The Tuesday After the Flight
There had been no further word from Stephanie since the texts yesterday saying she was out for the week. I was resigned to running the newsroom.
A part of me enjoyed being the full boss when Steph was gone. It gave me practice in case I wanted to be a full-time news director. But another part of me felt the weight of responsibility. I was the final gatekeeper on anything that went on our air. There was no one else above me to lean on. General managers usually came up through the sales side and didn’t have newsroom editorial experience, so they stayed out of day-to-day decisions.
At the manager meeting, we did the usual whip-around to each person to hear what was happening in their departments—staffing for the day, story ideas, what was trending on digital, what special projects we were working on. I felt a lot more in my groove today. I was prepared to run the meeting, unlike yesterday. You got this, I told myself. My McDonald’s coffee was next to me. The daily cup of joe was like an old friend; it comforted me.
We wrapped the meeting and had about ten minutes before the nine a.m. one with the whole newsroom. I stayed in the conference room to check some of the relentless emails that were always rolling in. I noticed Lucy, the digital manager, seemed to be taking a long time to pack up while everyone else walked out. When they all departed, she softly closed the door and turned to me, a worried look on her face.
“Bruce, can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.” It came back to me that she had been texting with Steph. Did she have news? And how would I tell her to not talk about this with Dave or anyone else? I really couldn’t get into trouble with Dave. Not now, not when the spotlight was possibly on me for the news director seat. I gulped a bit, thinking that I had violated what he had asked of me.
“It’s about Steph,” Lucy began. She sat down and started jiggling her leg up and down.
“Yes?” I knew Steph and Lucy were pretty close, and had seen them laughing together over stuff that I was pretty sure was entirely female-centric, so I had stayed out of it.
“You know about the running joke I have with Steph regarding Mark Ruffalo, right?”
I didn’t, but nodded anyway.
“Well, yesterday Nora told me that Steph was acting loony tunes, so I texted Steph about Ruffalo in a joking way. You know, said she had a meeting with him and should I push it back, that kind of thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So she texted me back,” Lucy continued, “as if ‘Mark R.’ was a real person in our newsroom. She told me to reschedule the meeting and then started kind of blowing me off. I don’t know, Bruce, it felt super odd. Like creepy Dateline odd.”
“Dateline odd?” I asked. I wasn’t fully following.
“Yes,” she said with an urgency in her voice. “Like someone-has-her-phone odd.”
I cocked my head, considering her words.
“Can I see the texts you’re referring to, Lucy?” She passed me her phone, and I looked them over twice, then passed it back.
“I’m sure it’s fine, really, Lucy. She’s probably just messing with you, like reverse sarcasm. Or maybe she’s blanking on your joke. How would anyone have her phone? And if they did, why would they be texting us about meetings and stuff? It doesn’t make sense. She posted on Facebook from the conference last week. She sent me a voice memo yesterday.”
Lucy leaned across the table toward me, narrowed her eyes a bit, and whispered.
“Bruce, I have a gut feeling. My Reiki coach told me gut feelings are what guide us. What can we do to find out?”
“Listen,” I said in my best dad voice. “If something bad happened to her, why would the person have her cell phone? They would know it could be traced. Police could probably find it in minutes.”
There was commotion outside of the conference room door, and we both looked over to see people beginning to gather for the newsroom-wide meeting.
“I’d like to do some more digging, Bruce,” Lucy said. “I’m going to find out if it’s truly her. I’ll send some bad information and see how she responds.”
“Well, uh…” I didn’t know what to say, but now the conference room door was swinging open and people were starting to walk in, so I had to respond.
“I guess,” I whispered. “Keep me posted.”
“I will,” she responded with a determined look on her face.