extent of my understanding.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. We’ll have time together this weekend. Besides, you looked so cute all tuckered out on the couch, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
I smile up at him. I don’t have the heart to ruin this moment with my agita over the Rebecca West exposé.
He smiles back. “I gotta hop in the shower.”
Peter has already made the coffee, so I pour myself a cup and sit down at our small kitchen table. I want to fully wake up for once before I make the commute to the couch. There’s a binder taking up most of our tiny Ikea table, and before I move it I open it to see what’s inside.
I realize immediately that it’s a PowerPoint presentation from Peter’s work and my eyes glaze over as they see foreign jargon like “Significant synergies create value” and terminology like “double-digit IRRs.” I’m about to shove it away and get to my laptop when my eyes focus in on the name Tyson Collins—a.k.a. the big boss man, owner of the media conglomerate that owns Chick Habit.
Peter’s singing an off-key rendition of “Gigantic” by the Pixies in the shower. He generally starts vocalizing halfway through, so I know he’s got a few more minutes in there. I read the report as quickly as I possibly can, stumbling over the business-speak and trying to make sense of the numerous graphs and earnings projections. Maybe the inclusion of Collins’s name is innocuous; maybe he’s just an investor in Omnitown or he’s on the corporate board.
But then I reach a slide called “Strategic Rationale: acquisition creates substantial value for shareholders” that I can understand. It’s about how Omnitown can purchase Collins Media’s stable of websites, and its implications make me want to yack up that coffee: “A combination is expected to generate annualized adjusted EBITDA benefits of at least 33 percent, primarily through a targeted 10–20 percent reduction in headcount.”
I feel my stomach plummet. If the sale of Collins Media goes through, our staff is going to be reduced by as much as 20 percent. Moira’s recent page view pressure now makes a whole lot more sense: If I don’t get my traffic stats up as quickly as possible, my head will be the first one on the chopping block.
I hear the water go off in the bathroom and quickly shut the binder before I get to the end of the report. I know I shouldn’t have even started reading the thing—it’s proprietary information—but still, how could Peter be working on this deal? He knows that if it goes through I might lose my job. Does he think his work is somehow more important than mine is, just because he makes more money? How can he be singing in the shower right now when he knows that this is happening? Suddenly I feel a whole lot less guilty about being an absent girlfriend this week.
I chug the rest of my coffee and hustle over to power up my laptop. I don’t want Moira to be pissed at me for being late again, especially now that my employment status is even more precarious than I thought it was. Luckily, when I get online Moira’s not even there yet. I start looking through my RSS feed for something to post on.
I’m scrolling through last night’s stories when Peter emerges with a towel wrapped around his slim waist. I can’t even look at him directly, even though out of the corner of my eye I can see him smiling. Fuck him for looking so cheerful right now!
Moira comes online as I hear the sound of drawers closing and opening and then the distinct scrape of Peter’s wing-tip shoes against our hardwood floors. He comes back into the living room before she IMs me.
“What’s on your mind?” Peter asks, straightening his tie with one hand while he holds the incriminating report in the other.
“Nothing’s on my mind.” I stand to hug him. I don’t want him to know anything is amiss just yet—if I don’t show him some affection before he leaves he’ll know something’s off. “Just
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. We’ll have time together this weekend. Besides, you looked so cute all tuckered out on the couch, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
I smile up at him. I don’t have the heart to ruin this moment with my agita over the Rebecca West exposé.
He smiles back. “I gotta hop in the shower.”
Peter has already made the coffee, so I pour myself a cup and sit down at our small kitchen table. I want to fully wake up for once before I make the commute to the couch. There’s a binder taking up most of our tiny Ikea table, and before I move it I open it to see what’s inside.
I realize immediately that it’s a PowerPoint presentation from Peter’s work and my eyes glaze over as they see foreign jargon like “Significant synergies create value” and terminology like “double-digit IRRs.” I’m about to shove it away and get to my laptop when my eyes focus in on the name Tyson Collins—a.k.a. the big boss man, owner of the media conglomerate that owns Chick Habit.
Peter’s singing an off-key rendition of “Gigantic” by the Pixies in the shower. He generally starts vocalizing halfway through, so I know he’s got a few more minutes in there. I read the report as quickly as I possibly can, stumbling over the business-speak and trying to make sense of the numerous graphs and earnings projections. Maybe the inclusion of Collins’s name is innocuous; maybe he’s just an investor in Omnitown or he’s on the corporate board.
But then I reach a slide called “Strategic Rationale: acquisition creates substantial value for shareholders” that I can understand. It’s about how Omnitown can purchase Collins Media’s stable of websites, and its implications make me want to yack up that coffee: “A combination is expected to generate annualized adjusted EBITDA benefits of at least 33 percent, primarily through a targeted 10–20 percent reduction in headcount.”
I feel my stomach plummet. If the sale of Collins Media goes through, our staff is going to be reduced by as much as 20 percent. Moira’s recent page view pressure now makes a whole lot more sense: If I don’t get my traffic stats up as quickly as possible, my head will be the first one on the chopping block.
I hear the water go off in the bathroom and quickly shut the binder before I get to the end of the report. I know I shouldn’t have even started reading the thing—it’s proprietary information—but still, how could Peter be working on this deal? He knows that if it goes through I might lose my job. Does he think his work is somehow more important than mine is, just because he makes more money? How can he be singing in the shower right now when he knows that this is happening? Suddenly I feel a whole lot less guilty about being an absent girlfriend this week.
I chug the rest of my coffee and hustle over to power up my laptop. I don’t want Moira to be pissed at me for being late again, especially now that my employment status is even more precarious than I thought it was. Luckily, when I get online Moira’s not even there yet. I start looking through my RSS feed for something to post on.
I’m scrolling through last night’s stories when Peter emerges with a towel wrapped around his slim waist. I can’t even look at him directly, even though out of the corner of my eye I can see him smiling. Fuck him for looking so cheerful right now!
Moira comes online as I hear the sound of drawers closing and opening and then the distinct scrape of Peter’s wing-tip shoes against our hardwood floors. He comes back into the living room before she IMs me.
“What’s on your mind?” Peter asks, straightening his tie with one hand while he holds the incriminating report in the other.
“Nothing’s on my mind.” I stand to hug him. I don’t want him to know anything is amiss just yet—if I don’t show him some affection before he leaves he’ll know something’s off. “Just
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