He pointed out the assignment desk, where two phones were currently manned, explaining that it was a command center where various leads were phoned in on hard news stories. “Doesn’t really apply to us,” he said. “Our stories aren’t generally a surprise. Although these days you never know what athletes are going to do … If someone shoots his girlfriend or tortures dogs, it’ll be phoned in right there.”
I nodded as we stuck our heads into a bare-bones break room with a microwave and refrigerator, then an even more dismal room housing a watercooler and a copier adorned with a sign that said: ANOTHER DAMN PAPER JAM. He concluded our tour with my very own cubicle, located just outside his office. Lucky me. The whole floor was much quieter and less glamorous than I’d imagined, and I felt a dash of disappointment as I reminded myself that this wasn’t the Woodward and Bernstein era of journalism and most writers probably worked from home.
“So that’s it,” he said curtly. “Any questions?”
I shook my head.
“Okay, then. Your first assignment. We need a pregame piece on the Walker–Baylor matchup. Give me eight hundred, not a word more because space is tight. Damn advertisers,” he grumbled. “As for angles—maybe focus on the running back situation. Maybe look at the rash of injuries that squad has suffered … Find out if any of the assistant coaches hate each other. And I need it by eight A.M. tomorrow. Not a minute later.”
Before I could so much as nod, Smiley turned and headed for his office as the guy one cubicle over glanced my way and said, “And you caught him on a good day.”
I smiled, and he reached over the partition and shook my hand. “Gordon Chambers.”
“Shea Rigsby,” I said, feeling an instant rapport with this new colleague, as much for his comment as for his face. Everything about it was warm—from his honey-brown skin, to his full lips, to the dimples in his rounded cheeks that remained even when he stopped smiling. “What’s your beat?”
“Dallas Cowboys.”
I must have looked impressed because he said, “The low man on that totem pole. I do social media. Smiley’s necessary evil. And I cover injuries. Pulled hamstrings? I’m your guy.” His grin grew wider, his dimples deeper.
I smiled, wondering if he had ever talked to Ryan, as I put down my bag, then did a cursory exploration of my cubicle. I opened and closed a few drawers cluttered with stray rubber bands, paper clips, and a package of saltines that another reporter had left behind. Then I adjusted my chair, and inspected the ancient desktop computer, trying to figure out how to power it on.
“I wouldn’t bother with that piece of shit,” Gordon said as I noticed that he was typing on a big silver Mac.
“Right,” I said, fishing my laptop out of my bag and plugging it in, then staring at my ESPN home screen for a few shell-shocked seconds, wondering where to begin.
“Wow. You better get off that page before Smiley sees it,” Gordon said as he passed by my cubicle with his empty coffee mug. “Don’t you know that’s the network that puts entertainment ahead of sports? Get it? ESPN.”
“Right. Thanks,” I said, shutting down the browser, then pulling up a blank document and typing Baylor–Walker at the top of the screen. It was an inauspicious start to say the least, especially when coupled with the utter blankness in my brain. It was as if I’d never read a pregame piece in my life. The escalating din around me didn’t do much to quell my nerves, as the few writers on the news end of the floor seemed to be typing away with great caffeinated efficiency, but I took a few deep breaths and told myself that they probably weren’t penning Pulitzers. They were just diligently doing their job, covering mundane events—funerals and fires and fairs. Or, in our corner of the sports cube farm, pulled hamstrings. With that in mind, I took another deep breath, then went to Baylor’s official athletic site, clicked on the football tab, and got to work. Just write what you know, I told myself. You were born to do this job.
The day passed quickly, but, by two o’clock, I had yet to eat lunch and had written only four sentences, none of them keepers. The only really productive thing I did, other than fill out a bunch of forms for human resources, was schedule a phone interview with the Baylor sports information director for that evening. I had also brainstormed a few basic questions to ask him, which was pretty easy to do given the number of times I had heard J.J. on the receiving end of such interviews. Meanwhile, I eavesdropped on Smiley lecturing Gordon for overusing adverbs and, apparently an even greater transgression, synonyms for said.