The Goy Next Door (Girl Meets Goy #2)

Chapter 9 A simple mistake

Leah couldn’t believe she was somehow going running again. Her body was still sore, but she dragged it out of bed to meet Brittany for their morning date. With her eyes half closed, she got dressed and tied her shoes before stepping out into the cool morning. She knew she’d need to jog to the park to get to Brittany on time, so she forced her heavy legs forward. To her surprise, after a few paces, she didn’t feel sore anymore. Her legs, though tired, moved forward and she found herself at the park much quicker than she thought.

Brittany waved and jogged over to her. “Good morning!” She said with a smile and pointed Leah down the path. They jogged side-by-side for a few minutes without any words and Leah tried to steady her breath enough to ask about what’s been on her mind.

“How’s…Teen…Club…?” She said through sharp breaths.

“It’s good!” Brittany beamed. “We’re working on a big summer issue that Marnie says is going to revolutionize Teen Club. It’s not going to be some superficial magazine anymore. Not that it’s superficial, but you know, like, it’s going to be more serious with like important teen issues and stuff. But also still have the color and style that our readers are interested in. If I get promoted to junior reporter, I’m hoping to get to work on one of the stories about making real life connections in the age of social media. That’s the kind of stuff that could change people’s lives!”

Leah absorbed what Brittany was saying. Maybe Teen Club wasn’t all just about fashion and makeup. And maybe Brittany was right, that the right type of stories could really influence the way teens grew up. It could make them better people, more capable adults. Maybe what they wrote about really was more important than loans and debt and other money issues.

“What are you working on?” Brittany asked.

“I…wrote…about…a…loan…closing…yesterday,” she forced herself to say.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Brittany responded, but Leah knew her article was as dry as it sounded. There wasn’t anything cool about a loan closing, especially one as straightforward as the topic of her article. The amount of people who might find it remotely interesting was probably less than ten. Much fewer than would be interested in Brittany’s connections topic.

“It’s not,” Leah tried to laugh and sound nonchalant, but with her panting it sounded crass. She pointed to a water fountain in front of them, and Brittany nodded. They both stopped and Leah took a drink. While Brittany drank, she said, “I’m actually thinking of trying to move to Teen Club. You know, I was supposed to work there instead of Club Business.”

Brittany lifted her head. “Really? You don’t seem like someone who would work at Teen Club!”

“Why not? Marnie hired me to be a researcher actually,” Leah started telling Brittany the story about how she arrived on her first day, the day the Club Business researcher had suddenly been fired and how Kelsey from HR convinced her to step in at Club Business until it got settled. Leah hadn’t wanted to make any trouble on her first day, so she agreed, thinking it’d just be for a few days. But that was months ago.

“But you’re like, really smart and serious,” Brittany responded. “Like, in a good way, like I just wouldn’t picture you at Teen Club.”

Leah shrugged and the pair started running again. Leah wondered if she should tell Brittany about her offer to be the junior reporter at Teen Club, but she didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so she kept her mouth shut. It was easier that way anyway, she was too out of breath already.

The girls finished their loop around the park and said goodbye. Brittany headed to the West Side while Leah slowed herself to a quick walk to get back to her apartment to shower and go to work. She couldn’t stop thinking about everything Brittany had said. That Teen Club was trying to become more substantial. But that also Leah seemed too serious, even with Teen Club’s planned transformation. But maybe that was part of Marnie’s plan, Leah thought. Maybe Marnie wanted more serious people like herself to take the magazine forward. During her subway commute downtown, Leah daydreamed about writing hard-hitting teen interest articles. Marnie would be impressed and she’d get emails from readers telling her how she changed their lives.

She was still daydreaming when she walked into the office toward her cubicle. On her way, she saw Malcolm look at her and tsk his tongue quietly. She figured he was commenting about her on time rather than early arrival, so she just smiled at him with a loud “Good morning,” and headed to her desk.

She booted her computer and opened her inbox.

YOU NEED TO CHECK YOUR FACTS was the subject of the first email. Her heart stopped and she looked at the sender. It was from one of the lawyers involved with the loan closing she’d written about the day before.

WHAT KIND OF SHIT REPORTING IS THIS! Was the next subject, from another lawyer.

YOU SHOULD BE FIRED! Another subject read.

Leah wasn’t sure exactly what had gone wrong. The loan was straightforward. She’d gone over the numbers multiple times so she wouldn’t make a mistake. She was always careful with the numbers.

She held her breath and opened the top email.

Dear Ms. Rosenberg,

I saw your article about our deal yesterday. When you write articles you need to check all your facts. This kind of misreporting can be detrimental to companies. It might be the reason loans fall through or it might lead to animosity between the parties if they think something was leaked.

Please feel free to call me in the future about any deals I am working on before you write them. Also, I am waiting for your call today so we can get a correction out as soon as possible.

Leah felt more out of breath at her desk than she had during her run. What had she gotten wrong? What had she done? She went back to the loan documents and cross checked them against her article. Every number was correct.

Just then she saw Tony walk onto the floor. He traipsed slowly to his office, saying hi to everyone he passed. Did he know about her mistake? Could she fix it somehow without him knowing? Would he fire her?

She watched Tony sit down at his computer and wait while it turned on. She could see his eyes reading on the screen as his hand moved his mouse. “ROSENBERG!” he yelled, his eyes still on the screen.

Leah popped up and walked to his office with her head down.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, pulling his eyes from the screen. They bore into her and she felt her face turn red.

“I’m not really sure,” she confessed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know, I guess I was a little out of it yesterday.”

“No excuses or apologies! Figure out what happened and write a correction ASAP! This kind of carelessness isn’t allowed at Club Business! We could get in a lot of trouble for publishing wrong information. It’s your job to fact check everything! You understand?”

Leah nodded and held the tears from falling down her cheeks. When Tony looked back at his computer screen, Leah pivoted back to her desk. Her heart pounded, knowing that she needed to call the lawyers on the deal to apologize and also figure out her mistake so she could write a correction.

She thought about texting Asher to get some moral support, but then she thought again. She didn’t want him making some comment about how she wasn’t cut out for Club Business, she already felt that way. So she texted Maya.

Just totally fucked up at work. Made a mistake that was printed in the newspaper and getting eaten alive for it. Ugh shitty day already .

She pressed send and watched her phone in hopes she’d get a quick response.

Don’t worry about it, newspapers run corrections all the time! By the way, I’ve picked my Jewish event for the month: The Chabad Purim Party. It’s tomorrow. I got four tickets for us .

Leah sighed. Maya’s response hadn’t made her feel better, but she did think a Purim party sounded fun. She’d always loved Purim since she was a little girl and dressed up as Queen Esther every year when her mom took her to the Megillah reading at her temple. When she was older, she would wear different Halloween costumes to the parties hosted by her Jewish youth group, the B’nai Brith Youth Organization. A couple times she and Asher had even dressed up together, one year as Sandy and Danny from Grease and another year as Super Mario and Princess Peach. Leah remembered that year she had wanted them to dress up as Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big from Sex and the City, but Asher insisted no one would understand who they were and he was probably right. There was nothing iconic enough about their outfits that people would recognize them together, so she had agreed to be Princess Peach even though she had no clue who that was.

Leah had a drawer full of costumes in her small New York apartment, probably more than she ever needed, but they had come in handy for themed parties in college. She thought her black leather Sandy outfit was in there somewhere and she wondered if Asher had his black leather jacket with the T-Birds emblem on the back.

She texted Asher about the party, asking if he had his costume ready and then she put her phone away. She needed to get to work.

She held her breath as she called the lawyer who had sent the least mean email to her and he answered right away.

“Hi, this is Leah Rosenberg from Club Business,” she introduced herself.

“Hi Leah, thanks for calling. You really should have called me yesterday. I would have told you that we didn’t end up closing the deal. We tabled the meeting to today. So your article was premature.”

“Can we review the terms quickly so I make sure I have them right?” She asked politely, glad his issue wasn’t with the numbers.

“You had everything right, but things might change in the meeting today, call me back in the afternoon to confirm, OK?”

She promised she would and she hung up the phone. She quickly wrote up a correction stating that the loan, in fact, hadn’t closed and that lawyers were discussing today. Then, she sent the correction off for editing and wondered if maybe she wasn’t as smart or as serious as Birttany has thought. Maybe she was more suited for Teen Club.