“I behaved badly. You can have your job back.”

Susan let that sink in. She took a drag off her cigarette. Examined it. Flicked some ashes into the trash can. There was something hinky going on. She had been driving Ian crazy for almost a year. She was always late to meetings, was hardly ever at the office, tried to expense everything, insisted on her own story ideas, and had twice broken the third-floor candy machine trying to get M&Ms out by reaching up through the flap. But she’d managed to land incredible stories—to be right in the middle of them—so she’d always figured her job was safe, despite his occasional threats. Also, there was the fact that she had slept with him, and he knew that if she ever told (which she wouldn’t) he would be ruined. It had been during her older-married-men-with-authority phase. Thinking of it now gave her the willies.

“Did you hear me?” Ian said. “I’m offering you your job back.”

“Why?” Susan asked.

“We need you,” Ian said.

“No, you don’t,” Susan said. She took a drag of her cigarette. “I mean, you do. But you don’t know that.”

“Don’t be difficult,” Ian said with a little of the old edge back in his voice. “You think you’re going to find another job out there?” He paused. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m in a jam here. Just come back. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Okay,” Susan said.

“Okay? Really? You’ll take your job back?”

“Sure,” Susan said. “You bet.”

“That’s great,” Ian said, with a relieved sounding sigh. “Thanks, babe.”

“Oh, Ian?”

“Yeah?”

Susan smiled and stretched the moment as long as she could, grinding the cigarette out on the brick wall. There was no way she was giving him this story. She didn’t work for the Herald. She was a freelancer. She said, “I quit.” She waited for the gasp on the other end of the phone before she hung up and tossed the butt in the trash.

She wasn’t done.

She got another cigarette out of her purse and lit it. She hadn’t had two cigarettes in a row since grad school. The second one made her feel light-headed and warm. She had no regrets. She just had to get another job with insurance before she got lung cancer.

An orange peel went by, swept along by the gutter rapids.

Susan called Derek.

“Hey, there,” he said.

She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. “Did you call Leo Reynolds and tell him I got fired?”

Derek was in his car. Susan could hear NPR in the background. He turned it down and the host’s voice dropped to a low burble. But he didn’t answer the question. He didn’t have to.

“I’m going to kill you,” Susan said.