The One I Love to Hate Read online

  Alex snorted, tipping his head back to rake his gaze across the ornate Gothic Revival facade of the building. “They’re the lucky ones to land somebody with your talent.” Her mouth was still hanging open at his off-handed compliment when he charged on and ruined it. “And your circulation is, what? Ten thousand?”

  Bastard.

  Seven. It was seven thousand.

  “Our circulation is none of your business. At least it’s real news.”

  “I’m reminded of that adage about trees falling in forests. Is it real news if no one reads it?”

  “That’s right. You measure your worth in Facebook likes.”

  People were starting to stare at them as they flowed past, probably because her voice was rapidly approaching a shriek. Jess shook her head, frustrated with him and herself. She was a nice person, really, but Alex Drake just brought out the worst in her. They weren’t in college anymore, though. She was an adult with a real job, and she would not stoop to shouting at him in the street.

  “Good luck with the website. I guess I’ll see you around.”

  Alex dropped his eyes from the building to her, looking her over with barely disguised irritation. “Great. It’ll be just like old times.”

  She left him standing alone on the sidewalk as she stormed away. Alex Drake, working right across the street from her! Brooklyn kept changing, all right, and this particular change was going to take a lot of getting used to.

  Chapter Two

  All the lingering unpleasantness from her run-in with Alex Drake dissipated as Jess passed under the carved stone archway of the Fiske Building and walked through the heavy old brass-and-glass revolving doors. The Brooklyn Daily Post had been headquartered here since 1886, when it moved from its original home. The oak-paneled lobby smelled a little funky, but that was the funk of living, breathing history. Working here for five months hadn’t yet erased the thrill of ascending the wide staircase to the Daily Post offices, with its carved wood handrails and the troughs worn in the pale marble steps from over a century of reporters. Being a part of this, even in her modest, entry-level way, still left her giddy.

  Mariel Kemper had a lauded career at New York Times and the Associated Press, both as a reporter and as an editor. She’d made a name for herself doggedly pursuing difficult stories, not stopping until she dug up the truth, no matter where it led her. She was fair, but also brutally honest, not afraid to speak truth to power, or to call out a lie when she saw one. As successful as her reporting career had been—two Pulitzers and a string of other awards—she’d long had her sights set on something more. When the Brooklyn Daily Post’s ancient former editor finally retired, she approached the board and pitched her vision. She wanted to turn the Daily Post into a small but serious outlet for hard-hitting news, something that was becoming all too rare in the modern media landscape.

  The board gave her a chance, and Mariel immediately instituted sweeping changes, hiring new reporting staff and overhauling the paper’s platform from the ground up. Jess, having spent her first year after graduation freelancing for a few online sources, applied immediately, desperate to be a part of something so important.

  It had been less than a year since the overhaul, so it was too early to know if it would succeed. But it had certainly drawn attention when an obscure borough paper generally known for its front page coverage of playground renovations suddenly began publishing multi-part stories on international events.

  “Good morning, Sally!” Jess called out as she passed the receptionist’s desk on the second floor. Sally had been with the Daily Post so long she was almost as historic as it was, with her tightly permed gray hair and vast collection of appliqued sweaters.

  Sally broke off her conversation with Griffin, the Daily Post’s overworked, one-man IT department, to wave to Jess. “Good morning, sweetie. Look how pretty you are this morning!”

  Jess glanced down at her gray wool skirt and black sweater. “I am?”

  “Sure! Your eyes are sparkling and you’re all aglow. I’d bet you’re in love. Doesn’t she look like she’s in love, Griffin?”

  Griff ran a hand through his shaggy dark hair and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Maybe she’s just cold.”

  “Ah, you haven’t got a romantic bone in your body!” Sally scolded. “She’s been talking to her lover, no doubt about it. Isn’t that what you kids call them these days? Lovers? Or is it hookups?”

  “Hookups,” Griff replied with surprising authority.

  “I haven’t been talking to a lover or a hookup.” Just doing battle with my mortal enemy, she amended silently.

  “You’ll have one soon enough, no doubt, looking like that.”

  “You’re hilarious, Sally. I’ll see you later.”

  “Oh, Lina was looking for you a few minutes ago,” Sally called out as she headed for the large arched entry to the newsroom.

  “Thanks, Sally. I’ll find her.”

  In over a hundred years, the addition of computers was pretty much the only change made to the Brooklyn Daily Post’s newsroom. The long, high-ceilinged room, lined with ancient oak desks, was flooded with natural light from the wall of large arched windows to the right, overlooking the street below. Once, the staff had been able to see the Williamsburg Bridge, the East River, and parts of the Manhattan skyline from those windows. Now all you could see was that ClickNews monstrosity across the street.

  The desks near the windows were prime newsroom real estate, and reserved for senior reporting staff, which most decidedly didn’t include Jess. Her desk was in the corner, next to the cranky copy machine. She’d just shrugged out of her coat when Lina hurried up to her desk, looking frantic. “Oh, thank God you’re here. There’s no way I’m going into the morning meeting without you.”

  “And there’s no way you’re going in there without this.” With a flourish, she handed across Lina’s soy matcha latte.

  Lina’s panicked expression transformed into a delighted smile. “You brought me coffee?”

  “That doesn’t count as coffee, but yes, I brought you that green foamy drink you like, for reasons I will never understand.”

  “Aww, Jess, you’re the best.”

  Being scholarship kids at expensive Ivy League DeWitt University had given Jess and Lina an instant connection freshman year, but battling their way through four years of DeWitt’s highly competitive journalism program had bonded them for life. Lina had applied to the Daily Post in the same hiring sweep as Jess, and, in a stroke of good luck, they’d both landed jobs. Granted, they were the lowliest reporters on staff, covering the boring city stories no one else wanted, but having your best friend at work made every indignity more bearable.

  “Relax, Lina. You’re going to kick ass in this meeting.” After months of covering city recycling plans, Lina finally had a serious story to pitch today. They’d spent half the night on the phone practicing what she was going to say.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to pitch your story, too?”

  “Right now I don’t have a story. I have a rumor.”

  Not even a rumor, just her aunt Patti, who worked as a secretary for a public school, bitching at Sunday dinner last week about the crappy company that had just been contracted—for a staggeringly large sum—to rebuild the Department of Education’s online portal. It was probably nothing—a bunch of administrative assistants griping about stuff at work. But something about it kept eating at Jess. It was such a large contract, and it had been awarded seemingly out of the blue. All the secretaries seemed to know Computer Development Systems already, and their opinion was grim.

  “Aren’t you going to check it out?”

  “Of course I am. But in this case, checking it out means combing through the bid award that’s been posted online, and that’s three hundred pages of dense financial info. Plus I have to look into CDS’s past city contracts. Once I do that, I’ll know if
there’s anything there.”

  “You’re going to do all that research on your own time?”

  “I don’t mind. Especially if it leads to something good.” She snagged her coffee cup from the corner of her desk, along with her notepad. “You ready?”

  “I can’t believe you went to Ému for me. You hate that place.”

  “I figured you could use a little fortification. And while I hate their pretentious decor, I have to admit, the coffee is good. I might have to give it up, though, considering who I ran into today.”

  “Who?”

  Jess paused outside of the conference room to deliver the news. “Alex Drake.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, yes. And you’ll never guess why. That plastic-and-tinfoil building across the street? It’s the new ClickNews headquarters.”

  “And?”

  “Aaaand...guess whose dad just bought ClickNews?”

  “Oh, right, I remember reading that somewhere. Wait...did he send Alex in to work there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Some people have all the luck.”

  “That’s not luck, it’s privilege. And anyway, it’s just ClickNews. It’s not like real journalism.”

  “Hey, speaking of college, how about Josh’s party tonight?”

  Riiiight. Josh’s housewarming party. She’d ignored that event reminder in her inbox this morning. Dealing with Josh always made her feel vaguely queasy with guilt, even though there was no real reason for it. What went down between them had happened during junior year in college, over almost before it began, and they went right back to being friends. He’d been with his fiancée for ages now.

  “What about it?”

  “We’re going, right?”

  “I don’t know...”

  “Come on, Jess, you are not going to stay home with your sisters on a Friday night.”

  “Livie’s got a late class and Gemma works at the bar on Fridays.”

  “Then you’re not sitting home alone on a Friday night. Just you and that dog and some city financial records. That’s just sad.”

  “Hey, Spudge is great company.”

  “Jessica, if you’re finished gossiping about last night’s episode of The Bachelor, there’s a staff meeting starting.” Mariel’s assistant, Lauren, strode by in a tight black skirt suit, her blond hair ruthlessly flat-ironed, and her heels clacking on the wood floors. She sure looked the picture of competent authority, but appearances—at least in Lauren’s case—could be very deceiving.

  “Sorry,” Lina chirped. “My fault, Lauren. We’ll be right in.”

  Lauren made a low sound of disapproval, indicating she was still going to blame Jess, no matter what Lina said. They watched her in silence until she was out of earshot.

  “Not that I want to be besties with her,” Jess muttered. “But I really wish I knew why Lauren busts my balls all the time.”

  “It’s just projection,” Lina said in a low voice. “She’s barely treading water right now. We all know it. It’s just a matter of time before she screws up something she can’t hide. Then Mariel will know it and cut her loose. Lauren’s desperate to crush anyone she sees as competition for her job.”

  “If we’re talking about who could take over Lauren’s job, I’m no more likely than anyone else here.”

  “Yeah, but Mariel has been your mentor since you were ten. Lauren hates that you have that kind of history with her.”

  “As much as I admire Mariel, I don’t even want that job. I’m here to report.”

  “Right,” Lina said with a decisive nod. “Me, too. And today I start doing it for real.”

  “You’re going to be so great,” Jess whispered to her as they made their way to their seats at the long table in the conference room.

  “Damned right, I am.”

  Despite Lauren’s swipe about their punctuality, Jess and Lina were among the first to arrive. Bill from the Business desk was already there, hunched in his seat, checking stock quotes on his phone and drinking a cup of the foul, bitter coffee the machine in the break room produced. Jess wouldn’t touch that stuff even in a moment of desperation.

  Zoe, who worked the city beat with Jess and Lina, arrived next with Natalie, who reported for the Lifestyle section. They actually were talking about last night’s episode of The Bachelor. Since Zoe and Natalie were the other two women on staff in their twenties, they often got together with Jess and Lina for lunch. Well, Lauren was in her twenties, too, but nobody wanted to socialize with that barracuda.

  Isaiah from International came in next, looking mildly put-upon as Robin from National talked his ear off about something. Tony from the crime beat came in with Caleb, who covered sports, the two of them analyzing last night’s Knicks game in exhaustive detail. Dana, the senior reporter on the city beat, was nearly last to arrive, her cell phone glued to her ear as she negotiated something with her husband about picking their daughter up from day care. She threw an apologetic smile at the table as she sorted out the latest crisis in her domestic life.

  Mariel arrived last, with a stack of folders in one arm, her notepad and coffee mug clutched in the other hand, and her reading glasses precariously perched on top of her head, holding back her heavy fall of chestnut hair.

  “Good morning, all.” Struggling to balance her pile of folders, she made her way to the head of the table, depositing her load just before she lost her grip on it entirely. Jess lunged forward and caught her coffee as it slid toward the edge of the table. “Thank you, Jess. That would have been a crisis of monumental proportions.”

  “I got your back.”

  Across the table, Lauren glowered at her. Jess glowered back. As Mariel’s assistant, she should have been helping Mariel, not getting pissed because Jess did it instead.

  Sliding her reading glasses into place, Mariel dove in. “Okay, let’s start with the news out of North Korea overnight. Yumiko is still tied up with her piece on Russia sanctions, so Isaiah, why don’t you take the lead and see what develops? Start with the wire service, but I’d like your own insights on this one, not just a regurgitation of what the AP is reporting.” Isaiah nodded and Mariel moved on to the national beat.

  When she got to the city beat, she started with Dana. “Dana, how’s your piece on the MTA subcontractors coming along?”

  Down the conference table, Dana threw her pen on her notepad in disgust. “It was going great until ClickNews reported on it this morning.”

  A collective groan went up around the room.

  “They scooped us?”

  Dana nodded grimly. “My source was exclusive, but somebody else at the MTA must have talked to ClickNews first. Sorry, Mariel. I can still work it up. Maybe focus on it as part of a larger piece on the city’s aging infrastructure, the kind of context ClickNews would never provide.”

  “Yes, let’s go in that direction. At least it’s something.” Mariel raked her fingers through her hair in frustration. Robin had gotten scooped on her EPA story just a week before and Mariel was still touchy. “Jess? What do you have on your plate?”

  For a second, she considered pitching her story. It would feel so great to have something exciting to talk about at these meetings. But how embarrassing would it be to have to admit it all turned out to be some gossiping by disgruntled employees? No, better do the legwork first. “I’m finishing up the story about the broken parking meters.”

  “All right, Lina, how’s the piece on the Staten Island waterfront rezoning going?”

  Lina glanced nervously at Jess before drawing a deep breath to steel herself. “I’ll have it finished this morning. But I’m onto something else I’d like to run past you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “When I was out the other night, I met a former staffer for Assemblyman Stevens. We got to talking and when he found out I was a reporter, he said he might have a story for me
.”

  Mariel looked up, on alert. “What sort of story?”

  “He says Assemblyman Stevens has been taking bribes from developers for years in exchange for pushing through building permits.”

  “Anything specific?”

  “The proposed stadium in Queens, for starters.”

  Several reporters around the room let out low whistles. When plans for the stadium had been announced, the neighborhoods around the site immediately protested, but somehow the city had approved the plans, anyway. If Lina could prove Stevens had been bribed by the developers, the whole project might get shut down.

  “Damn, Lina,” Marc muttered with a twinge of envy. “I’d give my left nut for that story.” He’d been slogging through an interminable story on tax code reform for days.

  “That would be huge.” Mariel sat back, considering. “I’m tempted to put someone more experienced on this.”

  Down the table, Dana looked to Mariel expectantly, and Lina stiffened, her hands fisting around her notepad. Dana was great, a seasoned, talented reporter who’d been happy to share her expertise with younger reporters like Jess, Lina, and Zoe. But this was exactly what Lina had been afraid of—that someone more senior would take her lead and get the story.

  Jess held her breath, praying to every saint she could remember from Catholic school that Mariel would give Lina this chance.

  Mariel eyed Lina across the conference table. “But I’m going to let you run with it and see what you turn up.”

  Lina broke into a grin. “Thanks, Mariel.”

  “I want regular check-ins so I can see how it’s coming together. And, Lina, you’re going to need to be watertight on this. If he’s taking bribes, we need incontrovertible proof. A money trail. Cross every T and dot every I, understand?”

  “Got it. I’m all over it.”

  “I can help go over the financial records,” Jess offered.

  Lina flashed her a grateful smile. “Jess is amazing with that kind of stuff.”

  Mariel nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Good work, Lina. Breaking this would be huge for the paper. For once, we could be first on something.”