Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [6]
“True, that,” someone murmured.
“So we have to deal with the reality of more cuts, and it’s terrible, because I know you have families. You’ll have to find another job. Relocate. Take kids out of schools, spouses from jobs. I know all that.” Marcelo paused, his somber gaze moving from one stricken face to the next. “You know, when my mother used to spank me, she would always say, ‘This hurts me more than it does you.’ But, sabia que nao era verdade. Translated? I knew it was bullshit.”
The staff laughed, and so did Ellen. She loved it when Marcelo spoke Portuguese. If he could fire her in Portuguese, she would be happy.
“So I’m not going to tell you it hurts me more than it hurts you. But I will tell you that I know how you feel, and I do.” Marcelo’s smile reappeared. “You all know, I’ve been laid off by some of the best papers in the world. Even by the Folha de São Paulo, my hometown paper.”
“Way to go, boss,” a page designer called out, and there was more laughter.
“But still I survived. I’ll survive even if this paper lets me go, and I’ll never quit the newspaper business, because I love it. I love this business. I love the feel of the paper.” Marcelo rubbed his fingerpads together, with a defiant grin. “I love the smell of a good lead. I love finding out something nobody else knows and telling them. That’s what we do, every day, on every page, and I know you love it, too.”
“Hear, hear!” somebody called out, and even Ellen took heart. She loved the business, too. She’d grown up with the newspaper on the kitchen table, folded into fourths for the crossword, next to her mother’s coffee cup, and she still got a charge when she saw her own byline. She had never felt so right for any job in her life, except motherhood, where the pay was even worse.
“But this business doesn’t love us back, all the time, and especially not lately.” Marcelo shook his glistening head. “After all we do for her, after how much we love her, she’s a faithless lover.” He flashed a killer smile. “She goes home with other men. She’s always looking around. She strays from us.”
Everybody laughed, more relaxed now, including Ellen, who almost forgot she could lose her job.
“But we love her still, so we’ll stay with her, as long as she’ll have us. There will always be a place for the newspaper, and those of us, the crazy-in-love ones, we will put up with her.”
“Speak for yourself!” cracked one of the business reporters, and everybody laughed, relaxing as Marcelo’s expression changed, his forehead creasing again, so that he looked older than his forty-odd years.
“So I will make the hard decisions, and I have to cut two of you today, and another one at the end of the month. To those of you I have to let go, please know I won’t hand you off to human resources and forget about you.”
Somebody in front nodded, because they all had heard that he had helped place one of their laid-off business reporters at the Seattle Times.
“I think you’re all terrific journalists, and I’ll do everything in my power to help you find another job. I have friends all over, and you have my word.”
“Thank you,” a reporter said, and then another, and there was even a smattering of applause, led by Courtney. Ellen found herself clapping, too, because Marcelo reached her at a level she couldn’t explain merely by good looks, though it helped. Maybe it was his openness, his honesty, his emotionality. No other editor would have talked about loving the business or taken the reporters’ side. Marcelo’s eyes swept the crowd, meeting hers for a brief moment, and Ellen got so flustered she barely felt the nudge in her side.
“Down, girl,” Courtney whispered, with a sly smile.
Chapter Five
A ladies’ room is a girl headquarters, so it was only natural that Ellen, Courtney, and another reporter, Sarah Liu, would end up talking about the layoffs by the sinks. A photographer had been let go after the meeting, so they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Courtney and Sarah were in News, but Ellen