“Then book my Lexus in for a service. I want to do a run to Martha’s Vineyard to convince Stan to sell. Maybe he’ll be more open to compromise on home ground. And tell Perry no, I will not wear pink to the Publishers’ ball; I’m not a sixteen-year-old prom queen or a tea-cosy. I don’t care how ‘exquisite the cut’ or ‘brilliant the new designer’ that he wishes to promote. He’s an art director for a global fashion magazine empire—tell him to think like it. I want daring not dreary, and I’m perfectly capable of finding my own dress if he doesn’t grasp that…”
She paused, as she was reminded of her bizarre ride down in the elevator with that green-eyed fashion tragic. Elena still couldn’t believe she’d been trolled by the graveyard-shift reporter. How…disappointing. She would have to find out who she was. It had been a very long time since she’d had someone directly spit insults at her. And never an underling still in her employ.
“We’re done,” she ground out.
BlogSpot: Aliens of New York
By Maddie as Hell
They promised to visit. They haven’t. The reasons pile up like unpaid bills. I get it. They’re busy. Life gets crazy. But I long for the wash of home, and wish I could afford a ticket back.
I want to hear, hidden in their broad accents, the hum of cicadas in summer and the gentle tik-tik-tik of backyard sprinklers.
I want the smell of them to be a reminder of the salty air of Bondi Beach, mixed with the tang of vinegar from fish and chips spread on butcher’s paper across the sand. I want the whiff of cut grass and eucalyptus trees and the faint disinfectant on the train to Bondi Junction, which always signalled the start of the weekend.
I want the taste of them. In the hello-again kiss, brushing tanned cheeks, I want to find the unique, almost dusty, taste of the air back home.
When they promised to visit, was it a lie told knowingly? Do they think having my best friend here means I don’t need them? Even if we didn’t work the wrong shifts, my housemate has absorbed New York into his skin. He’s become the city I recoil from.
I miss them.
CHAPTER 3
New Yorking Badly
Maddie flopped onto her sofa, considering her options. It was mid-morning, and she was officially awake. Dressed even. Ready to seize the day. She’d slept off the Fun Factory hangover, but Simon had still looked as if he wished he could end it all when he’d schlepped off to his business internship. Such a wuss, she thought fondly. She yawned. Then again.
She never felt fully awake anymore. At first, she assumed it was the night shift messing her up. She’d get home around 1:45 a.m., pace her apartment, or cook up some treats until she felt tired or until a rumpled Simon crawled out of bed and threw something at her. Then she’d fall into bed and sleep until noon.
But it had been getting worse. Maybe it was the bad dreams. She was sleeping later and later. Maddie sighed and wished she could just hit the beach and let the sun poke her back into life for a few months. But they were at the pointy end of winter in New York. She definitely missed watching Simon half drown himself at surfing. He’d been at it for years and still couldn’t survive a half pipe. He was pure shark biscuit. She yawned again.
She should probably do some housework or attempt a half-hearted floor workout to a DVD. Maddie stared at the silent TV. Then at the floor.
Or not.
She rose and headed for the kitchen cupboards to take stock. A trudge to the grocery store for more baking supplies would do her some good. That almost counted as embracing New York, didn’t it? If you squinted?
Losing interest, she considered her final option. She could update her page. Maddie’s secret blog about her experiences here filled the hours between waking, feeling guilty about not “New Yorking” properly, and going to work. Not even Simon knew she did this. It was hard to make friends at work, given the hours she worked. Her blog made her feel less lonely, not so much of an alien, and it felt nice to be followed by so many others who also felt as out of place as she did.
Maddie resolved not to dwell on how bad she was at the New York experience. She had bigger things to worry about. Like staying employed. And tonight, she had her first shift back at work since the unfortunate run-in with Elena Bartell.
Maybe she should just take another nap and not think about any of it right now. She headed back to the couch, flopped down, and pulled the blanket up to her neck. No harm in that.
* * *
Maddie got to her desk at five minutes to five and combed her fingers through her cropped red hair. After dumping her canvas backpack on her desk, she rooted through it for her lunchbox that she’d prepped for dinner. She took it to the office fridge and returned with a steaming mug of coffee.
The graveyard shift was not as exciting as she’d first thought it would be when she’d won her job. That had been such a shock—a call out of the blue. Someone had seen the résumé she’d passed around everywhere when she’d first landed in New York. She’d been so thrilled. It was her chance to prove herself at last.
Her friends meant well with all the Facebook good wishes and emails, declaring she’d be doing Pulitzer-winning stories in no time. But it was all just pressure. She’d done her best and flung herself into stories, trying to get the notice of the paper’s bosses.
Instead, anything good she dug up overnight, the day-shift crime reporters would take and develop. They had the luxury of having people around they could interview at length. They even got to do their jobs embedded within the New York Police Department, which had set up an office for all the media outlets.
As for Maddie? Well, who was awake at midnight and wanted to talk break-in statistics with her or bat around a few crime trends?
Maddie pulled up the wire feeds on her computer. They were summaries of breaking news from the press agencies—such as AP, Reuters, and AFP—that the paper subscribed to. These slid across her screen in reams of type. As words filled her screen, she scanned them with a dispassionate eye, looking for stories she could expand on. They had to fit her beat. Crime. If the subject wasn’t dead, about to be, or in the process of getting its ass arrested, she moved on.
Seeing nothing that would interest the readers of the Hudson Metro News, she picked up her phone. She had a laminated list of seventy-seven police precincts across the five boroughs stuck to her desk divider. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to call any of them directly. So, her first call of the night always went to the deputy commissioner, public information—or DCPI as the job was known. Bruce Radley was usually on duty now.
“Hi, it’s Maddie at the Hudson Metro News,” she said, after Radley answered. “Anything happening?”
“The usual, Miss Grey. I’ve already emailed you the day’s media releases along with everyone else.”
Radley always sounded so long-suffering, as if she’d bothered him, even though it was his job to be called up by the media all night. He made a point of calling her by her surname and drawing out the title Miss, because it was never Ms. Some passive aggressive shit, probably.
“Yes, I see that,” Maddie said politely, tapping on one small briefing note that had caught her eye. “The serial jewel thief on Longley Ave—what are we talking, crown jewels, society women’s baubles or…?”
“A break-in at a couple of old pensioners’ apartments. I don’t think the stolen goods were worth much.”
She doodled on her page. “Okay. Hope you catch them. Hey, the drug bust two nights back was pretty impressive,” she said in her most casual voice. “Fourteen arrested.”
The key to drawing out an officious little roadblock like Radley was to slip in something you really wanted to know about as an afterthought to something you had no interest in. Sometimes the man had his guard down and didn’t notice and things slipped out. But not often.
“Mmm, yes, I did enjoy your little story, Miss Grey,” the deputy commissioner said, but Maddie picked up the wariness. Damn. “What’s your interest in rehashing it?”
“Oh, just wondering why thirteen of them have had their charges dropped. There was such a big show of it all over the news. Fourteen arrested! Major drug breakthrough! And now, nope. All of them free, bar one.”
“It’s all in the media release. It went out yesterday—your day off I gather.”
