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She passed the segment in before the deadline and then Stephanie went down to the breakroom. There were a few people grabbing coffee and complimentary muffins from a basket on the counter. She was such a sucker for baked goods, Stephanie poked around until she found a coffee cake muffin. The smell of cinnamon grabbed her and it was soft. Perfect in every way a muffin should be.
While she poured herself a coffee with four creams and two sugars, she heard someone knock on the breakroom door. Strange, Stephanie thought. It wasn’t like the breakroom was a private room and it certainly wasn’t her office. She glanced up and saw Gary standing just outside the door. His face was withdrawn and his cheeks were bright red. If Stephanie didn’t know better, she’d say he had been running.
“You look like someone ran over your dog.”
“I have a fish,” Gary answered.
Stephanie raised her eyebrows. “Poor fish.” She blew on her coffee and sipped. “What’s up?”
He raised his eyebrows and stepped into the breakroom. Gary stroked his mustache and moved side to side as if considering pacing. If he wasn’t casebook nervous then Stephanie didn’t know was.
“Spit it out, Gary. Whatever it is.”
“Bret Mitchell’s PR rep stopped by. We’re pulling your piece. It’s being reedited and we’ll run what little we have with the twelve o’clock news.”
Stephanie’s eyes bugged. “You can’t do that.”
“Well, I just did. Heavens sake, Stephanie. That was one of the most unprofessional morning segments I’ve ever seen. You don’t treat a book signing like a presidential debate.”
“It was just a few questions. You know how TV works. I just want him to be honest.”
“And you’re too good at your job not to know what this was. A promotional entertainment piece to drive people to the book signing. It’s a morning piece, not hard hitting journalism. You know how rich he is. You really think he’s going to settle for this? Look no harm. No Foul. All you have to do is go see him and apologize.”
“Are you joking?” Stephanie slapped her hands onto her thighs. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry for something I’m not sorry about!”
“You’ll do it to smooth this over. He’ll be gone tomorrow night. Then we can forget all about him but don’t forget what it is you do here. People watch you when they get ready for work or when they are getting ready to send their kids to school. They want to feel good about things. That’s your job, Step.”
The wind felt knocked out of her sails. She always thought she was happy at her job. Stephanie thought it was rewarding but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was wrong about a lot of things.
“So, you’ll do it?”
Stephanie nodded numbly but was unable to say anything else. She had been taken down a peg or two by her boss and she just didn’t like it.
Gary backed up. “I’m sorry about this, Steph, but you brought this on yourself.” Meekly, he frowned and left the breakroom quietly.
Stephanie was sorry too but she wasn’t sorry she had asked the right questions. If Bret Mitchell was that upset about her questions, then there was clearly something there. And she was going to get to the bottom of what that might be.