"Choose, Bruce."
He sat there for what felt like a very long time.His mouth opened twice without sound.His hand went to the tie and stayed there, fingers working the silk.Finally he took a deep breath and spoke.
"Fine," he choked out.
His voice cracked on it.
Bruce cleared his throat and tried again.
"Then you're fired too, Nelson."
ChapterThirty-One
Nelson
Ihadn’t expected Bruce to look quite so pleased with himself in the half-second after firing me.
It was just a flicker — across his cheekbones, at the corner of his mouth — the look of a mediocre man who'd just discovered, midair, that he could fly.He hadn't planned to fire me.He'd intended to negotiate, or to stall, or to do whatever a man like Bruce did when a man like me arrived at his desk before he'd finished his croissant.Then I had verbally demolished him, and somewhere in the shame and the sweating, he’d reached into a drawer he had not previously known he owned and pulled out the only thing in his entire career he'd ever done quickly.
He had fired me.And he was, for one shimmering second, proud of it.
I let him have the second.I let him have it because soon that second was going to be the worst thing he had ever done, and I wanted Bruce to know — later, in the small, bad hours of the small, bad nights — that I'd let him have it on purpose.
Behind me, I could feel Jimmy not breathing.
"Bruce," I said, suppressing a smile.
"Nelson—"
"You're going to want to call security."
He blinked."I'm sorry?"
"You just terminated your highest-rated anchor in a room where the only other witness is a man you also just terminated.You haven't handed me a letter, or informed HR, or the legal department.The only thing you've done is open your mouth in front of two people who know exactly what you said and exactly when.So unless you would prefer me to walk out of this office, take an elevator down to that newsroom, and sit at my desk tonight pretending none of this happened — which I would, Bruce, with great pleasure — you are going to want to call security."
I leaned in, my voice dropping into that low, authoritative register that had carried the country through multiple elections and a pandemic."Now, please.We have plans this morning."
Bruce’s hand fumbled toward the phone.It took him three tries to hit the right extension.
"Send security to my office to, um, escort Nelson and Jimmy out of the building," he told Maggie.He hung up before she could ask anything.
"You think you're going to just walk out of here," Bruce said, his voice gaining a thin, reedy confidence."You actually think the network is going to fall apart without you.You're a control freak, Nelson.You tell me — the VP of Programming — what fonts the chyrons use.You've vetoed producers, guests, segments…"
"And you have enjoyed the highest-rated cable news show in the country, thanks to me."I crossed my arms.
"I’m going to dance, Nelson.I'm going to walk into Lauren's office and we're going to drink champagne.Before noon.I’ve been waiting—"
"Bruce," I held up a hand."Stop."
The door opened.Two guards.Maggie was visible in the hallway, her face a mask of horror.
"Mr.Mackenzie.Mr.Goodman."The taller guard spoke with a grim politeness.."If you'll both come with us, please."
I turned to Jimmy.His chin was up, but his color was wrong — that translucent white he went when the adrenaline was bottoming out, every freckle standing up like rust on a white sheet.His eyes were on Bruce, and they were doing that thing they do when he is deciding whether to file a report or throw a punch.
I reached for him, sliding my arm fully around his shoulders.His hand came up to the small of my back.
I looked at Bruce.He was, now, very pale.He'd assumed the firing was the end.He hadn't considered that I might want it on the record — witnessed and photographed by every cell phone in the building — that Nelson Mackenzie was being escorted out with his arm around the man he loved.