Post by Lindsey on Jul 16, 2007 19:15:40 GMT -5
I probably should have left you hanging a little longer! hehe. But here is Ch. 9, for those that hate waiting. This was probably the fastest chapter I've written so far, so it's probably not my best... but please comment and tell me what you think of it so far.
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“Nice job on that piece, Grace.”
A fellow reporter nudged her as she stepped off the elevator and entered the newsroom the next morning. Grace turned and looked back at him as she walked into the room, her forehead wrinkled.
As Grace walked back farther into the room towards her desk, she noticed that people were looking at her and smiling.
“Grace!” Lisa stood up immediately when Grace reached their desks. “I can’t believe that piece! It was absolutely amazing! I mean, it’s awful—but how you got it—fantastic! I should have known you had something up your sleeve when you were with him! How long have you known about this? Are you doing a follow-up? When did you write it? How did you know where to be and who to talk to?” Lisa shot questions at her like they were ammunition from a machine gun.
Grace put up her hand to stop her, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. “What in the world are you talking about, Lisa?” she almost shouted at her friend.
“This! Girl, did you not know you were on the front page of the morning edition?” Lisa shoved a newspaper at her.
Grace grabbed the paper. Her jaw almost hit the floor.
“Olympic champion, Dancing star gets another death threat,” she read to herself. Her heart started throbbing as she read the byline. “Grace Lewis.”
Grace felt like she couldn’t breathe. “I have to go.”
“What? Where are you going?” Lisa called after her.
“I have to find him,” she said.
Grace rushed out the door and started pressing the elevator button what seemed like a hundred times. It wasn’t coming fast enough. What have I done? she kept asking herself. What have I done?
Once outside the building, Grace nixed the taxis, tore off her heels, and just ran…and ran...and ran. When she was too out of breath to continue any longer, she caught a bus to the closest stop to Yuki’s Diffusions, hoping Apolo had slept in the back room that night.
It was early, but she had to catch Apolo before he saw the paper. She banged on the back door as loud as she could, praying he was there.
Yuki opened the door. “Grace—” He looked at her with an almost shocked expression on his face.
“Yuki, I have to see Apolo.” She was still panting, and she knew she must look awful, with her shoes off and her hair all over the place.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” Yuki’s eyes clouded over.
Grace was shaking her head. “Please, Yuki. You have no idea.”
He stepped aside, letting her back into the tiny hallway that led to the back room.
Grace rushed past him and ran to the back room and started banging on the door.
Apolo opened the door, but as soon as he saw her, he paled and shut the door.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Grace moaned, hitting the door so hard her knuckles were starting to hurt her. He’s already seen it. “Apolo, please!” she pleaded. “Open the door!”
“I’m not interested in an interview, if that’s what you want,” she heard him say from inside.
Grace felt like crying, but she suppressed it, the desperation coming out in her voice, instead. “Apolo, you don’t understand. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know what happened, even.”
The door opened and Apolo stood in front of her. The look in his eyes was a dreadful mix of anger and hurt, and it nearly broke her heart.
“Apolo—” Her voice cracked. She stepped towards him, but he backed away.
He was shaking his head. “I can’t believe you did this to me,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
“I didn’t—”
“Oh really? That’s not what this looks like.” He thrust a newspaper in front of her face, too close for her to see.
She slapped it out of his hands and it fluttered to the floor, the sections falling apart. “Apolo, I didn’t write it, I promise.”
Apolo’s expression changed from disappointment to disgust. “I talked to Jake. He told me he dropped you off at the newspaper building last night. I didn’t think you were like this, Grace, but you’ve proved me wrong—reporters are all the same. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
His hand clapped onto the edge of the door loudly, and Grace stepped back, fully expecting the door to slam in her face. Instead, she watched him close it slowly and quietly. The click of the door as it shut sounded ten times louder to her than it should have, and she almost wished he’d slammed the door in her face. Somehow it would have made her felt better.
Grace stumbled out the back door, and Yuki made no attempt to stop her. She knew he’d heard the whole thing.
She stood by the curb motionless, until a cab pulled up.
“Do you need a ride, miss?” the taxi driver asked her.
She stared at him.
“Well, do ya?”
She nodded rigidly and got into the car. As she sat in the back seat of the cab, she felt a dark, heavy cloud covering her and an immeasurable weight bearing down on her shoulders. How could this have happened? She couldn’t even comprehend it. The only way to find out was to go back to the newspaper.
“Mark, we need to talk,” she said firmly, standing in front of her editor’s desk a half hour later. She didn’t care that he was on the phone. He needed to explain himself.
Mark looked up at her, raised an eyebrow, and mumbled a few words to whoever he was talking to. After hanging up the phone, he placed both hands, folded, on his desk and put on a plastic smile. “What can I do for you, Grace?”
“Don’t give me that kind of crap,” Grace said, her tone and choice of words shocking even herself. It clearly had an effect on Mark.
He immediately put up his hands in defense. “No don’t go all postal on me, Grace. I made this decision for your own good.”
“You can’t just go into my personal files without my permission, take my notes, and write up a story using my information and your own writing style, and then put my name on the byline,” Grace sputtered. “That has to be illegal or something.”
“Wait—those were your notes?” Mark looked confused.
“Duh!” Grace almost yelled. “How did you think you got the information to write the piece?”
“Let’s get some things straight right now,” he said, standing up and looking her in the eye. “I didn’t write that story—I wish I’d had the time to—but that story was written by someone else, and they claimed the information was theirs. We just put your name on the byline to protect their identity. Nowhere did your notes factor into this. Do you have notes, too, or something?”
“What? What?” Grace’s head was spinning. “You’re saying some anonymous person wrote this story? How did they get access to my notes?”
“Grace, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, looking at her as if she was addled. “What notes are you referring to?”
“I came in here last night after the whole thing happened, Mark. Yeah, I was there when he got the death threat. I came in here after and wrote up my notes, just to get it out of my head. I don’t know why. It just seemed like the logical thing to do. Once I got it out of my system, I was finished. I never intended for them to be used in a story. Now how did someone get ahold of my notes?”
“Grace, you must be mistaken,” he told her condescendingly. “Someone else has the same information as you, but no one took your notes.”
Grace stamped her foot exasperatedly and marched back to her desk to go find her files. Lisa saw the way she was acting and wisely didn’t ask any questions. But in a matter of seconds, Grace was slumped over her desk, her head on a stack of books.
“They’re gone,” she whispered.
“What are gone?” Lisa ventured.
“My notes. They’re all gone. The ones they took to write that story this morning.”
“What story? Who are ‘they’?”
“The story on Apolo. I didn’t write it. Somebody else did. And they stole notes right off my computer. They were never supposed to get published. How STUPID am I? Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Grace pounded the desk with a clenched fist.
“Grace, honey, you’re overreacting. What’s the big deal?”
“I am NOT overreacting,” Grace shot back. “This is serious. Apolo and Yuki are both in danger now that this has been published. It was one of the stipulations of the death threat. They could both be killed. I could too, probably.”
Lisa gasped. “Are you serious?”
Grace nodded. “But who could have gotten into my files like this?” she wondered out loud. Mark has to know, she reasoned. In a flash, she had spun out of her chair and had marched back to Mark.
Grace dropped her purse on the table to get his attention. “Mark, I need to know who wrote that article. It’s important.”
“Yeah, I bet it is,” Mark almost laughed at her, infuriating her even more. “There’s no way I’m revealing an anonymous writer.”
“Since when do we have pseudo-anonymous writers? And since when can you use my name on a story I knew nothing about?”
“Oh, so you admit you didn’t have any notes?” His face was twisted cynically, like he was hoping to catch her in her own words.
Grace threw up her hands. There was no reasoning with him. “Mark, just tell me who wrote that story. That’s the only thing I want to know. I don’t care about anything else.”
“Sorry, no go,” Mark shook his head. He crossed his arms, lay back in his chair, and looked back at her patronizingly. “Look, sweetheart, if you’re smart, you won’t push this any further. I know tons of other girls who’d like to have their name on the front page tied to any story, regardless of what it’s about or who wrote it. You should actually be thanking me, if you know what’s good for you.”
“I should be thanking you?” Grace blurted. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” His reasoning was absolutely over the top. It was ethically wrong, and she couldn’t stand it. It was against everything in her nature—everything she’d understood journalism to be. In fact, her entire experience at the newspaper had been contrary to what she’d thought it would be. She was sick and tired of it.
If it were possible, Mark’s eyes turned even colder. “Just understand this. You’d better get used to your name appearing on the front page, ‘cause this story isn’t going to go cold any time soon. And my writer’s gonna keep using your name, whether you like it or not.”
Grace was so furious she thought she was going to scream. Her heart was pounding, and her fingers were curling up into fists. Decisively, she put both fists on the table and leaned forward, her eyes locking onto his. “You wanna bet, Mark?” Her voice was calm, cool, and steady, and Grace found herself oddly taking some satisfaction in seeing him look intimidated. “You can’t use my name if I quit.”
“You can’t quit,” he tried to sound confident.
“Consider this my two week’s notice. Oh, and by the way, I won’t be showing up for work for the next two weeks. If you don’t like the sound of that, fire me. Either way, I’m done here.”
Grace grabbed her purse off the desk and stomped out. The whole room had been watching her, and she was well-aware of the stunned expressions on everyone’s face. Somewhere, she heard a few people applauding her, but she didn’t care. Only one thing mattered now.
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“Nice job on that piece, Grace.”
A fellow reporter nudged her as she stepped off the elevator and entered the newsroom the next morning. Grace turned and looked back at him as she walked into the room, her forehead wrinkled.
As Grace walked back farther into the room towards her desk, she noticed that people were looking at her and smiling.
“Grace!” Lisa stood up immediately when Grace reached their desks. “I can’t believe that piece! It was absolutely amazing! I mean, it’s awful—but how you got it—fantastic! I should have known you had something up your sleeve when you were with him! How long have you known about this? Are you doing a follow-up? When did you write it? How did you know where to be and who to talk to?” Lisa shot questions at her like they were ammunition from a machine gun.
Grace put up her hand to stop her, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. “What in the world are you talking about, Lisa?” she almost shouted at her friend.
“This! Girl, did you not know you were on the front page of the morning edition?” Lisa shoved a newspaper at her.
Grace grabbed the paper. Her jaw almost hit the floor.
“Olympic champion, Dancing star gets another death threat,” she read to herself. Her heart started throbbing as she read the byline. “Grace Lewis.”
Grace felt like she couldn’t breathe. “I have to go.”
“What? Where are you going?” Lisa called after her.
“I have to find him,” she said.
Grace rushed out the door and started pressing the elevator button what seemed like a hundred times. It wasn’t coming fast enough. What have I done? she kept asking herself. What have I done?
Once outside the building, Grace nixed the taxis, tore off her heels, and just ran…and ran...and ran. When she was too out of breath to continue any longer, she caught a bus to the closest stop to Yuki’s Diffusions, hoping Apolo had slept in the back room that night.
It was early, but she had to catch Apolo before he saw the paper. She banged on the back door as loud as she could, praying he was there.
Yuki opened the door. “Grace—” He looked at her with an almost shocked expression on his face.
“Yuki, I have to see Apolo.” She was still panting, and she knew she must look awful, with her shoes off and her hair all over the place.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” Yuki’s eyes clouded over.
Grace was shaking her head. “Please, Yuki. You have no idea.”
He stepped aside, letting her back into the tiny hallway that led to the back room.
Grace rushed past him and ran to the back room and started banging on the door.
Apolo opened the door, but as soon as he saw her, he paled and shut the door.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Grace moaned, hitting the door so hard her knuckles were starting to hurt her. He’s already seen it. “Apolo, please!” she pleaded. “Open the door!”
“I’m not interested in an interview, if that’s what you want,” she heard him say from inside.
Grace felt like crying, but she suppressed it, the desperation coming out in her voice, instead. “Apolo, you don’t understand. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know what happened, even.”
The door opened and Apolo stood in front of her. The look in his eyes was a dreadful mix of anger and hurt, and it nearly broke her heart.
“Apolo—” Her voice cracked. She stepped towards him, but he backed away.
He was shaking his head. “I can’t believe you did this to me,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
“I didn’t—”
“Oh really? That’s not what this looks like.” He thrust a newspaper in front of her face, too close for her to see.
She slapped it out of his hands and it fluttered to the floor, the sections falling apart. “Apolo, I didn’t write it, I promise.”
Apolo’s expression changed from disappointment to disgust. “I talked to Jake. He told me he dropped you off at the newspaper building last night. I didn’t think you were like this, Grace, but you’ve proved me wrong—reporters are all the same. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
His hand clapped onto the edge of the door loudly, and Grace stepped back, fully expecting the door to slam in her face. Instead, she watched him close it slowly and quietly. The click of the door as it shut sounded ten times louder to her than it should have, and she almost wished he’d slammed the door in her face. Somehow it would have made her felt better.
Grace stumbled out the back door, and Yuki made no attempt to stop her. She knew he’d heard the whole thing.
She stood by the curb motionless, until a cab pulled up.
“Do you need a ride, miss?” the taxi driver asked her.
She stared at him.
“Well, do ya?”
She nodded rigidly and got into the car. As she sat in the back seat of the cab, she felt a dark, heavy cloud covering her and an immeasurable weight bearing down on her shoulders. How could this have happened? She couldn’t even comprehend it. The only way to find out was to go back to the newspaper.
* * *
“Mark, we need to talk,” she said firmly, standing in front of her editor’s desk a half hour later. She didn’t care that he was on the phone. He needed to explain himself.
Mark looked up at her, raised an eyebrow, and mumbled a few words to whoever he was talking to. After hanging up the phone, he placed both hands, folded, on his desk and put on a plastic smile. “What can I do for you, Grace?”
“Don’t give me that kind of crap,” Grace said, her tone and choice of words shocking even herself. It clearly had an effect on Mark.
He immediately put up his hands in defense. “No don’t go all postal on me, Grace. I made this decision for your own good.”
“You can’t just go into my personal files without my permission, take my notes, and write up a story using my information and your own writing style, and then put my name on the byline,” Grace sputtered. “That has to be illegal or something.”
“Wait—those were your notes?” Mark looked confused.
“Duh!” Grace almost yelled. “How did you think you got the information to write the piece?”
“Let’s get some things straight right now,” he said, standing up and looking her in the eye. “I didn’t write that story—I wish I’d had the time to—but that story was written by someone else, and they claimed the information was theirs. We just put your name on the byline to protect their identity. Nowhere did your notes factor into this. Do you have notes, too, or something?”
“What? What?” Grace’s head was spinning. “You’re saying some anonymous person wrote this story? How did they get access to my notes?”
“Grace, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, looking at her as if she was addled. “What notes are you referring to?”
“I came in here last night after the whole thing happened, Mark. Yeah, I was there when he got the death threat. I came in here after and wrote up my notes, just to get it out of my head. I don’t know why. It just seemed like the logical thing to do. Once I got it out of my system, I was finished. I never intended for them to be used in a story. Now how did someone get ahold of my notes?”
“Grace, you must be mistaken,” he told her condescendingly. “Someone else has the same information as you, but no one took your notes.”
Grace stamped her foot exasperatedly and marched back to her desk to go find her files. Lisa saw the way she was acting and wisely didn’t ask any questions. But in a matter of seconds, Grace was slumped over her desk, her head on a stack of books.
“They’re gone,” she whispered.
“What are gone?” Lisa ventured.
“My notes. They’re all gone. The ones they took to write that story this morning.”
“What story? Who are ‘they’?”
“The story on Apolo. I didn’t write it. Somebody else did. And they stole notes right off my computer. They were never supposed to get published. How STUPID am I? Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Grace pounded the desk with a clenched fist.
“Grace, honey, you’re overreacting. What’s the big deal?”
“I am NOT overreacting,” Grace shot back. “This is serious. Apolo and Yuki are both in danger now that this has been published. It was one of the stipulations of the death threat. They could both be killed. I could too, probably.”
Lisa gasped. “Are you serious?”
Grace nodded. “But who could have gotten into my files like this?” she wondered out loud. Mark has to know, she reasoned. In a flash, she had spun out of her chair and had marched back to Mark.
Grace dropped her purse on the table to get his attention. “Mark, I need to know who wrote that article. It’s important.”
“Yeah, I bet it is,” Mark almost laughed at her, infuriating her even more. “There’s no way I’m revealing an anonymous writer.”
“Since when do we have pseudo-anonymous writers? And since when can you use my name on a story I knew nothing about?”
“Oh, so you admit you didn’t have any notes?” His face was twisted cynically, like he was hoping to catch her in her own words.
Grace threw up her hands. There was no reasoning with him. “Mark, just tell me who wrote that story. That’s the only thing I want to know. I don’t care about anything else.”
“Sorry, no go,” Mark shook his head. He crossed his arms, lay back in his chair, and looked back at her patronizingly. “Look, sweetheart, if you’re smart, you won’t push this any further. I know tons of other girls who’d like to have their name on the front page tied to any story, regardless of what it’s about or who wrote it. You should actually be thanking me, if you know what’s good for you.”
“I should be thanking you?” Grace blurted. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” His reasoning was absolutely over the top. It was ethically wrong, and she couldn’t stand it. It was against everything in her nature—everything she’d understood journalism to be. In fact, her entire experience at the newspaper had been contrary to what she’d thought it would be. She was sick and tired of it.
If it were possible, Mark’s eyes turned even colder. “Just understand this. You’d better get used to your name appearing on the front page, ‘cause this story isn’t going to go cold any time soon. And my writer’s gonna keep using your name, whether you like it or not.”
Grace was so furious she thought she was going to scream. Her heart was pounding, and her fingers were curling up into fists. Decisively, she put both fists on the table and leaned forward, her eyes locking onto his. “You wanna bet, Mark?” Her voice was calm, cool, and steady, and Grace found herself oddly taking some satisfaction in seeing him look intimidated. “You can’t use my name if I quit.”
“You can’t quit,” he tried to sound confident.
“Consider this my two week’s notice. Oh, and by the way, I won’t be showing up for work for the next two weeks. If you don’t like the sound of that, fire me. Either way, I’m done here.”
Grace grabbed her purse off the desk and stomped out. The whole room had been watching her, and she was well-aware of the stunned expressions on everyone’s face. Somewhere, she heard a few people applauding her, but she didn’t care. Only one thing mattered now.
Here I thought that Grace had been the one to write the article, and then it turns out that she didn't. 
Boy, I sure do hope that Apolo realizes that it wasn't Grace. I feel bad for both of them. 
