Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

The idea began forming that morning. There had to be another way out. The job in Washington was going to be my chance to start over. Freedom had nearly been mine, by inches.

When Jamie arrived, he looked anxious. “What the hell happened?” he said.

“What?” I said, panicked. That very question had just been running through my mind. What had happened, to bring me to this moment?

“The job,” he said. “I thought it was a sure thing.”

“Oh.”

“I got an e-mail this morning. Now they want me to interview for the position? What happened? Did you change your mind?”

Before I could explain, Eliza appeared in the doorway of her office. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she said, shaking her head. The newsroom was still relatively empty, which meant Eliza could curse freely without an intern reporting her to HR for abusive tactics. “Trish just called from Washington. She is furious. ”

“I’m confused,” Jamie said. “Can somebody explain?”

“Ginny didn’t think it was a good idea,” I said. “For me to take the job.”

“What? Why?”

Eliza leaned against her doorjamb, crossing her arms. “I have seen some petty shit in my day, but this takes the cake.” To Jamie, she said, “It’s a power move. That’s all. Ginny wants to remind everyone that she’s in charge.” Then to me: “Unless you did something to piss her off?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jamie said. “A power move? Trish wants to hire Violet, and Violet wants to work for Trish. What’s the point of interfering?”

“But that is the point,” Eliza said. “You act spiteful, it shows how much capital you can afford to squander.”

Eliza’s ringing phone drew her back to her desk. Jamie blew out his cheeks. “I think she’s been reading too much Sun Tzu,” he said.

“Ginny or Eliza?”

“Both,” he said. “So how should I respond to this e-mail? It’s from Ginny. She wants me on the train to Washington this afternoon.”

“Well,” I said, “that depends on what you want to do.”

“Are you kidding? That job belongs to you, Violet. And even if they don’t give it to you, I’m staying away from this stupid game.” He sat down at his computer. “No, the only question is how rude I should be in my response.”

Jamie cleared his throat, made a show of rolling up his sleeves. “Dear Ginny, aka Führer Grass,” he proclaimed loudly, while pecking out the letters. “F-Ü-H-R-E-R. Umlaut. Comma. New paragraph. Okay, what now?”

I laughed. I laughed so hard I started crying. And then I was just crying.

“Oh, come here,” Jamie said, opening his arms. “I know this sucks. I know.”

There was a spare office on the floor, which we often used for talking confidentially with sources. Jamie led me inside and closed the door. He didn’t say anything. He held me in a hug, my head against his chest, and I sobbed. His hand on my back, the rise and fall of his breathing, the smell of laundry detergent on his shirt—they were permission to let go. Toughness extracts a price, eventually. Nothing comes for free.

“Hey,” he said, when my tears finally slowed. “Hey, Violet. You know you can talk to me, right? What’s really going on?”

“I ruined your shirt,” I said, touching the black smudges from my mascara.

“There’s a spare one in my desk,” he said. “Learned that trick from the movies.”

“Ha,” I said, hollowly.

“Violet, I’m serious. Let me help you.”

“Help me with what?” I said. “I’m screwed.”

Jamie squeezed my hand. “Why don’t you tell me what this is actually about?”

“Why? What’s the point?”

“Because you don’t have to be alone with it.”

I closed my eyes again. He was a good man. Jamie, holding his arms wide, ready to receive my problems, not so that we could dissect and analyze and solve them, but simply so he could share the burden for a while. That the problem remained inarticulate didn’t matter. What mattered was not to be alone. He was, perhaps, my best shot at happiness.

Years ago, when I spurned Jamie’s advance, I thought I didn’t need his love because I had Stella. Months ago, when I let Stella sink into the ocean, I thought I didn’t need her love because I had myself. But this meant that I had stepped outside certain boundaries, and I wasn’t sure if I could ever come back in. The world looks at you and sees you in the context of other people. Relationships radiate out like the delicate strands of a spider’s web. The politician talks about his hardworking parents, or his loving wife. The mother is willing to sacrifice anything for her children. These are always the first nouns people reach for. I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife. I am a friend.

I thought I could survive without those words, without those silken strands. But surviving isn’t the same as living. And didn’t Jamie love me, in a way? The kind of love that comes from a thousand late nights, a thousand fires extinguished, a thousand problems solved. I visualized it. I visualized opening my eyes, telling the truth. You can’t imagine the things I’ve done, Jamie. You can’t imagine the cruelty I am capable of. It is the loneliest feeling, and I don’t want to be lonely anymore. I want to open up to you, Jamie, I want to tell you the truth.

And what would that look like, if I told him? What if he forgave me, and what if I trusted him? What if, bit by bit, he helped me climb out of this bottomless black well?

But love has its limits. Kindness can’t fix everything. Trust is a gamble. Everything I’d worked for could be gone in an instant. So I shook my head and looked away from his gaze. “Yes, I do,” I said. “That’s how this works.”

Ginny had a nickname at KCN: the Ice Queen. Often it was said with respect; she used her steeliness to successfully negotiate interviews with Middle East dictators or Kremlin officials. But it cut both ways. She took a frosty approach to conflict. She didn’t like firing talent, especially because their contracts usually required a full payout in the event of termination. Instead, she marginalized them. Anchors were demoted to reporters. They were given fewer hits. They were denied access to hair and makeup. Eventually, dignity required them to quit.

It didn’t matter how much Rebecca and Eliza liked me. They could talk shit about Ginny behind her back, but at the end of the day, she was their boss. She controlled their budget. If it came down to defending me versus preserving their own careers at KCN, it was obvious which would win. I understood this; in their situation, I would do the same. Ginny would ban them from writing reference letters or tapping their contacts to find me a new job. Ginny would make sure I failed. She would leave me alone, on a tiny floe of ice, to drift and drift until finally I gave up and drowned myself.

But here’s the thing: it’s far easier to keep someone out in the first place. Once the franchise has been extended, good luck taking it back. Once a person like me has a foothold in your world, good luck driving them out. That’s why the British fought so hard in 1940. That’s why, to an extent, the universe favors progress. An inch of incursion soon becomes a mile. Ginny never really understood the relentlessness of an outsider. I had tasted the possibilities. I wasn’t giving up that easily.

ANNE CALLED WITH frequent updates from Maine. The police were putting more resources into the investigation. A picture was starting to come together.

Irregular currents had kept the boat close to shore. The lobsterman who found the rusted and salt-bleached boat didn’t recognize it from the police description. He left it in the care of the dockmaster, who had vague plans of fixing it up before the summer season. Anne had been visiting every town in that part of Maine, asking questions and showing pictures of Stella. She stopped in this particular small town for coffee. While a fresh pot was brewing, she waited on the deck that overlooked the harbor. That’s when she spotted it.