Party Girl

“Exactly. Chester Godwyn wants his reporters to report the news, not be the news. And right now...”

“Right now, there are television news people in Godwyn’s office wanting to interview you.” Keisha stared at her in dawning horror. “Shit.”

Her thoughts exactly. “Are you sure the boss didn’t look like he wanted to murder me?”

“You know Chester, he never gives too much away. He didn’t seem angry, though.”

“That’s good. Right?”

Keisha opened her mouth to answer, but at that moment the Editor-in-Chief’s door opened. Chester Godwyn stuck his head out, swept the newsroom with a hard gaze and locked on Hannah like a heat-seeking missile. “Hannah Raven. Let’s talk.”

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, while Keisha’s breath squeaked to a halt. “Welp, at least he won’t kill me in front of witnesses.”

“There you go, always looking for that silver lining. Love that about you.” Keisha nodded, keeping her gaze trained on their boss as if fearing he might turn rabid if she looked away. “Keep your head up and remember you didn’t do anything wrong. See you on the flipside.”

If there was a flipside, Hannah thought grimly.

Painfully aware that again people were watching her as she left her cubicle, Hannah tried a bright smile as she approached Chester. “’Morning, boss. Looking impressive today. Are those new khakis? Because they look like new khakis.”

He gave her a funny look. “Aren’t you the person who said I dressed like a Dockers commercial from the nineties? Anyway, come on in, I want you to meet some people. Hannah, meet Cheryl Kaczinski with Channel Five news and Daniel Stahl from WDN, both of whom are interested in doing a story on the livestream you did last night. Be nice and say hello.”

“Hello,” Hannah said automatically, giving the redheaded woman in her mid-thirties and the older African-American man her best smile. “I’m so sorry, but I’m really not interested in any interviews at this time. I’m a pop-culture reporter here at Chicago Pulse who enjoys reporting the news, not being the news.” There. That should help her case a smidge.

“Ms. Raven,” Cheryl Kaczinski gave her an earnest look, something Hannah had seen countless times on the local news. “I understand your position, but you started an important conversation last night that needs to keep going. Let’s set up an interview time when it’s convenient for you—”

“My station is also highly motivated to explore this story, particularly from your point of view,” Daniel Stahl cut in, clearly not having any problem with verbally trampling over his competitor. “Let me give you my card so we can talk about getting you on TV where you belong—”

“Thank you, both of you, but no.” If he could be interruptive and not have a problem with it, then so could she. “If I talk about anything, it’ll be to my followers online, or from the platform Chicago Pulse provides me. Anything else would feel like a conflict of interest, and I have no desire to get mired down in that. But please feel free to keep the conversation going yourselves,” she added, determinedly talking over them when they both tried to push their cases. “If I were you trying to cover this angle, I would look no further than your own coworkers, because in all probability, someone you know has been made to feel like they were at fault for being the victim of a crime. It’s human nature to look to assign blame, because it makes us feel like we understand the situation and therefore have some control over the chaos. But the truth is, no victim is ever to blame, just as there is no way to fully control the chaos of crime. Chase those stories down, and you’ll see what I mean.”

“You heard her, folks.” Chester crossed to his office door and held it open. “It was nice of you to drop by, though. Always love touching base with my fellow journalists. Drive carefully and have a nice day.”

“I’m so sorry, boss,” Hannah said the moment they were alone, with Chester shutting his office door behind the grumbling TV news people. “I swear, I do try to keep my internet brand and my job here at Pulse completely separate. I know you don’t like it when—”

“Take a breath, Hannah. You’re not in trouble. Quite the opposite actually, which is why I wanted to talk to you.” Chester nodded at the recently vacated chairs opposite his desk. “Grab a seat and tell me about your livestream last night.”

Briefly she sketched out the core of the conversation without going into the detail that the worst ending to what had been the best first date she’d ever experienced had been the stream’s inspiration. When she was done, her boss leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled as he regarded her.

“So this conversation went viral, and it’s not the first time your vlog’s done that, yeah? You’ve also hit big on—” He plucked up a scratchpad off his desk and put his horn-rimmed glasses on to read. “Challenging your followers to share their deepest secrets by sharing some of your own. Then you had another video that hit big on the subject of going shopping in your own closet. How the hell do you go shopping in your own closet?” he wanted to know, looking at her from over the rim of his glasses. “Don’t you already own whatever’s in your closet?”

“It wasn’t really shopping. It was more of a repurposing and rediscovering video, encouraging people to dig into the forgotten nooks and crannies of their closets instead of just spending mindlessly. I even wrote an article about it for the Pulse after it kicked off an online fad of people posting some fantastic closet finds. Ultimately it led to an online fashion show sponsored by Gucci.”

“I remember. And that’s what I want to talk to you about,” he added, setting the scratchpad aside to give her his full attention. “When I started Chicago Pulse a few years back along with a couple buddies of mine, we knew we were moving into a different world of journalism. We understood that newspapers, as they are, won’t be around unless they adapt to all the latest ways of reaching an audience that’s hungry for information. You’re a great writer, Hannah, and no one knows this town’s high society like you. But your reach on the internet far outweighs what you do here, and that’s something that we can’t ignore any longer.”

Oh shit, I’m being fired. “I... I’m sorry—”

“What the hell are you apologizing for? I’m the one who’s sorry I didn’t think of how best to use your reach and your natural talents before now. The Pulse is lucky to have you, Hannah, because if we have you, we might also be able to tap into the energy of your followers worldwide. What do you think about that?”

After struggling for years to keep her two worlds somewhat separate, she had no idea. “Uh... what do you have in mind?”

Chester straightened in his chair. “We want to start podcasts for all of our more popular writers. Your name tops that list. Basically you would do what you already do on your livestream—discuss whatever’s on your mind and encourage people to engage with you and get a conversation going. I’d also like to see you keep being plugged into the Gossip aspect of your job here—spotlighting the many celebrities Chicago’s been blessed with, get live interviews with them if you can, that sort of thing.”

Good grief, she wasn’t being fired. From the sound of it, she was being promoted. “Where would I be doing this? I mean, I have my own recording equipment, or course, but I don’t know how I feel about inviting people into the privacy of my own home. I could do interviews online, of course, like I did last night with the basketball player—”

“Don’t worry about being forced to invite people into your home or do a bunch of Zoom interviews using your own equipment, because I’m not asking that of you. We’ve decided to expand.”

“Expand?”

“Yeah. We bought the floor above us about a month ago,” he added, pointing vaguely upward while she tried not to drop her jaw into her lap. “We’ve got plans of converting it into studio space for you and the other Pulse journalists we’ve got in mind to do podcasts. It’s October now, so the finishing-out process upstairs will be done and ready to roll within weeks. We want you and the others to hit the ground running on your podcasts, so you need to start preparing now. That is, if you agree to do the podcast in the first place. I’d get it if you decided not to,” he added when she simply sat there, too stunned to form a coherent sentence. “I know you make more money being a vlogger than you do here, and while there’s a definite bump in pay on this project, we can’t match what you make as a content creator. If you think you’re going to have a conflict there—”

“No, that’s not it,” she managed at last, trying valiantly to make sense of her spinning thoughts. “I’m actually thinking about time.”

“Time?”