Been There, Done That (9 page)

“Lying to the kids is different,” I said. “I haven’t met them before. They never bought me lunch.”

Tim stared at me. “The time you interviewed this guy, you let him pick up the lunch tab?”

“Long story. At any rate, he’s a nice man. He already knows me as the adult me. It’s an ethics thing.” I smirked at him. “If you can imagine it.”

I stared at the familiar tableau behind Richard’s desk: an assortment of his favorite
Salad
covers, expensively framed. Blurbs hinted at the crucial information within: “New England’s Best B&B’s,” “Taking the Confusion out of Countertops,” “What Your Child’s Test Scores Really Mean.”

Richard’s enthusiasm for the story had already begun to wane. Perhaps he didn’t think we could pull it off. Or maybe, after his initial excitement, he just couldn’t think of a single advertiser to woo with the story. Also, he was starting to wonder how he was going to fill an entire magazine without my contributions. “Kathy’s going to have all that time at Mercer, pretending to write papers,” Tim assured him. “She can be cranking out articles instead.”

So much for my complete focus on the story.

“How much time are we talking about?” Richard asked. “A week? Two?”

“It will take significantly longer than that for Kathy to establish herself and turn up any meaningful leads,” Tim said. “I think four months is a more reasonable time frame.”

Richard gawked at him (as did I). “I guess we could get it done in three months. Though it would be tight.”

“Four weeks,” Richard said.

“Nine.”

“Five.”

“Eight.”

“Six.”

“Okay,” Tim sighed, crossing his arms. “Seven.”

Seven it was. But there was still the issue of talking Dr. Archer into the plan. I hoped he was made of stronger stuff than Richard, or at least than me.

Finally, Tim made the call. Passing himself off as the “assistant executive editor,” he phoned Dr. Archer. The dean didn’t like the idea; it seemed sneaky. He said no, and Tim hung up, looking defeated.

I enjoyed maybe three minutes of relative inner peace before Cara, Richard’s assistant, buzzed him to say that there was a phone call for an assistant executive editor named Tim, and did Richard know what he was talking about, and if there were an editorial job opening, why hadn’t Richard considered her because she’d been a journalism major in college and didn’t intend to stay a secretary for the rest of her life.

Archer had changed his mind. Applications had been falling for years, and the free publicity was tantalizing. “Just between you and me” he told Tim (and the rest of us who were listening on the speaker phone), his job could be on the line if he didn’t turn things around. Finally, he agreed to let me go undercover on the condition that no one know he was involved.

Tim proposed a plan involving forged transcripts and SAT records (white-out played a key role, as computer hacking was, you know, “unethical”), an exemplary personal essay (he offered to write it), and glowing fake letters of recommendation.

“That might work,” Dr. Archer said. “Or, I could just send Kathy’s name to the registrar.”

It was the end of July. In a month, I would be entering college. I buried myself in an article about French language schools for preschoolers and tried not to think about it.

eleven

Her name was Tiffany Weaver. She was an Aries from Buffalo, New York, who loved her collie (Mr. Big), cookie dough ice cream (“Sometimes I dig right around the ice cream and just scoop out the dough!”), and talking on the telephone (“So you might want to bring ear plugs!”). She had already bought her bedspread (“I hope you like pink! Because that’s my favorite color!”) but couldn’t decide whether her milk crates should be just plain white or pink, too. (“Is that overdoing it?!”)

Still clutching her rose-scented letter, I called Tim.

“Dead,” I said when he answered.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re playing
Jeopardy
. The answer to the question is, ‘Dead.’”

“Okay, okay.” He was quiet for a moment. “What does Elvis think the rest of us are?”

“Try this: What are you going to be if you don’t get me a single room at Mercer College?”

“Ah.”

“You can’t expect me to live in a pink room with a girl named Tiffany.”

“You know, Kathy,” he cooed. “Some reporters sleep in tents and bombed-out buildings because that’s where the story is.”

“A bombed-out building can have a certain panache,” I snapped. “The distressed look is very in.”

“You’re a freshman, and freshmen at Mercer have room-mates. You’d stick out if you had a single. We’re talking about seven weeks of your life. Think of it as your bunker.”

He was right, and I knew it. “But I hate pink!” I whimpered.

 
 
As recommended in my freshman packet, I called her. I didn’t get past “Hi, Tiffany, this is Katie O’Connor” (I’d always wanted to be called Katie, which sounded so much hipper than Kathy; O’Connor is my mother’s maiden name) when she started gushing. “I’m so excited that you called! Ever since I got my room assignment, I’ve been picturing you and wondering what you’re like and hoping we’ll be best friends. Since they used those living habits questionnaires for matching and all, you gotta think we’re a lot alike. I mean, the computer can’t be wrong, can it?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Modern technology is pretty impressive.” I picked up a sponge and started working on a coffee stain on my counter.

“Did you read
1984?
”

“What? Oh—Orwell. Yes.” I didn’t add that I’d actually read it in the eighties, when she was probably still chewing on board books.

“That’s, like, so scary.”

“It makes you think,” I ventured.

“When you think about it, Big Brother is already out there. Like, the government knows so much about people.”

“The government doesn’t bother me so much,” I said. “It’s those telemarketers who call at dinner time.” I paused, trying to bat the conversation back, then caught myself. “My mother hates the telemarketers.”

“Mine does, too.”

When Tiffany asked about my interests, I was prepared. I sang alto in my high school choir and in our a cappella group, the Roses (I was supposed to have graduated from Roosevelt High School). I was photo editor of the yearbook (as I said this, I realized I didn’t have a yearbook, so I hoped Tiffany wouldn’t pursue this part of my past). And, finally, I was president of the French Club.

“Quelle choses accompli!”
Tiffany trilled.

“Yeah, uh—
merci
.”

Tiffany’s resume was equally well-rounded (not to mention real). She played oboe in her school orchestra and hoped to join a choral group at Mercer. A member of the junior varsity swim team, she loved the sport but lacked the shoulders necessary to make her really good. She had been a member of the bulletin board committee, which, in her tenure, had introduced many novel lighting effects. But her real devotion lay outside of school.

“I was the secretary of our local CYC chapter.”

“CYC?”

“Committed Young Christians. We go on retreats and talk about our faith and make pacts with God.”

“What kind of pacts?”

“No drinking, no smoking, no premarital sex. But don’t get the wrong idea about me—I love to have fun!”

 
 
I waited till after eleven to call Tim. It wasn’t the low rates, so much—I just relished the idea of waking him up.

“I don’t think my roommate is going to be much help in getting me to the hookers.”

twelve

Sheila was thrilled about my upcoming project.

“It’s all set,” I told her. “I’ve got a dorm assignment, and—”

“Yes, yes, Richard told me all about it.” She fluttered her French-manicured nails at my lips as if willing them sealed. “The timing is more perfect than perfect. My whole renovation project? I have been having the most impossible time management issues. But with you to help me out, I can do it all. This is fabulous!”

It seemed that Richard had taken one primary thing out of the meeting with Tim: that I would have plenty of time to write features. Sheila barely had to whimper about what a strain it was to work and pick out faucets at the same time and he’d assigned me as her slave.

I went immediately to Richard’s office. “Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding.” I tried to sound forceful, but my voice had taken on the “five-year-old girl about to cry” quiver it always gets when I feel defeated.

There was, of course, no misunderstanding—merely subjugation. When I told Richard that I couldn’t possibly write all the lifestyle features while managing my own section, he shrugged. “So get Jennifer to write about education.”

“But she doesn’t know anything about it,” I said.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again before he’d had a chance to say, “And you do?” But the sentiment hung there.

“Are you demoting me?” I immediately wished I hadn’t asked; I was giving him the opportunity to say yes. But he smiled benevolently and shook his head and began to gush: you’re such a valuable member of the team, you inspire others to do their best, your writing is so clean and crisp, blah, blah, blah. Early in his career, Richard had discovered that stroking egos was much cheaper than paying decent wages. We all ridiculed his stroking (which only came when someone expressed displeasure) even as we craved it.

Richard said that since education pieces required more footwork than the lifestyle items, I could assign topics to Jennifer, have her do interviews and write drafts, then polish the final version. At the same time, I could crank out a few articles about entertaining and decorating. “You’re so good, you can write one of those in your sleep. Really, I’m just trying to free you up for the undercover piece because I know how much it means to you.”

I smiled and nodded and finally agreed. It wasn’t until I left his office that I realized that I’d been taken again.

I had two weeks before freshman orientation. If I could write, say, four articles, I’d be set for a while. I just couldn’t see myself at the college, knocking out features about upholstery while pretending to write about Chaucer or Faulkner or whoever the hell eighteen-year-olds were forced to read these days.

I needed ideas and contact names. I’d been meaning to call Dennis, anyway; he’d left me a couple of messages that I’d felt guilty about not returning.

He was so happy to hear from me, so happy to be able to help me out. I wished once again that I could feel even a little bit attracted to him. Maybe it would come. At least he didn’t repulse me; that was a definite plus.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said. “You remember your slogan idea for Mission Accomplished?”

“Uh—”

“The ugly sofa, the bumper sticker? My other couch is a Mission Accomplished?”

“Oh, right.”

“They loved it.”

“Who did?”

“The Mission Accomplished people. It’s going to be all over the place in a couple of months:
The Globe, The Times, The New Yorker
—”

“Something I wrote is going to be in
The New Yorker?
”

“We’ll pay you, of course. I didn’t even have to push John. That’s my boss. A really good guy. It won’t be much, but we think you’ve more than earned it.”

After he gave me the contact names and numbers I’d asked for, he asked me to go to an antiques fair on Saturday.

I told him honestly I’d be buried in work all weekend and couldn’t figure out whether I was disappointed or relieved.

Fittingly, the first article of the batch was a profile of Mission Accomplished. They’d already agreed to a full-page ad, so Richard was behind me “one hundred and ten percent.” Mitch Lambert, the owner, lit up when I walked in the oversized glass front door. “Dennis told me you came up with the ad idea! You’re a genius!” I felt like Maya Angelou.

Next, I wrote about tapas parties; do-it-yourself framing; and, finally, shopping on a budget (my conclusion: “Often, it pays to spend a little more for quality”). I’d hand in two of the articles now and hold out two more for the next issue.