Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

The driver stopped in front of the hotel. My door was opened for me from the outside. I was distracted, searching for a tip, so it wasn’t until he laughed and said, “You’re not even going to say hello?” that I looked up.

Jamie, with a big smile on his face.

Two weeks earlier, in London, Ashley Fong asked if I had really thought about this.

“It’s not like the New York office,” she said. “We’re tiny, compared to them. And every year we have to do more with less.”

“That’s the appeal,” I said. “I’d like to try something different.”

“You’ve been with Rebecca and Eliza for how long?”

“Four years.”

“And you’re ready to get out of there.”

Trish, the executive producer in Washington, had been unsurprised by my back-channel phone call. This was a lesson learned from producing: never let a door close. After we expressed mutual disappointment that we wouldn’t be working together, Trish called me a few days later with an idea. Her friend Ashley Fong, the head of KCN’s London bureau, was hiring. If I was interested, Trish would put in a good word.

In fact, the London bureau was hiring for multiple roles. Ashley needed two senior producers. The TV screens in her office were tuned to the BBC and CNN International and Sky News. Jamie sat in the office next door, interviewing with Ashley’s deputy. Later, Jamie and I would switch places, a silent smile flashing between us in the hallway.

“I am,” I said, in answer to her question. “And so is Jamie.”

“I take it you two are a package deal?”

“We’ve just about reached the point of finishing each other’s sentences.”

“Good,” she said. “But I’ll be honest with you. We’re in a major jam right now.”

“How so?”

“We’re short a reporter. How hard should it be to convince someone to move to London? Very, apparently. The bosses keep sending us these twenty-three-year-old kids. Who know nothing about the world. Not great for a foreign correspondent. They wash out after a few months, and we’re back to square one.”

“That must be frustrating.”

“But when I try to hire a more senior reporter, guess what? The reporters want to stay in New York. How are you going to suck up to the executives when you’re all the way across the Atlantic?” She made a face, then shook her head. “That sounds petty, but it’s true.”

“Yeah,” I said. “A lot of backstabbing goes on.”

“You have no idea. A few years ago, I was on deck to oversee the morning lineup. But at the last minute, Ginny intervened. Instead she wanted me to head up the Hong Kong bureau. Know why?” Ashley gestured at herself. “She’s a racist.”

“Really?”

“She wasn’t explicit about it,” Ashley said. “But she thought I didn’t have the right sensibility for morning. That someone like me—who looks like me—couldn’t connect with real America. Couldn’t cut into Fox’s base. Like she understands it so well? Guess what, bitch. We’re both from New York. We both went to Spence.”

I laughed.

“Well,” Ashley said, “it worked out. Hong Kong and London were like a trip to the spa after New York. It’s liberating. You’ll see. You’ll love it.”

“Does this mean I have the job?” I said.

Ashley smiled. “Very direct. That’s why Ginny doesn’t like you, right?”

“Ginny hates me. I’ve never known why.”

“Welcome to the club,” she said. “Unfortunately, we still need her. She has to convince someone to come over here and take this correspondent job.”

“Actually,” I said, “I might have another idea.”

The day after returning from that first trip to London, Corey agreed to meet me for lunch.

“You must really love Cuban food.” He slid into the booth across from me. “Otherwise there’s no good reason to drag me out to Tenth Avenue.”

“It’s the best ropa vieja in the city,” I said. “But, more importantly, no one from KCN comes here.”

“Ah,” he said. “ That kind of lunch. So what? You’re ready to jump ship?”

“Nope. I already have a new ship. And I want you to join it.”

As I started talking, Corey laughed and tried to interrupt: he had just started at CNN, he was happy there. When I told him to be quiet and listen, he looked surprised. Then he looked bemused, then serious. The plan, as I laid it out, didn’t sound crazy. It sounded kind of perfect. By the time our food arrived, Corey was chewing a thumbnail, thinking hard.

“You wanted a fast track to a foreign correspondent job,” I said, lifting a forkful of rice and beans. “Doesn’t get faster than this.”

“This feels too good to be true,” Corey said. “There has to be a catch.”

“Well, for one thing, CNN won’t want to let you out of your contract. That’ll be an ugly fight. But so what? Make your agent earn his percentage.”

“What about this Ashley Fong? Do you like her?”

“I like her enough.” I shrugged. “Look, Corey. I’m being selfish. I like you, I know you, and I think we’d work well together. My colleague Jamie Richter is coming to London, too. He’s one of Eliza’s original protégés. Our mandate is to remake the place. We want the new face of the bureau to be someone really good. Who makes us look good, in turn.”

“It’s tempting.” He had a dreamy look in his eyes. “London, huh?”

“They call this a win-win,” I said.

Oliver wouldn’t look at me. In his apartment, he was staring at the floor, pouty and embarrassed, like a small child being punished.

But defiant. A child who doesn’t feel he’s done anything wrong—now, or ever.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why do you want to leave so badly?”

“I already told you. I need a fresh start.”

“If you loved me, you would stay.”

“But I don’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, Oliver.”

He finally looked up. “There’s no one left,” he said. “Stella. My mother, my father, they’ve basically gone crazy. I’m completely alone. You must understand that.”

His words were pathetic, but his eyes were angry. Those words weren’t a plea. They were an imperative. He was commanding me to feel his pain, and to nurse him through it. And if this had been four years earlier, I might have. The fancy homes, the vacations, the life of luxury: once upon a time, that would have been sufficient compensation for this kind of emotional labor. But it wasn’t four years earlier. I knew better, by now.

And besides, he tried to fuck up my career. That was unforgivable.

“I have to go,” I said. “I have a lot to do.”

Oliver punched a button on his phone and held it to his ear. “I’m calling Ginny.”

“That won’t work. She doesn’t oversee the London bureau.”

He frowned. “No answer. Never mind. I’m going to leave a message.”

“Do whatever you want,” I said. “And take care of yourself, okay?”

“Ginny,” he shouted into the phone. “This is Oliver Bradley. Can you please—”

But I closed the door behind me, blocking the sound of Oliver’s voice.

I left New York on Saturday, arrived in London on Sunday, and would begin the new job on Monday. Ashley said we could take more time—adjust to the jet lag, find a place to live—but none of us cared about that. We wanted to get to work. Later that week, Corey would be reporting from Baghdad on their parliamentary elections. Jamie would be field-producing for him. My plate was full, too: there was a G8 summit happening in Germany, the conclusion of the Tour de France, a new encyclical from the Pope. The first week would be intense.

It was a strange feeling, walking around a new city, imagining what shape my life might take here. Charmingly crooked streets, lush green squares, tall red buses: one day, these novel things would become familiar. I spent that Sunday wandering alone, getting pleasantly lost. The clouds cleared in the late afternoon. The sky was bright and the air was rinsed clean. Latitude and season meant that the sun wouldn’t set until after 9 p.m.