Page 6 of Playing for Keeps

“How’d it go?” The unusually deep voice of my boss, Henry Most, almost scares me out of my chair.

“Fucking A, Henry. Warn a girl when you’re skulking around an empty office, why don’t you?” He raises his brows. I add, “Pardon my French.”

“That bad?”

“Whatever do you mean?” I get back to work, scrolling through the footage frame by frame as he sits on the corner of my desk, squashing whatever was there under the papers—and I’m sure there was something. I don’t bother mentioning it to him. This is the newsroom, not Sunday church.

“Did you get me something good or are we settling for more of the banal crap we’ve been getting lately?”

“You mean did I accomplish what you hired me to do?” I hate that the answer is no. “Not yet, but I’m still warming up. Let’s just say I got some seeds in the ground and for tonight a clip or two less banal than the usual.”

“But still banal?”

I look up at him to see his smirk. “You don’t need to prove to me you’re a tough guy.”

He laughs. “Don’t worry. I’m well aware you could probably out-tough me if it came to that. Even wearing four-inch spikes and hot pink nail polish.”

Raising my hands from the keyboard, I wiggle my fingers. “Aw, Henry, you noticed. I’m flattered.” Returning my hands to the keys, I resume the fine tuning of the final trim, leaning in to hear the last quip from the interview because I hadn’t bothered to put on the headphones.

Henry stands and knocks a couple of my files to the floor, along with a flattened PBJ sandwich that I never got around to eating. I probably came to my senses and sent out for a salad. Nostalgia only went so far. My dad used to pack a PBJ for me whenever he had to take me into the office, which was often enough for the ritual to stick, for the memory to spiral into a wave of longing for the man.

“In the meantime,” he says, in a voice that promises a boss-like pronouncement, “I want you to do those in-studio human-interest interviews of a couple of players, preferably three of them. Let’s get them scheduled pronto before the season starts up. I also want you to cover the upcoming Boston Awards Night Benefit. A lot of the players will be there.”

“Live?”

“No. Get us a few clips for the nightly show. You’re still working your way into the lineup, remember?”

“What is this, a sports team or a newsroom?”

“Sports news. Same thing.” He bends and picks up the sandwich with two fingers, gives me a look, but I remain calm, no smartass remark because I don’t want to explain with my emotions so close to the surface. I need to keep my cool-as-a-chic-cucumber persona going. He throws the flattened baggie in the trash. I release my breath.