Authors: Melanie Jacobson
I hated that part, the part where I had so easily given up on what I wanted because I was blinded by Landon’s conviction of his own talent and my belief that it was more important to nurture his than mine. It took little persuasion on his part to talk me into changing my major to a field that
he
viewed as more flexible and less career driven than journalism. “You should major in English,” he had said. “You’ll still get to write, you’ll get to read a ton, and it’ll be a great undergrad degree to have under your belt if you decide to go to grad school later.”
Ha. Like he
ever
would have supported that. He wanted me biddable and available to him, to pander to his ego and make him the center of my everything. Worst of all, I had done it. I thought being a dutiful Mormon young woman meant putting everything I wanted aside so I could support my husband and raise kids. It’s like I hadn’t been paying any attention to the stellar examples I had in my parents, in the way they did everything as a partnership and each looked for ways to support and encourage the other in whatever they did. It was Landon’s sea blue eyes and perfect white teeth and heart-stopping dimple that did me in . . . and my amazement that he picked me when other girls flirted their brains out trying to capture his attention the whole four years we were together.
In hindsight, the reason was obvious. I was impressionable when we met and easy to mold. I didn’t listen to anyone who warned me that maybe Landon was trying to control me by granting and withholding affection to keep me dancing on an invisible string. That string bound me to him as surely as a steel chain would have.
“What did your parents think about all this?” Courtney asked.
“When we announced our engagement again, they confronted me because they were concerned about his influence. They begged me to rethink things.”
“Let me guess,” Courtney said. “You clung to him tighter.”
I laughed. “I cast myself as a star-crossed lover, defying everything to be with my man. It was ridiculous. I announced my independence and said that I didn’t need their full support because MasterCard would be happy to sponsor the wedding. Which was how I ended up with a nearly ten-thousand-dollar credit card debt.”
Courtney winced.
“Yeah,” I said. “Turns out credit card companies will offer you obscene lines of credit for a shot at all your future earnings.” The tops of my ears burned as I told Courtney the rest of it, about how Landon scored a spot in the semifinal round of
The It Factor
Hollywood auditions and suddenly felt that it would be best to postpone the wedding so he could “focus on the competition.” I insisted that I couldn’t do that. I could imagine the expressions on my friends’ faces if I mentioned a postponement. First of all, I didn’t want anyone assuming we were delaying the wedding because of worthiness issues. There were no issues, and I didn’t want anyone judging me, which they would have. It’s human nature. I also felt Landon slipping away from me emotionally. His focus on the show and making the top ten drove everything else out.
As I argued with him about keeping our date or pushing it back, a distinct thought sliced through all the noise in my brain. It was simple but shone a giant light on a situation I’d been examining through half-closed eyes: if Landon loved me, there is no way he would have waited for four years to marry me and then postpone it a little longer until it was convenient.
“It’s so obvious now,” I concluded to Courtney, “but I’d been able to sustain a really phenomenal piece of fiction by telling myself that he was fine waiting on a wedding because he wanted to respect my parents’ wishes. But he only wanted me on the hook until he lined up something better.”
“Right now, I think viral videos might be my favorite thing ever,” she said.
I smiled. She was referring to a half dozen YouTube clips that had surfaced showing Landon doing several pre-
It Factor
performances. They belied his manufactured back story that he’d been unaware of his own talent. It called into question his authenticity for the viewers, and entertainment and gossip blogs flogged the story to death. He was voted off before he could get past a sixth-place finish.
“Was that you?” she asked, watching me closely.
“No! My revenge was never speaking to him again. I know, I’m really mature.”
“Still, I bet you were happy to see him miss out on the big prize. Justice is served, right?”
I shook my head. “Not really. He got the exposure he wanted, and girls really do fall for his looks. Someone is going to snap him up. Several misguided friends like to send me links to articles about what he’s up to, and I think after
The It Factor
tour ends this summer, he’ll go right to work on an album. He came out of this exactly where he wanted to be. Look for his future celebrity scandals coming to a grocery store tabloid near you.”
“I’ve got your back,” she said. “If I ever see his face on a magazine cover, I’ll flip it around on the rack and then glare at anyone who tries to buy one.”
“Excellent,” I said. “We should be able to completely undo the national exposure he’s gotten within a matter of weeks if we stick with your plan.”
She grinned and flexed an arm. “Small but mighty.”
I laughed and ate the rest of my soup before it got too cold. Courtney did the same, and we sat in companionable silence for a while. When my spoon clinked against the bottom of my empty bowl, I set it down and leaned back with a happy groan. “Your mom is the best cook ever.”
“Stay for dinner,” she said.
“Thanks, but I should probably head home soon.”
A thoughtful gleam lit her hazel irises. “This is about Tanner. You don’t want to see him.”
“Not really.”
“Why not? For years, girls have befriended me to get to him. I don’t mind that you aren’t interested, but why not? Does it have something to do with Landon?”
“Only in the sense that I don’t feel like dating anyone,” I said. “That’s not specific to your brother.”
She looked confused. “So why are you going on dates every weekend?”
I flopped back on the beanbag and stared at the ceiling. “Keep a secret?”
“Of course.”
“I’m writing a column for
Real Salt Lake
, and that’s why I have to go on dates every weekend.”
“No way! You’re Indie Girl?”
I sat up again at her amused gasp. “You’ve read ‘Single in the City’?”
“Both of them. I’m waiting for more. They’re hilarious,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“You don’t think there’s a chance you could find the guy to make you forget Landon?”
I shrugged. “I’m not looking for that guy. I make it clear on my dating profile that I don’t want a relationship. If someone who contacted me had a needy ‘love me’ vibe, I wouldn’t go on a date with him.”
“But do you think the online thing could work for you if you
were
interested?” There was a forced casual tone to her voice.
“Courtney Graham, are you considering online dating?”
She flushed. “Is that a stupid thing to figure out on the anniversary of my fiancé’s funeral?”
Her eyes reddened, and I hurried to reassure her. “No, I think it’s healthy. It makes sense that you would pick a day like this to kind of mark your progress and figure out that things change. You look back at how things were, and you wonder how things are going to be. In fact, it would probably be kind of weird if you didn’t.”
“I guess.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’m not ready yet. Just thinking about it.”
“It’s better than not being ready and having to do it for your job,” I grumbled.
“Tons of girls would love that job.”
“Believe me, I’d love to give it to them, but I have to stick it out until they promote me to write the kind of stories I’m really interested in. They want me to do regular concert reviews, which is awesome, but I hope they let me sink my teeth into even more soon.”
“Like the stuff Tanner does?”
It was my turn to flush. “I guess I better spill another secret. I know Tanner mentioned that he interviewed me for a job a few weeks ago, but he didn’t mention that it was a disaster. I stormed out of his office before the interview was even finished, which is why I don’t like the idea of hanging out with him so much.”
“I knew it!” she crowed. “I knew there was some kind of weird vibe between you.” She tilted her head. “That explains your part, but now Tanner has some ’splaining to do too.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, disturbed by the mischief lurking in her smile.
“Sorry to tell you, but Tanner drops in all the time now, specifically when he thinks there’s a chance you’re going to be here.”
I shifted. “Did he say that?”
“No. I just know him. He wants himself a dash of pepper.”
I groaned. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard lame jokes like that?”
“Blame your parents,” she said, grinning.
“I don’t think Tanner is coming around because of me,” I said, not buying it, mainly because I didn’t want to. “I understated the situation when I said our interview was a disaster. Besides, he’s way older than me.”
She stared at me strangely. “How old do you think he is?”
“He’s got to be almost thirty, right?”
She laughed. “No. He’s only twenty-six. It’s his old soul thing he’s got going on.”
“That and his Dockers,” I said. “He dresses more like a dad than a brother.”
“I get on him all the time about it,” she said. “He started writing for the paper so young that he overcompensated for his age by dressing and acting older. Now it’s kind of a habit.”
“How did he get to be a senior reporter already? You’d think someone who started out early themselves would have been more sympathetic to someone like me trying to do the same thing.”
“Have you read his articles?” she asked.
I nodded. “He’s good.”
“He’s really good.” Her defense of her brother was sweet. Of course, Ginger was a total pill, but I’d never let anyone else say that about her. It’s what sisters do. “It’s a pretty interesting story how he got on with the
Bee
,” she said. “He started as a guest columnist in high school, and it went from there. You should ask him to tell you about it sometime. Like tonight, after dinner.”
“As much as I’m tempted to stick around and eat more of your mom’s food, I’d better get going.”
“Hurry. Tanner will be here any minute on the off-chance he gets to see you.”
“I think you’re reading into stuff,” I said. “I’m sure he’s got lots of other dates to keep him busy enough not to worry about me.” I hesitated before letting curiosity get the better of me. “I know he’s young and all, but how come he’s still single?”
Courtney shrugged. “He’s slightly a workaholic. He’s had a couple of serious relationships, but they didn’t survive the bad starting reporter pay or his crazy hours.” She grinned at me. “He’s been a lot better about dating since the prophet told the guys in priesthood session to quit goofing off and put a ring on it.”
I snorted. “Too bad Landon didn’t get that talk a year earlier.” I hauled myself out of the beanbag. “I still have to go. My mom did Sunday dinner this week, and she makes a pretty mean pot roast.”
She stood and led the way to the door. “My brother loves a challenge,” she said, a teasing warning in her voice.
“I’m not a challenge,” I said. “I’m not even a mystery.”
“Tanner won’t see it that way.”
“Then Tanner’s wrong.”
She opened the front door for me. “Not usually. Good luck.”
I shook my head and climbed into The Zuke. So what if there was chemistry between us? It didn’t mean doing anything about it was a smart idea. I wanted Tanner at a safe arm’s length, maybe even two arms’ lengths, while I focused on getting my new career off the ground. I was done being someone else’s shadow.
It was time to break through in my own right.
Dear Nathan,
Thanks for teaching me all those swear words back in second grade. Even though my mom grounded me for two weeks when she found the list under my pillow, they came in handy this past week. Without your crash course in profanity, I never would have understood half the insults that were hurled at me the other day.
Also, I’m sorry I released your frog back into the wild that one time. I was still mad at being grounded for harboring your bad word list. I tried explaining to my mom your argument that they couldn’t be that bad if you can find them in the dictionary, but she didn’t go for it. That was still no reason for me to steal Hoppy the Hulk and liberate him.
I hope you’ll forgive me. Tell your mom I say hello. She still makes the world’s best oatmeal cookies.
Sincerely,
Pepper
Chapter 11
Seven thousand five hundred.
There are a lot of contexts in which that would be considered a great number. Like, for example, if that were the number of dollars showing on your paycheck due to a payroll error and the owner was like, “Eh, keep it as a bonus.” Or if it were the winning jackpot when you hit bingo while hanging with your grandma at the senior center. Or if that’s how many readers your article pulled in, once again an increase of almost a thousand page views over the previous week. That was a trend I could get behind.
Something had clicked for me in my conversation with Courtney. The list of ways in which I let my circumstances swallow me up instead of working to shape them was long and embarrassing.
No more.
The same stubbornness that caused me to finance my own wedding without any help from my parents drove me to think about how to make journalism a real deal, full-time gig. I’d figured out quickly that Ellie was right. The snarkier I was in my “Single in the City” column, the more readers it drew. I didn’t go out of my way to find things I hated about my dates, but I was so, so grateful when I found them anyway. It made the columns much easier to write.
I sat at the kitchen table, waiting for my dad to come down. My laptop was open and ready for him with the column titled “The Bowels of Misery” already on the screen. When he ambled in with his hair still wet from his post-run morning shower, I pointed to his chair. “Sit. Read.”
He lifted an eyebrow but did as commanded, and I leaned back, enjoying the mellow tenor of his voice. “I love breakfast cereal as much as anyone, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry it,” he read. “Frankenberry, my last date, credits the power of some South American berry with righting his gastrointestinal system. In fact, he is so convinced of the power of this berry that he spent the whole evening describing the change in the frequency of his bathroom visits and the improvement in the quality of time he now spends there. Best of all, I got to hear his pitch off and on through two hours of miniature golf about why I should buy some for myself (‘Do it for your bowels!’) and then become a distributor and sign up all my friends (‘Do it for
their
bowels!’). To be fair, I don’t think he asked me out solely to sell me on this miracle berry, but really? There’s a time and a place. First date, no matter where it is, is not that time or place. It’s monstrous, really. Frankenberry, you so earned your name.”
A few times my dad struggled to keep a straight face. When he finished the rest of the article, he lifted his eyes to meet mine. “Did you exaggerate any of this?” he asked.
“Nope.”
He leaned back against his chair. “All right. This guy totally deserved it.”
I grinned. “I know.” Lewis, Frankenberry’s real name, had made this my easiest column so far.
“I still don’t think this is a great idea,” he said.
“I’m smart. I keep myself safe. I meet these guys at a busy location, and I make sure we’re always around other people. Haven’t I proven I have some common sense yet?”
“That’s not what I meant. I think someone is going to find out who Indie Girl is and then it’s going to get uncomfortable for you. And I still don’t think you need to go the sarcastic route so much.”
I pointed to the laptop again. “I couldn’t have made that up if I tried, and there’s nothing Frankenberry could refute in there. It all happened exactly how I said it did.”
“Yes, but would you have shared your feelings about the evening to his face the way you spilled it in your column?”
I squirmed.
“That’s my point,” he said. “When you put it in writing like this, it’s worse than if you outright told him and hurt his feelings when it was only the two of you. Now it’s between you, Frankenberry, and a few thousand people by the end of the week.”
“You’re assuming he’s going to read it. This column is way under the radar,” I said. “And it would have to blow up pretty big before I would even start to worry about the extremely tiny chance that one of my dates would see it.”
“But if they did?” he asked.
“Then I go back to my other argument that it doesn’t do them any good to spread the word that it’s me. For every single person they tell, it’s like them advertising, ‘Hey, I’m a bad date. Here’s the proof in print!’” I drummed my fingers against the table, not loving where the conversation was going.
He sighed. “How long do you think you’ll be writing this column?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged, stung that he wanted it to be over so soon. I understood that he didn’t like the humor in the column coming at someone else’s expense, but my readership was increasing every single week, which meant so was my paycheck, and it was absolutely not hurting anyone. “I want to move on to news, but Ellie likes me on music reviews for the time being. I have to hope one of the other staffers quits or can’t take a story and I get a shot at covering it.”
Ginger had made it down by this time, dressed and ready for school, with my mom right behind her. “You shouldn’t change the column,” she said. “My friends are all addicted to it now.”
“You still haven’t told anyone it’s me, right?”
She rolled her eyes. I wondered if it was possible for her to even speak a sentence without rolling them first. “No, I haven’t told anyone.”
“I don’t think it’s a problem for you to write up your dates,” my mom said, surprising me. She and my dad were generally a united front. “But I question the dates you’re picking.”
“They’re picking me,” I said.
“So you don’t do anything. They all send you messages saying they want to go out and you don’t do a thing to encourage them except sit and look cute in your profile picture?” she asked.
“Not exactly. Sometimes I send them a smile icon or something if no one contacts me for a day or two.”
She stared at me, her gaze knowing. “And how are you picking the guys you send these smiles to?”
I shrugged, not wanting to answer.
“Are you trying to find guys that you would legitimately enjoy getting to know or are you choosing guys that you think have the greatest train wreck potential?” She thumped a nearly full carton of milk down on the counter.
I cleared my throat. “I plead the fifth.”
“Thought so.” She poured herself a glass and watched me as she drained it in one go. My mother, milk chugger extraordinaire. “That’s my issue with all of this. You’re looking for people to mock, so it isn’t fair to act like you don’t have any responsibility for it when they turn out to be goofy in person. You’re looking for easy marks for your column. I dare you to find someone on that site you genuinely find interesting and see what you can do with it.”
“Good point,” my dad said. “Your readers aren’t going to believe that every single person on the website is as cartoon-ish as you make them out to be. You’re risking your credibility with them if you don’t add more variety.”
He had me there. A few comments to that effect had popped up after the last two columns, either complaining that I was way too harsh on my dates or it wasn’t possible to go on so many bad dates in a row unless I was trying not to have good ones. Which I wasn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “But the odd guys are much easier to get a date with. I don’t know how much luck I’ll have with the normal ones.”
“Quit your crazy talk,” my dad said, leaning over to ruffle my hair as if I were Rosemary’s age. “Anyone would love to go out with you. You’ll see.”
Finding the positive was suddenly harder because I knew my dad’s love for me was blinding him to the fact that I wasn’t everyone’s cup of bleached blond tea. Most guys wanted a nice chamomile, and I was more of a . . . well, I’d have to be a tea drinker to make that analogy work. The point was, guys I might have an interest in weren’t usually looking for a girl like me. They were looking for Barbie, not her bony, wisecracking sidekick. “Isn’t it enough that I’m putting myself out there at all? You’ve been bugging me to do this for forever.”
“But you’re not putting yourself out there,” my mom argued. “You’re taking the easy route.”
“And you’re taking easy shots,” my dad added. “I’m going to issue you a challenge”— I groaned. —“to find a guy on the site you could realistically be interested in. Maybe it will add a whole new level to your writing.”
He and my mother stared at me expectantly. It was a look that said, “We’re waiting to hear you make the right decision.”
Resistance was futile. “Fine,” I said.
“Let me help you pick!” Ginger said.
I shuddered. “Heck no! I’d end up with a string of guys who have deep and abiding testimonies of hair gel and Quicksilver shirts.”
She stared at me blankly. “Yeah. So?”
My mom laughed. “Time for school,” she said. “Mace!”
He tore through the kitchen, not even pausing when he snagged a banana on his way out to the car.
The door closed behind them, and my dad pushed back from the table. “I’d better go take care of Rosemary.” She started school a half hour later than Mace and Ginger.
When I had the kitchen to myself, I opened LDS Lookup and started a new search. My parents’ observations needled me. I would look for a date with real potential, but it was a sure bet none of the guys I found interesting would return the interest. At least I could say I tried. Salve for the conscience and all that.
I spent an hour checking out profiles and narrowed the possibilities to three choices. Feeling like an idiot, I sent each of them the smile icon that LDS Lookup provided. I could have sent a winking eye or puckered lips. I
could
have. But never would in a million years. That done, I pushed my laptop away and sighed, looking around the kitchen and soaking up the rare silence.
I had a day off. Usually, I worked every weekday, but I swapped one of my shifts out with my new assistant, Austin, because I had a show to see tonight and didn’t want a forever long day at work leading up to it. The band, Empires of Solace, had sent me an e-mail over the weekend that verged on begging me to come see them. I don’t know why they wanted me in particular, but they were local, which pleased Ellie, who approved the assignment.
What to do with all the time yawning in front of me? A few weeks before, I would probably have crawled back into bed with a tub of Red Vines and watched YouTube clips for hours on end, but that didn’t sound fun anymore. I’d save that for the inevitable rejections from Lookup.
Restless, I skimmed through the
Bee
to see what Tanner had covered in the last day or so. He’d written one article on a city councilman who wanted to install a solar energy system to power the city park lights at night, but that was it. Nothing told me how he had spent the weekend, no reviews of anything musical or otherwise. I chided myself for even wondering. I needed to get all of Courtney’s insinuations out of my head.
As if thinking of Courtney summoned her somehow, she sent me a text.
Love the Frankenberry column this morning. If you don’t want to go out with him again, can I have a shot?
I snorted.
He’s all yours
, I texted back.
I clicked around the
Bee
website to see if I had missed anything else with Tanner’s byline. I didn’t see any more of his work, but a linked article in their Style sidebar caught my eye. It was a press release from a local clothing company announcing a preview of their new line titled “Love and Rockets.” I recognized the reference to one of my dad’s favorite eighties bands. An idea niggled at me, and I did a little more digging on the company. Just as I thought: they incorporated a rock-and-roll aesthetic in their design, and the few images I could find on the Internet showed some pretty cool pieces.
I jumped up and headed for the shower. It was time to start making my breaks, and I would begin by finding and writing my own story for
Real Salt Lake.
I would prove to Ellie that I was good for more than snarky opinions.
* * *
Two hours after lunch, I collapsed on a park bench in Hidden Hollow, a little gem of a park I had stumbled across in Sugar House. The Urban Grit headquarters was not far from
Real Salt Lake
’s office. It was one of the few businesses still holding on in the Granite Block. They must be doing all right if they had survived all the redevelopment in the area with their lease still intact.
According to the owner, Kirbi Dawn, Urban Grit was doing extraordinarily well, even in a down economy. She explained it in terms of smart marketing and business sense, but I could see that she was the heart and soul of the company. She designed the clothes and then worked with her business partner to make sure customers found them. Her concept was Prada for an H&M budget, styles with great lines and a little bit of edge.
I was the only reporter to show up for the press conference. Kirbi smiled and told me that was normal in the Salt Lake market. The company’s sales were almost exclusively online or through specialized boutiques in cities like LA and New York. I got to preview the collection all by myself, and I knew I could do a great write up on it. I stared out over the park and thought it through, including what angle to take. I didn’t want to turn it into another opinion piece like my music reviews. I wanted to go with the human interest angle, uncover the story of a woman making waves in the national fashion market out of a tiny little shop in Sugar House.
I dug into my purse and pulled out my palm-sized notebook, jotting down impressions and lines I could use in the article. I already had some great quotes from Kirbi about her creative process and dreams for the company’s future. I dumped out everything in my head to sort through later. With that done, I had time to kill. I didn’t want to drive to Pleasant Grove and back twice in one day, so I’d brought clothes to change into for the show later tonight, plus my laptop to keep me busy. Maybe I could drop in on
Real Salt Lake
and see what was going on.
I made the five-minute drive and climbed the stairs to the office. When I pushed the door open, six heads shot up to stare at me, including Ellie’s. “Pepper!” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”