ONE
NOW
No need to panic. I say it to myself, like a prayer.
“The feedback is consistent,” says Walter Montague, the sixty-five-year-old president of The Chronicle. “Charlotte, we need more pages.”
I take a sip of water before responding, a tip I learned from our May feature about staying composed at work. Don’t answer until you know exactly what you’ll say, our career coach had advised. “Will we be getting more resources to that end? As you know, I’d love to bolster my fact-checking team. And another senior editor could—”
“No,” Walter says. “Maybe next year.”
“Exactly how many more pages did you have in mind?” I can hear my voice getting more upper-crust British by the second. This is something I learned early on: the more you channel the Queen, the more intimidated Americans feel.
“Sixteen,” Walter replies calmly.
Damn.
“Walter, as you know, we’re working with a skeleton staff.” Unfortunately, Walter also knows that if he told me to jump, I’d ask how high. “I would love to be putting out more pages. Our fashion team has some fantastic ideas in regard to shoots.” In regard to? Tone it down, Charlie. “However, at our current capacity, I’m not—”
“Sixteen pages,” Walter says. “Starting Q3.” He glances at his watch. “I need to go. Charlotte, it was a pleasure, as ever.”
It has never, not once, been a pleasure with Walter, who took over the corporation two years ago when his father died. I had just been named editor in chief of C, the Sunday supplement of The Chronicle, the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper. Walter took me to lunch and doused me in spittle as he ruminated on the “good old days,” the ones where “men could be men and women could be women.” I smiled with all my teeth, even let him “warm up” my hands between his, but no dice. That was the first time he demanded more pages from my team—more pages means more advertisers; more advertisers, more money—as easily as he’d ordered his salmon.
Now, I kiss him on each cheek, a trick I learned when I first moved to New York nine years ago. It makes Americans feel flustered and inadequate. “I hope you have a lovely time in Courchevel. Please tell Lianne I said hi.”
As soon as he’s gone, I drop into my seat beside Alicia, my executive editor. “Is he joking?” My voice has returned to its half-British, half–New Yorker twang. “Sixteen more pages? We’re barely filling them as it is.”
“We can squeeze four more pages out of Travel.” Alicia reaches for her Smythson and jots something down. “And we can expand gift guides through Q4 … But we’ll have to figure something else out for January.”
“Christ.” I smooth down my trousers and get up. “Can you loop in Kristin and Mira when you get back? I’ll be up in ten. Fifteen, maybe.”
“You got it.” Alicia waves a manicured hand at the elevator bank. “You’re not taking the stairs, are you? It’s, like, twenty floors.”
“Absolutely,” I say. “It’s better than caffeine.”
* * *
It is not better than caffeine. It is sweaty and miserable, not to mention creepy. The stairwell is always empty, the only noise my heels click-clacking down the stairs. My team thinks it’s a type-A quirk: You know Charlotte, can’t miss an opportunity to squeeze in a workout! It’s part of the persona I’ve worked hard to cultivate: the dry boss who works harder, stays later, and demands the very best of her staff. Sometimes overeager interns or new editors take the stairs with me, using my habit as an excuse for one-on-one time with the boss, but it never lasts. Thank God.
I stop to catch my breath, rifling through my Chanel for the extra-strong deodorant I keep with me for exactly this purpose.
I’ve been meaning to work on the elevator thing for years. Noor, my therapist, says that overcoming a traumatic memory starts with desensitization: standing in the elevator for a moment, not letting the doors close; next time, taking it down just one floor. But there’s always someone in the elevator I know. I’ve worked at The Chronicle since I graduated from Carroll; I know everyone. And even if I didn’t know them, they would know me. I stand out, thanks to my background and the Forbes profile and the work uniform I never deviate from (dark button-down and black trousers; anything I spill blends right in). Sometimes I think, I could go in on a Saturday and work on it. But I never do.
On the bright side, my calves are like rocks.
* * *
Back on floor eighteen, Mira is waiting for me in my office. She’s the head of the Travel department, a curly-haired force of nature that can and does move mountains, but only if she thinks she’ll get all the credit. I can’t believe Julie, my assistant, just let her wander in. We’re going to have to have another talk about people making appointments, Julie.
“Four more pages?” Mira says as I come in. “That’s crazy, Charlotte. Q3? I don’t even know where we’d begin.”
I sit down and wait. I’ve worked with people like Mira before; I know how to handle this. I only wish I were enjoying a nice cup of tea while I do it.
“It’s just not feasible, Charlotte!” Mira’s voice is becoming more of a whine. “You know how low our shoot budget is. Art never pulls images that are strong enough, and some of the copy we’re dealing with—”
“I hear you, Mira,” I say. (This is something my first boss at C taught me: the “I hear you,” followed by a meaningful silence. Works wonders, every time.) “I understand it’s a big ask.”
“It is,” Mira says mournfully. “I just—”
“I believe we’re meeting Wednesday.” For effect, I click my mouse and stare at the screen, as though examining my calendar. The monitor isn’t even on. “I’d like if you could bring some ideas for how we can fill these pages. I know we can find a way.”
Mira just keeps staring at me.
Christ. “I know we can do this,” I repeat. “And I very much appreciate your hard work in advance.”
There it is. Mira’s face softens into a look of vindication. “Thank you,” she says. “You’re right. We always find a way, don’t we.” She pronounces “you’re” the British way, yore, rather than the American yure. I don’t know if people realize how often they veer into bad British when they’re trying to impress me. I can never decide if I’m annoyed or tickled by it.
After Mira leaves, I turn on my monitor and flick my eyes over my email. Julie has divided my messages into folders: “Urgent,” “Invites,” and “Ignore.”
At the top of the Urgent inbox, there’s an email from Jordan Ford. Subject line: “Some news.”
“Julie?” I call, my voice shaking only slightly. “Cup of tea, please?”
The emails, they’re a new development. Hey, Charlie, the first one started, a little more than two years ago. I could hear him say it, the way he came down hard on the ar in my name. I get if you don’t want to hear from me, the second admitted. I hope you’re OK. Then, bland congratulations on my promotion to editor in chief, and—what was the last one? God. The eight-year anniversary. Shitty day, he wrote, but he must have known I wouldn’t reply to that, either.
I run the cursor over his name. I don’t even realize I’ve clicked until the message opens.
Hey, Charlie,
I don’t think you read these. So. Hey, Charlie’s assistant. Charlie should read this one, it’s about Carroll.
Julie appears with my tea. I open my mouth to say something about the email—how dare Jordan bring up Carroll with my assistant—but then I close it again, uncharacteristically lost for words. It’s enraging. I never get tongue-tied in the office. Is my ex-boyfriend going to follow me around for the rest of my life, clawing away at the trappings of my grown-up, gotten-past-it-thank-you-very-much self?
“Thanks,” I mutter to Julie, but she’s already closing the door.
I saw Steph last night. She says it’s time to set the record straight. Her words, not mine.
I wrap my fingers around the mug. It’s burning hot, the way I like it. The china stings the undersides of my fingers. It helps, but only a little.
She wants to produce a movie about it. A “based on a true story” type of thing. For the ten-year. She already has a studio and a director signed on.
I picture an actress, someone springy and self-conscious like I was at twenty-three, sliding down the wall of a small room, her eyes wide with shock. Someone else yelling, “Cut!”
She says all of us should be involved. Says it’s our story, too. She’s pretty intense about the whole thing, I guess because of what happened to Cate.
I’m breathing too quickly. The edges of my vision are starting to blur. Go home, a voice in my head says sternly. Pull yourself together. Figure it out. You can figure this out.
I asked about you. She said you wouldn’t want in. But I thought you should know.
Jordan
I fumble for my phone. “Hi,” I say when the familiar voice answers. “I, I need to see you. As soon as possible.”
INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY AARON KATZ FOR HIS BOOK THE FALL: THE DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THE CARROLL TRAGEDY
Stephanie Anderson, host of KBC’s This Evening with Stephanie Anderson: That night changed the course of my life. It was terrible, but it also made me who I … Wait, let me say that again. It was a tragedy. It changed me, but it also … No, let me try again, thanks. Living through something like that, it humbles you, and I came out of it a better reporter, a better human being. Use that, please.
Gunnar Korhonen, Weinhart Prize–winning investigative journalist: It was extremely surreal. We spent so long studying reporting, and then we are the story.
Jordan Ford, managing editor, WNBC: I don’t remember a lot from that time, obviously.
Gunnar: Things like this happen all the time, but because of the way it happened, because of the people involved, it became so big.
Jordan: I do. Sorry, not a full sentence. I still get recognized. Yeah. You can tell because they stare. Don’t say anything, just stare.
Gunnar: All right, maybe these things do not happen all the time. That was an exaggeration. That night, it was unique. I do not know a better word for it.
Jordan: They wouldn’t leave us alone.
Gunnar: The press, they treated us like zoo animals. Prodding, poking. The way they shouted at us. Gunnar! Gunnar! What is the last thing you remember?
Stephanie: Every time I cover a crime on the show, every time I interview someone accused of something terrible, I see her face.
Despite numerous attempts to reach out, Charlotte Colbert did not respond to requests for an interview.
TWO
NOW
When I get to the office marked “Dr. Nazari,” hidden inside a labyrinth of rooms in a Columbus Circle doorman building, I swap my heeled boots for sneakers—I’ve been in America so long, I don’t even think the word “trainers”—and pull an old sweater over my button-down. I’ve found I need a physical transition between my C self and my therapy self. Otherwise, I find myself talking to Noor in clipped tones, saying things like, “That’s part of my projected growth in Q2.” I’m exaggerating, but only a little. I’m paying a lot of money for someone to help me untie the knots in my head; I need to make sure it’s worth it. So, the sneakers and sweater.
“Charlotte,” Noor says in her gentle voice. She beckons me inside.
“Hi.” My voice is different when I talk to Noor, too—more low-key, more like I used to sound. C me, brusque and plummy, has to be shaken off like old skin. “Thanks for squeezing me in.”
“Of course,” Noor says. “You said it was an emergency?”
Gingerly, I lower myself onto the sofa. The movement—the feeling that I’m about to break—reminds me of my mum. “Steph wants to make a movie about it,” I say without preamble. “For the ten-year. I don’t know what to do.”
This isn’t exactly true. I spent the last few hours coming up with a Plan A, a Plan B, and a last-ditch emergency measure. But it’s not like I can tell Noor about those.
“This is Stephanie Anderson?” Noor says. “The KBC anchor?” She writes something down. “She was at Carroll University with you? The twin sister of…” She trails off. The word Cate—one of several we don’t use in this room—hangs between us.
“Yes.”
“And somebody would play you in this movie?”
“Of course.” It feels like there’s something stuck in my throat. There isn’t, obviously. It’s just what happens when I talk about Carroll. “Steph would cast someone, I guess.”
“I see.”
“I can’t,” I tell her. Usually I’m clear-eyed and composed in these sessions; I like to think I’m Noor’s most articulate patient. “I can’t,” I repeat.
“What can’t you do?” Noor asks.
“I can’t relive it. Not again.”
It’s the truth. There’s more, of course. But that much is true, too.
“You survived … it before,” Noor says carefully. Early on, I made her a list of terms to avoid. Scarlet Christmas. Gunnar Korhonen. Cate Anderson.
“But, this…” I try. Then I stop.
There were parts of me that did not survive. This I can say to Noor. What I can’t say is that if my lies are uncovered, I have no idea what will be left.
“This is different,” I say finally.
“Is it?” Noor says mildly. “Let’s talk about that. When it happened, you survived. When the book came out, you survived that, too.”
The book. I didn’t know it at the time, but Aaron Katz was building a time bomb from the moment it happened. In the weeks and months afterwards, the story was everywhere, complete with the moniker I do not say and never have. Just when I thought it had all died down, Katz got his book deal. The Fall came out on the second anniversary: the first complete account of a tragedy that transfixed a nation, told by the people who were there. And like an idiot, I read it.
It shattered me.
Months later, when I could leave my apartment again, after the prescriptions and the therapies and all the debt, I realized I no longer wanted to be a writer. There weren’t any words for what had happened. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find them, it was that they didn’t exist. Instead, I decided to become an editor: I wanted to work with words that already existed, not fish around for my own. Not when it felt so frustrating, so pointless.
Copyright © 2024 by Jenny Hollander
