Read Online The Girl Next Door by Brad Parks - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Brad Parks
Tags: Fiction
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into Newark overnight and is now rambling around Vailsburg.”
“I actually have something I’m working on at the moment. Mind putting someone else on it?”
“Have you looked around the newsroom lately, Carter? I would put ‘someone else’ on it, but ‘someone else’ took a buyout three years ago, and ‘the other guy’ got laid off last year,” she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “We need a writer on this thing. If we get the right art, this could lead the paper. You know how Brodie loves animal pictures.”
I did. It had just been a long time since that particular partiality—which ran the gamut from bears to dogs to escaped pet alligators—had been my problem. Those kinds of stories were generally farmed out, as it were, to bureau reporters or interns, not members of the investigative team. And yeah, maybe it was a little bit of a diva move, trying to duck this assignment. But I didn’t get into journalism so I could write searing exposés on zoo animals.
“What about Hays? Can’t he do it?”
“Hays is the only full-time reporter we have covering every crime between here and Morristown. And besides, he’d end up writing this as straight news.”
“What about Whitlow?”
“Whitlow is on vacation.”
“What ab—”
“Stop it, Carter,” she snapped. “You don’t make the staffing decisions around here, and you certainly don’t get to second-guess them. I’m your editor and I’m telling you this is your job. End of conversation.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the stupidest—”
“End of conversation. Go.”
Tina buried her attention in her computer screen, as if to emphasize our dialogue had, indeed, come to a close. I couldn’t help but feel this was personal. I had crossed some kind of boundary with Tina last night, gotten a little too close to someone who preferred to maintain a rather generous buffer zone. Saddling me with a stupid daily story was her way of planting me firmly back on the other side of the line.
“You can take an intern with you if you want someone to help with the legwork,” she said, without making eye contact. “I don’t think Lunky has anything to do right now.”
“Aww, come on—Lunky?”
“Yeah, you know, the big—”
“I know who he is. I’ve also heard he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“Probably true,” Tina said. “So I suggest you don’t share your Bubblicious with him.”
* * *
If Tina thought I was going to waste my day dodging piles of bear scat in Newark, she had another think coming. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t beneath using interns to do my work for me. And so, in giving me Lunky, she had unwittingly provided me an escape from this lowly task.
“Lunky” was the clever nickname the editors had given to Kevin Lungford. He was one of the newest members of the ever-rotating battery of indentured servants who have become increasingly predominant in most newsrooms, mostly because of their remarkable ability to subsist on salaries that qualify as human rights violations.
Our editors thought of the interns as packages of ramen noodles: cheap, portable, and surprisingly filling, but not something you put a lot of care into making. I, on the other hand, tried to take an interest in their personal development. I guess it’s because I don’t have time to volunteer at animal shelters. I push for the humane treatment of interns instead.
Our interns come in all shapes, colors, and talent levels. Some of them are actually quite good, or at least have the potential to become good.
Others are like Lunky. In the few weeks he had been here, the only thing that had distinguished him at all was his size, which was, to be sure, quite impressive. He was about six foot five and had the kind of heft to his chest and shoulders that suggested his weight was somewhere in the neighborhood of 275. He had an abundance of bushy hair protruding out of a massive skull, with a sloped forehead a
“I actually have something I’m working on at the moment. Mind putting someone else on it?”
“Have you looked around the newsroom lately, Carter? I would put ‘someone else’ on it, but ‘someone else’ took a buyout three years ago, and ‘the other guy’ got laid off last year,” she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “We need a writer on this thing. If we get the right art, this could lead the paper. You know how Brodie loves animal pictures.”
I did. It had just been a long time since that particular partiality—which ran the gamut from bears to dogs to escaped pet alligators—had been my problem. Those kinds of stories were generally farmed out, as it were, to bureau reporters or interns, not members of the investigative team. And yeah, maybe it was a little bit of a diva move, trying to duck this assignment. But I didn’t get into journalism so I could write searing exposés on zoo animals.
“What about Hays? Can’t he do it?”
“Hays is the only full-time reporter we have covering every crime between here and Morristown. And besides, he’d end up writing this as straight news.”
“What about Whitlow?”
“Whitlow is on vacation.”
“What ab—”
“Stop it, Carter,” she snapped. “You don’t make the staffing decisions around here, and you certainly don’t get to second-guess them. I’m your editor and I’m telling you this is your job. End of conversation.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the stupidest—”
“End of conversation. Go.”
Tina buried her attention in her computer screen, as if to emphasize our dialogue had, indeed, come to a close. I couldn’t help but feel this was personal. I had crossed some kind of boundary with Tina last night, gotten a little too close to someone who preferred to maintain a rather generous buffer zone. Saddling me with a stupid daily story was her way of planting me firmly back on the other side of the line.
“You can take an intern with you if you want someone to help with the legwork,” she said, without making eye contact. “I don’t think Lunky has anything to do right now.”
“Aww, come on—Lunky?”
“Yeah, you know, the big—”
“I know who he is. I’ve also heard he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“Probably true,” Tina said. “So I suggest you don’t share your Bubblicious with him.”
* * *
If Tina thought I was going to waste my day dodging piles of bear scat in Newark, she had another think coming. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t beneath using interns to do my work for me. And so, in giving me Lunky, she had unwittingly provided me an escape from this lowly task.
“Lunky” was the clever nickname the editors had given to Kevin Lungford. He was one of the newest members of the ever-rotating battery of indentured servants who have become increasingly predominant in most newsrooms, mostly because of their remarkable ability to subsist on salaries that qualify as human rights violations.
Our editors thought of the interns as packages of ramen noodles: cheap, portable, and surprisingly filling, but not something you put a lot of care into making. I, on the other hand, tried to take an interest in their personal development. I guess it’s because I don’t have time to volunteer at animal shelters. I push for the humane treatment of interns instead.
Our interns come in all shapes, colors, and talent levels. Some of them are actually quite good, or at least have the potential to become good.
Others are like Lunky. In the few weeks he had been here, the only thing that had distinguished him at all was his size, which was, to be sure, quite impressive. He was about six foot five and had the kind of heft to his chest and shoulders that suggested his weight was somewhere in the neighborhood of 275. He had an abundance of bushy hair protruding out of a massive skull, with a sloped forehead a
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