back in new york, we showed the raw interview footage to Eliza and Rebecca. Rebecca grew wide-eyed at Willow’s graphic descriptions of the doctor’s violence. Eliza wore a grim frown, which deepened as it went on.
“What a fucking bastard,” Rebecca said, when it was over.
“It’s awful,” Eliza said. “It makes you sick.”
“I was sure she was going to bail on us,” Jamie said. “She almost backed out that morning. Violet calmed her down.”
“She wanted to be sure it was worth it,” I said. “That her talking would actually help to change something. Not just result in her getting sued.”
“Christ Almighty. If a story like this doesn’t change something,” Rebecca said, “then I don’t even know why we’re here.”
Ginny joined us later that afternoon. In the conference room, Eliza and Rebecca showed her everything we’d assembled: the interviews with Willow, George and the other sources, the scattered bits of evidence that finally added up to something coherent, and damning.
“When are we going to Danner for comment?” Ginny said, clasping her hands atop the table. Her lack of emotion was normal. Rebecca got hot with outrage, Eliza was fiercely competitive, but Ginny was the ballast that kept the whole ship steady.
“Monday,” Rebecca said. “We’ll give them twenty-four hours.”
I spent the weekend working. There were several producers on the story by now, but it didn’t stop me from obsessing: double- and triple-checking every fact and quote, asking the beleaguered editor to try dozens of variations. I sat with the writer who was polishing Rebecca’s script, even though Rebecca would inevitably rewrite it herself just before airtime. On Sunday evening, Eliza stopped by the office and saw me at my desk.
“You’re still here?” she said. “Violet, you have to get some sleep.”
“I’m just checking one more thing,” I said.
“Direct orders,” Eliza said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We’re in good shape. It’s diminishing returns at this point.”
Darkness came early in November. I wrapped my scarf tight as I walked home, shoved my hands deep in my pockets. It was good to breathe the fresh air, to watch taxis speeding through intersections, to smell the sweet roasted chestnuts, to let normal life serve as distraction from the somersaults in my stomach. The thought of waiting another two days for the story to air was almost unbearable. I was confident that the story was good, that it was important, that it was ready. What I didn’t know was how the world would react to it.
When I got home, Stella was in the living room, paging through the Sunday Styles. She pretended to be interested in the articles, but really she was just looking for pictures of herself amid that week’s social scene. “There you are,” she said. She folded the newspaper, a perfect facsimile of a responsible adult. “You’ve been ignoring my texts all weekend.”
“I’ve been a little busy,” I said. How much had changed from years ago, when I was alone in this apartment, eagerly waiting for Stella to text me back.
“Hungry?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Starving, actually.”
“Good,” she said. “Let’s go out.”
On the walk to the restaurant, Stella huddled close, her arm looped through mine. She smelled like the sweet chemical tinge of hairspray from her hit that morning, and the same musky perfume she’d worn for the last seven years. The bistro was on a quiet street near our apartment. It was authentically French, the kind of place that had no menu, just a chalkboard listing the day’s items. We ordered a bottle of Burgundy, and when the waiter filled our glasses, Stella lifted hers to touch mine.
“It’s been a million years since we did this,” she said.
“Well, we’ve both been busy,” I said. “Occupational hazard, I guess.”
She tilted her head. “You know, Violet, you seem different.”
“What do you mean?” I took a chunk of bread from the basket, spreading it with a thick coat of butter. Stella wouldn’t touch it; she was exceptionally weight-conscious these days. She subsisted mostly on wine, lettuce, and green tea.
“I always thought we were the most important thing in each other’s life,” she said, gesturing across the table. “This. Our friendship.”
“Of course this is important.”
“But I feel like you don’t love me anymore.” She furrowed her forehead sulkily as she sipped her wine. It was manipulative, but nonetheless it worked.
I sighed. “It’s temporary, Stell, I promise. The story airs on Tuesday.”
“Why won’t you tell me what it is?”
When I hesitated, she rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Half the newsroom must know by now. I saw you guys meeting with Ginny. So you can tell Ginny, but you can’t tell me?”
“Well…” I said. Once upon a time, Stella and I had told each other everything. And she was right: word was getting out, she’d know the story soon enough. “Okay. But promise me, you have to keep this close to the vest.”
“Duh,” she said. “So what is it?”
She listened attentively as I talked. Her eyes grew wider and wider. She didn’t interrupt, which was an accomplishment for her. “Wow,” she said, at the end. “Wow. That’s crazy. Danner—that’s, like, a household name.”
“Yup. And it’s been going on for years. The whole company is rotten.” A flash of worry, remembering the picture in Stella’s father’s study. “But Stella, listen. You really can’t tell anyone. Especially not your family.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Give me more credit than that.”
“I know, it’s just that—”
“I’m a little offended by your implication,” she said. “But never mind. This is impressive, Vi. You did all of this? You tracked these people down—the girl in Florida, everything?”
“Not alone, of course. Jamie has been a huge help.”
“Speaking of Jamie,” she said.
My stomach twisted. “Is everything okay?”
She looked puzzled, almost annoyed. “Why would you say that? Everything is great. In fact, what I was going to say is that—”
“Excuse me?” An older woman approached our table, with a big smile and the excited air of someone overstimulated by visiting New York for the first time. “Excuse me, Stella Bradley? I’m a huge fan. I just love you on KCN.”
“Oh, wow,” Stella said. “I love meeting my fans.”
“Could I”—the woman blushed—“could I have a picture with you?”
“Of course,” Stella said.
“Do you mind?” the woman said, handing me her phone. “Oh, thank you so much,” she said afterward, her adoring gaze fixed on Stella. “I just love you, I really do. I had to come over and say hello.”
“You’re so sweet,” Stella said. “Enjoy your dinner. And don’t skip dessert! The crème caramel is amazing. It’s my favorite.”
The woman blushed again. “Oh, but I’m on Weight Watchers. I can’t spare the points.”
“I won’t tell,” Stella said, raising an eyebrow. “If you won’t tell.”
The woman laughed. “This is the highlight of my whole trip! Stella Bradley. I can’t believe it. You are just so wonderful. God bless you, honey.”
“God bless me?” Stella said, after the woman walked away. “Blech.”
“You’re pretty good at faking it,” I said.
“So where was I?” Stella poured more wine into our glasses. “Right—Jamie. He told me he wanted to talk.”
“Oh.” I coughed. A sharp flake of baguette caught in my throat.
“Yeah.” Her eyes glimmered. “You don’t schedule a talk, not unless it’s major. We’re having a late dinner on Tuesday. He told me to set aside the night.”
I gulped water from my glass, attempting to dislodge the painful lump.
“I have no idea what it is,” Stella continued. “No, that’s not true. I have a few theories. You want to hear them? I bet he’s asking me to move in. Don’t you think that’s the most likely thing? Although, you know, it did occur to me that he might ask me to marry him. But then I thought, that’s crazy. That’s way too fast. Right?”
“I don’t know, I—”
“Or maybe not. I’m so curious!” Stella’s laughter was thin and giddy. She was not good at recognizing her own emotions and was probably mistaking her anxiety for excitement. “He’s been acting so nervous lately. I mean, it’s been over a year. That’s not actually that fast, is it? And wait a second.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you in on this? On whatever he has planned?”
“I promise you, I’m not.”
She smiled. “Well, you’d have to say that no matter what, wouldn’t you?”
On Monday morning, I made the call to Danner’s public relations team, running through the litany of allegations and asking for their comment on each one. If the woman on the other end of the phone was surprised, she didn’t betray it. “I’ll have someone get back to you,” she said crisply. “Could you please spell your name for me?”
“How’d it go?” Jamie said, after I hung up.
“Cool as a cucumber,” I said. “I have to say, it was weirdly anticlimactic.”
“So they have twenty-four hours to comment, otherwise we’re going ahead.”
“And what do we do now?” I said.
“We wait,” Jamie said.
The day passed with excruciating slowness. I managed to get through all of my work—calls, e-mails, follow-ups, fact-checks—and it was still only noon. I was either insanely productive, or I was losing my mind.
“How do you stand it?” I said to Jamie, who was calmly reading a report about cancer research. He was making notes and highlighting things, engaging his brain in a level of deep thinking that was currently inconceivable to me.
“This is your first real baby.” He didn’t look up from the document. “The second one’s less exciting, I promise.”
Throughout the day, I caught glimpses of the KCN feed on screens in the newsroom. Promos for the story were running during commercial breaks. Rebecca was going to appear on KCN’s morning show to tease the story. She was also planning to tip to it at the end of that night’s broadcast. Hank, the floor director, let me watch from inside Studio B.
“And be sure to tune in tomorrow night,” Rebecca said, as the D block edged toward the close, “when we’ll take you inside the explosive story of how far one Fortune 500 company was willing to go to increase their profits. You won’t want to miss it. Until then, I’m Rebecca Carter. Thank you for watching, and we’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Clear,” Hank yelled.
Rebecca’s smile vanished. She glared into the camera. “Who the hell booked that idiot? I told you a thousand times I can’t stand those people from the Heritage Foundation.”
The guest in the last segment had been particularly pompous, extolling the virtues of privatizing Social Security. Rebecca kept her cool during the interview, but if you knew what to look for, her twitching frustration was obvious. She shook her head at whatever Eliza was saying into her ear. “I don’t give a shit, Lizey. Never again, got it?”
Rebecca yanked out her earpiece. She spotted me as she made for the studio door. “Was that guy as big a blowhard as I thought he was?”
“Worse, actually,” I said. “You should read his latest white paper.”
“I’ve had enough masochism for one day, thank you,” she said, as we walked up the stairs from the studio, back to the newsroom.
Eliza was waiting outside Rebecca’s office. “You were good tonight,” she said. “That color really works on you.”
Rebecca glanced down at her hot pink blouse. “I hate this. I look like Barbie.”
“Pink tests well,” Eliza said. “The viewers think it makes you look sassy.”
“Jesus Christ, Eliza, are you trying to kill me?”
Eliza smiled. “Maybe just a little.”
She followed Rebecca into her office. A moment later, their laughter echoed into the bullpen. With Rebecca and Eliza, there was always a clean separation between their professional rancor and their friendship. They could yell at each other, no-holds-barred, but within a minute or two, it was like nothing had happened. For this dynamic to work, the two of them had to be equally and fully confident in themselves. Both Rebecca and Eliza knew how good they were. And I suspect that each believed—in her heart of hearts—that she was slightly smarter than the other. But only slightly. Close enough that no one else would notice. This led to a certain generosity in their friendship, a constant forgiving of the other person. Jealousy was a non-factor, because why be jealous when you knew that you had it better?
Later that night, as the office was emptying out, my phone rang. It was a blocked number. “Frontline,” I said. “This is Violet Trapp.”
“They only gave me your number.” The woman’s tone was icy and impatient. “I need to speak to Eliza Davis.”
“Can I ask what this is about?”
“Put me on with Eliza.”
“I’ll have to check—”
“Now, please.”
I punched the hold button and stuck my head into Eliza’s office. “Call for you on line one,” I said.
She glanced at the clocks on her wall—New York, Los Angeles, London, POTUS—and then raised an eyebrow. “Someone from Danner?”
“I think so. I tried to ask, but—”
“It’s just an ego thing,” Eliza said. “They want to talk to the person in charge. Makes them feel better. Here, sit down.”
Eliza pressed the blinking button and put the call on speaker. “This is Eliza,” she said.
“Eliza. This is Mary. I’m the head of communications here at Danner.”
“What do you have for us, Mary?”
“These are serious allegations you’re making. We don’t take any of this lightly.”
“I should hope not.”
“We believe there has been a fundamental misunderstanding. This story doesn’t reflect the truth, which is that the culture of Danner is a healthy and supportive one, for all employees. There were a few reckless actors, driven by greed, who did unforgiveable things. We have every intention of dealing with this in a manner that reflects the severity of their actions.”
“Is this your statement? Should I be writing this down?”
“I’m doing you one better. Our CEO wants to sit for an interview. He was extremely upset by these allegations, and he feels that he should explain Danner’s side of the story.”
“Okaaaay,” Eliza said. “But this wouldn’t be softball.”
“Nothing is off limits,” Mary said. “We only have one condition. We get to select the interviewer.”
“It would be Rebecca, obviously.”
“We had a different person in mind.”
“You know that Rebecca will give him a fair shake.”
“It has to be Stella Bradley,” Mary said.
“What?” Eliza said.
“Oh my God,” I whisper-choke-coughed, but Eliza waved at me to shut up.
“Stella Bradley. He likes her work.”
“Stella Bradley is approximately ten years old.”
“She’s an excellent interviewer, and from what I understand, she’s a rising star at KCN. Your bosses probably wouldn’t be happy to hear you speaking about her in that way.”
“I don’t give a shit what they think. Mary, come on.”
“I’m serious.” There was a long pause. “It’s Stella, or no dice.”
Eliza pressed her index fingers against her temples. “She may not be available on such short notice. She could be out on assignment.”
“I have a feeling she’ll make herself available for an opportunity like this.”
Eliza stared at her phone, at the digital readout that showed the seconds ticking by. “Okay. I’ll talk to my people and call you back.”
After the call ended, Eliza was quiet. My heart was pounding.
“Eliza,” I said, my voice high and shaky. “This isn’t a good idea. We can’t do this.”
She looked up at me, quizzically. “I thought you two were friends.”
“We are,” I said. “But this just isn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Eliza said. “We have to take this seriously. Can you find Rebecca and Jamie? And I’ll get Ginny on the phone.”
“I don’t like this, Gin,” Rebecca said. We had assembled in her office, and she was seated behind her desk, talking to the speakerphone. “Why does he get to call the shots?”
“We have to let Danner respond to these allegations.” Ginny’s voice was cool and controlled. “It’s their right, and our duty. It would be irresponsible to run the story without it.”
While Ginny spoke, Rebecca pressed the mute button. “What the fuck, Lizey? When have you known Ginny to give a plum like this to some JV player?”
“You know how Ginny is,” Eliza said. “Stella’s one of her favorites.”
“This is bullshit,” Rebecca muttered. She unmuted the call, and said, “Yeah, okay, I hear what you’re saying. If you think this is the right thing to do.”
“Thank you, Rebecca,” Ginny said. “I knew you’d understand. Eliza, you’ll call them back? And someone will get hold of Stella?”
“Violet can wrangle her,” Eliza said. “Then let’s regroup, okay?”
When I texted Stella, she was just wrapping up a hit in the 9 p.m. hour. Several minutes later, she arrived at the newsroom, looking especially glamorous in her full hair and makeup. Exactly like the person you’d want conducting a high-powered interview with a CEO. “What is it?” she said to me and Jamie. “You didn’t say in your text.”
“Let’s go into Eliza’s office,” Jamie said. “She’ll want to explain it herself.”
When I didn’t follow them, Stella said, “Aren’t you coming?”
“Some stuff I need to catch up on,” I said, my jaw clenched tight.
Jamie paused for a moment, looking back at me. He knew exactly how much this was crushing me. He also knew how pointless it was to fight their decision. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed, his eyes sympathetic.
When Stella emerged from Eliza’s office a few minutes later, she was grinning from ear to ear. “Holy shit,” she said. “Violet. Holy shit. You heard, right?”
“Can I talk to you?” I took her hand and dragged her toward the kitchenette. This was my last-ditch attempt. If I couldn’t stop this from happening, Stella still could. I jabbed at some buttons on the coffee machine, hoping the noise of it would cover our conversation.
“You can’t do it,” I said. “Please.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The interview. Say no. Say you’re not comfortable with it.”
“Are you insane? This is, like, career-making. This is my big break.”
“This is supposed to be my big break,” I said. “It’s my story.”
“It’s not your story. It’s KCN’s story.” Stella put her hands on her hips. “You should know that, Violet. And this is very selfish of you. Why aren’t you happy for me?”
“Because you’re going to get all of the credit,” I said, my voice splintering.
What was I hoping for? If she wasn’t going to change her mind, at least I wanted her to admit to the unfairness. She would have done that, in the past. I know this sucks. I wish it hadn’t worked out this way. The words running through my head were too pathetic to say out loud: You’re my friend, Stella. You’re supposed to love me. What happened to us?
She smirked. “Well, I’m the one who landed us this interview, right?”
The interview was scheduled for 2 p.m. the next day, giving us just enough time to cut the tape and edit the package before broadcast. I knew the story better than anyone, so it was my job to brief Stella ahead of the interview. As the night went on, the newsroom emptied. Eventually it was only the guy at the overnight desk and us in the conference room, papers and coffee cups scattered across the table.
“Say that one more time,” Stella said, around 3 a.m.
“Danner’s market cap increased to $150 billion last year.”
“Wait, slow down. Market cap? What’s that?”
I was tempted to slam my forehead against the table. It was like that all night: stop, start, stop. Either Stella was being extra diligent, or she was in way over her head. And which scenario was worse? That she blew the interview and the story along with it—or that she nailed it?
The next morning, Stella had a rack of clothing wheeled into her office. She enlisted Ginny’s help in selecting the right outfit: she had to look authoritative and tough, but not too tough, because she also had to be a stand-in for the regular viewer at home. Ginny, president of KCN, undoubtedly had more important things to do than parse wrap dresses and cap sleeves. But she didn’t seem to mind. As Stella held up options, pressing them against her torso, Ginny’s affectionate gaze was like a scene from a gauzy movie: a mother watching her daughter trying on wedding dresses, the big day on the horizon.
“Let’s never forget,” Jamie said. “We’re the real story, not them.”
“Huh?” I’d been staring through the frosted glass walls of Stella’s office.
“How is it possible you’ve never seen Broadcast News?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m spacing out.”
“You don’t want that,” Jamie said, nodding in Stella’s direction. “It’s a shitty bargain. The second you appear on camera, you’ve got a giant target painted on your back. That’s why they’re all so insecure, you know. They know people are gunning for them to screw up.”
“It’s not like I wanted the interview for myself,” I said. “I just don’t want her to have it.”
“You have to let it go,” he said. “This is too important for that.”
I had heard it said that there were only so many stories in the world. That everything could be distilled to an archetype. The hero embarks on a journey. Boy meets girl. The fatal flaw leads to tragedy. I wondered about the truth of this. Did every story follow these patterns because there were, in the end, only so many paths that human behavior could take? Or was it that the storytellers were responding to the demands of the audience?
See, the demands were obvious to us—we knew exactly what people liked to watch, and what they didn’t. The ratings bore that out, every single week. The audience liked clean takeaways. They liked black-and-white, heroes and villains. They liked the truth, but only kind of; they liked the truth packaged in a way to make them feel better about their own lives. Too much murkiness, and they are reminded of their own murk: their own mistakes, their own shortcomings, the times they, too, misbehaved and mistreated others. Those stories didn’t rate well. If you wanted people to watch, if you wanted to win the demo and get the blockbuster numbers that your bosses demanded, you needed a story with a good ending.
And Stella had delivered that. Jamie field-produced the interview, and after several hours in the edit room, he emerged looking exhausted but relieved. “It’s good,” he said. “I was worried we’d have to redo the entire package, but the interview slots in neatly. It works.”
“Nice job, guys,” Eliza said, as she walked past. “I just watched it. It’s almost like that interview was exactly what the story was missing.” She tapped her watch. “Ten minutes till show time.”
The second half hour of the broadcast was devoted to the Danner story. It was my name and Jamie’s name that appeared after “Produced by” in the corner of the screen, and it was Rebecca’s voice that narrated over the B-roll. But it was when Stella and the CEO appeared on-screen that the energy changed. Everyone in the newsroom stopped talking and typing. They stared at the TV, rapt with attention.
Whatever that thing is, I had once said to Jamie, I know I don’t have it.
Stella asked the questions in a stern but fair-minded way, her head tilted at a thoughtful angle. The CEO leaned forward, contrite pain on his face. “Look,” he said, “I’m the father of two beautiful teenage girls. They are the strongest, smartest people I know.” It was a horribly hackneyed line, but when I glanced around the room, no one else was rolling their eyes. “Violence against women demeans all of our sisters and wives and daughters,” he continued. “The thought of it, frankly, makes me sick to my stomach. We will do everything in our power to prevent it from ever happening again. Not just in our industry, but in any industry.”
The other parts of the segment—the interviews with George and Willow, footage of the hotel with Rebecca’s voice-over describing the assault—had been significantly reduced to make room for Stella’s interview. My stomach sank as it went on. The whole tenor of the story changed. Sin, repent, repeat. It was the most basic kind of story, the kind the audience loved most. The interview was what everyone would talk about the next day—not Willow, not the other girls. They wouldn’t be remembered for more than a few minutes.
Stella pressed the CEO just enough to deliver some sizzle. “But how could you let this happen?” she said. “You’re in charge. Doesn’t the buck stop with you?” I blinked, feeling hot tears in my eyes. The meager territory I had claimed as my own, the little patch of land free from Stella Bradley’s shadow—it was gone, invaded, colonized. Our friendship only worked when we had our own turf. But now Stella had discovered the thrill of a big story. The appeal of the nice guy at the next desk over. I would never get these things back, not with her around.
After the story ended, over the loud sound of the newsroom applauding, I said to Jamie, “You can’t honestly say that was an improvement over what we had before.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Of course it was. Do you know what I wanted to know, after we reported the story? So what. So what’s going to change? What’s Danner going to do about this? And now we’ve got that answer.”
“But it lets them off the hook. It makes them look good.”
“How does this make them look good? Everyone just learned that Danner was systematically enticing doctors with prostitutes.”
“And we gave them a platform to gloss over all of that.”
“It’s not our job to have an agenda against them,” Jamie said. “Our job is to report on what really happened. That includes covering their response.”
After a beat of silence, Jamie said, “Look. I know you’re frustrated by the Stella thing. But you still produced a great story. This is still your moment.”
It was a nice thing to say, but it wasn’t true. The applause wasn’t for me, nor was the champagne after the broadcast. Stella swept through the newsroom toward us, receiving a stream of compliments on the way. She threw her arms around Jamie. “My agent already e-mailed. NBC and CNN want a meeting. Can you believe it?” She laughed with delight. “Are we still going to dinner?”
“Oh,” Jamie said. He stepped back. “I figured you’d want to stay and celebrate. We can have dinner another night, right?”
Stella looked confused, but at that moment, Ginny Grass came over. “Oh, Stella. My God. You were fabulous. We need to talk.” Ginny rested a jewel-heavy hand on Stella’s forearm. “We’re adjusting our lineup, and I have something in mind for you.”
Stella smiled. Her contract was set to expire at the end of the year. She held the best cards at the table.
“Let’s have lunch this week,” Ginny said. “Better to talk somewhere more private.”
Ginny kept her hand fixed possessively on Stella, like she was the owner of a Thoroughbred that had just won the Kentucky Derby. Which, I suppose, she was. Rumor had it that the bosses wanted a new host for KCN’s morning show. The executives had cycled unsuccessfully through a series of bland anchors. They needed someone with personality, with star quality, someone relatable to a millennial audience. Stella fit the bill. She was twenty-six years old. She would be the youngest anchor in KCN’s history.
On Wednesday, I had an appointment to meet with a broker. I explained my situation: I’d had a roommate for the last three years, but now I wanted—needed—my own apartment. Where I wouldn’t have to worry about the other person railroading my career.
The broker’s offices were depressing and sweatshop-like, in a nondescript part of Midtown. Low-walled cubicles that were completely anonymous, nothing except a computer and a business-card holder. The broker had responded to my e-mail in about thirty seconds.
“Hmm,” she said. “With your budget, you’re not going to find much in Manhattan. Maybe a studio, way uptown.”
“Uptown is fine.”
“How about this?” she said, turning her screen toward me. “This is a good example of what you can expect for your price point. Up near St. Nicholas Park.”
I squinted. The pictures were small and fuzzy, like they’d been taken with a ten-year-old flip phone. The apartment was one room, a minuscule galley kitchen along one wall, a door that presumably led to the bathroom. “Oh,” I said.
“You’re on the sixth floor, so you get good light.”
“The sixth floor?”
“Actually—whoopsie,” the broker said. “Never mind. Looks like that one is in contract already. And they got more than the listing price. Wow. Okay, let’s try again.”
On the walk back to the office, I wondered if I was being rash. The places were awful, and multiples more expensive than my $750 rent. Seven fifty was a lot to me, but pennies to the Bradleys. I often thought about those checks going into their bank account, barely changing the balance, a few raindrops falling on the Atlantic Ocean. But they always cashed the check promptly, and the one time I was late to send it in, Anne had sent me a precisely worded reminder on the second day of the month. Would the Bradleys be offended when I left, after so many years of treating me like family and subsidizing my rent? Would Stella?
But for the first time, those questions seemed stupid. Naive, misguided. I finally saw how things were. Had Stella let our friendship stand in the way of an opportunity? Of doing what was best for her?
On Thursday night, Stella went out to dinner with Jamie and was planning to stay at his place. I had been sound asleep when, around 4 a.m., there was a crash down the hallway.
I opened my eyes. There was another crash. Thudding footsteps. My heart started pounding. When I stood up from my bed, my legs were shaking. Another bang. The footsteps were getting louder. Back in Florida, my father had always kept a gun in the house. I cursed my younger self for ever judging him about this. Right now, all I wanted was a gun.
More crashing, more thumping. How had this person gotten past the doorman? Maybe they wouldn’t make it back here. Maybe I’d be okay if I hid in the closet. I had my phone unlocked, about to dial 9-1-1, when I heard the voice.
“Violet!” she shrieked. “VIOLET!”
“What the FUCK!” I flung open the door. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
Stella stood at the end of the hallway, silhouetted by the light from the living room. “What are you doing?” I said. “Why aren’t you at Jamie’s?”
Up close, I saw that the living room was a disaster zone. Framed pictures had been smashed. A lamp had been knocked over, its bulb shattered. Stella collapsed on the sofa, breathing hard, her face flushed red. “What happened?” I said.
“He broke up with me,” she said. “He broke up with me.” Then she burst into tears.
I tiptoed through the broken glass—the framed photos of Stella and Jamie that had lined the mantel—and sat down. The bottoms of Stella’s bare feet were cut and bloodied from the glass. When I put my hand on her back, her skin was flushed and sweaty through her blouse. After a long time, when her sobs finally slowed down, I said, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Stella looked up. Her face was swollen and puffy. She rarely cried, and never like this.
She inhaled deeply. “I thought we were celebrating, you know?” she said. “We went to dinner at Daniel. We were talking about how great the ratings were, and I never thought”—her voice broke, a fresh spill of tears—“I never thought, for one second, that’s where the conversation was going. I mean, what the fuck? Who breaks up with someone over a six-hundred-dollar dinner at Daniel?”
Granted, Daniel had been her idea. She’d snagged a last-minute reservation using Rebecca’s name (again). Jamie never would have picked a place like that.
“I was so happy. I was so happy. Did you hear the ratings? Almost four million people watched. That’s insane. Those aren’t cable news numbers. It wasn’t until dessert that I remembered Jamie had wanted to talk to me about something.
“So I asked him. Then he said, why don’t we wait ’til we get home. I said, are you sure? But he was being all quiet and, like, sketchy. He wouldn’t look at me.”
“So you knew something was wrong,” I said.
“I thought he was about to propose! The dinner and everything, acting weird. I thought he had a ring in his pocket. I’m serious. Don’t look at me like that.”
I rearranged my eyebrows, which had arched on their own accord.
“You probably think I’m so stupid,” she snapped. “Well, fuck you, too.”
“No! I’m just as surprised as you. That’s all.”
“Ugh.” She flung her arms out and whacked them against the back of the couch. “So, we’re leaving the restaurant, and that’s when he says it. He just doesn’t think it’s working. We’re both so busy. Neither of us is making the other person a priority. Well, speak for your fucking self, Jamie. All I’ve done is prioritize him. I’ve bent over backwards to make that asshole happy. And this is how he repays me?”
This, I suppose, was the fundamental problem. Stella’s charm, her glow, her energy—it was so powerful that anyone who stood close enough could feel it. People were happy when they were near Stella. She saw that, and she took credit for their happiness. So when the shtick eventually wore off, when a person started to see Stella for who she really was, she couldn’t understand what had changed.
But the difference between me and Jamie? Jamie was brave enough to say it to her face. To cut bait, to make a clean break. Me, I didn’t have those guts. Stella was the vine wrapped around the limbs of my tree, and even though I had branches that were dead and dangling and should have fallen off long ago, she kept them in place. Jamie was a better friend to me than Stella had ever been. In that moment, I should have defended him.
But no one ever said doing the right thing was easy. Instead, pathetically, I crinkled my forehead and said, “That’s horrible, Stell. I’m so sorry.”
She stood up and started pacing, ignoring the crunch of broken glass beneath her feet. Little bits of her blood smeared the rug. “What is wrong with him? Does he realize what he just threw away?” She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Look at me. You’re telling me Jamie Richter is going to do better than this?”
Her face changed, and she snapped her fingers. “This is some guy thing, isn’t it? They get bored and they want to fuck someone new. He’s going to get this out of his system, and then he’ll come crawling back, but he can forget it. I’m not taking him back.”
Over the years, I’d endured hours of Stella whining and complaining, but this was new. Raw anger. A wounded animal. Stella had a deeply rooted sense of self, a security and desirability that the world constantly confirmed back to her. But where life had failed to make a dent, Jamie had finally succeeded. Something at her very core had been disturbed.
“I have to pack,” she said, all of a sudden.
“Why?” I said.
She pulled out her phone, and after a moment, she was barking into it: “This is Stella Bradley, I need my car brought up. A silver Mercedes SUV. License plate—” When the call ended, she threw the phone onto the couch and walked out of the room. “We’re getting out of here,” she called over her shoulder.