ever since new york || h.s.

ten

Friday afternoon, quite frankly, sucked. The men decided to go home early so they could prepare for the following evening, which was part of tradition, which left me to collect their sources or proofread or sometimes even finish up the last few odds and ends of their columns. I wanted to spit in each of their smug faces with each paper they brought to me. I wanted to scream at them, beg them to tell me why they depended on me so damn much if I was as incapable as they said I was. However, I wanted to keep my job so I did neither of those things and just prepared to stay later than I'd planned.

I scanned over Quinn's report on Eisenhower's foreign cooperation. It was terrible. His sentences were choppy, his grammar was subpar, and his sentences were repetitive. I wanted to rearrange everything to make it have a better flow and to make it more cohesive, but I knew as soon as I switched his words around, he'd be running to Ricci screaming about the broad not knowing her place. The best I could do was subtly fix his mistakes and hand it back to him with a disapproving frown.

I added it onto the heightening stack of papers that I'd fixed before looking at the stack that I still had yet to tackle. I had definitely made a dent in it, but there was still at least another two hours of work to be done and it was already 6:30. The sun was setting outside the side windows, the nightly weekend sidewalk traffic thickening with every passing minute. My stomach rumbled, my head ached, and my eyes grew tired with exhaustion. I was about to drown in the mess of paper and smeared ink when the doorbells rattling at the front door pulled me above water.

Harry walked in in his usual classy suit, this one a rich olive color, with a lunch sack gripped in his ring clad fingers. I don't think I'd ever been happier to see anyone in my life.

"Called your house to ask about dress code for tomorrow, but you didn't answer so I figured you were stuck here," he said, smiling and sauntering up to my desk, bringing the smell of cheese steak with him.

"I could've been on a hot date," I said, pushing everything aside so he could sit the bag down. It had my name written on it in marker beneath a few grease stains and I was able to conclude the smell of food was coming from it rather than just him.

"I specifically remember you telling me you were too busy with work to date."

He pulled the chair from beneath Pollock's desk and put it in front of mine so he could sit facing me. I dug into the cheese steak, my hunger trumping my manners completely. Harry didn't seem to mind, smiling and searching the bag for napkins to hand me. I didn't know how he knew that he'd gotten me one of my favorite foods, but I was too busy stuffing my face to ask.

"You said you were from Philly so it was just a lucky guess," he explained as if he could read my mind. I hummed and nodded in response, hoping he'd know I meant it as a thank you. He took one of the sheets off of my desk, his eyes widening as he read it until his eyebrows were in the shapes of half circles. "You're doing their work?"

I swallowed before answering, "They left early to catch up on sleep before tomorrow night. It's part of tradition, I guess."

"And you're okay with that?" he asked, his voice louder and his hand flat on the desk. He was angry, not with me, but with the men who worked with me and maybe even the system for doing this to me, making me stay hours later than normal without any breaks for food to do things that they could've done individually in forty-five minutes. In a way, I was glad that he was angry. I was glad that someone else could feel some of what I felt and it was even more satisfying that that someone was a man.

"I'm okay with keeping my job," I said, finishing up my sandwich before wiping my hands off with napkins and trying to dive back into the work. Harry looked at me like he was looking at a wet puppy in a box outside of a grocery store. I shoved some papers towards him. "Here, Mr. National News Author. Put your talent to work."