Kitchen Chinese (2 page)

“Hi, you.” He cocked his head and regarded me with a tender look that he probably thought I’d find irresistible.

“Hi,” I said shortly, ducking under my desk to turn on my computer.

“You seem chipper this morning. Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

I shrugged. “There’s nothing to forgive. I haven’t heard from
you since Friday. Obviously you’ve been busy.” I brushed by him and headed toward my boss Nina’s office to unlock her door and boot up her computer.

I lingered in the office, turning on the lights and straightening Nina’s stacks of back-issue magazines. But Richard was still there when I returned, a look of indulgent fondness on his face. “I love this cranky, pouty Isabelle,” he said. And then, when I remained silent, he cajoled, “Come on, Iz. I’m sorry I didn’t call. Let me make it up to you over lunch.”

I felt myself weaken as I looked at him, the lock of dark blond hair that flopped over his forehead, the way his gray eyes crinkled. But then I remembered the red folder. “Sorry, I can’t,” I said. “I’m on deadline.”

“Deadlines, shmed-lines.” He threw me a careless smile. “Let’s go to Pearl Seafood and get oysters and a bottle of wine.”

“I can’t…I don’t want to piss Nina off. They’re making a decision about the job in Features next week, you know.”

Richard gazed at me admiringly. “You know, Iz, this might finally be your big break. You could finally make the leap to staff writer.”

Behind my back I crossed my fingers and squeezed them together with an intensity that surprised me. “Here’s hoping,” I murmured.

I spent the rest of the morning with the telephone receiver wedged under my ear as I struggled to reach all the sources named in the article, while my fingers typed agitated bursts into the LexisNexis search engine. The journalist, a freelancer named Zara Green, was considered one of
Belle
’s rising stars, known for her assertive reporting. I’d met her once at a brown-bag lunch for assistants, and found her unreserved enthusiasm and determination compelling. Unfortunately, she’d left so many
holes in this story about Jolly Jones, I was starting to feel more like her ghostwriter rather than a fact-checker.

At lunchtime my boss appeared at my cubicle.

“Almost done?” She shot an agonized look at my computer screen. As
Belle
’s managing editor, Nina was arguably one of the most powerful women in New York media, yet she lived in constant fear of getting fired for missing a deadline.

“Not quite.”

“When?” Nina spoke in one-word sentences when she was stressed.

“I don’t know. I need another couple of hours. Actually, I had some questions…”

She heaved a sigh so forceful it ruffled the papers on my desk. “What is this, like the eight hundredth story you’ve fact-checked for the magazine? You should be able to do this in your sleep by now.”

“It’s just that there’s so much information missing from the article…and I can’t reach half her sources. And Zara’s not picking up the phone or answering any of my e-mails. Are you sure this piece is ready…?” My question hung in the air.

“Why don’t you just do your job, Isabelle, and I’ll do mine,” she said crisply. “Zara Green is a highly respected journalist and I highly doubt she’s making up sources.”

“But—”

“If you can’t finish in time, I’m sure I can find someone else to take over.”

“The deadline is not a problem. But—”

“Good. I’ll expect it on my desk in an hour.”

Swallowing my frustration, I turned back to the phone, picking it up to call Zara one more time. To my surprise, she answered on the third ring.

“Hi, Zara? This is Isabelle Lee from
Belle
magazine. I’m fact-checking your piece and I had some questions about reaching some of your sources…” As we started to go over my notes, I noticed that Zara had a habit of calling me “kid,” as if she couldn’t be bothered to remember my name.

“Kid, don’t worry about reaching Henry Collins…he’s on some sort of meditation retreat in darkest Tibet. He’s totally out of contact,” Zara reassured me.

“Henry Collins…” I scanned my notes. “You mean the extra on the set of Jolly’s latest movie who claims he had a one-night stand with her?”

“Yes, and she made him dress up in a bear costume while they had sex.”

“His quotes are pretty, er, revelatory.” Bizarre was more like it. “All that stuff about her ursine fetish—her fixation with beehives, smearing honey all over him, using a stuffed salmon as a sex toy, and then retreating into a darkened room for days and calling it hibernation…it all just seems a little…unusual. I would really like to talk to him. Are you sure he’s out of contact? He’s not checking e-mail or anything?”

“I doubt the monks will let him, kid.” She laughed. “Apparently they’re very strict. Must be all that yak butter tea.”

“But…I really need to verify everything.”

“You can try to reach him, kid, but believe me, it would be a waste of your time. I used to be a fact-checker. I know you probably have a million other things to finish today.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a telephone number or anything for him?”

“No.” Her voice sharpened. “I told you, he’s in Tibet. He doesn’t want to be contacted. Trust me.”

I felt uneasy, but Nina’s words came echoing back to me: Zara Green was a highly respected journalist. Why would she invent
her sources? And so, I finished up my conversation with Zara and put the article through to production. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur as I made Nina’s photocopies, answered her phone, and ordered her son’s organic, gluten-free, vegan Wiggles birthday cake. Three days later, when the issue hit the newsstands, even I had to admit that the article looked stunning, illustrated with Annie Liebowitz’s photos. Yet despite my best intentions, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

T
he morning of my review, I searched the skies for an omen and decided that the bright sun and puffy clouds could only signal a positive outcome. Three people smiled at me on my walk to work, I found a penny on the sidewalk, and the Starbucks barista started making my nonfat cappuccino the minute I walked through the door.

My good luck continued at the office, where someone had left a glazed doughnut on my desk. I took a sticky bite and turned toward my phone, whose message light was flashing more frantically than an ambulance siren. “You have…eight…new messages,” announced my voice mail. That’s odd, I thought, as I punched my code into the phone. But maybe Nina was having a crisis. She once left me fourteen voice mails while I was in the bathroom just because she couldn’t find her metro card.

In fact, the first message was from Nina. “Iz, could you come down to my office, please!” she said cheerfully.

My heartbeat slowed. Nina sounded perfectly normal in her message. She probably wanted to discuss next week’s production schedule, or something.

Except, messages two, three, four, five, six, and seven were also from Nina, her tone growing increasingly sharp. “Where are you?” she said finally. “I need see you
now
.”

Before I could cross the hall to her office, she was there at my desk.

“Do you know anything about this?” she demanded. “Did you have any idea?”

“What?” I asked. “What is it?” Searching for clues, my eyes slid from her ashen face to her hands, which held a copy of the latest issue of
Belle
.

“I just got a call from the legal department,” she said, her hands trembling slightly. “Jolly Jones is threatening to sue us. She’s furious about Zara Green’s article.”

I swallowed hard. “Oh, no…”

“She’s claiming that,” Nina leaned in and enunciated slowly, “some of the quotes were fabricated.”

“Are you sure?” I said, and managed to keep my voice from cracking.

Nina started pacing the corridor in front of my desk. “How could she have done this to us? How could we have let this happen?” She leaned in close. “You spoke to every single source, right?”

“I—I…” My pulse skyrocketed. “Have you spoken to Zara?”

“Not yet.” Nina’s lips thinned. “Get her on the phone for me, okay?” She bolted back to her office and closed the door.

Zara was not at home and her cell went straight to voice mail. I pressed redial again and again, willing her to answer, and when she didn’t, slumped back in my swivel chair. This could not be happening to me. Zara Green could not be a pathological liar.

My heart leapt at the ringing phone and I pounced on it, but it was only Julia. “Iz, I just heard what’s going on.”

How
? I thought wildly. Does everyone know?

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m still trying to reach Zara,” I admitted.

“Well, don’t freak out before you know all the facts.”

“Jules?” I said in a small voice. “If something did…happen…you don’t think I’d get…fired…do you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.” Her voice was grim. “But I promise that no matter what happens, everything will be okay.
You
will be okay.”

My other line beeped, signaling another call. “Look, that might be Zara on the other line. I’ll call you back, okay?”

I switched lines and heard Nina on speaker phone, her voice distant and echoey. “Can you come into my office?” she said.

I tried to respond, but could only squeeze a croak beyond the lump in my throat.

I
f, as they say in journalism, getting fired is a badge of honor, then I was surely on my way to a long and illustrious career.

Nina regarded me from behind her desk, her shoulders slumped. “I just got off the phone with Elaine,” she said quietly.

I swallowed. Elaine was our editor-in-chief.

“I’m…She wants…” Nina shifted in her seat. “Look, the magazine can’t let this slip through the cracks.
Belle
is not the kind of publication that allows shoddy journalism.”

No, just articles on how to fake an orgasm, I thought bitterly.

“We’ll give you six month’s severance. If you agree to the terms, I need your signature.” She gestured at a sheaf of documents before offering me a pen.

“You’re firing me?” My voice cracked. “But how—Why—”

“Elaine feels that we need to send a message. Make a clean start. Clear the slate.”

“But—” I couldn’t untangle my thoughts to form a sentence. “It wasn’t me. Zara—” The words caught in my throat.

Nina sighed. “You didn’t hear this from me, but Jolly’s lawyers have agreed to drop the lawsuit against us if we identify the responsible parties and terminate their employment,” she said quietly. “We’ll never use Zara again, but she’s just a freelancer. She’s not under contract at
Belle
. And it was your responsibility to fact-check the article…”

I opened my mouth to protest but nothing came out. It wasn’t fair, but Nina was right. I had fact-checked the article—and I hadn’t verified every source. I didn’t think it was possible that Zara would fabricate quotes. I trusted her. I stared at Nina’s wide hands for a moment before reaching for the pen and signing the papers. I pushed them back toward her and searched her face, hoping for a glimmer of compassion, but the expression in her eyes seemed closer to relief.

I managed not to cry until we had politely shaken hands, until I had cleaned out my desk and hugged the other fact-checkers good-bye, until I had walked out the double glass doors of
Belle
magazine, my dreams of journalistic success tarnished black by my tears.

By the next day (and three boxes of Kleenex later) I had started wandering the streets, officially unemployed. Well, maybe not actually wandering. But I was tucked up in my apartment, Aunt Marcie’s hand-knit afghan pulled up to my shoulders, TV turned to
The View,
when Rich called and asked me to dinner. “I’d love to!” I said, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice. As much as I adored him, Richard wasn’t exactly known for his caring, nurturing side. Nevertheless, he’d booked a table at my favorite French bistro for eight o’clock.

I arrived first and ordered a glass of champagne. One sparkling sip and my mood lifted. After all, I was young, I lived in the media capital of the world, I had tons of contacts, and a sophisticated, thoughtful boyfriend…I had nothing to worry about.

“Darling!” Richard advanced from the door and swooped down to kiss me on both cheeks.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, and felt a smile spread across my face. He looked so handsome in his black turtleneck and tweed trousers. Of course we’d had our ups and downs, but it meant so much that he was there. That he cared.

We ordered steak frites right away, and after our waiter disappeared, Rich reached across the table to wrap his hands around mine. “My poor, sweet Isabelle,” he said. “This must be so awful for you.”

“It’s worse than awful,” I groaned.

“Any job prospects lined up?”

“No,” I admitted. “Julia wants me to go to some book party tomorrow but I don’t know if I can face the humiliation.” I gazed at him hopefully. “You wouldn’t want to go with me, would you?”

“Oh, Iz, I don’t know.” He removed his hands from mine. “Look, I know you’ve got a lot going on right now…but I think we should take a break.”

A leaden feeling tightened my chest.

“I’ve always loved how undefined our relationship has been,” he continued. “There’s never been any pressure to make it last two weeks or two years—”

“A year and a half,” I said faintly, squeezing the words past the lump in my throat before the anger, shock, and pain combined to turn me silent.

“We didn’t force ourselves to label it, put limits on it, you know?”

The waiter delivered our food, and I cut into my steak and watched the red juices seep out. It’s the last thing I saw clearly before the tears started falling down my cheeks, before I pushed my chair away and left.

Thank God for Julia. I lay on her green velvet sofa and wept,
my head and heart aching. She bit down on her lip, but made nary an I-told-you-so peep. The next morning she forced me out to the farmer’s market, where we dug through a bin of winter apples. The sharp wind dried my cheeks and numbed my hands, and when Emily, tucked up in her stroller, received her first sip of warm cider with a clap of her chubby hands, I even tried to smile. Later that afternoon we baked a pie, and I took comfort in the precision of the measurements, fiercely chopping apples, lightly rubbing butter and flour together with my fingers.