Page 89 of Common Grounds

Randall sinks into his chair and steeples his fingers in front of his thin lips. “Good morning,” he says smoothly. A few mumbled “good mornings” are returned, but the tension in the room is palpable. No one knows exactly what he’s going to do.

“Monday mornings are normally pitch meetings, as you know, but we have a unique situation this week. Our very own Emery Darlis has been working on a new type of piece for the magazine. Darlis, will you fill everyone in on what you’ve been doing this month?”

This is completely unnecessary. All the staff has a decent handle on what everyone is working on week to week, but I clear my throat. I may not know the rules yet, but I’ll play his game. “Um, yes, sir. I’ve been writing a series of articles about a local coffee shop, Baker’s Blend, that has been doing poorly in the current economic climate.”

Randall nods. “And how have those articles been doing?”

The urge to break eye contact with him is strong, but I resist. I look right at him all the way on the opposite side of the table as I say, “The goal was to have one million unique visitors to the site over four articles. So far, the first three articles have driven approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand new clicks to the site.”

Ethan is practically vibrating with pride next to me, but I resist the urge to punctuate my statement with a smug smirk. I’m still not sure what’s going on.

I don’t think I’ll have to wait long, as Randall pushes back from the table. His chair creaks as he leans back in it and opens his gaze to the rest of the room. “Anyone else seen an uptick in visitors to their articles over the past few weeks?”

I tear my eyes from Randall to look around the room. There’s some affirmative murmuring and a few uncertain nods.

Where is he going with this?

“I will admit, I was skeptical that this could work,” he says as the room falls silent again. “It’s not every day that a staff writer directly disregards the way things have been done for a pitch.”

It takes all my effort not to grimace at the slight jab.

Randall addresses our data analyst. “Burkholm, can you tell the staff why they’ve been seeing an uptick in page views over the past few weeks?”

“It would appear that, when people click on Darlis’ articles, they have a tendency to click on others in the Suggested Articles section,” he replies.

Randall nods again. He clearly already knew this information. “So, you’re telling us that Emery Darlis and her web series is the reason the site is doing better this month than it has in a while?”

Burkholm clears his throat. “It would appear that way, yes.”

Randall locks eyes with me. He gives the tiniest nod of approval before addressing the room. I’m struck by the realization that he did want people off-balance today, but not me. His cryptic invitation was for everyone else.

“I don’t love being proved wrong”—there’s a smattering of nervous laughter—“but it would be foolish not to lean into this and see if we can make it work for us. We want to shift our focus to include more local interest series going forward rather than one-off pieces. We will, of course, still include singular stories, but I want to reschedule our pitch meeting for tomorrow to give everyone a chance to bring some of these new ideas to the table.” When no one moves, he huffs frustratedly. “Dismissed!” he barks. The staff scatters. Even Josie jumps to her feet and shuffles out as she waits for the bottleneck of people to leave the conference room.

Ethan remains, and I turn to him wide-eyed. “What?” I mouth.

He smiles and shrugs. “You did it, queen.”

I did it. And the normally gruff and cranky Randall admitted it in front of everyone. Before the deadline. And he didn’t only admit it; he wants others to model their pitches after mine. That’s huge.

I reach for my phone on instinct. I want to text Trevor to tell him all about it, but I remember it’s still off and buried in my work bag. Because I hurt him and walked out on him. And suddenly, the victory feels completely hollow.

As the room empties out completely, Ethan stands. I move to follow him, but Randall calls out my name.

“Darlis. Stay back, please.”

I sink back into my seat. Ethan pauses to squeeze my shoulder, then leaves the room, shutting the door behind him.

“I know I’m speaking prematurely, but it would seem you’ll likely come out on top of our little challenge. I’m comfortable trusting you to run your piece on… what was it again?”

“Misallocation of local school funds, sir,” I choke out around a tightness that gripped my chest right around the time I reached for my phone.

“Right. But don’t lose sight of the fact that we want to try to keep our positive tone as much as possible.” He dips his chin to look at me over his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Yes, sir.”

He regards me for another moment before waving me away with a flick of his fingers as he looks down to make some notes on a notepad sitting near his elbow. “That’ll be all.”

Okay, then. I rise and push my chair in, but I stand there and grip the back of it. “If I may, sir?”

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