Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

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.”