I set my bag on the kitchen counter, poured a glass of water, and looked out at the city glittering below — and felt exactly what I always felt coming home.
Nothing.
Feeling nothing was the point.It was safe.Manageable.Clean.And it had gotten me here — to the top of the ratings, and everything else I'd ever told myself I wanted.
ChapterFive
Jimmy
The restaurant had the kind of lighting designed to make rich people feel mysterious.Everything was amber and gold, the tablecloths were white, and the menu didn't list prices — which was how I knew I couldn't afford to be there.
But I was here on someone else's dime, and even that made my skin itch.
Bruce Coleman sat across from me, working through a filet that probably cost more than my grocery bill for the month.He was a wiry man, all restless energy, and every few minutes he reached up to adjust a tie that didn't need adjusting — a tic he didn't seem to know he had.When he smiled at me there was something in it I couldn't quite trust.Not shady, exactly.Just… slick.The slick that comes from decades in cable news telling people precisely what they want to hear.
But that might've been me.Thirteen years of independent journalism had trained me to regard corporate news executives the way a stray cat regards an outstretched hand — with deep suspicion.
"Jimmy," he said, dabbing his mouth, touching the tie."When your name came across my desk, I nearly fell out of my chair.I'll be honest — it took us a minute.All your published work's under J.Goodman, so nobody on my team connected the dots at first.But once we did?"He shook his head."A Peabody winner.One of the most respected voices in investigative journalism.J.Goodman, whose piece on civilian casualties in Yemen made Congress hold emergency hearings."He gestured at my barely touched risotto."Sitting across from me, eating risotto."
"It's good risotto," I admitted, which annoyed me, because I wanted to hate everything about this meal.
"So let me ask you something."He set down his fork."You've done the independent thing for years.Turned down every network that came calling.What changed?"
I almost laughed.What changed was that the documentary unit I'd spent three years building got cancelled by a Friday-afternoon email from accounting.I was thirty-six and my body had started keeping a running tab.Shot at in four countries.Dysentery twice.A scar on my left shoulder from shrapnel that ached every time the pressure dropped.My apartment had a window that didn't lock and furniture sourced almost entirely from the curb.And the taste of instant noodles — the ten-for-a-dollar brick kind that had carried me through my twenties and most of my thirties — made me want to be sick.
I was tired of my fucking principles.They'd bought me a Peabody, a cinder block bookshelf, and had never once paid for risotto this good.
"Let's just say I'm ready for a new chapter," I told him.
Bruce nodded like he understood, though I doubted he'd ever eaten a meal standing over a sink in his life.He reached into his briefcase and produced a slim leather folder, setting it between us with the reverence usually reserved for engagement rings.
"Jimmy, I'd like to formally offer you the position of Executive Producer of Beacon News Tonight."
The primetime slot.Millions of viewers every weeknight at seven.I'd spent the better part of my career calling shows like it everything wrong with American journalism.Now I was being handed the keys to the kingdom.
"That's a significant offer," I said, working very hard to be the kind of man who said that's a significant offer instead of holy shit.
"Details are all in there."He tapped the folder."Salary, benefits, start date.I think you'll find the compensation speaks for itself."
"I accept," I said, before the twenty-two-year-old version of me — the one who'd stood in a tiny kitchen off Morningside and told Nelson Mackenzie that PBS was where real journalists worked — could claw his way to the surface and stop me.
Bruce's grin widened.He slid the folder across with a heavy silver pen.Then the grin cooled, his hand went to the tie again, and his voice dropped half an octave.
"Now.Before you sign, I need to be very clear about one thing."He leaned in."This stays quiet.Absolutely silent.You tell no one — not your friends, not your colleagues, and especially not anyone at another outlet.If Nelson Mackenzie finds out we hired someone behind his back, he'll be livid."He pointed at me with his steak knife, casual as a handshake."And Jimmy?Pissing off Nelson is dangerous to your health."
I fought down a smile.I couldn't help it.The mention of his name did something to my chest I refused to examine, and instead I let my mind drift, just for a second, to the arguments we used to have.Nelson was something else when he was angry.Those blue eyes flashing like blades.The way his voice dropped quieter instead of louder — which was infinitely worse, because quiet Nelson meant he was about to dismantle you with surgical precision and perfect grammar.
Sexy as hell.Not that I'd ever admit it to anyone breathing.
"I'm aware of Nelson's reputation," I said, which was the understatement of the century.
I opened the folder.The contract was crisp, heavy stock.The salary figure on page three stared up at me like it was daring me to blink.I thought about my cinder block bookshelf.My Peabody.Thirteen years of sleeping on cots and eating out of foil packets.Thirteen years of choosing principle over profit.
I picked up the silver pen and signed on the dotted line.
My handwriting looked almost obscene against the elegant paper, like graffiti on a cathedral wall.But there it was.My name.In ink.On a contract with the network where my ex-boyfriend was the most famous face in American news.
The universe had a sick sense of humor.