Everyone laughed.
"As for me," Milton continued, "I can't pretend to any higher motives myself. I just love putting out a newspaper: headlines and deadlines. Nothing noble. But, folks," he concluded, "this is the end of the line for me. It's time to step down."
A few editors gasped.
Milton grinned. "Oh come on-don't act surprised. In a rumor mill like this newsroom, don't pretend you clowns didn't know."
Milton lost his voice then. The room stayed silent, awaiting his next word. He grabbed a copy of that morning's edition, raised it hurriedly, and made for his corner office. It was his final day at the paper. Three months later in Washington, he died of a stroke.
Replacing Milton was not easy. Boyd slotted in a series of middling managers, each of whom lasted a couple of years before retiring on a cushion of Ott stocks. But this did nothing to halt the slide in circulation. The staff was trimmed by attrition; the style pages closed altogether; the culture and sports sections in particular became wastelands.
The paper still filled twelve pages a day, but the proportion of original stories plummeted and wire-service copy proliferated. While other newspapers had been battling the incursions of TV news by adopting color and splashy graphics, the paper remained stolidly black-and-white.
The next challenge was to prove even more formidable: the Internet.
At first, many publications set up websites, charging for access. But readers simply shifted to free content. So media companies slapped more and more online for nothing, expecting that Internet ads would eventually catch up with hemorrhaging print losses.
The paper, however, had an idiosyncratic response: it did nothing. The corrections editor, Herman Cohen, nixed all talk of a website. "The Internet is to news," he said, "what car horns are to music."
"MARKETS CRASH OVER FEARS OF CHINA SLOWDOWN"
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER-ABBEY PINNOLA
ONCE AT THE BOARDING GATE, ABBEY FALLS INTO HER CUSTOMARY travel coma, a torpor that infuses her brain like pickling fluid during long trips. In this state, she nibbles any snack in reach, grows mesmerized by strangers' footwear, turns philosophical, ends up weepy. She gazes at the banks of seats around the departure lounge: young couples nestling, old husbands reading books about old wars, lovers sharing headphones, whispered words about duty-free and delays.
She boards the plane, praying it won't be full. The flight from Rome to Atlanta is eleven hours, and she intends to stretch out-she'll work and sleep, in that order. From the corner of her eye, she spots a man pausing at her row, consulting his ticket. She glares out the window, imploring him away. (Once, she allowed a fellow passenger to engage her in conversation and it became the longest flight of her life. He made her play Scrabble and insisted that "ug" was a word. Since then, her rule has been to never talk on planes.)
The man says, "Well, what d'ya know," and sits beside her. The plane has not even taxied and already he's attempting conversation. She twitches in his direction and offers a faint "Hmm," but does not turn from her window.
He falls silent.
The force and tilt of takeoff awaken her. She was dreaming. About what? Can't remember. She needs her files from the overhead bin, but the Fasten Seat Belts sign is still lit. She drifts back into her travel coma, staring vacantly out the window as the clouds below sink into an infinite mattress.
She studies her fingernails, worrying about Henry, who doesn't want to visit his father in London over the school holidays and is about the age where she can't force him. Is he snubbing his dad out of loyalty to her? She hopes so, and she hopes not. She'll force Henry to go until he reaches a set age. Sixteen, say?
For God's sake! Enough! She has been trying to ignore it, but if this idiot beside her doesn't cede a corner of the armrest, she'll suffocate him with the vomit bag. She makes her elbow as pointy as possible and, very gradually, digs it into his forearm. How long before he gives in?
But he doesn't seem to notice and she is disgusted to touch him, so she gives up. He is picking the skin around his thumb, working free a strand of cuticle. Repugnant. She wants to see what this guy looks like, to attach a face to her loathing, but she can't turn to him without attracting notice. So she imagines him: American, fiftysomething, a loser. Cellulite, dandruff, thyroid on the blink. Works at Office Depot selling industrial ladders. Or does tech support and plays video games after work. Fanny pack, sweat socks, high-tops. What was he doing in Rome, anyway? He'd heard it was full of culture? Had himself photographed at the Colosseum, arm around a rent-a-gladiator?
But this is ridiculous-why should she be uncomfortable for eleven hours because of this idiot? She launches another pointed-elbow assault on the armrest, ratcheting up the pressure on his bone.
"Here," he says, pulling away. "Let me give you some space."
"Oh, thanks," she responds, ears blushing, crimson rising from lobes upward, and she hates him more.
"Sorry," he says. "I'm bad about hogging. Do it without realizing. Just holler if you don't get enough space. I'm kinda gangly." He jiggles his arms to make the point. "Least we got the emergency exits. You can always tell the smart people by who asks for them. Emergency exits are practically first-class-not that I sat there before, but I figure it's the same-and all for the price of cattle class."
"Listen, would you mind doing me a big favor and waking me when they serve lunch? If you're awake, obviously. Thanks." She says this with her attention fixed on the seat-back in front of her, then returns to the window and pulls down the shade. She has done something stupid, though. She doesn't want to sleep. She wants to work. Now she'll be forced to fake it. She despises him.
Seven minutes pass-all the pretend sleep she can bear. She half rises from her seat, jaw compressed in cordial smile, and reaches for the overhead bin. "Just need to grab something."
He jumps up, drops his book on his seat, and makes way.
With difficulty, she squeezes out into the aisle.
"Can I help you get something?"
It happens in two stages. First, he looks familiar. Second, she realizes that she knows him. Dear Lord. What a nightmare. "Oh my God," she says. "Hi, hi. I totally didn't recognize you." Indeed, she still can't place him.
"You didn't know it was me?"
"I'm so sorry. I was completely spaced. I get in my own little world when I fly."
"No problem at all. Can I get something down for you?"
Her brain clicks: it's Dave Belling.
She wants to die. This is copydesk Dave. Newly fired Dave. Dave, who was laid off to cut costs. Dave, whom she ordered fired. Eleven hours beside him. Worse still, she has been caught in travel mode, in sweatpants, hair in pigtails. (At the paper, she's all suits and boots, eyes cold as coins.) As Henry would say, Che figura di merda.
"I think I can reach it," she says. "Thanks, though." But she can't quite get it. Her ears boil. "It's that blue bag. No, dark blue. Yup. Yeah. That's it. Great. Thanks. Thanks so much."
He steps aside gallantly to let her retake her seat.
She does so with a light smile and lead in her stomach. "I'm sorry if I seemed rude before. I really had no idea it was you." Stop babbling. "Anyway, how are you? What's going on? Where you headed?" Where is he headed? He's on a plane to Atlanta. And how's he doing? He just got fired.
"Good, real good," he replies.
"Great, that's great."
"You?"
"Good, good. Heading to Atlanta -obviously. I have this meeting with the Ott board. Our annual reckoning."
"You're the one who has to do that?"
"Afraid so. Our benighted publisher refuses."
"So the mud pie lands on your plate."
"Yup, yup. That's my plate all right. Though I must admit," she says, "it is interesting going to headquarters. We all have this tendency in Rome to think we're the center of the Ott world. Then when I go to Atlanta it really puts everything in perspective. Just how small we are."