Page 8 of Bro Smooth
Straightening my shoulders, I walk right up to his office door and knock. This is the official beginning of my reporting career. I’m about to have my first article accepted into a real city press.
“Come in!”
I take a mental snapshot as I push the door open. I want to remember everything about this moment. The stacks of papers nearly overflowing his desk. The faint smell of cigarette smoke. The bitter smell of coffee in the air. Even the way Carl doesn’t even acknowledge me when I walk in. Once he realizes it’s me, the intern whose story about the cubing competition surprised him with its attention to detail and thoughtful execution, he’ll be delighted that I’m here, and I want to remember the way his expression transforms.
“Good morning, Carl,” I say, grateful that my voice doesn’t shake even though my hands do. “I just wanted to let you know that I emailed over the story I wrote about the Rubik’s Cube competition last night. Just so it doesn’t get lost in your inbox.” I eye the chair in front of his desk, considering sitting down, but there’s a smear of something that might be ink from an exploded pen and might be ketchup on the seat. Whatever it is, it looks like it’s dried, but I don’t want to risk getting my skirt dirty. I guess I’ll just stand here, awkwardly hovering, waiting for the praise that I’m sure is coming.
“The what?” Carl glances up, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
I remember what Sebastian said about not all cubes being Rubik’s Cubes. “The speedcubing competition. The story I suggested Friday? That you assigned me?”
Probably he’s just distracted by whatever he was doing when I came in. Any moment he’s going to remember my article and recall that he read it when it arrived in his email last night, and that it’s fantastic. That it should be top of the fold. Maybe not on the front page, but the sixth wouldn’t be too bad. I’d take that. It is my first piece, after all, and it was a small competition. I’m not so delusional as to think an article about a local cubing event would be more important than something like a fire or a little kid who saved his elderly neighbor by calling 911 when they had a heart attack at his front-yard lemonade stand.
I’m lost in these thoughts when Carl, who had returned his attention to his computer, looks up again to see me still waiting. “What are you still doing in here?”
“I …” My hand slowly raises, about to point at the computer, where my article is waiting for him. I’m revising my earlier assessment from “read my article immediately” to “is going to read my article now”, since it’s clear he hasn’t actually read it yet. If he had, he’d be offering gentle critique sandwiched in praise.
“Go get me a coffee.” Carl shoves his empty mug across the desk at me and turns his attention back to his computer.
Okay. He just needs a little jolt of energy to revive him. He wants to start my article with an awake brain so he can devote his full focus to every word I’ve written. I take the mug and scurry to the break room.
The coffee pot is empty. Because of course it is. Pulling out a new filter and pouring in the grounds, I grind my teeth a little. Given the number of journalists here who drink coffee and how many degrees they have between them, you’d think they would know how to recognize an empty carafe and brew a new pot. I feel like I do it way more than everyone else. In fact, I know I do. I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone else rinse the pot, dump the used grounds, or hit the start button on the machine.
“We’re out of creamer,” says Brad, coming into the break room and shouldering past me to move the pot out of the way so the fresh brew drips right into his cup. There’s a sizzle and the smell of burning coffee as a few drops hit the burner before he gets his mug situated.
I wish I was more comfortable standing my ground and not letting him just move me aside like a misplaced semicolon, but I know it’s not worth it. I’m just the intern, and I don’t want to make waves with the actual staff. I open the cupboard below the coffee pot, where the spare supplies like filters and creamer live. I’ve never seen anyone else open it, so I don’t trust that Brad actually looked for more creamer before announcing we were out, but he’s right. The box of extra creamer is empty. I chide myself for my uncharitable thoughts towards Brad. I should be nicer. He probably already saw earlier that there wasn’t any in the cabinet, and he probably doesn’t know who orders it to tell them. He’s a big shot reporter whose story is nearly always front page, above the fold. He’s got more important things to worry about than where to find coffee creamer.
Hoping Brad puts the pot back when he’s done filling his own cup, I grab the empty creamer box from the cabinet, toss it into a trash can, and head down the hall to the office admin’s desk.
“Hey, Ashley.”
“What can I do for you?” Ashley doesn’t look away from her computer screen as she keeps clicking away on her mouse, but at least her words and tone aren’t harsh. Ashley is always super busy, but she doesn’t take it out on me like some of the rest of the staff do.
“Do we have any more creamer?” I drum my fingers on the top of the cubicle divider that gives her some semblance of privacy from the rest of the office.
“Loading dock,” she says quickly, grabbing a green folder from her desk and handing me a paper from it. “Haven’t had a chance to go grab it yet.”
“I’ll go pick it up for you.” It’s not how I imagined I’d be spending my morning, but what else am I going to say? She’s already given me the printed ticket to claim the shipment, so she clearly expects me to go get it.
By the time I make it back to the break room, there is a coffee spill on the counter that wasn’t there when I left, but at least Brad put the carafe back. I refill the drawer with creamer pods and put the rest of the box in the cupboard before washing my editor’s gross mug out and filling it with fresh coffee with exactly one creamer and two sugars.
“Took you long enough,” Carl says by way of thanks as I set the cup on the edge of his desk.
I hesitate before turning and heading for the door. He had plenty of time while I was making coffee and fetching creamer to read my article, but if he had, he’d say something, right?
I’ve got one foot out in the hallway when I stop and turn back to him. “When you get a chance to look at my story, I’d love to hear any feedback you have.” There. That doesn’t assumeanything, but makes it clear that I want to hear what he has to say.
“It’s in your inbox.”
“Oh. Okay, thank you!” I force myself not to run back to my cubicle to check my email. There it is. I click on it and read what he wrote.
“Edits attached. Fix it and send it to copy.”
My hands shake as I open the attachment and see what he meant by “edits attached.” He used track changes, and the page is mostly red. No, it’s almost entirely red. He’s crossed out practically everything I wrote, distilling the piece I toiled over down to two sentences:Local International Cubing Federation competition winners include MIT students Elliot Carter, Lukas Wagner, Felix Grey, and Sebastian Lange. They will advance to Nationals. He also deleted my name and left a comment:No byline needed.
Tears sting my eyes. I’d thought my article was good. Not hard-hitting news, but a solid community piece. Surely it was at least worth keepingsomeof it. He didn’t even leave a single sentence intact, he just mashed pieces of a few of them together to get those two measly lines that barely even acknowledge that the competition happened, much less offer anything to indicate that it showcased some truly incredible puzzle solving by a bunch of very smart people, many of whom are local kids.
Those kids deserve more than two lines that don’t even mention them. I go back to Carl’s office, not even knocking this time before walking through the half-open door.
