Chapter 7 All Business at Club

Leah followed Kelsey to the elevators and down to the twelfth floor where the doors opened to a very different looking office. Instead of the natural lighting from upstairs, the lobby was lit with LEDs. Newspapers scattered the tables around the lobby and the reception was empty. Kelsey opened the doors to the office space, which was also lined with glass windowed offices centered around cubicles. But these cubicles looked different. Older? More cluttered? Leah glanced at the employees sitting at their desks, hunched over, on the phones, taking notes, reading newspapers, or concentrating on their screens. No one looked up and smiled.

Kelsey stopped in front of one of the glass offices and knocked on the window. "Hey, Tony, how's it going?"

"How's it going? Well, this morning my wife spent ten minutes lecturing me about how to put cups in the dishwasher! Can you believe it? At least I put my cups in the dishwasher. Unlike James and Andrew, who leave everything on the table like we have a maid at home or something. Teenagers!" Tony grunted .

"That's frustrating," Kelsey smiled.

"And now that Kevin quit, I have no one to do the TCR! I asked Mark and Alex, but they refused! As if they are too good for it now that they are senior reporters! They don't remember what it was like to start out! So now, I, the bankruptcy editor, one step under the editor-in-chief, am doing data entry instead of editing and serving out my pearls of wisdom from years in the industry. You hear that Mark and Alex?" He yelled out from the office to the cubicles. "You're the ones suffering in the end by not doing the TCR!"

"We'll take that risk!" someone shouted back in a convivial tone. Leah looked to see who it was, but she didn't catch it. Everyone seemed so consumed in what they were doing.

"Well, I have good news, Tony," Kelsey jumped in before he could continue. "This is Leah Rosenberg, she's your new researcher and she starts now. Maybe she can help with the TCR?"

"Hi, Mr…." Leah didn't even know his name. She'd spent hours researching her boss at Teen Club. Marnie Gray had gotten a master's in journalism at NYU and wrote young adult novels about girls whose insecurities turned into superpowers. She'd had three best sellers before becoming the Story Editor at Teen Club and was promoted to Editor-in-Chief after two years when the previous Chief was moved to corporate. In an interview, she'd said she was excited to bring a young voice to the ma gazine's highest position. She was only 30, after all, and the youngest Chief in Diamond Media's history. Leah was ready to ask all the right questions so she could learn everything from her. She hadn't spent a second looking into Diamond Media's other editors, especially not the Club Business ones. Leah glanced at the marker on the door. "Mr. Romano."

"Tony," he corrected her. "You don't have to pretend to respect me. My other reporters sure don't!" He directed that comment to the cubicles where laughter erupted.

"All right, well, I'm going to get going," Kelsey said. "Leah, if you need anything you know where I am. Come say hi at the end of the day before you leave. Good luck!" Leah wanted to beg Kelsey to stay, she'd almost felt like Kelsey was a friend, or maybe just an ally, which she felt she desperately needed if she were to survive in Club Business.

"So, Leah," Tony started. "Grab a seat."

"It's Lee-ah," she corrected his pronunciation. She hated when people called her Leah, as in Princess Leah. It was Lee-ah.

"All right, Lee-ah," he exaggerated the sound. "I like attention to detail, so that's a good start. Your first assignment is the TCR." He grabbed a two-inch stack of papers and handed it to her. "This is the Troubled Company Reporter. Every morning, we get a report of any company that files for bankruptcy or goes into default or anything else that happens that negatively affects the company's finances. We need to get all this data in our database as soon as possible so we can have the most up-to-date business database around. Our readers come to us because we have all the data they need. You understand? We also use this data to come up with interesting stories to write about. We might see a trend in loan defaults, or notice a peculiar bankruptcy filing. It's your job to bring these to our attention so the writers can write about them. Got it?"

Leah nodded, but she didn't get it. How was she supposed to recognize a trend in loan defaults? Or a peculiar bankruptcy? She knew nothing about loans or bankruptcies!

"Great. Malcolm will show you how to do it. It's really simple. Malcolm!" Tony screamed out the door. Before the sound disappeared from the air, a skinny African American man in glasses and a plaid shirt was standing in the doorway with a big smile on his face. "Malcolm, this is Leah, she's taking Kevin's job. Show her the TCR. And make sure it's done fast! It's already 10 am and it hasn't been started!"

Malcolm motioned Leah to follow him and he led her to an empty desk with a computer on it. He turned it on and as he waited for it to boot, he pulled up a second chair. "Welcome to Club Business," he said so quietly that Leah wasn't sure he had spoken at all. "Are you new to the city? "

Leah leaned in closer to hear what he said. "Yeah," she responded, self-conscious about the level of her voice. "I just moved here on Friday."

"How exciting. Do you like salsa?"

Leah was sure she had misheard. She crinkled her eyebrows. "Salsa?" she questioned and Malcolm nodded. "I guess. It's good for chips and Mexican food." She felt silly saying it. This was the first thing she'd said as the researcher at Club Business. It was not Club-like and it was definitely not business.

"No, salsa dancing." Malcolm giggled quietly as though Leah's misunderstanding was completely unfounded.

"Um, well, I've never been salsa dancing." That wasn't 100% true. In college she'd once gone to a salsa club with her girlfriends. But they didn't know any of the steps nor did they try to learn. They had just ordered margheritas and laughed as they pretended to know what they were doing on the dance floor.

"If you want to, I go to this club on Monday nights. It's really fun and a great way to unwind after a long day of work."

"Well, uh, I don't have a partner."

"You don't need one!" His voice jumped one step above a whisper. "A lot of people come without partners. I have a partner who I've been dancing with for 20 years, we'll help you." 20 years? Leah had assumed Malcolm was just a few years older than she was! She couldn't imagine him dancing as a three-year-old, flicking his wrists and clicking his heels to the music.

"OK, sure." Leah wasn't sure if this was crossing a line or if there were any ethical issues with agreeing to go salsa dancing with Malcolm. Was he her colleague? Her manager? Was he inappropriately hitting on her? Or trying to be nice to the new girl? "Why don't we get started on the TCR? Tony seemed really stressed about it." She needed to prove herself professionally.

"Tony is always stressed." Someone had stood up from the other side of the cubicle. "Even if the TCR is done at 9 am, he'll be stressed about something else. Hey, Alex, remember when Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy? Oh man, I was doing the TCR then and I went to Tony's office to show him and he flipped! He was so mad that he was finding out from the TCR and not from one of his sources! I used to get the TCR done by 8:00 am in those days. I'm Mark. Senior reporter."

"Leah." She smiled and another head popped up from the side of her cubicle. "I'm Alex. Also a senior reporter. Also used to the TCR."

"We should get started," Malcolm said quietly and Alex and Mark both sat down. He helped Leah with her login and showed her how to access their database. He went through the stack of papers with her and showed her how to input the data into the computer. "Oh, this is a really interesting one!" He whispered excitedly. "I'll have to take this one to Tony." He showed it to Leah and she nodded. She had no idea what was interesting about it, but she'd take his word for it. After an hour, Malcolm asked if she was ready to continue on her own.

She nodded, despite fearing that she could mess up. A mistake could be detrimental to the company, she figured, based on the importance Tony had seemed to put on the TCR. But she had to prove herself, so she agreed and tried to input the data on her own. As she worked, she wondered if this was what researchers did. Was research a glorified name for data entry?

"Hey, Leah, we're going to grab lunch, want to come?" Alex stood up from his cubicle to ask. Leah looked at the stack of the TCR. She'd gone through a quarter of it and feared she never have it done in time. Especially since a new one was coming tomorrow.

"I think I'll pass today. But tomorrow!" She said hopefully, praying her rejection wouldn't be seen as her not wanting to ever have lunch together. Alex nodded and left with Mark. Malcolm stepped out a few minutes later, also probably getting lunch.

"How's that TCR going?" Tony startled her at the side of her cubicle.

"Good, it's going good. Malcolm was really helpful. "

"Great. Yeah, Malcolm is the top data analyst here. He's also a semi-professional salsa dancer, in case you didn't know. Anyway, I'm going to have lunch. Tell me when the TCR is done." Tony tapped her cubicle and left the office. Leah was alone in their section of the floor. She pulled a granola bar out of her bag and continued the data entry.