My mother was a wonderful person. She thought of me as a miracle, so she doted on me and tried to give me everything I needed. At the same time, she taught me to be an independent thinker. She was the type of person who always looked put-together until she got sick, yet I remember her telling me, You’re a beautiful girl, Kate, but don’t ever rely on your looks. She would tap her index finger on my temple and say, It’s what you do with this that matters.
I remember she was affectionate but tough, like she was preparing me for the challenges of life. I always had the sense that she wouldn’t be around for very long, and she wasn’t, but at least I had Rose . . . until I didn’t. She died from an infection after having textbook surgery to remove a gallstone. I didn’t understand what kind of God would take away every person who cared about me. Then I realized, There’s no one to take care of me, no matter how many people surround me. I’m all I’ve got. Those words became my mantra.
I chanted those words as I entered the lobby of the Chicago Crier, a well-known Chicago newspaper and blog, and my workplace for the last five years. I had been writing articles for the special interest section on topics like the dangers of trans fats, yoga vs. Pilates, the merits of red lipstick, and where to find inexpensive, quality wine. I was never given a serious assignment. Jerry, the editor, loved me, but from the time of Rose’s death I had been producing subpar articles with zero enthusiasm. I had no expectation of moving up at the paper because my energy for life had withered, and frankly, I didn’t deserve it. But somehow, when I walked through the doors that day, I had a new vision. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was an image of me at a computer, writing with fervor and passion—something I hadn’t done in eight long months.
When I reached my floor, I found Beth standing near my cubicle. She was a tall, mousy-haired, intimidating-looking woman, but she had a huge heart and a true talent for writing. She dressed like a teenage boy in basketball shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers every freakin’ day, but it didn’t matter because she was the head writer at the paper and damn well deserved it. She got all of the biggest assignments because she put her heart and soul into every single word she wrote. I admired her.
“Hey, kid.”
“Hi Beth, how was your weekend?”
“Great. I knocked out ten thousand words.”
Of course she did. Why couldn’t I be more like that?
“What’s this?” I pointed toward a stack of papers on my desk. The cover sheet was blank except for the bold words: R. J. LAWSON.
“Jerry is giving you that story,” she said. I had no idea what it meant at first, but then I remembered hearing Jerry rant about R. J. Lawson. Jerry was obsessed with getting a story on him. I personally didn’t know anything about him.
“Me? Why in the world would he give this to me?”
Beth just smiled her knowing smile. “I don’t know, but he’s gonna be over in a sec to talk to you about it. Boy, I wanted that story, Kate. No one has been able to get an interview with him since he disappeared from public life. I’m glad you got it, though—you need it.”
I stared at her for several moments and then I mumbled, “Yeah, I know . . . might be a game changer.”
Smiling, she said, “You got it, sister.” Then she did a jump shot with a balled-up piece of paper, lofting it perfectly into the wastebasket behind me. “Swoosh, nothin’ but net.”
When she turned and walked away, I stared down at the neatly stacked papers and laughed to myself, thinking Jerry had truly lost his mind giving me a real assignment. I looked up to find him peering over the partition.
“You like? It’s an exclusive,” he said, arching his eyebrows.
“Why me?”
“Kate, what do you know about that guy?”
“Nothing except that you’ve been hounding his people for a story, and I can tell you that Beth would have easily sacrificed a limb for this assignment.”
He nodded slowly and then looked up at the ceiling as if he was thinking. The large warehouse-like room was separated by about a hundred cubicle partitions. The huge space rattled and hummed with the sound of writers chatting and typing frantically at their computers. Jerry pumped different kinds of music through the overhead speakers, creating a cocoon of creativity, but I hadn’t felt creative in a long time, and it was nobody’s fault but my own. At that moment, a sad version of the song “Heartbeats” by José González was traveling through the airwaves. I watched Jerry as he continued to look up pensively.
He was forty years old and he looked exactly like Richard Dreyfuss circa Close Encounters. He wore his bifocals on the very last millimeter of his nose, which aged him, but he thought it gave him a look of credibility. He was in love with his wife and kids, a true family man, but he had no filter at all, so it didn’t surprise me one bit when he finally looked back down and said, “You’re a good writer, Kate. You have what it takes, and you have a nice ass, too.”
“Jerry! What does that have to do with anything? I don’t want you to give me a huge assignment because I have a nice ass.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s not what I meant. I said you have what it takes. R.J. is a thirty-year-old bachelor. Looking the way you do can’t hurt.”