Imaginary Lines

Page 9

  No, I wanted stability. I had a job, an apartment. I had straightened out my life. I knew where I’d be a year from now, and I certainly hadn’t been able to say that since graduation. I had my own health care, for God’s sake.

  Well, I would when I signed up for it. I didn’t have to pick my enrollment for another week and a half.

  But I was ready for a real, serious relationship. The kind where we fell in love and went away on weekends and eventually moved in together. And there was no way in hell I was going to let my heart get wrapped up in Abraham Krasner all over again, after all the time it had taken me to get over him. I wanted to like someone who actually wanted me back.

  I entered my apartment and fell into my desk chair. Where was it? I found my airplane list of goals beneath a pile of edits. Yes, there was magic in this city.

  I had one last item to add to the list—an item, I suspected, that precluded completing several of the other items. I wrote it in broad, bold strokes of blue.

  9) Get over Abraham Krasner.

  Chapter Five

  On Monday, I headed to the Flatiron District in the low East 20s of Manhattan for my first day at Sports Today.

  I didn’t expect to be so nervous, but I woke up filled with butterflies hatched overnight. My hands fumbled as I pulled on the outfit I’d assembled the night before. Now it seemed too daring, the royal blue of my dress too loud, the hem perhaps too high. I considered dumping all of it for all black, and then got a grip and went to work on my hair.

  I loved my hair, but it was a pain in the ass; thick and wild and unruly. I used to mess it with tons of product to keep the curls in line, but now I’d given up on that. Instead, I usually wrung it with a cotton cloth and let it air-dry, which worked great in California, but the humidity here turned my hair into a baby-eating monster.

  So instead of dealing with the uncertain combination of hair and humidity, I tucked it into a sleek roll and wrapped it into a well-behaved prisoner of pins and elastics. Then I slipped on my Payless pumps and headed out the door.

  Sports Today was part of a whole family of papers and websites that made up Today Media. The organization had started out as a monthly magazine fifty-odd years ago, but was one of the first to jump from the print ship to the digital bandwagon when magazines started tanking. Back then, Today Media had been only three magazines, but now they’d broken out into six different specific brands. Each maintained an extensive website and released an expensive, shiny magazine every quarter, which collected their best online stories as well as including special in-depth features and interviews.

  Today Media owned a very large and intimidating building bordering Madison Square Park and when I reached it, I paused for a moment and stared up. It was giant and glossy and terrifying and beautiful.

  Someone clipped my shoulder as they passed me on the sidewalk and shot me a dirty look.

  I took a deep breath and went inside.

  The lobby was shiny and sleek and filled with professionals in black and white and gray. I started toward the elevator bank, and then a large woman sped into my purview. “Hey. Hey!”

  I stopped, terrified that I had somehow messed up before I even started. “Hello?”

  She nodded at a black box on the wall I’d barely noticed. “You have to sign in. ” When I looked at her blankly, she asked, “Are you an employee?”

  “This is my first day. I—I don’t have an ID yet. ”

  She waved me over to the front desk. “You’ll have to sign in there. ”

  Taking a deep breath and trying to calm my heart, I headed over to the desk and presented my driver’s license, which a second security woman studied for an unduly long time before handing it back. “Who are you here to see?”

  “Tanya Jones. Sports Today. ”

  The security woman made a call, nodded and then typed furiously on her computer. A moment later she handed me a sticker printed with my name and Sports Today. “You’ll have to wear this until you have an employee ID. ”

  I nodded, plastered the pass against my cardigan and then walked a little nervously past the first guard. At least the people now waiting for the elevator hadn’t seen her accost me. We all loaded inside and pressed various buttons. The seven was already lit, so I faced forward like everyone else and looked at the little screen in the corner that announced it was 77 degrees out and 8:53 in the morning. My little mess-up had put me back three minutes from my planned arrival time.

  The elevator let me out into an open lobby. I faced a guy not much older than me, who sat behind a long desk. To the left, windows let in orange autumn light, while behind him blocky red letters printed SPORTS TODAY on a black wall.

  “Hi,” I said when the guy looked up. He wore the collar of his sweater-vest almost as high as Regency gentlemen. “My name’s Tamar Rosenfeld? I’m new. I’m here to see Tanya Jones?”

  Dammit, I hated using upspeak. It meant I felt uncomfortable or nervous.

  “Yeah, all right. ”

  Yeah, all right? I swallowed. “Okay. I’ll just stand here. ”

  He looked at me funny for a second, and then turned back to his computer.

  Cool.

  After a few excruciatingly awkward minutes, a guy rounded the corner. He was tall and skinny as a beanstalk, and his black hair rose in uncombed tufts in all directions. “Hi. Tamar?”

  “That’s me. ” I shook his extended hand.

  “Carlos Fernandez, assistant editor. Come on, I’ll show you your desk. ”

  He brought me past the wall and into the open floor of the newsroom. I paused for one overwhelmed second to let it sink in. During the interview, I’d only seen meeting rooms on another floor, so this was my first real look. Desks and computers and people filled the entire space, messily organized into streamlined chaos. Tables, maybe three and a half feet long each, were pushed together in clumps of four or five. Half the people wore brightly colored headphones; others laughed with their neighbors. Computers covered every surface; small laptops and extra monitors and tablets. Large screens were mounted to the walls, interspersed with enlarged photos from some of Sports Today’s covers.

  “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.