"Will there be more cuts?" I ask. Adrenaline is like a hypnotic beat beneath my skin, warning me about the danger here. But the words come out without shaking.
Carter shakes his head. "I can't tell you that, Miss…?"
He knows it, so he has to be pretending for my sake. "Ford," I say.
"Miss Ford," he echoes, eyes lighting up. Like he's enjoying this. "I understand the desire for more clarity, but I assure you, as soon as I have more information I will share it with you. That will be all for today."
Judging from his tone, he means it this time.
People disperse. There are hushed conversations, murmured laments. I watch one person race toward the bathroom, their steps hurried and a hand pressed over their eyes.
It's carnage.
I wander into the main corridor in a daze. People's jobs, gone in a heartbeat. Just like that. People shuffle around me, heading off in different directions, but I just lean against the wall. I'd spent time with Carter. I'd laughed with him. The memories feel dirty, now. Tainted.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but all I can see is Mona with her head in her hands. I don't know how long I stand there.
"Hello."
It's Carter. I push off from the wall, looking around, but people aren't milling about. They've fled this room. Fled from him, more likely.
"I read the interview you put together for the newsletter. Good job," he says.
The smile in the corner of his mouth is back. Like he hadn't just ruined people's lives.
"Don't patronize me," I say. "It was a puff piece."
"Yes," he says. "But it was a well-written one."
I turn to him and hate that I have to tip my head back to meet his gaze. "All those people had jobs. Livelihoods. It's all gone, just like that."
His smile disappears. "I'm aware."
"Are you?"
"Yes. You think I'm not?"
I shake my head. "You're not even trying to turn this paper around, are you? You're just interested in cutting away the fat. Bleeding it dry, just like the other vulture hedge funds. We all know what's happened to newspapers all across the country."
Carter raises an eyebrow, but beneath the bemused expression, I see his clenched jaw. It gives me a small sense of victory that he's not as nonchalant as he pretends to be. "This isn't the first company I've turned around."
"Not the first departments you've slashed, either," I say.
"No, and they won't be the last," he says.
I glare at him. He glares at me.
"We shouldn't be talking like this," I say, looking behind me. But I don't see anyone.
"You interviewed me for the newsletter. It's perfectly all right for us to be friendly."
Friendly, I think. I can't be seen as friendly with this man in front of the Globe newsroom, not while he keeps cutting people's jobs. And he wants our bantering friendship, if that's what we have, to continue? It's impossible.
So I do the only thing I can think of. I turn and leave him there, leaning against the wall, and I don't look back.
Late that night, when I've just gotten cozy in bed with the latest monthly issue of The Reporter, my phone vibrates with a text.
It's from him.
Carter: I appreciated the way you stood up to me during the meeting. Good job, kid.
Audrey: We shouldn't be texting.
Carter: Nothing's changed.
I look at his text. Two tiny words that couldn't be more wrong, even if I wished they were different. I picture Carter's smile and Mona with her head in her hands.
Audrey: Everything's changed.
It's three days later, and people in my department still won't let my questions go. "Spitfire," Booker had commented afterwards, even going so far as to pat me on the back.
Declan had given me a short, approving nod from his desk. It must be the equivalent to good job in Declanese.
My gumption even went so far as to become a joke during the newsroom staff meeting for Booker's Investigative team. She handed out all the story beats, and in the brief pause after, a man named Raymond raised his voice.
"Doesn't Audrey have something to ask?"
People had laughed, and I'd stood and pretended to bow, accepting it. But it didn't feel earned. I'd taken a risk, sure, and Wesley had looked at me with death in his eyes when I passed him in the hallway earlier. But something told me Carter would hesitate to fire me because of it.
"Bored?" Declan asks me from behind his computer screen. "I know I am."
I sigh. "Yes. But I'm trying to see the positive side."
"Which is what?"
"We're perfecting our editing chops."
He doesn't respond, which shows just how poorly he thinks of my silver-lining skills.
Since all of our solo-initiative projects were put on hold, our only tasks are doing research and transcribing for the reporters who don't have junior in their job titles. It means very little original thinking, but a lot of precision work.
I'm finding that I don't mind, though. I'm at a cutting-edge newspaper that's been at the forefront of reporting for decades, regularly challenging authority across the world. I can do worse than handling research for some of the Pulitzer-winning journalists in my department.
It's just before midday when a text lights up my phone. I angle the screen away as soon as I see the name.
Carter: Want me to explain my plans for the paper? Have lunch with me at 23 Northbourne and I'll tell you. Off the record.
I read the message three times. Is he serious, or is he just messing with me? This sounds like something he'd send before I found out he was the new CEO. The off the record part makes me think he's joking about my job, investigative journalist and all.