For someone who walked through the newsroom repeating, “clickbait, clickbait,” like a mating call, Eileen was surprisingly squeamish when it came to actual controversy. Robin was probably the only person here who knew that about her. She’d been working for her since the launch of the site ten years earlier, and before that, they’d gone to Columbia Journalism School together, the two of them roughly the same age, the oldest Daily Culture staffers by far, though that too was something only Robin knew. Eileen Rand was assiduously, emphatically ageless.

Robin tried, “How about we run the column as is, and I stay off social media for twenty-four hours or ten minutes or however long it takes everybody to be outraged at something else?”

“It’s feminist propaganda.”

“It’s a movie column.”

“Not in my opinion, of course. I’m just trying to imagine what the trolls might say.”

“We’re pandering to trolls now?”

“No,” she said. “No, of course not. Let me think here . . .”

Robin brought the mug to her lips. She swallowed the coffee too quickly, searing her tongue.

“Maybe we could just soften the lede a little,” Eileen said. “Talk about what a classic the original Magnificent Seven was before launching right in.”

“Fine.”

“Then there’s that late reveal, where you announce that you’ve opted to be . . . you know . . .”

“What?”

“Child-free.” She actually said it in a whisper.

Robin rolled her eyes. “Take it out,” she said. “Whatever.” She might have cared enough to put up a fight an hour ago, or at least to call out Eileen for treating the phrase “child-free” as though it were some type of slur. But now she just wanted to get out of this meeting.

“Okay, you win,” Eileen was saying now. “I’m being too nervous Nellie about this. It is a movie column. Not the SCUM Manifesto.”

Robin looked at her. “So, no edits? We’re not going to make it into a listicle or a meme?”

Eileen sighed. “I’ve gotta stop worrying so much,” she said. “And you know what else?”

“What?”

“I really hate the song ‘Come on, Eileen.’”

Robin sang the words softly. “At this moment, you mean everything . . .”

“Do that again and you’re fired.”

“You fire me, you’ll be the only one here old enough to remember that song.” Robin took a tentative sip. The coffee was cooler now, but she could hardly taste it. Her tongue was still numb from the burn. She remembered being a kid, her favorite meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup, Mom dropping an ice cube into the soup, So you won’t get hurt. Robin took another sip, that reporter’s voice in her head again. Quentin Garrison. Ask your mother about April Cooper. What was he talking about? Why had he called her?

Eileen tapped at her keyboard. “Your column is officially live.”

“Great.”

“Enthusiasm is not your strong suit today.”

“Eileen?”

“Yeah?”