Ouch. Starting off on a positive note already. Just like ol’ Bill Thompson. “Bill, I -“
He closed his fingers and ran them across his lips, the sneer coming back. “Zip it, kid. I don’t want to hear it. All you kids are alike these days, all this me, me, me crap. Never shut up about anything.”
He stood up, clearly on a full head of steam. “In my day, junior reporters were never even heard from until they’ve been on the job for a decade. Because nobody gave a shit what their opinions were, or hell, even their observations, until they knew what they were talking about.”
Bill paced around the room, back and forth still behind his desk. He pointed at me. “And you, Pearson, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I realize all of a sudden that my hands were gripping the arm rests of the chair, my knuckles turning white. This was not the conversation you wanted to have with your boss two weeks after getting your dream job. ”Bill, I –“
“I said zip it. Sure, you know your stats, you know your numbers, you’ve seen every game the Patriots have played for the last 10 years, but that doesn’t mean you know anything.”
Well, at least he was giving me some sort of a compliment, right? At least he recognized that I knew the Patriots backwards and forwards. That counted for something, right? At least there was one good thing I could tell my father after I was escorted out of the building, with just a meager box of my stuff.
He put his hands on the table, propping himself up as he leaned over it. “But that doesn’t mean you understand football. That doesn’t mean you understand what it’s like to really get in there and duke it out. And that means you don’t understand where the players are coming from, where the coaches are coming from.”
So that was it. Bill Thompson was firing me because I had never played football, either in high school, in college, or professionally. This all came down to me being a woman. I felt my hackles rise, and I momentarily told myself not to do anything stupid, then immediately disregarded that notion.
“Now hold on, Bill.” I realized I was standing up, getting on Bill’s level. “I may not have played football, but I understand the game just as well as anyone else who hasn’t played or coached it. I can relate to readers, give them an interesting perspective.”
Bill stared at me like I had grown a second head, shocked that I had the audacity to stand up to them in his own office, me, a kid with no experience, and a girl at that! “Sit down, Pearson.”
I didn’t want to, but the force of his tone and the look on his face made me do it. I sat back down, my hands gripped tight around the arm rests of the chair yet again.
Bill started pacing again. “I should fire you. I should fire you right now and give the job to someone else who knows what they’re doing.”
I tried to put on as brave face as I could. I knew the worst was coming, and I wanted to be as ready for it as I could. Don’t cry, Lily. Do not cry. Sure, you are about to lose your dream job after just a couple weeks, but this was not the time for waterworks. Keep it together, and after this you could figure out what to do next.
“I should fire you. But unfortunately for me and luckily for you, I can’t.”
Huh? Relief started to wash over me, even though I definitely wasn’t out of the woods yet. I leaned forward, eager to hear what Bill had to say next.
He put on a pained expression, like he didn’t understand all that was wrong with the world, but that didn’t stop him from being angry at it. “That video, the video of you and Drake Rollins at the draft. They put that up on the website.”
Shit. I had meant to tell Steve that we probably shouldn’t run that, but in all the excitement of the draft, I had forgotten. Of course he would have uploaded it right away, without anyone telling him not to.
“The website is blowing up, apparently all everybody wants to see and talk about is Drake Rollins getting snubbed at the draft, and the one reporter who got an interview with him.”
An interview? The argument that Drake and night had yesterday was not at all what I would think of as an interview. Still, if it help me keep my job, I’d take it. That was the most important thing right now, as long as I got to keep covering the Patriots, I would do it.
“So, what does that mean for me?”
“It means that the top brass want to keep you around. They’ve been going nuts over the website numbers since yesterday, and now they’ve got dollar signs and stars in their eyes. If it were up to me, you’d be out in the street, but unfortunately this one isn’t up to me.”
Now the relief washed over me in full, and I sat back, a little bolder than before. So I still had a job after all. Maybe Bill Thompson wasn’t looking out for me, but even he couldn’t argue with the numbers, the views that I brought in. Score one for Lily.