by Allison Parr
“Hey! Hey, everyone!”
Every occupant swiveled to stare like they’d been primed for the invitation, even those with headphones. Carlos gestured widely at me. “This is Tamar. She’s joining editorial, covering football.”
The room chorused a welcome back at me, which was slightly terrifying. I raised a hand. “Hi.”
Near fifty people worked here, which was absolutely massive compared to the small weekly newspaper I’d worked at before. Editorial numbered over a dozen, and covered not just different sports but different teams. I’d probably be spending most of my time with them, and in my interview I’d learned that we also had several columnists who didn’t work in the office.
The art department, marketing and programming were also large, though not as much as combined editorial. Carlos gave me a quick rundown of their names as we walked around the room, though they quickly blended together, as did the many faces. Everyone, despite race and sex, seemed oddly similar; youngish—Tanya and the arts director were the oldest, in their late thirties—very well dressed, and exuded this cosmopolitan vibe that I was certain didn’t extend to me. They all seemed cool. How did one become cool? A baffling concept.
“And we sit over here.” I followed Carlos across the room to a clump of four tables grouped near the wall of windows, and the spectacular sight of sky and—actually, all the other buildings kind of blocked out the best view of the city, but it was still imposing and impressive.
Carlos was gesturing at a wheelie office-chair. “All right, this is you. These are your neighbors, Jin and Mduduzi. Both mostly cover the Leopards, though you’ll all pitch in with the Jets and the Giants from time to time. Tanya and I will also occasionally be at games, especially when you’re starting out.”
The two guys looked up. I made the snap judgment that Jin was the Asian American with muscles I didn’t usually associate with journalists, and Mduduzi was the tall African American in a crisp button-up and fashionable glasses. They were both a couple of years older than me, and both looked more attractive than I’d expected my coworkers to be. I wasn’t sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
They both nodded and said hello.
Carlos tapped a beautiful, shiny, brand-new laptop on the empty desk across from Jin’s table. “This is yours. You’re lucky—they rolled out the new model right before we ordered it. Supposed to have great battery power.”
I tried not to salivate. I’d bought my last computer—okay, the only computer I’d ever owned myself—six years ago, right before college. It still worked, but it was a little tired sometimes. Poor baby.
“Come on,” Carlos said. “Let’s find Tanya.”
He led me to a corner office and my nerves came back in full force. Tanya Jones was the thirty-nine-year-old editor of Sports Today. She graduated from the Columbia J-school and got her start at one of the popular blogging platforms before landing a writer position here six years ago, and she took over the editor-in-chief position last year. I’d met her last month, and until she’d offered me the job, I hadn’t the slightest idea if she liked me or not.
Come to think of it, I still didn’t know if she liked me. Maybe I was the only viable candidate able to start so quickly.
Carlos showed me into her corner office. Tanya had the largest office on the floor. Her ultimate boss, Stuart Kingsley, the CEO of Today Media and its six separate magazines, worked on the twelfth floor, and while I’d seen pictures, I’d never met him.
Tanya stood and came over to shake my hand. She was tall and strong-boned and casually dressed. “Good to see you again. You’re the only new hire this week, so we’re going to do a seat-of-our-pants orientation. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Um. No.”
“Good.” She led me out of her office and back onto the open floor. Carlos kept pace. “Let’s start with coffee. Do you have a mug?”
“I don’t.”
“Then you need a mug.” We entered a brightly colored kitchenette. Boxes of snacks and candies lined the counters. I saw a bowl filled with dark chocolate squares and wondered if it was too early to snag one.
She pulled out a ceramic mug for me and filled it and her thermos with fresh coffee. She kept moving before I had a chance to doctor mine. I tried to keep pace without letting the liquid burn my hand, while Tanya managed to authoritatively gesture with hers. “You’ll have noticed. We have more than our fair share of testosterone in the office. Don’t let that bother you. If they bother you, report them to HR. I’m not interested in people who don’t treat everyone like humans.” We passed by the desk of a guy my age. “Right, Billy?”
He looked up with puppy-dog adoration. “Tanya, I love you, I would never betray your trust.”
She hmphed and we kept going, past the desks and along a wall of conference rooms. “Two things to remember. First, deadline’s not flexible. Second, you’re not Lois Lane.”
Carlos leaned close to me. “She’s Lois Lane. Doesn’t want you to steal her thunder.”
“I heard that.”
He just grinned. “Also, I’d add a third rule—fact-check your stories to death.”
That made sense, but the gravity he used unnerved me. “What if I miss something?”
Tanya didn’t break stride. “We’ll feed you to the wolves.” She paused for emphasis. “The wolves are the commentators on our website.”
“Don’t read the comments,” Carlos said helpfully.
I looked back and forth between them. “Why not?”
“Because internet commentators are the scum of humanity and they will tear you apart.”
“Our readers,” Tanya said forcefully, “are a wonderful community that we encourage and respect. However. They will tear you apart.”
People don’t tend to tear you apart when you work at a little weekly newspaper in the town you grew up in.
After she wrapped up the widest scope of my position, Tanya leaned back in her chair and studied me intently. “We’re doing things a little differently this year.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “Part of what I liked about you during your interview was that you’d written an article about a topic that’s often considered taboo, and you didn’t back down. That’s what I want to do this year. Do you know the reputation of sports journalism?”
I nodded. There used to be an unspoken law not to rock the boat. Sports journalists were dependent on their contacts—coaches and players—to get scoops, and if they ruined relations, they could be kicked out of the press box and the story.
Sports Today had proved itself ready to rock the boat a little bit, and given my brief impression of Tanya, I could only assume she wouldn’t mind sinking it in a blaze of fire. “I know it.”
“Good. Well, this is the year people start taking us seriously. We get a good story, we’re keeping it. In the past, if drugs or rape or murder turned up, they were almost uniformly handed off to the news beat. But we are the news, and if anything happens this season, I want you on it like glue.”
“Um...”
She scowled. “What, you have a question? You can ask a question.”
This woman terrified me. “Won’t that jeopardize our relationship with the teams?”
“I don’t give a damn about our relationship with the teams.” I stared at her, and she sighed. “Sorry. Basically, it’s great that we have a relationship and we can talk to them, but that’s not the most important thing. I value truth and accuracy above buttering people up. We’re not in this to churn out cutesy interviews or glowing features. We’re reporters.”
After an hour, Carlos picked me up and ran me over to HR to get my pic taken and ID badge printed. After that, I got a brief tour of our building before Carlos brought me over to our desks. It turned out he had the one beside me, across from Mduduzi. I sat down with a sigh of relief. “Now what?”
Carlos smiled. “Now I’m going to forward you a bunch of stories, and you’re going to write them.”
I tried not to gape. “J
ust like that?”
His smile widened. “Just like that. Don’t mess up.”
Not two hours later, I picked up a phone and dialed a number Carlos had forwarded. “Hi, this is Tamar Rosenfeld, calling from Sports Now... Can I talk to Dennis Gardner?”
And just like that, some fool receptionist put me in touch with an assistant coach of the Leopards.
Chapter Six
A week and a half later, Tanya strode by my desk. “Rosenfeld. You’re with me.”
I almost tripped as I shoved my phone and recorder into my purse and caught up with her. “Where are we going?”
She ignored me, instead snapping her fingers at Carlos. “You have her badge?”
“Yes, Tanya.” Carlos fell in beside me and we flanked Tanya all the way to the elevators.
I turned to him. “Do you know where we’re going?”
Tanya didn’t look at either of us as she responded. “Open locker room.”
“Wow—does that mean we’re going to the Leopards Stadium right now?”
Carlos leaned over and muttered out of the side of his mouth, “Be grateful it’s not the MetLife. The commute to Jersey’s a bitch.”
I was grateful to be headed to any stadium. I’d spent the past few days refusing to drown in all the information, but rather trying to absorb it, and a change of pace was welcome. Not that I didn’t like my new job—far from it. My first articles went live on Tuesday, after taking a beating and a half from Tanya’s editing wand. I almost cried the first time they came back drenched in red, but quickly figured out the preferred style. After all, my first three stories weren’t really that: one was to deliver snark on an inane tweet one of the New York Leopards had made; one was basically a rewrite of a story that another publication ran; and one was a three-paragraph write-up on a video that was making the rounds online of Jensen Clay being an ass to a reporter.
I also genuinely liked my coworkers. Mduduzi was not, as I’d first thought, African American—he’d come to the States from Zimbabwe for college. He had a faint, almost British accent, and despite sounding very posh and classy was relaxed and laid-back. Jin, who’d moved from Minneapolis to New York after journalism school, was cool enough that he intimidated me a bit—sort of a slouchy hipster intellectual, the kind who knew about music but didn’t seem to care about much else.
Except for sports, of course. We all cared about sports.
Carlos was upbeat, engaged and happy to help. He was approachable, the kind of guy you wanted to tell things to, which I suppose made him good at interviewing people. More with honey than vinegar, and all that.
The Leopards Stadium was located in Chelsea, above the old rail yards. It had a media parking lot, but none of us owned a car. We arrived at 11:00, which gave us fifteen minutes before the open locker room period began. Tanya briefly pointed out pertinent directions that I promptly forgot, and led us deeper into the labyrinth.
We crossed paths with a distinguished, silver-haired man, who looked more suited for a television show than real life. His custom suit fit his form perfectly, and his eyes glittered like the same steely color as his sleekly parted hair.
My stomach clenched and I shot a wide-eyed glance at Carlos, who nodded almost imperceptivity.
My tenth-grade English teacher once joked—or perhaps he hadn’t been joking—that we should never trust anyone with two first names. No one would trust Gregory Philip as far as they could throw him at anything except being the Leopards’ controlling, maniacal owner. He succeeded at that dramatically, causing a fevered worship in New Yorkers and strong dislike in everyone else.
Philip came from a wealthy New England family that spent its money with the affected ennui of its social circles, buying and trading islands and houses and sport teams on a whim. He’d been in possession of the Leopards for twenty years, which was no surprise given that the Leopards were a cash cow. When he’d first bought the team straight out of Yale and flush with money from his inheritance, everyone had said the rich young party boy would blow the team to shreds. His reputation was low; apparently his mistakes had been covered over by his late, wealthy father more than once, and rumor said he now did the same for his own son. But morally reprehensible or not, his business acumen had instead turned the Leopards into a lead player in the AFC.
Tanya led me up to him without missing a beat. “Greg, this is my new staff writer, Tamar Rosenfeld.”
Oh God oh God oh God. What was I doing in his company? Must remember to breathe.
He took my hand and offered me a toothy smile. “The new Jane.”
That crashed me back down to reality. I was sick of being the new Jane. “That’s right.”
“It’s a pleasure. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions—anything at all.”
He walked off and I watched him go with wide eyes.
Carlos poked up by my side. “That wasn’t true. Don’t go to him with any questions.”
“Yeah, wasn’t really planning on it.”
“Oh, you’ll go to him with questions.” Tanya, who must have had ears in the back of her head, spoke dryly. “But he’ll do his best not to answer them.”
I smiled all the way down to the locker room.
Several times each week during the regular season, each football club was required to provide accredited media with access to their locker room. Today, Tanya was interviewing Malcolm Lindsey for a feature piece, and we actually sat outside the room. But that was quickly countered by the whole Malcolm Lindsey bit. He was one of the best wide-outs in the League, particularly when paired with quarterback Ryan Carter. Last season, he’d come pretty close to 1,200 receiving yards. Last week, though, covered by the opposing team’s rookie cornerback, he hadn’t scored once. So emotions were riding high.
Other media swarmed around us, people Tanya clearly knew. Even I recognized some of them, mostly the news anchors. They all looked a little too well groomed to be real; not like Philip, whose dress looked dangerous, but rather like mannequins.
Aurelius Stevenson, of Sports News Now, smiled rather cruelly at Tanya while we set up with Lindsey. “Doing a piece on the wedding?”
Oh, and that was the other thing about Malcolm Lindsey. He was getting married this year.
Which would be completely irrelevant, except if you wanted to be an obnoxious snot to a female reporter.
Tanya didn’t even glance at him. Instead, she dove into the interview fully focused.
Afterward, the press had fifteen minutes to interview Head Coach Paglio—another man I’d never seen in person before. Despite his gruffer attitude, he wasn’t nearly as terrifying as Gregory Philip. He’d been around for ages, at least a dozen years, and he’d come away from the Redskins to lead the Leopards. He was famous for spitting when he spoke and making rookies cry, but he made the veterans laugh so everyone figured that was all right. I took furious notes as he spoke and tried not to float away in astonishment, feeling somewhat like I’d infiltrated the media corps and no one had yet realized I was an imposter. I felt like I’d walked into dreamland.
And it didn’t even stop there.
Tanya hooked a PR assistant walking by. “Anna, this is our new sports reporter, the one taking Jane’s place.”
She nodded like she’d been expecting me, and smiled. “Ready for your tour?”
“Completely.”
The tour was quick and competent. At the end, I was returned to the press area, where I lingered off to the side, trying to take in all the swirling chaos of my new field. I studied a giant photo of wide-out Malcolm Lindsey superimposed over the wall.
Deep male laughter tripped my attention, and I plastered on a wide, friendly smile as I turned, ready to engage with some of the team for the first time. Nervous flutters struck up in my chest, but they were born of excitement. The New York Leopards. These men were brilliant athletes, owners of powerful bodies and incredible strength.
My excitement turned to shock when I turned and saw Abraham striding down the hall toward me.
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He hadn’t seen me yet. He was joking with one of his teammates. He wore gym shorts and a black Leopards T-shirt that showcased his powerful arms; a towel was slung around his neck. His hair, like usual, sprung about untidily.
Four other guys surrounded him, guys I’d studied up on as soon as I took this job. Famously redheaded Mike O’Connor, an enigmatic charmer who generally had a moment to appease the press. He’d given a whole story to my predecessor Jane, which was what promoted her out of my position. I supposed I should thank him at some point.
Next to him strode tall and stunningly gorgeous Dylan Pierce. Diamonds glinted in his ears and wicked humor in his caramel eyes. Only Malcolm Lindsey stood taller than him, a powerhouse of a man who had all the quiet authority of a monk. And to Malcolm’s left was Ryan Carter, one of those quarterbacks so genetically blessed he made women swoon just by breathing. Though he’d been off the market for two years now.
Behind them, Jensen Clay jogged to catch up. Usually, I would have smiled at that; Clay was a recently drafted second-string quarterback, and rumor had it he was a pain in Carter’s side.
But I didn’t smile today, because I was too surprised by Abe standing in the middle of all of them. I knew they were teammates, of course, but knowing was different than seeing, and I supposed in my heart of hearts I’d still thought he was the boy from down the street.
The other five slowed when they approached me, and then Abe’s head swung toward me. It all happened in half a second that lasted half a year. He stopped abruptly, and his teammates, so attuned to each other’s motions, also froze.
