A Second Bite at the Apple (20 page)

“Oh,” he says. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. He wasn't.”

Jeremy pokes at the crackling pancetta with his wooden spoon. “I just meant . . . that must have been hard.”

“It was.”

He scratches his temple with his free hand. “I guess you guys don't talk, then?”

“Not since . . .” I clear my throat. “I haven't seen him since the night I found out about everything.”

“Ah,” he says.

I take a deep breath, and my lungs fill with the rich, smoky smell of frying bacon, and in a flash, the intense aroma transports me back to that horrible night: Zach's kitchen, his laptop, Georgina's e-mail, that photo. I tell myself what I'm smelling is here, now, in Jeremy's kitchen, but the memory of that evening is so entangled in this same smell, these same sounds, that I cannot bring myself out of that horrible memory. All I see are Georgina's huge, perfectly round breasts and the panicked look on Zach's face as he realized I'd discovered his secret. I try to push those images from my brain, but I can't, and the more I try, the more vivid they become—Georgina's boobs, Zach's face, his mother's glistening stove, her cold porcelain toilet. I want to separate that moment from this one, but as the snap, crackle, and pop of the frying pancetta intensifies, my breath shortens, and the walls of Jeremy's apartment seem to close in on me.

“I'm sorry,” I say, clutching my chest. “I have to—”

But I can't finish the sentence, not unless I want to have a full-fledged panic attack in the middle of Jeremy's kitchen, so instead I rush out of the kitchen to the bathroom and slam the door behind me.

“Sydney? Are you okay?”

Jeremy's muffled voice emanates from behind the closed bathroom door as I sit on the toilet with my head between my knees. “Fine,” I say, my eyes closed. “I'll be out in a minute.”

“Do you need me to get you some water?”

“Maybe in a second.” I take a few deep breaths. “I'll meet you back in the kitchen. I just need a minute. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure.” He hesitates. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

Jeremy's footsteps grow softer as he heads toward the kitchen, and I take a few more deep breaths before standing up and flicking on the tap to splash some cool water on my face. I catch a glimpse of my ashen complexion in the mirror, my freckles sitting in sharp contrast to my wan skin, like the inside of a dragon fruit.

“You're being ridiculous,” I whisper to my reflection. I stare at my face, my jaw tense. “And now you're talking to yourself. Like an asshole. Way to go, Sydney.”

I open Jeremy's medicine cabinet, hoping to find a lifeline in the form of Valium or Xanax, but all I find are shaving cream and aftershave and a bunch of razor cartridges. I begin rifling through his bathroom drawers, quickly searching through one after the next. To be honest, I'm not really sure what my plan is, exactly. To take someone else's antianxiety medication? Assuming he even has any? The fact that I see this as a viable plan only confirms that I should be taking some psychotropic drugs of my own.

As I yank open the top right drawer, I manage to pull the drawer off its track, and the contents crash to the floor.

“Everything okay in there?” Jeremy yells from the kitchen, his voice getting closer.

“Everything's fine!”

“You sure?”

“Yep! Be out in just a sec.”

I squat down and begin shoving everything back into the drawer, but somehow a container of talcum powder managed to explode in the crash, and so now everything is covered in mounds of baby powder—his deodorant, his nail clippers, his hair gel, everything. I, too, am covered in it, my indigo jeans now stained with streaks of white.

I grab a hand towel and dust off my pants and the contents of his drawer before scooping up the mountain of talcum powder on the floor. Unfortunately, the towel is a bit damp, and so the dark gray fibers are now coated in a pasty white glue that smells like diapers. At this point, I might as well smash the mirror and clog the toilet because I am on the road to destroying everything else in this bathroom.

Once I've swept up the floor and thoroughly wrecked his towel, I decide to hide the evidence by dumping it in his laundry hamper. This, admittedly, is a lame plan, considering the bathroom now reeks of baby powder and the towel looks as if it's been dredged in flour. But given my emotional state, I have neither the energy nor the inclination to explain why I was snooping through his drawers, so I'd rather hide the soiled towel beneath his dirty underwear.

Jeremy's bathroom opens both to the hallway and to his bedroom, so I slip into his bedroom, dumping the gummy, powdery towel in his wicker hamper. As I close the lid, my eyes land on his laptop, which sits atop his dresser next to a tall stack of papers. I creep over to the dresser and glance at the top piece of paper, which bears the Green Grocers logo, along with the heading F
ARMERS AT
M
ARKET
.

“You still okay in there?” Jeremy calls from the kitchen.

I scurry back toward the bathroom and project my voice from behind the other bathroom door. “Yep! Just washing up!”

I hurry back to his dresser and lift the top piece of paper to find another document related to the farmers' market partnership. I lift that document, and then another, and another, and another, until I reach a series of e-mails between Bob Young and someone named Louis Frieback at Everly Foods.

Holy crap. I just hit the freaking jackpot.

It isn't stealing if you leave something where you found it. That is a fact.

What is less clear is whether taking a photo of something with your phone—several photos, actually, one more detailed than the next—constitutes stealing in some indirect way. But I'm too excited about this story's potential to care. I have the e-mails. I have names and dates and wheres and whens. I have a story.

The next morning, as soon as Jeremy leaves for work, I head back to my apartment and call Stu Abbott en route.

“I saw the e-mails,” I blurt out as soon as he picks up the phone.

“What e-mails?”

“The ones between Bob Young and his supplier. Some guy named Louis Frieback? He works for Everly Foods. Anyway, there was definitely horsemeat in Green Grocers' beef bourguignon, lasagna, and chili con carne, and Bob Young definitely knew about it.”

I hear Stu press his phone against his chest and tell someone he can't talk right now. “You have a copy of these e-mails?”

“Yeah. Sort of. I have photos of them on my phone.”

“What do you mean, photos? You don't have the actual e-mails?”

“My source . . . didn't feel comfortable making copies of the documents, so I took photos of them with my phone. But you can see everything clearly. It's all right there.”

In truth, I waited until Jeremy had fallen asleep to sneak out of bed and capture the images on my phone, not wanting to ruin the evening any more than I already had. As it was, Jeremy ended up serving me plain, buttered spaghetti because he feared setting off another panic attack with a plate of carbonara. He was correct in assuming I didn't have much of an appetite, but that had more to do with my excitement over the incriminating e-mails I'd discovered and less to do with Zach and Georgina. But given that I'd ruined his plans for a romantic evening and managed to cover his entire bathroom in baby powder, I didn't think bringing up Bob Young's cover-up, currently his least favorite topic, was a wise choice.

“Can you send me a copy of the photos, then?”

“Sure.”

“Once I see what we're working with, I'll circle back with you, and we can come up with a game plan.” He goes silent for a moment. “If these e-mails are as damning as you say, we have a huge story on our hands.”

“They are,” I say. “We do.”

“I'll probably have to get legal involved at some point.”

My throat tightens. “Legal?”

“Any time we do this kind of story, we bring them on board.”

“Oh. Sure. Of course.”

“Don't worry—it shouldn't be a problem. It's not like you hacked this guy's e-mail account and stole his e-mails, right?”

I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other as I wait for the light to change at the corner of New Hampshire and S.

“Right,” I say.

“Good,” he says. “Then we're fine.”

But as I hang up the phone and head toward Swann Street, I'm not so sure we are.

 

I barely make it inside my apartment before Stu calls me back.

“Sydney—these e-mails. Oh my God.” He hums excitedly into the phone. “You'll be able to write your own ticket after this one. Christ.”

“So I have a story?”

“You have more than a story. You have a bombshell.”

We come up with a list of people to contact, including Louis Frieback and Katherine Reed, Louis's assistant who was copied on the first e-mail. Bob Young is last on our list. We don't want to go to him for a comment until the story is airtight, and we don't want to give the company extra time to cover up anything else. Because when this story comes out? It's going to be a total shit storm.

Jeremy, meanwhile, has no idea what I've been up to, which is making me increasingly uncomfortable. Then again, a lot of things about Jeremy make me uncomfortable. Number one: his career history. Number two: how much I like him. Number three: how much he seems to like me. Number four: his
Star Wars
obsession. So, really, what's a scandalous e-mail exchange in the context of all that?

Friday morning, as I continue my research into Everly Foods and their supply chain, Jeremy calls me during his lunch break.

“I owe you another apology,” he says.

“You owe
me
an apology?” Something tells me he has this backward.

“For Wednesday. The carbonara. I still feel bad about that.”

“I've told you a zillion times—it wasn't a big deal.”

“You spent twenty minutes in the bathroom. I kind of think it was.”

“I told you, that wasn't because of the carbonara.”

It was because I went on a psycho rampage in search of Valium, smothered your bathroom in talcum powder, and found a stack of career-making e-mails in your bedroom. Duh.

“Well, anyway, I wanted to treat you to my famous roast chicken tonight.” He pauses. “Unless you have issues with roast chicken too?”

“I have no issues with roast chicken.”

“Excellent. I'll see you at six, then.”

I'm about to hang up when Jeremy jumps in with one more thing. “Oh, and I have some exciting news,” he says. “There's been . . . a development. I think you'll be interested.”

My ears perk up. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I'll explain when I see you.”

I stare at my computer screen, which has five open windows relating to Bob Young and Everly Foods and Louis Frieback, and as I drag my index finger along the keyboard, I say, “I can't wait.”

 

When I show up at Jeremy's apartment, the entire place already smells of caramelizing onions and earthy thyme, the rhythmic jazz emanating through his speakers punctuated by the hiss of chicken skin rendering its fat as it crisps.

“Should I get the smelling salts?” Jeremy asks as I toss my bag on one of his chairs.

“Enough with the jokes about Wednesday. I'm fine.”

“Sorry. I promise not to mention it again. I promise not to bring up that guy either. Zeke?”

“Zach.”

“Right. That's the last time I'll mention his name.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

He shrugs. “I'll do my best.”

I make my way into the kitchen and peek into the oven, where the chicken sits on a bed of onions and carrots, the skin puffing up and sputtering as it turns a deep golden brown. Roast chicken was one of my favorite meals growing up and a dish my mom often made on Sunday night, along with her famous crispy roasted potatoes. Libby liked her roast chicken flavored with lots of lemon and a little garlic, but I preferred mine with lots of garlic, no lemon, and a bit of paprika under the skin. In an unusual meeting of the minds, that's how my mom preferred it too, so that's how she made it most often. I loved that Sunday night dinner. I loved how it made me feel closer to her for once.

“Looks great,” I say as I flick off the oven light. “What else is on the menu?”

“Roasted carrots and mashed potatoes. Oh, and . . .” He lifts up a brown glass bottle with fanfare. “My Munich Helles.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It's a German-style lager. Tastes really good with roast chicken.” He pops off the top with a bottle opener and takes a swig. “It might even be an
award-winning
lager, if things go my way.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“
Ohhh
yeah.” He places the beer on the counter and rubs his hands together excitedly. “That's the big news I wanted to share with you: I submitted my Helles and my oatmeal stout to this year's National Homebrew Competition, and both made it past the first round.”

“Wow—congrats.” I try to mask the disappointment in my voice. I'd really hoped his news had something to do with Bob Young or Green Grocers. “What do you get if you win?”

“Eternal fame and fortune.” He smirks. “I think they give you a medal or a ribbon or something. Maybe some free beer.”

“On top of eternal fame and fortune? Not too shabby.” I grab a bottle of the Helles lager off his counter. “So when do you find out if you won?”

“Not until June. It's part of the National Homebrewers Conference.”

“You guys have conferences? Wow. That's . . .”

“Nerdy?”

“Very.”

“I know. But I love it. I go every year. It's so much fun.”

He starts to tell me more about the conference, which is in Philadelphia this year, and the seven other members of his brew club and how they all go together. His enthusiasm is infectious, and I suddenly find myself caring more about fermentation and mashing and bottle conditioning—terms I'd either never heard or rarely considered before tonight—than I ever have before. The impassioned sound of his voice, punctuated by his enthusiastic hand movements and animated facial expressions, draws me into his world of barley and yeast and hops, until nothing seems more important or exciting than the process of turning malted barley and water into a bottle of Munich Helles.

“Have you ever considered turning brewing into more than a hobby?” I ask.

“You mean like going into business?”

“Sure. Starting a microbrewery. Something like that.”

“I've toyed with the idea. Part of me thinks it would be the perfect job. But I like my current job, and it's definitely more stable than starting a business.”

My stomach curdles. “But if your job ever became less stable . . .”

“Why would my job become less stable?”

“No, I didn't mean—you mentioned work has been stressing you out, that's all. Like you weren't totally happy there.”

“Nah, I'm happy. It isn't perfect, but it's a good job.”

“But your boss basically told you to hush up a scandal.”

He takes another swig of beer. “He didn't tell me to hush it up. He told me not to make a huge stink about it.”

“But . . . don't you think that's wrong?”

He hunches his shoulders. “Yeah? But after everything I've been through, keeping a low profile isn't the worst thing. I'm not ready to be a hero. I'd rather be anonymous for a while.”

“There's nothing wrong with being a hero.”

“True. But I'd rather be a hero for something that matters right now. Like this farmers' market partnership? That's going to be huge for a lot of these farmers and artisans.”

“So it doesn't bother you that the new CEO of a company you represent is a total hypocrite?”

“He made a mistake in his past. I know what that's like.”

“Yeah, but your mistake didn't have an impact on thousands of people. Don't you think his customers have a right to know the truth?”

Jeremy sighs. “Of course I do. But I'm not ready to be in the spotlight again. And I'm not prepared to upend a deal that could benefit a bunch of hardworking people. Like your boss Rick—how do you think he'd feel if we pulled the rug out from under him? All of these vendors have been working under the assumption that this partnership is going forward. They've made investments. Financial projections. I don't want to be the guy who blows all of that up.”

I fiddle with the label on my beer bottle. “Why would telling the truth blow all of that up?”

“Because that's what always happens. This whole partnership was Bob Young's brainchild. But when a scandal becomes public, that's all anyone cares about. You worked in news. You know how it goes. So this scandal comes out, and Bob apologizes and then steps aside, and some new bozo takes his place and claims things will be different on his or her watch, and then any program or initiative Bob touched will be like fucking anthrax, and no one will want anything to do with it. At least not for a very long time.”

My chest tightens as Jeremy's words ring in my ears, their veracity undeniable. He's right: When this story comes out, that's all anyone will want to talk about. No one will care about the plans Bob Young has for the company and the people those plans might benefit. No one will care about Rick or Maggie or the impact on their businesses. But I've let someone talk me out of doing a major story before, and I've lived with that guilt for more than six years. I can't let it happen again. Which means no matter how much I agree with what Jeremy is saying, no matter how right he is, I can't change course. I've started down the road to delivering this story, and now, for better or worse, there's no turning back.