I'd applied to The Ledger four times.
Four times in two years. The first was three months out of college, when I was still stupid enough to believe that a strong portfolio and a degree with honors meant something in a city where every other person waiting tables had the same credentials and better connections. That application disappeared into whatever void applications go to when nobody reads them. The second was six months later, after I'd started at The Daily Byte and had what I generously labeled "as professional experience" on my resume. Nada. The third was a year in, and I'd tailored my cover letter to the posting that I'd basically rewritten my entire personality on paper: I was passionate about accountability journalism, I believed in the power of the fourth estate, I was committed to rigorous, ethical reporting. All true, technically. Also true: I'd spent that morning writing four hundred words about a TikToker's ranking of fast food chicken sandwiches. No answer.
The fourth time, someone responded.
Her name was Diana Colworth, and her email was three sentences long. She was a deputy editor in the metro investigations unit. She'd seen my application materials. Could I come in on Tuesday at 2 p.m.?
I read the email eleven times. I read it standing up and then sitting down and then standing up again. I read it on my phone and then on my laptop to make sure it said the same thing on both screens, which it did, because that's how emails work, but I wasn't operating with a full deck of rational thought at that point. Diana Colworth. Deputy editor. Metro investigations. The Ledger. The actual, physical newspaper that had been published continuously since 1891, that had won more journalism awards than I could count, that I'd been reading since I was sixteen years old, and my AP Government teacher had made us subscribe. That Ledger. That one wanted to talk to me. On a Tuesday. At 2 p.m.
I called in sick to work on Tuesday, which required lying to Gayle, which required listening to Gayle say "Oh no, feel better, babe!" in a voice that made it clear she neither believed me nor cared, and then I spent three hours getting dressed, which was two hours and forty-five minutes longer than I'd ever spent getting dressed for anything, including prom.
The problem was that I didn't own interview clothes. Not real ones. I owned one blazer that I'd bought at a thrift store for twelve dollars, and that fit well enough if I didn't raise my arms above shoulder height. I owned one pair of pants that weren't jeans, black, from Target, and that were slightly too short. I put it all on and stood in front of the bathroom mirror: the only full-length reflective surface in the apartment, and even that was generous because it cut off at my knees, and tried to see what Diana Colworth was going to see.
What Diana Colworth was going to see was a twenty-eight-year-old in a thrift store blazer with pants that were clearly too short, and I was going to have to be okay with that, because the alternative was not going, and I would rather have shown up naked than not shown up at all.
Kristen, who was home because Kristen was always home, caught me in the hallway.
"Oh, cute! Where are you going?"
"Interview."
"For what?"
"A newspaper."
"Oh my God, that's amazing! Which one?"
"The Ledger."
Kristen's eyes went wide in a way that I found both flattering and slightly insulting, like she was surprised I was aiming that high, which... I guess was fair. "Nell, that's huge. Okay, wait, hold on." She disappeared into her room and came back holding a small purple stone. "Take this. It's amethyst. It's for clarity and confidence."
"I don't — "
"Just put it in your pocket. You don't have to believe in it. It believes in you."
I took the amethyst because it was easier than arguing, and because Kristen's face was so earnest that saying no felt like kicking a puppy, and because... and I will deny this if asked: some very small, very irrational part of me thought what if rocks do work? I put it in my blazer pocket and left.
The Ledger's office was old stone, heavy, the kind of building that had been important before the internet existed and intended to remain important long after the internet ate itself. The lobby had actual marble floors. There was a security desk staffed by a man who looked at my visitor's pass like it was a credential he was personally vouching for, and the weight of that, the simple act of someone taking my presence there seriously, made my stomach do flips.
I took the elevator to the ninth floor and stepped into a newsroom. A real one. Not an open-plan office with fairy lights and a kombucha tap, not a strip mall suite next to a chiropractor, but an actual newsroom with actual desks covered in actual papers and actual people doing what looked, from where I was standing, like actual journalism. It was loud. Phones were ringing, and people were talking over each other, and someone was arguing about a headline, and someone else was eating what smelled like a bodega sandwich at their desk, and the whole thing was so exactly what I'd imagined working in journalism would feel like that I had to physically stop myself from standing there with my mouth agape.
"Nell Capri?"
I turned. A woman was standing by an office door at the far end of the floor. She was maybe fifty, with short gray hair, reading glasses pushed up on her head, and she was wearing a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. She looked like she had been working since before I'd woken up and would continue working long after I'd gone to sleep. She did not look like someone who had time for small talk or amethyst crystals or people who weren't sure why they were here.
I was sure why I was here. I was so sure it terrified me.
"That's me. Hi. Thank you so much for — "
"Come in." She was already walking back into her office. I followed.
She sat down. She did not invite me to sit down. I sat down anyway, on a chair that was stacked with manila folders. I moved the folders to the floor and sat, and Diana Colworth watched me do this with an expression that could mean either amusement or assessment.
"So," she said. "Your application materials. You submitted three writing samples."
"Yes."
"The piece on housing court backlogs was strong. Good structure, you let the sources carry the story instead of editorializing, which is a habit I see a lot in younger writers and have no patience for. The profile of the public defender was solid. A little overwritten in places, but the instincts were there. The tenants' coalition piece, that was the standout. You got access most reporters wouldn't have gotten."
I sat very still and tried not to visibly react to the fact that Diana Colworth, deputy editor of the metro investigations unit at The Ledger, had read my writing and used the words strong and standout to describe it. My hands were shaking under the desk. I pressed them into my thighs.
"Thank you," I said.
"Now." She closed the folder and looked at me directly. "These pieces. When were they written?"
I knew why she was asking. I knew before she asked. I knew when I submitted them, and I knew when I hit send on the application, and I knew right now, sitting in this chair, that the answer was going to be a problem.
"The housing court piece was my senior thesis. The public defender profile was from an internship. The tenant's piece was— " I paused. "Also from school. An independent project."
"So these are all from college."
"Yes."
"That was what, three years ago?"
Seven.
"About that."
Diana leaned back in her chair. She picked up her coffee mug, took a sip, and set it back down. She was not smiling.
"What have you been writing since then?"
"I've been working at The Daily Byte. It's a digital media— "
"I know what it is. I pulled up your byline this morning." She said this evenly, without cruelty. "I read about fifteen of your pieces."
I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. I wanted to evaporate. I wanted to go back in time and submit under a different name so that Diana Colworth would never have to connect the person who wrote the tenants' coalition piece with the person who wrote a listicle ranking celebrity airport outfits by something called slay factor.
"Nell, I'm going to be straight with you because I think you'd rather that than the alternative."
"Yes."
"Your college work is good. The tenants' piece, especially. You built trust with people who had every reason not to talk to a reporter. That takes instincts I can't teach." She paused. Let that sit. Then: "But I can't hire someone based on work they did three years ago. I need to see what you're doing now. And what you're doing now is— " She gestured at the folder. "It's a different thing."
"I know it is. It's not what I — I took the job because I needed a job, and the work isn't— it's not representative of what I can do."
"I believe that. I do. But believing it and being able to sell it to my editor-in-chief are two different things. He's going to open your clips and see the Byte stuff, and that's going to be the conversation. And right now I don't have the ammunition to push back on that."
I nodded. I was nodding. I was sitting in this chair and nodding like one of those dashboard bobbleheads because if I opened my mouth, I was going to say something desperate or incredibly rude, and neither of those things was going to help me right now.
"Do you have anything else? Anything recent that isn't the Byte work? Freelance, independent reporting, anything?"
I didn't. I had the seven pieces I'd written on my couch at midnight on weekends, but they were unfinished, unpolished, and unpublished, and submitting a stack of drafts to Diana Colworth felt like showing up to a job interview in pajamas.
"Not yet," I said. "Not anything I'd want to show you yet."
She nodded. Like she'd had this exact conversation before, with other people in other chairs, people who were good enough but couldn't prove it because the only work they could point to was the work they were ashamed of.
"Here's what I'd tell you," She leaned forward. "Write new stuff. Freelance for someone. Pitch local outlets. Find a story that matters and report it and publish it somewhere that isn't— " She caught herself. "Somewhere that demonstrates range. You need recent work that matches what I saw in your college portfolio. Because what I saw there was real talent, Nell. I wouldn't have brought you in if I didn't believe that."
"Thank you."
"The position we have right now... we've got a strong candidate pool. A lot of people with exactly the kind of recent investigative clips I'm talking about. I can't make a case for you over them. Not with what's on the table right now."
"I understand."
"But I want you to know that I remember good writing. And yours was good." She stood. The meeting was over. "Get me something current. Something that shows me the person who wrote the tenants' piece didn't disappear. And then we'll talk."
"Okay," I said. "I will."
"And Nell?"
I was at the door. I turned.
"The market's tough. I know that. I know the Byte isn't where you want to be. A lot of talented people end up doing work that's beneath them because the bills don't stop coming, and there's no shame in that. Don't let anyone make you feel like there is."
I thanked her again. I shook her hand. I walked out of her office and through the newsroom and past the desks covered in papers and the people arguing about headlines and the guy eating his bodega sandwich, and I pressed the elevator button and I stood very still while I waited, and I did not cry, because I am not a person who cries in front of people.
I cried in the elevator. Just a little. Just for the eight floors down. The doors opened and I wiped my face and walked through the marble lobby and nodded at the security guard and pushed through the heavy front doors and stepped onto the sidewalk and walked to my car, which was parked three blocks away because I couldn't afford the garage.
I got in. I closed the door. I put my hands on the steering wheel.
"FUCK!" I slammed my palms against the steering wheel. Once. Twice. Three times. The horn honked on the third hit, and I didn't care. "Fuck fuck FUCK." I grabbed my bag off the passenger seat and threw it into the backseat. It hit the headrest and bounced onto the floor and everything spilled out: wallet, keys, chapstick, a pen, a granola bar I'd been carrying around for three weeks, and I didn't pick any of it up. I kicked the underside of the dashboard. It hurt. I didn't care. I hit the steering wheel again.
"Strong candidate pool," I said to nobody. To the windshield. To the check engine light, which was on, because it was always on, because nothing in my life worked the way it was supposed to. "Strong candidate pool with their strong candidate CLIPS and their strong candidate RESUMES and their—you know what? I don't even—I didn't even want to work there. I didn't. It's a newspaper. It's a dying medium. Who even reads newspapers anymore? Nobody. Nobody reads your stupid newspaper, Diana."
"And that haircut. What was that? What was that haircut? You're going to sit there with that... that PE teacher ass cut and talk to me about my writing? Your hair looks like you lost a bet, Diana. Your office looks like an episode of Hoarders. Awful. I'm embarrassed for you, actually. And your mug collection is stupid."
I was pointing at the windshield now. Gesturing at an imaginary Diana Colworth like she was sitting on the hood of my car.
"'Get me something current.' Get me something — I'LL give you something current. How about this is currently the worst day of my life? How about I currently want to drive this car into the Chesapeake Bay? Is that current enough for you?"
The amethyst was in my blazer pocket. I pulled it out. Looked at it. A small purple rock that was supposed to give me clarity and confidence. It had given me neither. I rolled down the window and threw it overhand into the parking lot. It bounced off a Honda Accord and skittered under a pickup truck.
"FUCK YOU DIANA," I screamed at the parking lot. A man walking to his car with a coffee looked at me. I rolled up the window.
I sat there for another minute. Breathing. My hands were shaking. My throat hurt from the screaming. I'd fogged up the windshield with the force of my own rage. Here's the thing. Diana Colworth did not have a bad haircut. Diana Colworth had a perfectly fine haircut and a perfectly organized office, and a mug that was probably a gift from someone who loved her. Diana Colworth had been kind to me. She'd been honest and direct and more generous with her time than I deserved, and she'd told me I was talented, and everything she'd said was right and fair and true, and I hated her for it because it would've been so much easier if she'd been wrong. If she'd been wrong, I could've been angry at her instead of at myself. If she'd been wrong, I could've walked out of there thinking she doesn't know what she's talking about instead of what I was actually thinking, which was she knows exactly what she's talking about and I have nothing to show her, and that's nobody's fault but mine.
I picked up my phone.
One text to Sasha.
Mayday.