“The thing that most sets me apart is that I do all my own reporting,” she offered. “And I’m good at developing sources, winning their trust.”

“Winning the source’s trust?” Bibb repeated. Then tried in a different, more patient tone, “Natalie, you should know that last night our ratings were worse than both CNN and HLN. And the morning show?” Hal shook his head mournfully, and Bibb waved the thought away as if it were secondhand cigar smoke. “The parent company wants the Chief to increase profits ten percent over last year. And he’s counting on us to deliver at least those numbers. The better we do, the happier everyone is. So.”

“So?” Natalie asked, warily.

“The question you need to ask yourself, the question the Chief will be asking, is do you appeal to our key viewers? Do you have what the Demo wants?”

“The Demo?” Natalie hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“The Demo,” Hal repeated reverentially.

“Men ages eighteen to thirty-five.” Bibb said it as if “Men, Ages Eighteen to Thirty-five” was a mantra she whispered to herself during quiet moments and every night before bed.

Natalie became aware that she was grinding her teeth. Of course she knew who made up the Demo. It was the hallowed demographic, so desirable because it was said to be the hardest for advertisers to reach and hold. Earlier in her career she’d asked her first boss, Len, “Why not just focus on the viewers who actually want news instead of chasing after boys who don’t?”

In response he’d shrugged and said, “In news that’s what we call a Zen koan.”

That was eight years ago. Since then, she’d accepted that her career was going to be run on the rules of dysfunctional dating and had stopped being incredulous about anything, even the price of water at the airport.

“Natalie, let’s look at this a different way. How did you get here?” Bibb stood up from her desk and walked across the office toward a mirror in a carved-teak frame and got busy adjusting the starched collar of her blouse. “In life there are two kinds of people,” she began, and from her tone Natalie half expected her to pull out the human anatomy charts she’d seen in her eighth grade health class. “There are those who rise to the top easily because they have an ineffable quality that makes other people want to work with them, even do their work for them. And then there’s the second kind of people.” Bibb paused for effect. “Those who have to make their own way to the top. They have to do more with less, relentlessly keep their eye on the ball, never let up. They have to work harder than the others to get to the same place and that might not be fair but that is how it is. We call the two groups—”