Necessary People

by Anna Pitoniak

  “Did you talk to Oliver?” I said, interrupting her.

  Her surprise showed, briefly, before she composed herself. “Yes. I did.”

  “You’re doing this because he asked you to.” It made perfect sense. Oliver and Stella both knew how to use these connections to their advantage.

  “The factors that went into my decision aren’t any of your—”

  “Admit it,” I said.

  She stared at me. Ginny might have been the master of civility, the epitome of decorum, but she was realizing that her skills were wasted on me. Well, good. If we could just admit our animosity, we could get to the point.

  “Fine,” she said. Then she laughed. “Do you really think I have time to sit here and contemplate every low-level producer who wants a new job? This wasn’t even on my radar until Oliver called. So, yes. I did it as a favor to him.”

  “Why?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I? That poor boy has been through enough. The last thing he needs is the stress of his girlfriend leaving him.”

  “You think I’m going to stay with him after this insane stunt?”

  “That’s a selfish reaction, but I expect nothing less from you.” She picked a bit of lint from her jacket lapel. “The truth is, once I started thinking about it, I realized I don’t want you in Washington, either. I want you here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  A flush of heat rose in my face. I had to pivot. “You respect Rebecca and Eliza, don’t you?” I said.

  “Rebecca and Eliza are two of the most talented people here,” Ginny said.

  “Well, they believe in me. They like my work. And they know me better than anyone. If you trust their judgment, why don’t you let them make this decision?”

  “I never said I trusted their judgment,” Ginny said. “Most of the time, yes. But not always. That’s why I’m here. It’s my job to be the gatekeeper. To keep everyone’s tempers in check.” She emitted a short laugh. “Someone has to. Otherwise, you reporters and producers—you’d do anything for a story. You’d watch someone die just to get the tape.”

  I froze, but I kept my gaze level. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say,” I said.

  “Is it?” Ginny’s stare was unblinking. In the silent cocoon of her office, the only thing I heard was my heart thumping in my chest. Then she said, “And I disagree with your premise. I know you far better than Rebecca or Eliza ever will. I’ve seen you outside this office. I have a much better grasp of your true nature.”

  A loud knock made me flinch in my seat. The executive assistant opened the door and said, “Ms. Grass, there’s a call for you—you asked me to put him through?”

  “I’ll take it. You stay there,” she said to me.

  While Ginny was on the phone, I looked around her office, as if searching for—what? An eject button? A trapdoor? Her office was so exquisite that I wondered about the work she actually did. In Eliza and Rebecca’s offices, there were messy piles of paper, stacks of unshelved books, rolling racks of dry cleaning. Ginny had midcentury modern furniture, Abstract Expressionist prints, an orchid on the coffee table, a bar cart in the corner. It was annoyingly perfect, which is why the strange object caught my eye.

  Amid the spines on her bookshelf was a large red cube. It was made of neoprene-like material, and a zipper ran around the side. I shifted in my seat to get a better look. There was a symbol emblazoned on the red case: a heart with a lightning bolt through it. A defibrillator.

  It brought back a memory. Ginny, on the porch in Maine, almost two years ago. Her bracelet had caught in the candlelight, a flat metal plate engraved with writing, Stella leaning closer to look at it. I’d overheard bits of the conversation as I shuttled plates back to the kitchen.

  A medical bracelet, Ginny had said. I have a heart condition. A form of arrhythmia.

  Is it serious? Stella’s voice, syrupy sweet.

  If I keep an eye on my diet, I’m fine.

  “As I was saying,” Ginny said, after she hung up the phone. “Trust is a privilege, not a right. You’ve done nothing to earn my trust. As long as you’re working at KCN, I’m going to make sure it’s right here, under my supervision.”

  “With respect, Ginny, I’ve done nothing but work hard since my first day.”

  She laughed. “Young lady, you could win all the Emmys in the world and it wouldn’t matter to me. I’ve gotten a long way by trusting my hunches. And I have a hunch about you. You’re not telling the truth about Stella Bradley.”

  There it was. For the first time, someone had said it out loud.

  And I felt strangely calm. It was almost a relief.

  “And why do you think that?” I said.

  “I know what it’s like to lose someone. After my sister died, I could barely get out of bed. But you—you haven’t seemed the slightest bit upset.”

  “Maybe I’m just tougher than you,” I said.

  “Or maybe you’re glad she’s gone,” Ginny said. “You’ve got Oliver to yourself. You’re the only one left to take credit on the Danner story.”

  “This seems like quite a leap,” I said. “Are you just projecting this onto me because you’re frustrated the police haven’t solved it? Fair enough. But that’s a cheap shot, pinning it on a…what did you call me? A low-level producer?”

  There was another knock. The executive assistant said, “Ms. Grass, your eleven thirty is here.”

  “Thanks so much, Violet,” Ginny said loudly, for the benefit of her assistant and the person waiting outside her office. “I’m glad we got this chance to talk.”

  “Likewise,” I said.

  “I look forward to our next discussion,” Ginny said. “In the very near future.”

  That night, I asked Oliver to come over. It was time to end things for good. How could he have thought this plan would work? But he was shortsighted in the same way Stella had been, constantly looking one move ahead, with no idea that he was marching toward the edge of a cliff. Or maybe he didn’t care. He just expected that there would always be a cushion to his fall. Money, power, privilege, connections—those things could always be traded, in some fashion, to ensure a comfortable outcome.

  Not this time, though. There was nothing that could make me stay.

  Near midnight, the door opened. “We need to talk,” I started to say, but when Oliver came into the living room, he was breathless, and his eyes were manically animated.

  “Did you hear? Did she call you?” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My mother!” he said. He went into the kitchen and got a glass of water, drinking it fast and then refilling it. “I couldn’t get a cab. I ran here from the office.”

  “Oliver, what is going on?”

  “She found the boat,” he said. “Some lobsterman in Maine, a few towns up the coast, he hauled it in. It’s just been sitting there, right in the middle of the marina.”

  “The boat?” I said, weakly.

  “The boat!” he said “The one that’s been missing since that night in November.”

  Arriving at KCN on Friday morning, jittery and jacked up on caffeine, I wondered how much longer this would be my life: walking to the office, waving to the security guard, riding the elevator. Either I’d be found out and everything would come crashing down—or it wouldn’t, and I’d keep doing the same thing as the past four years, trapped under Ginny’s watch.

  I honestly didn’t know which prospect was worse.

  The idea began forming that morning. There had to be another way out. The job in Washington was going to be my chance to start over. Freedom had nearly been mine, by inches.

  When Jamie arrived, he looked anxious. “What the hell happened?” he said.

  “What?” I said, panicked. That very question had just been running through my mind. What had happened, to bring me to this moment?

  “The job,” he said. “I thought it was a sure thing.”

  “Oh.”

  “I got an e-mail this morning. Now
they want me to interview for the position? What happened? Did you change your mind?”

  Before I could explain, Eliza appeared in the doorway of her office. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she said, shaking her head. The newsroom was still relatively empty, which meant Eliza could curse freely without an intern reporting her to HR for abusive tactics. “Trish just called from Washington. She is furious.”

  “I’m confused,” Jamie said. “Can somebody explain?”

  “Ginny didn’t think it was a good idea,” I said. “For me to take the job.”

  “What? Why?”

  Eliza leaned against her doorjamb, crossing her arms. “I have seen some petty shit in my day, but this takes the cake.” To Jamie, she said, “It’s a power move. That’s all. Ginny wants to remind everyone that she’s in charge.” Then to me: “Unless you did something to piss her off?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jamie said. “A power move? Trish wants to hire Violet, and Violet wants to work for Trish. What’s the point of interfering?”

  “But that is the point,” Eliza said. “You act spiteful, it shows how much capital you can afford to squander.”

  Eliza’s ringing phone drew her back to her desk. Jamie blew out his cheeks. “I think she’s been reading too much Sun Tzu,” he said.

  “Ginny or Eliza?”

  “Both,” he said. “So how should I respond to this e-mail? It’s from Ginny. She wants me on the train to Washington this afternoon.”

  “Well,” I said, “that depends on what you want to do.”

  “Are you kidding? That job belongs to you, Violet. And even if they don’t give it to you, I’m staying away from this stupid game.” He sat down at his computer. “No, the only question is how rude I should be in my response.”

  Jamie cleared his throat, made a show of rolling up his sleeves. “Dear Ginny, aka Führer Grass,” he proclaimed loudly, while pecking out the letters. “F-Ü-H-R-E-R. Umlaut. Comma. New paragraph. Okay, what now?”

  I laughed. I laughed so hard I started crying. And then I was just crying.

  “Oh, come here,” Jamie said, opening his arms. “I know this sucks. I know.”

  There was a spare office on the floor, which we often used for talking confidentially with sources. Jamie led me inside and closed the door. He didn’t say anything. He held me in a hug, my head against his chest, and I sobbed. His hand on my back, the rise and fall of his breathing, the smell of laundry detergent on his shirt—they were permission to let go. Toughness extracts a price, eventually. Nothing comes for free.

  “Hey,” he said, when my tears finally slowed. “Hey, Violet. You know you can talk to me, right? What’s really going on?”

  “I ruined your shirt,” I said, touching the black smudges from my mascara.

  “There’s a spare one in my desk,” he said. “Learned that trick from the movies.”

  “Ha,” I said, hollowly.

  “Violet, I’m serious. Let me help you.”

  “Help me with what?” I said. “I’m screwed.”

  Jamie squeezed my hand. “Why don’t you tell me what this is actually about?”

  “Why? What’s the point?”

  “Because you don’t have to be alone with it.”

  I closed my eyes again. He was a good man. Jamie, holding his arms wide, ready to receive my problems, not so that we could dissect and analyze and solve them, but simply so he could share the burden for a while. That the problem remained inarticulate didn’t matter. What mattered was not to be alone. He was, perhaps, my best shot at happiness.

  Years ago, when I spurned Jamie’s advance, I thought I didn’t need his love because I had Stella. Months ago, when I let Stella sink into the ocean, I thought I didn’t need her love because I had myself. But this meant that I had stepped outside certain boundaries, and I wasn’t sure if I could ever come back in. The world looks at you and sees you in the context of other people. Relationships radiate out like the delicate strands of a spider’s web. The politician talks about his hardworking parents, or his loving wife. The mother is willing to sacrifice anything for her children. These are always the first nouns people reach for. I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife. I am a friend.

  I thought I could survive without those words, without those silken strands. But surviving isn’t the same as living. And didn’t Jamie love me, in a way? The kind of love that comes from a thousand late nights, a thousand fires extinguished, a thousand problems solved. I visualized it. I visualized opening my eyes, telling the truth. You can’t imagine the things I’ve done, Jamie. You can’t imagine the cruelty I am capable of. It is the loneliest feeling, and I don’t want to be lonely anymore. I want to open up to you, Jamie, I want to tell you the truth.

  And what would that look like, if I told him? What if he forgave me, and what if I trusted him? What if, bit by bit, he helped me climb out of this bottomless black well?

  But love has its limits. Kindness can’t fix everything. Trust is a gamble. Everything I’d worked for could be gone in an instant. So I shook my head and looked away from his gaze. “Yes, I do,” I said. “That’s how this works.”

  Ginny had a nickname at KCN: the Ice Queen. Often it was said with respect; she used her steeliness to successfully negotiate interviews with Middle East dictators or Kremlin officials. But it cut both ways. She took a frosty approach to conflict. She didn’t like firing talent, especially because their contracts usually required a full payout in the event of termination. Instead, she marginalized them. Anchors were demoted to reporters. They were given fewer hits. They were denied access to hair and makeup. Eventually, dignity required them to quit.

  It didn’t matter how much Rebecca and Eliza liked me. They could talk shit about Ginny behind her back, but at the end of the day, she was their boss. She controlled their budget. If it came down to defending me versus preserving their own careers at KCN, it was obvious which would win. I understood this; in their situation, I would do the same. Ginny would ban them from writing reference letters or tapping their contacts to find me a new job. Ginny would make sure I failed. She would leave me alone, on a tiny floe of ice, to drift and drift until finally I gave up and drowned myself.

  But here’s the thing: it’s far easier to keep someone out in the first place. Once the franchise has been extended, good luck taking it back. Once a person like me has a foothold in your world, good luck driving them out. That’s why the British fought so hard in 1940. That’s why, to an extent, the universe favors progress. An inch of incursion soon becomes a mile. Ginny never really understood the relentlessness of an outsider. I had tasted the possibilities. I wasn’t giving up that easily.

  Chapter Twenty

  anne called with frequent updates from Maine. The police were putting more resources into the investigation. A picture was starting to come together.

  Irregular currents had kept the boat close to shore. The lobsterman who found the rusted and salt-bleached boat didn’t recognize it from the police description. He left it in the care of the dockmaster, who had vague plans of fixing it up before the summer season. Anne had been visiting every town in that part of Maine, asking questions and showing pictures of Stella. She stopped in this particular small town for coffee. While a fresh pot was brewing, she waited on the deck that overlooked the harbor. That’s when she spotted it.

  The police were performing a full forensic workup, but the boat was badly degraded by saltwater and wind and rain. The best they could do was guess at what had happened. If Stella had made it to her intended destination, the boat would have made it, too. But the drifting boat—at sea for several months, based on its condition—pointed to a simpler explanation. Over three thousand Americans die from drowning every year. That’s what they told the Bradleys. Almost every single day, someone dies in a boating-related incident. As time went on, it seemed the most likely answer.

  Anne had crossed the hemispheres of the world, searching for the crack through which her daughter had slipped. And here it was: an accident
. The crack turned out to be ordinary and commonplace. There was some comfort in this. Even though the police were suggesting that Stella was finally, conclusively, inescapably dead, at least they had dropped their theory about the burner-phone mystery man, about the drugs, about Stella getting mixed up with a bad crowd. Drowning was tragic, but it was dignified. If Anne had to resign herself to losing Stella forever, at least her daughter could remain as perfect in death as she had been in life. Closure, perhaps, was possible.

  But Anne wasn’t the person I had to worry about.

  It was almost two weeks later, on a Friday, when I arrived to a strange tension in the newsroom. There were several interns whispering in the corner. Eliza, who on a good day barely acknowledged the interns, beckoned one to her office and closed the door.

  Rebecca’s assistant studiously avoided my gaze as I walked past her desk. “What’s going on?” I said, but she shook her head without looking at me.

  All morning, Jamie’s desk was empty. His computer was off. No jacket, no bag, no coffee cup and muffin wrapper in his trash can from his usual coffee cart. He hadn’t said he’d be late. When he had to field-produce, he always told me ahead of time. I felt a ripple of unease. In the past two weeks, since the police concluded that Stella was dead, Jamie had been miserable with a new bout of guilt. Miserable enough to do something drastic.

  Later, when I went to the kitchen for a cup of tea, there were two assistants hovering, with low voices and furtive whispers. My heart began to race. Act normal, I thought. When I went to the refrigerator for milk, one of them grabbed my wrist and hissed, “Stop!”

  “Seriously, what?” I snapped. “Why is everyone acting so possessed?”

  “You have to make sure the coast is clear,” one of the assistants said. She leaned over, looking toward the door. “Okay,” she said, “but make it fast.”

  The middle shelf of the refrigerator had been cleared to make room for a large tray with a clear plastic lid. Inside was a cake, with white frosting and lilac roses. The script across the top read, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY REBECCA.”