzy, like they’d been taken with a ten-year-old flip phone. The apartment was one room, a minuscule galley kitchen along one wall, a door that presumably led to the bathroom. “Oh,” I said.

  “You’re on the sixth floor, so you get good light.”

  “The sixth floor?”

  “Actually—whoopsie,” the broker said. “Never mind. Looks like that one is in contract already. And they got more than the listing price. Wow. Okay, let’s try again.”

  On the walk back to the office, I wondered if I was being rash. The places were awful, and multiples more expensive than my $750 rent. Seven fifty was a lot to me, but pennies to the Bradleys. I often thought about those checks going into their bank account, barely changing the balance, a few raindrops falling on the Atlantic Ocean. But they always cashed the check promptly, and the one time I was late to send it in, Anne had sent me a precisely worded reminder on the second day of the month. Would the Bradleys be offended when I left, after so many years of treating me like family and subsidizing my rent? Would Stella?

  But for the first time, those questions seemed stupid. Naive, misguided. I finally saw how things were. Had Stella let our friendship stand in the way of an opportunity? Of doing what was best for her?

  On Thursday night, Stella went out to dinner with Jamie and was planning to stay at his place. I had been sound asleep when, around 4 a.m., there was a crash down the hallway.

  I opened my eyes. There was another crash. Thudding footsteps. My heart started pounding. When I stood up from my be
d, my legs were shaking. Another bang. The footsteps were getting louder. Back in Florida, my father had always kept a gun in the house. I cursed my younger self for ever judging him about this. Right now, all I wanted was a gun.

  More crashing, more thumping. How had this person gotten past the doorman? Maybe they wouldn’t make it back here. Maybe I’d be okay if I hid in the closet. I had my phone unlocked, about to dial 9-1-1, when I heard the voice.

  “Violet!” she shrieked. “VIOLET!”

  “What the FUCK!” I flung open the door. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

  Stella stood at the end of the hallway, silhouetted by the light from the living room. “What are you doing?” I said. “Why aren’t you at Jamie’s?”

  Up close, I saw that the living room was a disaster zone. Framed pictures had been smashed. A lamp had been knocked over, its bulb shattered. Stella collapsed on the sofa, breathing hard, her face flushed red. “What happened?” I said.

  “He broke up with me,” she said. “He broke up with me.” Then she burst into tears.

  I tiptoed through the broken glass—the framed photos of Stella and Jamie that had lined the mantel—and sat down. The bottoms of Stella’s bare feet were cut and bloodied from the glass. When I put my hand on her back, her skin was flushed and sweaty through her blouse. After a long time, when her sobs finally slowed down, I said, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Stella looked up. Her face was swollen and puffy. She rarely cried, and never like this.

  She inhaled deeply. “I thought we were celebrating, you know?” she said. “We went to dinner at Daniel. We were talking about how great the ratings were, and I never thought”—her voice broke, a fresh spill of tears—“I never thought, for one second, that’s where the conversation was going. I mean, what the fuck? Who breaks up with someone over a six-hundred-dollar dinner at Daniel?”

  Granted, Daniel had been her idea. She’d snagged a last-minute reservation using Rebecca’s name (again). Jamie never would have picked a place like that.

  “I was so happy. I was so happy. Did you hear the ratings? Almost four million people watched. That’s insane. Those aren’t cable news numbers. It wasn’t until dessert that I remembered Jamie had wanted to talk to me about something.

  “So I asked him. Then he said, why don’t we wait ’til we get home. I said, are you sure? But he was being all quiet and, like, sketchy. He wouldn’t look at me.”

  “So you knew something was wrong,” I said.

  “I thought he was about to propose! The dinner and everything, acting weird. I thought he had a ring in his pocket. I’m serious. Don’t look at me like that.”

  I rearranged my eyebrows, which had arched on their own accord.

  “You probably think I’m so stupid,” she snapped. “Well, fuck you, too.”

  “No! I’m just as surprised as you. That’s all.”

  “Ugh.” She flung her arms out and whacked them against the back of the couch. “So, we’re leaving the restaurant, and that’s when he says it. He just doesn’t think it’s working. We’re both so busy. Neither of us is making the other person a priority. Well, speak for your fucking self, Jamie. All I’ve done is prioritize him. I’ve bent over backwards to make that asshole happy. And this is how he repays me?”

  This, I suppose, was the fundamental problem. Stella’s charm, her glow, her energy—it was so powerful that anyone who stood close enough could feel it. People were happy when they were near Stella. She saw that, and she took credit for their happiness. So when the shtick eventually wore off, when a person started to see Stella for who she really was, she couldn’t understand what had changed.

  But the difference between me and Jamie? Jamie was brave enough to say it to her face. To cut bait, to make a clean break. Me, I didn’t have those guts. Stella was the vine wrapped around the limbs of my tree, and even though I had branches that were dead and dangling and should have fallen off long ago, she kept them in place. Jamie was a better friend to me than Stella had ever been. In that moment, I should have defended him.

  But no one ever said doing the right thing was easy. Instead, pathetically, I crinkled my forehead and said, “That’s horrible, Stell. I’m so sorry.”

  She stood up and started pacing, ignoring the crunch of broken glass beneath her feet. Little bits of her blood smeared the rug. “What is wrong with him? Does he realize what he just threw away?” She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Look at me. You’re telling me Jamie Richter is going to do better than this?”

  Her face changed, and she snapped her fingers. “This is some guy thing, isn’t it? They get bored and they want to fuck someone new. He’s going to get this out of his system, and then he’ll come crawling back, but he can forget it. I’m not taking him back.”

  Over the years, I’d endured hours of Stella whining and complaining, but this was new. Raw anger. A wounded animal. Stella had a deeply rooted sense of self, a security and desirability that the world constantly confirmed back to her. But where life had failed to make a dent, Jamie had finally succeeded. Something at her very core had been disturbed.

  “I have to pack,” she said, all of a sudden.

  “Why?” I said.

  She pulled out her phone, and after a moment, she was barking into it: “This is Stella Bradley, I need my car brought up. A silver Mercedes SUV. License plate—” When the call ended, she threw the phone onto the couch and walked out of the room. “We’re getting out of here,” she called over her shoulder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  her grandparents had closed up the house after Columbus Day, but Stella had a key. She didn’t tell them we were coming. She waved her hand and said, “I can’t get into all of that with them.”

  I’d only been to Maine in the summers. Their small town looked different at this time of year. Stores that were cheery and bustling during the high season—buckets of cut flowers outside the grocer, cases of rosé stacked in the wineshop window, sweet yeasty scents from the bakery—were now closed and darkened. As we drove past the ice cream parlor, the T-shirt shop, the movie theater with faded posters of summer blockbusters, I wondered where everyone went. Were the baker and grocer and wine merchant still here, tucked away in their homes, living frugally through the off-season? What did they do, during the long winter months? The town was eerily quiet, the only open businesses the 7-Eleven and the motel near the highway. As Stella climbed out of the car to open the gate to her grandparents’ compound, it struck me: in this deserted town, who were they trying to keep out?

  The driveway was long, and when we reached the house a few minutes later, it, too, looked different. The lawn was patchy, the trees bare, the windows shuttered. The net had been taken down from the tennis court, and the flower beds were covered in burlap sacks. The house looked harsh and isolated without the soft, verdant beauty of summertime.

  I shivered while we stood on the doorstep. When Stella finally found the right key and opened the door, an alarm started chirping. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Oh, fuck.”

  “You don’t know the code?”

  “I used to.” She was frozen, staring at the blinking panel on the wall.

  “Shouldn’t we call someone? Before it triggers—”

  The alarm got louder. Warning, an automated voice said. Warning. Stella was just standing there, biting her lip. I started to say something, but she held up a hand, then leaned forward and punched in a six-digit code. A moment later, the alarm stopped.

  “My dad’s birthday,” she said, exhaling.

  Stella moved through the house, turning on the hot water heater, resetting the thermostats. “You remember that Christmas, the first year after college?” she said.

  “Which one was that?”

  “When my family ganged up on me and I came up here. I couldn’t figure out how the heat worked. So I kept a fire going and slept in front of the fireplace. Did I ever tell you that?”

  On the long drive from New York, the sun rising over Connecti
cut, stopping for gas with the morning rush on the Massachusetts Turnpike, Stella had been intensely quiet. She barely spoke a single word. Now her mood was different. Lighter. She seemed pleased to be back in familiar territory. She went from room to room, humming to herself, running a finger through the layers of dust that had accumulated on the tables and shelves.

  “Aren’t you going to get some sleep?” I said, following her into the kitchen.

  “I’m not tired,” she said. “Besides, I have to make some calls.”

  “To who?” I said. Stella had opened the liquor cabinet and was examining the contents. She shut the cabinet, waved a dismissive hand at me, and left the room.

  In the guest room, I lay down in the dim afternoon light, the gauzy curtains pulled shut against the sun. My eyes were growing heavy when I heard Stella’s footsteps in the hallway outside the door. Pacing back and forth, her voice sharp and irritated.

  “I just needed to get away for a while,” she said. “Mom. I’m fine.”

  A pause. “God, no. Don’t come here. Why would I want you around? That’s the whole reason I left, don’t you get it?”

  Another pause. “Well, Violet doesn’t really count. You know how she is. She always tags along.”

  After a while, the footsteps faded, the voice disappeared.

  When I woke up in the darkness, my phone said it was 5 p.m.

  “Stella?” I called, stepping out of the bedroom. The house was silent. The door to the master bedroom stood ajar. With the light spilling in from the hallway, I could make out a sleeping form on the bed. A glint on the nightstand, wine bottle and wineglass. The sound of Stella’s steady breathing. I closed the door quietly and went downstairs.

  There was a box of pasta and canned tomatoes in the pantry, and I made enough so that Stella could have the leftovers. In the living room, I turned on the TV, but the signal from the cable box was scrambled. The Wi-Fi didn’t appear to be working, either, so my laptop was useless. The sole source of entertainment was a wicker basket full of old issues of The New Yorker, water-rumpled from last summer.