Thirty Happens (10 page)

I sounded brave.

I sounded maybe a little tough.

Truth was, I was scared to death.

chapter twelve.

I
walked to my cubical outside Jenkin’s office quickly after classes, my head ducked down so no one could see me. I’d finally begged Lynnie to find me a plain, dark head wrap thingy, one that didn’t quite scream ‘look at me’ or ‘I smoke weed’.

I made it to my seat mostly unnoticed. Yeah, there was a whisper here and there, one or two shocked sounding gasps and conversations that started up once I was a respectable distance away. I wasn’t as annoyed by it as I thought I might be, probably because it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. No one screamed in horror or passed out in fear, therefore it was so far a win.

I flipped open my laptop and opened up my email and calendar to see what was planned for today.

‘Ding.’

The interoffice messaging program alerted me that I had an incoming message.

Jay, please see me in my office.

Hmm.

Jenkins usually didn’t use the messenger. I honestly thought he didn’t know it existed. He was always a little more old school, like, he actually picked up the phone and called your extension or walked over to you. He emailed only out of necessity, not because of the fact that it increased office efficiency by thirty seven percent.

I totally made that number up, I really had no idea if it increased efficiency overall or not, but it was an ongoing discussion we’d had numerous times. It drove him nuts that I would quote statistics without having proof. Which was why I did it. Kept him young.

Sure thing, boss man.

I looked around my desk. Should I bring my laptop or a pad of paper and a pen? Hmm. Well, my poor office laptop has been sitting locked up all neglected for a whole weekend, so it probably could use the power running through its digital veins. I grabbed a notepad from my side drawer and two pens and rushed into Jenkins office.

“Nice of you to join me, Jensen.”

His booming voice allowed a hint of humor to come through, letting me know that I was not in any form of trouble, that he was just being himself with me.

Whew.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be on a Monday at two in the afternoon, Jenks. You know that.”

“So, did you have a nice weekend?”

Oh my Lord, was this guy trying to be a stand-up comedian today, or what?

“Just peachy, hung out with friends, got a new haircut. Nothing too exciting to report.”

His bark of laughter was my reward for glossing over the events of the weekend.

I couldn’t help but smile, even though it honestly hurt to do so. It was great to have someone not treat me like I was made of cracked glass, ready to shatter into a million pieces at the first touch. I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him with gratitude for allowing me to just be normal.

“I’m going to give you a little lesson about news journalism, Jay. Something I’m surprised Statlin didn’t bother teaching you in the four years he’s had you in his class. As a matter of fact, I’m going to call him once this meeting is over and give him a piece of my mind as to how much his teaching is lacking these days.”

I raised an eyebrow in question. The two of them had this unique banter of insults that traded back and forth, often using me as their own personal messenger pigeon. I was shocked at first, considering these two were supposed to be old friends, but I guess this was just how their friendship worked. Must be a guy thing. Maybe an old guy thing. Like, the older you get, the grouchier you become or something.

Jenkins mentioning my beloved professor made me sad for a moment, remembering the look in his eyes when I walked into class this morning. It started with surprise, then sadness, then determination. I hated seeing him look so sad. He was normally a boisterous type of guy, and this morning he was quiet and subdued.

“I think Stat has done a perfectly fine job teaching me. He must have because you sure are utilizing the crap out of my impeccable editing skills.”

Okay, so that was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration of my abilities as an editor. More than once I had been called in to be questioned about how I let some small grammatical errors slip by. Such as the misuse of a semicolon. That resulted in a fifteen minute lecture on how semicolons were supposed to be used. Lucky me that I got the mentor who minored in English. To this day I don’t know why
I
got the lecture, and not the person who wrote the article. Needless to say, I now refused to even consider using a semicolon. I avoided them like the plague for fear that I would get it wrong and have to listen to another fourth grade grammar lesson.

Jenkins grunted at my generous assessment of my editing skills. I just shot him a warning glance, kind of a ‘go ahead, make my day’ type of look. I’d been perfecting that look for the last couple of months, trying to get it just right so that I could watch politicians or criminals as they withered in their shoes as I interviewed them in my future as a hard-hitting journalist.

“So, what’s this big thing that Stat was so remiss in not teaching me?”

He leaned forward, motioning for me to lean in as well like he was about to tell me a huge secret that no one else was supposed to know. It may be stupid, but my heart started beating a little harder. Not because I was turned on, you nasty freak, but because I thought I might just be getting a scoop on this career that would give me an edge over the thousands of others who would want to fight me to the top.

“You’re supposed to report the news, not become the news.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in, but once they did, I burst out laughing. I loved the fact that we were able to joke about this. Some people would think ‘too soon’, but for me, this was perfect timing, and all too necessary.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind next time.”

“Shit, you’re planning on there being a next time? Would you mind giving me a heads up in advance of this ‘next time’? My poor elderly heart couldn’t take another phone call like the one I got yesterday morning.”

Huh. I guess he cared just a little.

“Sure thing, boss. I’ll make note of it.”

“Thanks.”

“Wiseass.”

I grinned at him to let him know I appreciated it, you know, the humor.

“So, Jay, your school year is coming to an end, which means your internship with us will also be ending.”

I frowned. This was not something I was prepared to deal with yet. I thought that I would have had plenty of time to come up with something to plead my case as to why I should stay on as an actual, legitimate employee.

“I’m so not prepared for this conversation right now, Jenks.”

He smirked at me.

“Come
on
Karyn Jensen, aspiring Pulitzer Prize award winning journalist. What is the one thing I keep telling you and telling you that you have to remember to stay on top in this business?”

Sigh.

Eye roll.

“Preparation gives you the confidence to be spontaneous.”

I couldn’t help but sound like a petulant three year old, reciting back instructions to its mother.

“Always with the back talk, this one. So, anyway, I’ve gotten word from the powers that be that out of our pool of interns, we have the authorization to hire only six.”

I mentally tried to calculate how many interns they had this year. More than twenty. Hell, maybe even more than fifty. I kinda sucked at figuring how many people were in a room just looking around.

“If you think any harder on this, smoke will come out of your ears. Twenty five. That’s the number you’re trying to remember. So out of twenty five interns, six will be offered positions with the Beacon. I will, of course, be recommending you, but there is no guarantee. That being said, I should probably double check to make sure you are still interested in such a thing. Would you be interested in working for this old rag?”

Seriously?

“Uh,
yeah
, I mean, it’s only what I’ve wanted for as long as I’ve been able to write. Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I really think you have something special. I’d like to see it develop. I like the idea of being a part of that process.”

He held his hand up to stop me from jumping up and down all over the place.

“Again, this is not a guarantee that you will get it. There are a lot of interns, and I’ve been hearing some good things. The one thing we haven’t done is have you work on a story. I know you’ve been struggling with that, figuring out your first story for the Beacon. This is not normally something you would do at the intern level, but you’ve been here a few months now. You’ve had firsthand experience with the editing side of things. I would like to challenge you with writing that story on the side. I know that I have mentioned it to you several times already. It’s time to make this happen. Unfortunately, it would have to be in your own time, but if I could have it by next Monday, that would be great.”

My excitement started to plummet a bit. I had my finals next week. I was supposed to be studying my ass off, pulling all-nighters so that I could ace those tests and get the top graduation spot that I’d been working so hard towards. Now, I had the pressure of writing my first article for a major paper?

Yeah, no stress there.

He raised an eyebrow at me as if daring me to turn this opportunity down.

He knew me better than that.

“I’ll do it. I won’t let you down.”

His grin and the knowing look were my rewards.

“I have no doubts. Any idea what you’re going after?”

“Not really, but I will. Somewhere between studying and being prepared to end up at the top of my class, I will give you the best article I have ever written.”

I spontaneously rushed him with a big hug. I could feel his hesitation before he gently patted me on the back and stepped back.

“Thank you.”

I grinned at him one last time before returning to my desk. I thought I caught him wiping his eyes as I turned to sit down.

Huh.

Nah, I must have imagined that. There was no way that the senior editor of the top newspaper in the best city in the country was getting misty eyed.

I collapsed on my seat, kind of stunned by this. I mean, I had four articles today alone that I had to edit. A final paper due in two of my five classes, one due Wednesday and the other on Friday. I was mostly done with both but had to do a read through and edit.

And now an article. Maybe the most important article of my life.

I had this. I could do this.

What the hell was I going to write about?

chapter thirteen.

“
A
n article?”

Lynnie was bouncing up and down in her seat.

“Yup.”

I was less than enthusiastic, but that’s because while trying to finish my workload tonight, my anxiety level over the article grew higher and higher.

“A
real
article? Like, one that might actually get printed in the mother lovin’ Beacon?”

Did I mention that Lynnie was trying to clean up her language to prepare her for the world outside of college? Some of the combinations she was coming up with were hysterical. One day when we almost got plowed down crossing the street, she raised her fist at the driver and called him a rooster sucker. I’m not even kind of kidding.

“Yup.”

“So why aren’t you freaking the heck out?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I totally am freaking out. On the inside. So much that I’m worried that I’m going to throw up.”

We were chilling in my dorm room, sharing some college pizza. If I kept eating this takeout food every night to avoid going to the cafeteria, I was going to be waddling up to get my diploma.

Mental note, go for a run tomorrow. I hated running. I didn’t really trust people who claimed to love it. They were either liars or not quite right in the head. Either way, not to be trusted. Or, if not go for a run, maybe return to the world of the living and suffer my way through the looks, pointing and hushed talk so that I could hit the salad bar.

Maybe.

I decided to push that decision till tomorrow. I just wasn’t ready to add that in on the pity party that was starting to crowd out my brain.

“Since when do you let a little bit of work scare you?”

What?

“A
little
bit of work? Don’t make me beat you.”

She giggled, a string of cheese hanging out of her mouth and spreading sauce on her chin.

“Nice look. Seriously, it works for you. Lyn, I don’t even have any idea of what my article is going to be about!”

She gave me the most incredulous ‘what, are you stupid?’ look.

“Seriously, you have no idea what you could possibly write about?”

She pointed a finger at me and sort of made a circular motion indicating my face, head, etc.

Oh.

That.

No word of a lie, I felt like a total idiot at that moment. Report on the news, don’t become the news. But what if I could report on a problem or situation that I had been an unwilling participant? Would that work?

“If I do this, I won’t be able to be a part of the story, and I’d have to find some way to avoid putting a bias spin on it.”

I started gnawing at my lower lip as I mentally sorted out how to report on this without it being about me. I mean, there was no way it wasn’t going to be a
little
about me, in general. But I would have to take myself out of the story.

“Okay, that makes sense. Obviously, you’re not the first person to be attacked on a college campus. So the obvious route is statistics. Then go into highlighting stories. See if you can get some victims to come forward and tell their story. Find out what percent of these attacks are between strangers. How many are like you, where you actually knew the guy, and he had some sick twisted obsession with you.”

I nodded as she was speaking. She was absolutely correct. My personal experience might be the catalyst for the story, but this way it had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to me.

“Maybe I could see if there are any guys who have been attacked, as well. I mean, people consider... um.. r- rape to be only against women.”

I swallowed hard against the bile that rose in my throat at that word. The first time I’d been able to say it out loud, despite the fact that it had been blazing in my mind like a flashing neon sign since I woke up in the hospital yesterday morning.

Lynnie was grinning ear to ear.

“Exactly. Now, we just have to figure it all out. Like, how do I get people to share their story with me, without knowing me?”

We sat huddled together at my computer, trying to search out statistics and resources for information on college age rape. A lot of colleges had their own online bulletin boards, so we were going to post up messages there, giving them the opportunity to reach out to me directly. I explained that I had also been a victim and that I was trying to shed light on this problem. I also wanted to reach out to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network to see if I could talk to someone who was a counselor. I wanted to understand the psychology of such attacks. I just hoped we could get it all done by Monday.

I was less nervous about it, mainly because I at least had an idea of the plan for this article.

“Lyn, do you think you’d be willing to proofread and edit my article before I pass it over to Jenkins? I realize that we are kind of in the running for the same position, so I’m sort of the enemy right now. But I’d really appreciate it. I would do whatever I need to do to make you one of the six.”

She laughed at me. Like, openly laughed at my statement.

“Do you think I’m the type of person who would try to knock you down to get myself further up the food chain? I don’t think so. Of course, I’m going to proof your article, and not in some plan for sabotage. I want this to be awesome, because if it works and it gets chosen to be in the paper, well, maybe that will end up being one less best friend who will get a call at two in the morning from the hospital.”

Her eyes teared up a bit at that. I hadn’t even thought about what it must have been like for her. Damn.

I grabbed her in a bear hug.

“Hey, you had a doctor’s appointment, didn’t you?”

She blushed and swiped her hand at me.

“Well, didn’t you? What’s the word?”

She grinned and shrugged.

“Good as gold. Still in remission, which is awesome. They warned me to try to stay away from stressful situations. I started laughing at them. I reminded them that I’m in the last two weeks of my last semester of college and working as a coffee fetcher for a prima donna graphic designer in the advertising department.”

I was immediately concerned. She didn’t like to draw much attention to the fact that she wasn’t one hundred percent out of the woods, well, with the exception of her scene-stealing head wraps.

“Kar, I’m
fine
, I promise. I would tell you first if anything was off. Well, maybe not first. I think my mom and dad should get first dibs.”

“Okay, okay. I’m allowed to worry, you know.”

I side hugged her, immediately regretting that I’d brought her into my drama. I didn’t want to be the reason that she got sick again. I would never forgive myself. And there I go again, making it about me.

Ugh.

I was a horrible human being.

“Stop it, Karyn. I can see you beating yourself up. Geez, it’s honestly nice to have someone else to worry about and not think of my own crap.”

“Glad to be of service.”

“Oh holy poop on a stick, that was an
awful
thing for me to say, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean that I was glad you got attacked. Fudge.”

At this point, I was bent over in two laughing. Which hurt like hell, by the way.

“Lyn, you might just be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

***

Done.

I had given Professor Statlin a tear filled hug as I walked out of class for the last time. My final paper was in his hands, thirty pages on the vital importance of a non-biased media. My citations were perfection, the word count was spot on. It was done.

It was an A.

I would see him again during my final next Wednesday, but that wasn’t going to be the same.

“Karyn, wait a moment.”

I turned in surprise to witness the sight of my professor jogging towards me outside.

“Stat?”

He bent over, wheezing a bit with his exertion, and held up a hand asking me to wait while he caught his breath. That was kind of sad, I mean, the building was maybe only fifty feet away.

“I was talking to Marv, and he mentioned the assignment you were given. I wanted to ask how that was coming.”

Marv? Who the hell was… Oh, Jenkins. Right, almost forgot he had a first name.

“It’s actually going pretty well. I had a call with Susan Fornier, from the Bureau of Justice, who was filling me in on some crazy statistics. From ninety-five through two thousand and two, sixty-one of every one thousand students, female
and
male were the victims of some form of sexual assault. What surprised me was that guys were twice as likely to be victims as girls. Like, that really shocked me. I’ve got about fifteen students from across the country who have shared their stories. About half of them actually knew their assailant, which is in line with the statistics from Sue.”

I shook my head, recalling my conversations with the students I had spoken to already. It was just so damn sad, I mean, I realized that I was one of the lucky ones. I was able to stop it. Thankfully, there had been no guns, no knives. Then again, that only happened about eleven percent of the time. How crazy was that?

“How are you getting these victims to speak to you?”

“I’m protecting them. I’ve promised them anonymity. I’m getting a signed release from them before I speak with them, where they are allowed to decide whether they want to be anonymous or not. I’m letting them choose how much identifying information is out there. Some of these individuals are still in litigation, so they can’t give me their name or the name of the person who assaulted them. And that’s fine. I don’t want the paper to get sued, so I’m keeping the names of the campuses out of the story, however, I will be mentioning the state. If it is in a college town with multiple campuses, I’ll say the name of the closest large city.”

Statlin nodded his approval.

I understood his concern, this was a very touchy subject, and I had to be so careful. The thing was, I really wanted to get this right.

Originally it was for my personal advancement, but now, I knew too much. I guess this wasn’t news for everyone, there were people out there who knew about this, but… I didn’t. So, now I knew, and now I was going to tell the freakin’ world.

“I would love to read the article before you submit it if you don’t mind.”

“Would you? That would be awesome, maybe you could give me some pointers. I have to hand it over to Jenks on Monday, so I’m hoping to have it done Sunday. I know that doesn’t give you all that much time, but with finals coming up, I’m sort of cramming everything in.”

“It would be my honor.”

I just grinned at him, so appreciative of his help and support.

The chime of the local church marked the hour and my eyes bugged out. I pulled out my phone and checked the time.

“Crap, sorry, I have to bolt. I have a student from Minnesota that I have to speak with, and I’m doing that on my way to the Beacon.”

I waved as I jogged towards my dorm. I had to quickly drop off my books, grab a notepad and pencil and make the call to the only male who had replied to my plea for personal stories.