Chapter 8

The 1^st of October was a Wednesday and, as it turned out, a fairly busy news day in the northern California region covered by the Sacramento Register's Metro section. There had been a sewage leak in Folsom, resulting in a hundred thousand gallons of untreated waste being dumped into the American River. Just north of Redding, on Interstate 5, there had been a catastrophic vehicle accident in which three members of a Citrus Heights family, returning from a trip to Portland, had been killed. In Elk Grove, a gang related shooting had left a sixteen-year-old boy dead and his twelve-year-old sister in the pediatric trauma center on life support. And, of course, there was a left-over story from the previous week that was so juicy it was still being re-presented in the Metro for sheer inflammatory value: the story of a seventeen year old boy—an ethnic minority—who had been pulled over by a white Sacramento Sheriff's Deputy in South Sacramento and had ended up in an altercation and ultimately brought to the ground with a taser.

It was this story that been rankling Meghan's nerves all day long, causing her to get into two separate arguments with her bosses (both of which she lost). And now, at 9:45 that evening, the story was still sitting in her face and slapping her back and forth. She was expected to have a final format for the entire next morning's Metro ready to go to press in fifteen minutes, but the rehash of the week old incident, at well over a thousand words, was too goddamn big. And there wasn't even any new information in it, just a bunch of quotes from the kid's mother and aunt about what a living saint the kid was (despite two arrests for assault and two suspensions from school) and what an oppressive hotbed of racism was the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department because the deputy in question (a decorated, six-year veteran with no disciplinary record of any kind) was already back on the streets instead of in jail for attempted murder.

Meghan was at her desk in the crowded copy room before her computer terminal. She had a Bluetooth in her right ear upon which she was talking to her boss, John Logan, the head copy editor. "Look, John," she was telling him. "There is simply not enough room to put this taser story in and keep the rest of the edition as it is. It's eleven hundred words plus a picture. The choices as I see it are to cut the taser story, add another page to the Metro and throw in some of the filler stories we keep on file for that, or cut down some of the other stories, which, quite frankly, are actual news that happened today instead of rehashes of last week. My recommendation is to cut the taser story. What's it going to be?"

"We can't cut the taser story," Logan told her. "Brannigan wants it in there. We've already been over this."

Brannigan was Carol Brannigan, the editor of the daily edition. She could never resist a chance to blast the cops and inflame the minority community, all in the name of selling advertising space.

"I know," Meghan said, looking up at the ceiling in frustration for a second. "God, don't I know."

Yes, they had been over this quite extensively earlier in the afternoon when the story had first been presented to her. She had ordered it killed on several ethical grounds. In the school of journalism she had gone to, it was a clear violation of journalistic ethics to have family members who had not been present at a particular event describe what had happened at the event as if they had been eyewitnesses. Yet the story had quotes from the kid's mother and aunt about how the deputy had not given him a chance to comply with his instruction and had just blasted away with a taser.

In that same school she had also been taught that it was unethical to not quote actual eyewitnesses—like the three employees and five customers of a video store in whose parking lot the vehicle stop had taken place in—when their version of the events differed from the version the editor, in the name of inflammatory journalism, was trying to present. Yet the story made no mention of the fact that eight independent witnesses (five of whom were of the same minority group as the kid) all agreed with the deputy's version of events; namely, that the kid, who was six-two and two hundred thirty pounds, had been talking on his cell phone when the deputy approached and refused to disconnect his conversation or get out of the car. When the deputy opened the car door and ordered the kid out, the kid pushed him away and began to cuss at him. When the deputy grabbed the kid's arm and tried to pull him out, the kid hit him several times in the chest and spit on him. When the deputy backed off a few steps and pulled his taser, the kid continued to advance and dared the deputy to tase him yelling: "My momma will sue your ass, motherfucker! She'll sue you!"

Despite Meghan's stern objections, she had been overruled and ordered to include the story in the Thursday morning edition. It was simply too "juicy" of a piece to put in the trash heap, had been the justification.

"We're not here provide a transcript of every witness to the event," Logan told her now. "We're here to let our readers know how people are reacting to this event, not what the witnesses think they saw. That's the job of the investigators."

Right, Meghan thought sourly. And when those investigators clear that poor deputy because he didn't do anything wrong, you still won't quote the witnesses and someone will write another story that makes it sound like the cops are covering up brutality. And I'll be the one forced to approve that story and put in the Metro. Sometimes she wondered whatever had possessed her to pursue this career in the first place.

"I'm done arguing this point, John," she said, feeling a headache throbbing behind her eyes. "Really, I've got a goddamn ulcer from fighting with you over it earlier. I understand we're not going to kill the story, okay? I'm just asking if we can hold it until tomorrow's edition since it is not a current news item?"

"No," Logan said firmly. "Brannigan wants it in the Thursday edition to go with the advertising for Stafford Funeral Home and Flint and Meyers law firm. Flint and Meyers are representing the kid's family, after all. You have to fit the story in."

"Can I cut the picture at least?" she asked. The picture to accompany the story was a full-color shot of the mother, the aunt, and the kid who had been tasered standing in front of their house, looking like they were about to head off to church.

"The picture has to stay too," Logan said.

"So are we going with an extra page in the Metro today or am I cutting something else?"

"We're already at eight pages for the Metro, right?"

"Right," Meghan said.

"We can't go ten," he said. "You're just going to have to make room somehow. What can you cut?"

"Everything else is a current event," Meghan told him. "I have the sewage leak story at eight hundred words, gang shooting at five hundred, car accident at one-eighty, and five informationals on the second page at about ninety apiece."

"Eight hundred words on a sewage leak?" Logan said. "Isn't that a bit excessive?"

"It's a fairly extensive story," she said. "Julie Nguyen wrote it up. They had to close and evacuate the American River Parkway during the fall salmon run after all. Lots of quotes from fishermen, fire crews, repair crews, and fish and game people."

"Boring," Logan said. "No one gives a rat's ass about a sewage leak. Certainly not enough to put it on the front page of the Metro. Besides, the TV news stations have already done that story to death. Get rid of all the quotes and cut it down to a ninety word informational and then put it on page two with the rest of them. That'll clear up enough space for the taser story to dominate the front."

"I already approved the sewer leak story and set it," Meghan said. "Julie's gone home for the night."

"Then scrap the whole thing and write it up yourself," Logan said. "And hurry. You only have ten more minutes."

She opened her mouth to argue further but decided it would be useless. She sighed. "Okay," she said. "If that's what you want."

"That's what I want," Logan said. A second later, the connection clicked off, giving her empty air in her Bluetooth.

"Asshole," she muttered, clicking off her own connection. She then called up the sewage leak story and spent the next seven minutes compressing it from the in-depth, well written piece that Nguyen had spent five hours composing to a two paragraph blurb that gave nothing but basic facts.

It was just as she was using her mouse to move around the other stories on her screen to make room for the taser story that a pair of soft hands came down on her shoulders and started to massage them. Meghan tensed up for a second at the contact and then relaxed as she realized who was touching her.

It was Sylvia Coronado, the thirty-five year old columnist for the sports page who reported on all things related to football. Sylvia, who had been employed by the Register for five years now, was both famous and infamous among dedicated readers of the Register's Sports page. The only female sports columnist in northern California outside of the Bay Area, she was either loathed or loved by football fans for her hard-biting columns that appeared every Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday during football season, and intermittently on other days and at other times of the year. Meghan was not the least bit interested in football but knew that Sylvia's reputation was that she knew her stuff and could talk the talk with the best of them, even if she never had walked the walk. Meghan also knew that Sylvia, though married to an orthopedic surgeon and the mother of two children, was a not-so-discrete lesbian who would sleep with any female between the age of sixteen and sixty who would crawl into bed with her.

Sylvia was tall, very close to six feet in height, and possessed a naturally athletic body. Her hair was dark and cut short, her face pretty and generally feminine but with just a hint of underlying masculinity to it. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater from Texas State, her alma mater (somehow the sports staff got away with dressing in this manner—perhaps because management was a little afraid of them). Her massaging hands actually felt good on Meghan's tense shoulders.

"Mmmm," Meghan said lightly, craning her head upward to look at Sylvia's chin. "I'll give you just two hours to stop doing that."

Sylvia chuckled. "Careful what you wish for, hon," she said. "You have no idea how loose I could get you in two hours."

Meghan chuckled. "I've heard a few tales," she said. And she had. She had also deflected more than her share of advances from Sylvia in the past. Sylvia was one of those women (like Jo, her mind thought with longing sadness) who seemed to instinctively know that Meghan possessed some degree of attraction to the softer sex. Meghan had always made a point to be somewhat cool to Sylvia in the past. This football season however (sports writers were typically only in the office at press time when their particular sport was in season), she had found herself being a little more friendly and accepting of the flirtations. She had always harbored a moderate amount of physical attraction to Sylvia—the tall, aggressive Amazonian persona was alluring in its way—and, thanks to Jo, she had developed a bit of an appetite for indulging Sapphic coquetry instead of brutally oppressing it.

"The tales of my legend are all true," Sylvia assured her. "All true."

Meghan chuckled again. "I have no doubt you're right," she said. She had no real intention of actually doing anything with Sylvia, at least not along the lines of an affair, but, in the back of her mind there was a thought, perhaps not completely realized yet outside the subconscious, that maybe ... just maybe ... Sylvia might be interested in joining her and Ken some night.

Sylvia rubbed Meghan's shoulders and stared down the front of her blouse for another thirty seconds or so before finally letting up. "Better?" she asked.

"Much," Meghan agreed, putting her hand back on her mouse and continuing her re-alignment of the Metro section. "What are you doing up here at press time on a Wednesday? I thought they didn't play football tonight."

"They don't," Sylvia said. "I had to write an opinion piece on that whole quarterback suspension they announced earlier today."

"Oh yes," Meghan said. Even she had heard about that. It was all anybody even remotely interested in sports had been talking about all day.

It was a story that had been going on since the previous Sunday when one of the NFL teams that Sacramento area residents tended to follow had played against the New Orleans Saints in New Orleans. This team, once one of the greatest franchises in NFL history, was now struggling just to be mediocre. They had started off as their normal selves at the Superdome last Sunday, falling behind by seventeen points in the first half. Then, in a seemingly miraculous turnaround, everything started to click in the second half. Their defense shut down Reggie Bush and the rest of the Saints' offense. Their offense rallied and put three touchdowns on the board, putting them up 28-24 with just over three minutes on the clock.

And then things started to fall apart. The defense, which had been solid as a rock, let New Orleans march downfield and score for the first time in the half, putting the team back down by three with 1:22 left on the clock. The offense took the field. The quarterback, who had completed 16 of 20 in the second half for 187 yards and two touchdowns, executed a well-run two-minute drill that moved them downfield from their own 6-yard line into New Orleans territory. They seemed unstoppable, but a penalty and a tipped ball resulted in a fourth down and three situation on the New Orleans 32 with twenty-eight seconds left on the clock and one time out.

There, the head coach, who had a reputation for making questionable calls in situations such as this, did just that. Instead of going for the first down by giving the ball to the halfback or setting up a play-action screen pass, he ordered the field goal unit onto the field to attempt a forty-nine yard kick through the uprights, this despite the fact that the kicker's career long was only fifty-one yards and he was notorious for not delivering from long yardage in high pressure situations. The kicker did not deliver. The kick went wide right and New Orleans took over on downs, where they ran out the clock and won the game.

While the final seconds of the clock were ticking away, the quarterback, who had a history of bad blood with the coach, let his frustration boil over. On camera and in front of more than seventy thousand fans, he walked over to his coach and a heated argument ensued, the culmination of which was the quarterback reaching out and knocking the headset from his coach's head before storming off into the locker room while the game was still technically in progress.

Everyone had been talking about the assault on the coach by the quarterback all week. Some were of the opinion that the goddamn coach had it coming and it should've been done a long time ago. Other fans were of the opinion that the quarterback should be permanently banned from playing football and charged with criminal assault. Earlier this day, at a noon press conference from the NFL league office in New York City, it was announced that the quarterback had been suspended indefinitely while the matter was investigated.

"So what was your opinion on it?" Meghan asked Sylvia, more to keep the conversation going than out of any real interest.

"Personally, I think the coach is a moron," she said. "That call he made in New Orleans is up there on my top ten list of worst calls ever made. Imagine, trying to have a cold, crack under pressure kicker try to come in and tie the game from forty-nine goddamn yards out when the quarterback and the running back are both hot. It's a simple question of playing the odds. They had a fifty-fifty shot at worst of picking up the first if they'd gone for it. They had a one in ten shot of getting a field goal from that range. I mean ... it's obvious, isn't it?"

"I would think so," Meghan agreed, although she was about as far from an authority on the subject as a person could get.

"But even if he is a moron, they have to put the hammer down on the QB for hitting the coach. You just can't do that. The whole system breaks down if you start letting the players use violence against the coaching staff when they disagree with their decisions. So that's pretty much the gist of my article. The coach is an idiot and should be replaced tomorrow by the normal means of replacing him, and the quarterback should spend a little time picking up litter by the road and never play in the NFL again."

"Makes sense," Meghan said, putting her final touch on the Metro section.

"All ready for press?" Sylvia asked.

"All ready for press," she agreed as she saved it and sent it off to Logan's terminal for final review.

"Does that mean you're out of here?" Sylvia asked.

"Not quite," she said. "Logan and Brannigan both have to sign off on the Metro for the night before it gets shipped to press. And even then, I have to stay until the presses start to actually roll since it's theoretically possible that something could happen in the meantime that needs to be squeezed in at the last minute. Since there are no reporters here to take care of that if it comes up, it would fall to me."

"Oh ... I see," Sylvia said, looking at her watch. "So we're talking like another hour or so?"

"Probably another thirty minutes," Meghan said with a shrug. "It's not like they actually comb over every story in the Metro before signing off on it. Most of the time they just trust me and rubber stamp it."

"They must think very highly of you," Sylvia said.

"I would hope they do," Meghan said. "That's the reason you make someone a copy editor, after all."

"That makes sense," Sylvia said, looking at her watch again. "So ... listen, Meg. What do you say we go have a drink or two after you're done for the night?"

"You mean at The Ceramic Tortoise?" Meghan asked, referring to the hole in the wall bar, located just three blocks away, where the reporters, copy editors, editors, and other production members of the Register tended to gather after press time was passed. Meghan was not a regular there by any means, but she was also not unknown within those hallowed walls. She was thinking that a glass of white wine or two might go down rather nicely on this most frustrating of nights.

But that was not what Sylvia was proposing. "Actually," she said, "I was thinking of someplace a little more ... oh ... quiet and intimate. You don't want to hang out with all these people after you've been with them all night, do you?"

Oops, Meghan thought as she heard this. Quiet and intimate? Did I flirt a little too much? She thought that maybe she did. "Uh ... well ... it sounds like fun," she told Sylvia, "but my husband is kind of expecting me at home."

"Husbands can be called and told that press time has been delayed a few hours," Sylvia said with a lecherous grin. "Believe me, I know. I tell mine that one all the time."

"Uh ... yeah," Meghan said slowly. "I suppose so. But I'm afraid I'll have to decline all the same."

Sylvia gave a crooked smile. "Well ... if you're sure," she said.

"I'm sure," Meghan told her. "Thanks for the offer though."

"It would've been fun," Sylvia said. "I'll see you around, Meg."

"See you around," Meghan returned.

Sylvia walked off. Meghan did not watch her go. And as it turned out, she didn't really go.

The presses started to roll more or less on time and Meghan signed out at 10:45 PM. She walked down the stairs and into the hallway that led to the side entrance most of the building's staff used to enter or exit. There, hanging out by the door to the lobby, Sylvia was waiting. Her eyes lit up when she saw Meghan approaching.

"Hi, Meg," Sylvia said. "Long time no see."

"Uh ... yeah," Meghan said. "What are you still doing here?"

"Oh, I got all the way out to my car and then found out I'd forgot my keys. And then when I got back to my desk I saw some notes I'd made on the back-up quarterback and I decided I should put them in my computer before I lost them. And then ... well, the presses had started up by that time so I thought I'd hang out and see if maybe you'd changed your mind about that drink. You know, now that you've had time to think it over."

Meghan gave her an apologetic smile. "Well, I haven't been doing too much thinking about it, but I'm afraid I haven't changed my mind."

"If you want, we can go to the Tortoise instead," Sylvia told her. "I mean ... you know ... it's a nice place and all. God knows I've drunk a few hundred gallons of their Chivas in my time."

"I've tipped my share of glasses there too," Meghan told her, "but I really do need to get home to hubby."

Sylvia gave a crooked smile. "You can't really blame a girl for trying, can you?" she asked.

"I suppose not," Meghan agreed.

"At the very least, let me walk you to your car. Safety in numbers, you know."

The Register's parking garage was across the street from the main building and this particular section of downtown was a bit on the unsavory side. Being accosted by panhandling bums while making the trip from one structure to the other was a fairly common occurrence and, over the years, there had even been a few cases of robbery, assault, and one attempted rape. The Register's solution to this problem was not to hire more security (or indeed any security for the parking garage) but to hang posters in all the offices and send emails to all the employees with the slogan Safety in Numbers!! and to suggest that no one, particularly women, walk to or from the parking garage alone. Meghan had made the trip by herself many times and had never been bothered by anything other than the bums trying to hit her up for spare change but she did always feel more comfortable when there was someone to walk with her. "Sure," she told Sylvia. "I'd appreciate the company."

They walked out the side door and into the unseasonably warm early fall night. They crossed the street at the crosswalk half a block down and entered the parking structure through the street level door. While it was true they had to use their security cards to open the door, this was not much of a security measure since anyone capable of scaling a four foot concrete wall would be able to just walk right in. On many nights hordes of teenage skateboarders did just that and spent the wee hours of the morning riding their skateboards down the vehicle ramps from the sixth level and then taking the elevators up to do it again.

There were no skateboarders in the garage now. There did not seem to be any human activity at all, although the lower levels were populated with plenty of cars since the bulk of those who worked in the Register building at this time of night were not reporters and editors but the blue collar workers who operated the presses and loaded the trucks and delivered the bundled newspapers to the carriers and the newspaper machines throughout the Sacramento region. It would be another three hours before any of them started returning to their cars and heading home.

"What level did you park on?" Sylvia asked.

"Three," Meghan told her.

"Perfect. I'm up on four."

They headed upward, using the vehicle ramps instead of the stairs or the elevator. This was a standard practice among those who parked in the garage. The theory was that if there were a rapist or a robber slinking about, the stairwells or the elevator would be the perfect place to corner a victim.

"So..." Sylvia said, searching for something to talk about. "Who do you think is going to The Series this year?"

"The Series?" Meghan asked. She had no idea what Sylvia was talking about.

"The World Series," Sylvia clarified. "It's that time of year. I'm thinking the Red Sox and the Mets. Of course the Sox will pound them to shit, probably even sweep them like they did the Rockies last year."

"Well ... I can't say I disagree with that," Meghan told her.

"No?"

"No. The truth is, I'm not much of a sports fan. I used to go to Giants games back when I was in the Air Force and sometimes my husband takes me to see the River Cats at Raley Field, but I've never followed baseball other than that."

"Oh," Sylvia said knowingly. "I see. You're a girly-girl."

"I wouldn't exactly go so far as to say that," Meghan said, thinking of herself guiding a refueling boom into the receptacle of a B-52 Bomber at 35,000 feet, or graduating near the top of her class in CSUS's School of Journalism.

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Sylvia said, not even hearing her protestation. "Some of my best friends are girly-girls." She grinned lecherously again. "If you know what I mean."

"Uh ... yeah. I think I know what you mean."

They were now climbing the ramp to the third level. "I thought you just might," Sylvia said softly. "Are you sure I can't talk you into that drink?"

"I'm sure," Meghan said. "But maybe you'd like to come over for dinner some night?"

Sylvia's eyes lit up. "To your place?"

"Yes," Meghan said. "My husband likes your column—he's into that whole football and baseball thing—and he makes an absolutely wonderful vegetable lasagna."

Sylvia's expression soured. "Your ... your husband?"

"Yes," Meghan said. "He's the one who knows how to make the lasagna. He'd love to meet you."

Sylvia now seemed a little tongue-tied. "Uh ... well ... I'm sure he would but ... uh ... actually, what I was thinking about was more of a ... uh ... you know ... a..."

Meghan realized she had made a mistake. Oh God, she thought, embarrassed and suddenly miserable. What in the hell am I doing? Was I really trying to ... to ... invite Sylvia over to meet Ken? And just what was I hoping would come of that? "Look, Sylvia," she said, interrupting the sports writer's babbling backpedal. "I'm sorry. Forget I even mentioned it."

"No, no," Sylvia said, shaking her head sternly. "I don't want to forget about it. I was just ... uh ... you know ... I think maybe you and I weren't really on the same wavelength there, that's all."

"Yeah," Meghan said. They were now approaching her car. It sat between the Mercedes belonging to John Logan and the Lexus belonging to Steve O'Dell, the head of printing operations. "Obviously we weren't. Look, it's been a long day and..."

"What I was trying to ... well, make you realize is that ... well ... I'm sure you've heard the rumors about me, right?"

Oh God, get me out of this, Meghan pleaded to a deity she didn't really believe in. "Yeah, I have," she said. "But I wasn't..."

"The rumors are true," Sylvia said with a smile.

"Uh ... okay," Meghan said. "But I..."

"I like women," Sylvia interrupted. By this time, they were next to Meghan's mini-SUV. Sylvia stepped a little closer to her, almost backing her against the rear hatch. "I like women a lot. And I really like you, Meghan."

Meghan was now getting nervous. "That's very flattering, Sylvia," she said, "but I don't ... I mean I'm not into that sort of thing."

"Oh bullshit," Sylvia scoffed.

Meghan raised her eyebrows a bit. "Excuse me?"

"I'm calling bullshit on you," Sylvia said. "You dig chicks. I can tell."

Meghan's heart was now beating quite quickly, and not with arousal. She felt the situation starting to slip out of her control. She needed to bring it back into her control and quickly. "I'm a married woman, Sylvia," she told her. "I'm sorry if you mistook my friendship for something else. If I did anything to encourage that, it was unintentional."

Sylvia looked at her as if she were insane. "You're kidding, right?"

"No," Meghan said firmly. "I'm not kidding. I'm going to go home now. I'll see you next Sunday night at the office."

Sylvia shook her head. "I don't think I believe you," she said.

"It's a free country," Meghan told her. "You're allowed to believe what you want."

"What if I grabbed you and kissed you right now? What would you do?"

This is what you get for playing with fire, Meghan dear, she thought, the adrenaline starting to flow a little now. "I would push you away," she said.

"And what if I didn't let you push me away?" Sylvia said, taking a step closer. "What if I kissed you anyway? What if I tore open that blouse of yours and put my mouth all over those pretty boobs?"

Meghan took a deep breath and forced herself to keep staring into Sylvia's eyes, the eyes of a woman who stood four inches taller and weighed at least thirty pounds more, most of it muscle. This is fire all right. But I don't fight fire with fire. Oh no. I fight fire with a hose. "Well, Sylvia," she said, her voice even, "I don't know exactly what would happen if you did that, as you are bigger and stronger than me, but I can guarantee two things. One is that you will come away from the encounter bruised, battered, scratched, and possibly bleeding and that I will inflict far too much pain upon you for you to enjoy anything you manage to take. The other is that you will be criminally charged with some form of assault and, whether you are convicted or not, your career and professional reputation will be absolutely ruined."