Necessary People

by Anna Pitoniak

  “Careful,” I said.

  He let go of the cup and put his hands flat on the table. “She is, Violet. You’re allowed to get mad at her. I’m mad at her. She kicked you out? Who does that to their best friend?”

  Before that afternoon’s rundown meeting, Eliza caught my eye and beckoned me over.

  “So you got a little R&R this weekend?” she said.

  “I’m really sorry it was so last minute. I should have told you.”

  “You were up in Maine with Stella? Ginny forwarded me the strangest e-mail from her. It sounds like she’s staying up there for a while.”

  “I think so. I’m not sure.”

  Eliza shook her head. “You know, Violet, you’re really the one who deserves the week off. You’ve been killing yourself on the Danner story.”

  “Well, thank you, but I’d rather get back to work.”

  Eliza smiled. “I never know what to do with myself when I’m on vacation, either.”

  “I heard you once called into the control room from Maui,” I said.

  “It was Oahu,” Eliza said. “It was our honeymoon. It’s a good thing I did. This guy from the Council on Foreign Relations had hijacked the interview. Rebecca was like a deer in the headlights. They should have pulled her out of there. She seems so in control, they can’t always tell when she needs help.” She arched an eyebrow. “But I can.”

  By now, the conference room had filled with the other producers. “Okay,” Eliza said, clapping her hands for order, taking a seat at the head of the table. “Let’s make this a quick one. Jamie, where are we on the quote from Sec Def’s people?”

  “No comment at this time,” Jamie said. A former DoD employee was suing for discrimination—a man who claimed his female colleague had undeservedly taken the promotion he was in line for. He was, he said, a victim of affirmative action.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t offer comment on that clown, either,” Eliza said. “What else?”

  The meeting only lasted ten minutes. It was one of those days when Frontline ran like a well-oiled machine, no last-minute catastrophes to derail our lineup. Our ratings had remained high through last week, after the Danner story aired on Tuesday night, and it buoyed the collective mood. On the whole, Rebecca tried to instill an attitude of indifference—“because what good is it,” she always said, “being obsessed with ratings when you’re constantly in third place?”—but even she seemed jittery as we waited for the final numbers from the previous week.

  “Eliza,” Rebecca shouted from inside her office. “Am I reading this right?”

  Eliza squinted at her phone. The executives had the ratings e-mailed to them as soon as they came out. The rest of us were left to guess the numbers based on their mood, or wait for the Deadline Hollywood story to go up.

  “We won the demo last week,” Eliza announced. There were gasps in the newsroom—actual, audible gasps. That meant we had drawn more viewers aged twenty-five to fifty-four than any other cable news program in our time slot. That meant we had beaten not only MSNBC but Fox and CNN, too.

  “When was the last time this happened?” I asked Jamie.

  He grinned. “I don’t think this has ever happened.”

  “Fuck me!” Rebecca shouted. She was pacing excitedly in her office, hollering at the speakerphone. “Ginny! Jesus Christ, did you see this?”

  That night, after the broadcast, Jamie and I went for drinks at the bar around the corner. It had been a long time since we’d done this, just the two of us. Stella had seen to that.

  “Do you think you eventually get used to this feeling?” I asked. “Like, if you work at the Today show, does this become boring?”

  “I have no idea,” Jamie said. “I’ve only ever worked here.”

  “Kiddie Cable News,” I said. An old nickname. Ten years ago, when KCN was started, the quality had been so uneven that it seemed like children were running the place.

  “It does feel good, doesn’t it?” Jamie said. “Stella must have been happy. You told her?”

  I shook my head. “We haven’t been in touch since I left.”

  “Really?” Jamie raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’m sure she saw the news. She has a Google alert on herself. I’m kind of surprised she hasn’t called.”

  “Why?”

  “To gloat,” he said. “It’s strange. She was calling all weekend—I had to put my phone on silent—but then she just stopped. The last thing I got was this cryptic text on Saturday night.”

  “She was probably just embarrassed.” Jamie was pulling out his phone, and my heartbeat accelerated. “She knew you were ignoring her.”

  “Okay, here it is. We won’t be seeing each other again, so save the crap for someone else. What the hell does that mean?”

  “She’s dramatic,” I said. “You know that.”

  Jamie looked pensive as he swiped a tortilla chip through a dish of salsa. “I should call her. I should congratulate her. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Wait,” I said, as he stood from the table. “Jamie. Wait a second. Be careful.”

  He laughed at the look on my face. “I think I can handle it. This’ll only take a minute. I’ll just say—”

  But then he pulled the phone away from his ear and frowned at the screen. “That’s strange,” he said. “Straight to voice mail. It didn’t even ring.”

  “Huh.” I reached for my beer and took a large gulp.

  “Stella never turns her phone off,” he said, perplexed.

  “The service can be spotty up in Maine.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said, sitting back down. “That’s probably it.”

  Tuesday, around lunchtime, my phone rang.

  I drew a deep breath and answered. “Hi, Mrs. Bradley.”

  “Have you heard from her, Violet? She won’t respond to my texts. I’ve been calling and calling but her phone just goes to voice mail.”

  “That’s so strange,” I said.

  Here it was. The next stage was beginning, and I felt oddly calm.

  “I’m starting to worry,” Anne said. There was a push-pull in her voice. Creeping panic, and the parallel self-insistence that it would be fine. It would be fine. We had been through this before; Anne didn’t want to overreact. “I called Ginny. Stella e-mailed her on Saturday night. Something about wanting to take some time to herself. Which is fine, I suppose, but why wouldn’t she have her phone on?”

  “Jamie tried calling her yesterday,” I said. “It didn’t ring then, either.”

  “That’s not like her, is it? She always calls me back.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But you remember that Christmas, when she left. None of us could get hold of her for, what, a whole week?”

  “Do you think that’s what happened here?”

  “It could be,” I said.

  “Well, as long as she doesn’t miss Thanksgiving next week. But she wouldn’t do that.” Anne’s brittle laugh was meant to reassure herself. “That’s a bridge too far, even for Stella.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be back by then.”

  Winning the demo called for something bigger than celebratory pizza in the newsroom. Eliza considered waiting for Stella’s return, but these victories went stale quickly, and besides, no one could get hold of her. On Friday night, after the broadcast, Eliza rented out the back room of an upscale Japanese restaurant. There was an open bar, waiters circulating with glasses of sake and delicate squares of sashimi, a chef making hand rolls to order. It was like the Christmas party—the same cast of characters, the same level of indulgence—but this was infinitely sweeter. Christmas you celebrated because the world kept turning and inevitably it was December again. But this feeling could be arrived at only by victory. There was no one else in the world celebrating exactly what we were in this moment.

  I was standing with a few other producers, listening to Rebecca talk about the time the House Speaker tried to hit on her mid-interview, when she cut herself off and said, “Excuse me for a m
oment.” She wove efficiently through the crowded room and greeted the two people who had just arrived: Ginny, and a distinguished-looking older man. He was tall and elegant in his blue blazer, but there was a cane by his side, and the hands that grasped it looked spotted and arthritic.

  Jamie leaned over and said to me, “That’s Mr. King.”

  “The Mr. King? Of King Media?”

  “The lion in winter,” Jamie said. “This is the first time I’ve seen him in person.”

  Mr. King was an Oz-like figure, powerful but never visible, a name only invoked by those at the highest levels. He was the one boss that nobody made fun of. I couldn’t quite believe that he was here, in the flesh, in the room with us. It was almost hypnotizing.

  He had a raked forehead and a serious gaze fixed on Rebecca, who seemed to shimmer from his attention. Working at KCN the last three and a half years had required me to constantly reassess my understanding of power—the scale of it, and where it really lay. When I was a lowly intern, someone like Jamie seemed to possess everything I could ever want: a desk, a title, a salary. But there were trapdoors in the ceiling that led to another level. There was Eliza, who commanded an entire newsroom. There was Ginny, who had the final say on what made it to air. And then there was Mr. King. Our entire world was, for him, merely one piece of the pie. He had probably just come from dinner at the Four Seasons or the 21 Club, stopping on his way back to his Fifth Avenue penthouse. Even if he stayed at the party for five minutes, standing by the door while his town car idled outside, that was enough. It signaled that this was, in fact, a big deal.

  The interns and assistants in the room didn’t notice him. It was only the senior staff—Eliza, Rebecca, Jamie—who tuned their antennae to his presence. What a strange feeling it must be, I thought, to move through the world like that. To possess a power that remains invisible to any ordinary person passing on the sidewalk. How many people in America could identify King Media with a real person? A fraction of a percent. His low profile was probably strategic. What had he done to get to this place, to this hard ceiling of power? What had he left in his wake? Mr. King said something to Rebecca, and she laughed. I wondered what they were talking about—the ratings? Or their mutual friends, or their plans for the holidays? It was only when I stopped staring at him that I realized that Ginny, next to him, was staring at me in turn.

  A shiver passed up my spine. I smiled as she approached, but her expression remained cold.

  “I’m extremely concerned about Stella,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said. “I mean, I am, too. I haven’t heard from her all week.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Ginny said. “We were right in the middle of negotiating her new contract. And then I get this e-mail from her on Saturday night. She needs time to think, she needs time to herself. Where does that come from?”

  I thought the question might be rhetorical, but Ginny frowned at my silence. “Well?” she said. “You were the only person with her. What exactly happened, Violet? What changed between Saturday morning and Saturday night?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She was gone for a lot of the day. I don’t know where she went.”

  “You’ve spoken with her parents, I assume?”

  “Of course. Actually, Mrs. Bradley and I were remembering the time she ran away for a while, at Christmas a few years ago? This could be—”

  “I don’t see how this is remotely similar. Stella is the next star of this network. She wouldn’t walk away from that. Or from three million dollars a year.”

  I swallowed, trying not to flinch. Three million? “With respect, Ginny, Stella has done irrational things before. And the thought of staying at KCN might be too painful for her.”

  “Why is that?” Ginny sounded irritated.

  “She was upset about the breakup with Jamie.” I kept my voice low, conscious of Jamie standing a few feet away. “Maybe she doesn’t want to work at the same network as him.”

  Ginny narrowed her gaze. “Your argument on Saturday night. Was it about Jamie?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She thought I had something to do with the breakup.”

  “Did you?” Ginny said. “I know that you and Jamie are close.”

  A waiter approached, holding a plate with red slices of tuna, dotted with bright green wasabi. I shook my head, feeling nauseous. “Of course not. Stella was my best friend.”

  “Could you bring me a Scotch on the rocks?” Ginny said to the waiter. “A double, please.” As he walked away, Ginny turned back to me. “You said was.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Stella was your best friend?”

  My pulse started hammering, and my cheeks grew hot. I reminded myself: this is real, this story you’re telling. You feel nervous and uneasy because you don’t know where Stella is. And isn’t that true, strictly speaking? The Atlantic Ocean is a big place.

  “The way we left things,” I said. “I’m not sure how she feels about me anymore.”

  “I see,” Ginny said. She kept staring at me, unblinking. Jamie came over, grinningly oblivious of what he was walking into.

  “Ginny, just wanted to say hello,” Jamie said. “This is a great party, isn’t it?”

  “Sushi has never been to my liking,” she said. “But yes, this is nice.”

  Jamie began talking about a story he was working on, seizing his opportunity to impress the boss’s boss. While he spoke, Ginny’s gaze flickered back and forth between us. Her distaste was barely concealed. These two scrabbling opportunists, she must have thought. These grasping nobodies. Jamie and I weren’t her kind of people. We just didn’t play the game in the way she saw fit. She made that as clear as possible without being outright rude.

  I felt a distinctive surge of anger. Willow’s e-mail had been sitting in my in-box, unanswered since Monday. I didn’t know what to say. It was my fault, my guilt to bear. Willow had trusted us with her story. Had trusted me. But in those long minutes we devoted to his interview, the Danner CEO had easily washed his hands of the crisis. Today, just like last week, or last month, or last year, he could walk into the finest restaurants in New York City and receive a warm welcome. His name stayed firmly lodged in the register of society.

  See, the term money laundering had it backwards. People don’t launder money. Money launders people. Change a few variables and what would you call a man like the Danner CEO? But he would never be known as a pimp, or a criminal. He was too rich. That category doesn’t exist on the Fortune 500 list.

  Market pressures. That’s how the bosses at Danner had justified it, in their coded e-mails and memos. The company had to keep growing. The shareholders demanded greater and greater returns. They weren’t trying to be evil. They were just looking out for the bottom line. Having a moral compass was a nice idea, in theory. But you got a whole lot further by playing dirty.

  Chapter Fifteen

  the broker had left a dozen messages. There was a place she wanted to show me in Washington Heights, more realistic for my budget. When I didn’t answer her calls, she began sending me texts. They were misspelled and almost incoherent—probably typed with one hand while she rushed around Manhattan in her beat-up Corolla—but I gave her credit for persistence, then I blocked her number. Who knew what the Bradleys would ultimately decide to do about the apartment? But I could enjoy it while it lasted.

  On Saturday, I finally cleaned up the mess in the living room. The fragments of glass that Stella had walked across, barefoot and anguished, were marked by her dried blood. But the rug had concealed the stains, and eventually it looked like nothing had happened.

  It was a beautiful apartment. I would miss it if I had to leave. The kitchen faced east, the marble countertops reflecting the morning sun. The living room was best in the afternoon, the dancing shadows of tree branches stretching across the wall. It should have been grotesque, the reminders of Stella in every corner, but it wasn’t. This was still my home. My first real home.

  In the evening, I left the apartmen
t and started walking south. Night fell and the streetlights switched on. Every restaurant was packed. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, and therefore the last weekend before it was officially the holidays, when everything—crowds of tourists, endless rotations of parties—would ratchet up to an unpleasant intensity until the season finally burned itself out on New Year’s Eve. But this was a weekend for a cozier kind of pleasure. Families cooking dinner, couples sharing a bottle of wine. Sleeping with the window cracked open to let in the cold night air.

  By the time I reached the ferry building near Battery Park, there was a strong breeze off the harbor. Most people were traveling in the opposite direction, coming into the city for the night. As I waited to board the ferry, two girls passed me—best friends by the looks of it, intertwined arms and shrieks of laughter as they tottered down the ramp in stiletto heels and tight miniskirts. Going out bare-armed and bare-legged in November was unpleasant, but these girls knew the deal: this way, you wouldn’t risk losing your jacket at the club. Plus, the liquor kept you warm. They looked about twenty-one or twenty-two. I had turned twenty-six a few months ago. Entering my late twenties had come with a feeling of relief.

  The boat was almost empty as it chugged across the harbor toward Staten Island. For several minutes I stood at the stern, watching Manhattan recede as the ferry unspooled a wake behind it. It was almost exactly a week ago that I had been on the boat with Stella, in Maine.

  My preparations had been careful. I’d cut her passport and driver’s license and credit cards into stiff confetti, spreading the pieces among several public garbage cans. Stella’s wallet was made of a supple leather, embossed with her monogram. Leather wouldn’t burn, but it scorched and blackened as I held the lighter up to her initials. When I was sure no one was looking, I pulled the wallet out of my bag, holding it lightly between my fingertips. I let go, and it dropped into the water without a sound.