Survival of the Fiercest (2 page)

“What if we don’t get bought?” I ask, knowing the answer. My staff would be jobless. I would have to get another chief editor job, or, God forbid, another magazine editor job. Trying to keep my website alive while running someone else’s would be next to impossible.
Fuck!
I want to scream.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Positive thoughts!” says Tina. “Curve bought Fierce when it was just a blog. Someone is going to buy the amazing webzine it is today. Don’t worry about it.”

I curl into the fetal position on the coach.

“How do you know this is happening?” My voice is small.

“I just hear stuff,” Tina says. I hear faint murmurs as she flirts with another guy.

“Who are you with?”

“Oh, uh, myself.” Tina giggles. I crush my ear to the phone, trying to catch the man’s voice. Back in the day, Tina had written a weekly movie review column for the
New York Times
. During one Curve Xmas office party, after too much weed and tequila, Tina insinuated that she had fucked a young Pacino,
twice
. I had a feeling that whoever Tina was fucking now was a board member.

All I can hear is Tina’s tipsy cackle.

“Okay, T, I’ll let you go. Are you coming to the meeting in San Fran?”

“And cut off my vacation? Hell no. I’ll get an update.”

Yeah, she’s definitely fucking a board member.

Three hours later, my phone goes off on the nightstand next to me, and I am ripped from sleep. I can barely function, having drunk an entire bottle of wine to calm my nerves.

“Can I come over?” Jesus Christ, it’s Pete.

“What…no,” comes out with a yawn. I feel dead.

“I’m sorry. Congratulations about your website. That’s real good,” he says. “I want to take you out next weekend—wherever you want.”

I debate pointing out all the reasons why dinner plans with him are unappealing. But the news about Fierce pushes into my thoughts. “Next weekend?” I ask. “I have a work thing in San Francisco next weekend.”

“Oh, when were you going to tell me?” I hear the pettiness creep back into his tone and decide I am through with this conversation.

“I just found out. Look, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” Hanging up, I roll onto my back and stare into the dark.

Chapter Two

Friday morning in downtown San Francisco, I walk through the glass doors of Curve Media headquarters. The state of the company is evident as I walk down the aisle toward Lou’s office. The normally buzzing cubicles are now half-empty as several website teams have disappeared entirely. TechHeadz.com used to take up the whole back half of the office. Now computer wires trail over the empty desks and the floor. Even their Star Wars posters and life-size Gandalf the Grey are gone. Lou’s assistant is also gone, and her desk is devoid of a computer. Layoffs? Holy shit. When did all this happen?

Although Lou’s office seems intact, he is nowhere to be found. Skirting the small office kitchen, I turn into the conference room area and see Lou, several Curve board members, and a small group of people I don’t recognize in the glass room we call the fishbowl. I stand in the hall and wave to let him know I have arrived. Lou jumps up and opens the glass doors.

“Alexandra! Just the person we need to see,” he says with an unnatural light in his gray eyes. Lou’s hair looks bright white against the crisp navy of his designer suit, and I wonder if he has ever been mistaken for a nice, older businessman. He has quite the reputation for being shrewd and calculating—a real shit.

“Oh? I thought the meeting wasn’t until later,” I say to Lou. “Good morning, everyone.” I smile at the onlookers as Lou ushers me into a chair at the head of the large cherrywood table. Jeanie, an office assistant, automatically sets a coffee in front of me. I catch her eye and mouth
TechHeadz?

Dumped
, she mouths back. My grip on the warm mug tightens, and I inhale a steadying breath. I’m so fucked.

“Mr. Khan, this is Alexandra Martine, the founder and chief editor of thefiercest.com,” Lou starts. “With five million unique visitors and a spot on
Forbes’s
list of top 100 websites for women, the site is poised to be the most profitable of our portfolio this year.”

I nod and beam at Mr. Khan, a very severe-looking fiftysomething man in a black suit and obviously dyed black hair.

“Lex, this is Reginald Khan, the president of Viper Media, and his board members.” Oh shit, Viper Media. They own a slew of gossip websites, including Highflash, Flossbulb, and Heypretty.

“Miss Martin—” Khan says with an accent I can’t place.

“
Mar-teen
. It’s French.”

Khan frowns, clearly not big on being corrected. “So sorry, Miss Martine,” he says with a dismissive wave. “What do you think makes your website different from all the other women’s websites out there?”

“We are an authentic voice for the twenty-five-to-forty-five-year-old multicultural woman, Mr. Khan. Our demographic runs around forty percent African American, thirty percent Latina, twenty percent Asian, and ten percent Caucasian women. We don’t endorse anything we haven’t tried ourselves, and we tell it like it is. Our readers are provided with short- and long-form pieces about news, beauty, sex, relationships, wellness, fashion, and nightlife. We are a big sister, 24-7.” My monologue is freshly pulled from my ass, but it gets a nod from Khan.

“Are you familiar with our company, Miss Martine?”

I rattle off a few of their websites, which gets another nod from Khan.

“We have made an offer to your board for your website, which we feel is very impressive and carries a readership we have yet to break into.”

I gulp down coffee.

“We do, however, think that some content needs to be added to get the full attention of your readers. Enhance the big-sister talk, so to speak,” says Khan.

“Meaning what, exactly?” I ask.

Lou shifts in his chair. “How would you feel about adding some celebrity gossip to your site?”

No. Hell no
. “You mean dedicate a whole page?”

“No, just sprinkle it in your news page.” Khan smiles, which makes him look like Dracula.

“I’m not sure if our readers will go for that.” I glance at Lou, who has that weird light in his eyes again.

“Well, let’s try,” says Khan. “We are proposing a trial period of four weeks in which your website will run some more gossip-related content, and we monitor how well it’s received. Our ad sales and integrated marketing teams are confident that they can increase your traffic and your page views. The offer for your site will be based on your success.”

“That sounds very fair, Mr. Khan,” Lou says, his fake smile making him look like a clown.

Suddenly I’m curious what Lou’s stake is in this deal. I turn to Khan. “What type of gossip are we talking about here?”

“Highflash.com just revealed that Jay Norfolk was caught propositioning a male masseuse.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He means malicious gossip, rumors that can wreck people’s lives.

“Are you talking about the Emmy-winning actor who has a wife and three kids?” My eyes narrow when Khan nods. “Are the rumors true?” I snap.

“Who knows?” Khan shrugs. “Does it matter? The site received eight million hits in
three hours
.”

Damn, that’s a lot. I’m about to protest again when Lou jumps in. “There is no harm in trying. Is there, Lex?”

“No,” I say into my coffee, wanting Lou dead.

“Mr. Khan has a great idea. There is a new club opening tonight downtown. Viper’s PR has confirmed that a lot of celebrities will be making appearances.”

“Specifically, Jared Waters,” Khan cuts in. “Running back for the 49ers. His best friend owns the club. It seems he may be cheating on his wife with a porn star.”

“What porn star?”

“Josie Pink. They’ve been seen together around town.”

“No way. She’s with the rapper Big Skinny. She was in his last video.” I know this because when Pete isn’t working or drinking, he is watching videos on rachethiphop.com.

Khan smiles, showing bleached teeth. “It sounds like there is a story here.”

This is a story? I clamp down on the need to roll my eyes.

Lou leans in. “We think you should go to the club tonight.”

The “
we think
” sets me on fire, as if I wasn’t already stewing because this idea was clearly discussed without me. I turn to Khan. “Do you mind if I speak with Lou privately for a moment?”

“Not at all,” Khan says.

With a plastic smile, I stand and gesture for Lou to follow me outside the fishbowl. Now in the hallway, we move farther away from the glass. When I stop and turn, Lou is right behind me, using his kerchief to dab sweat from his brow.

“What is this…this ambush?” I hiss.

“This is a potential buyer, which you are lucky to have. The only other offer we have had so far was for Mommytalk.”

“Fierce is not a gossip site, Lou.”

His gray eyes turn steely. “Well, if it doesn’t want to end up like TechHeadz, maybe it should be. We are bankrupt, Lex, and everything must go in six weeks. That’s when we have to shut down the servers. Anything that is not bought by that time goes dark.”

My breath catches. Having no server is the true death for websites.

“You can do this, Lex. You are a trained journalist. That idiot at TechHeadz just sat around and played with a light saber. I have faith you can make this work.”

I slide my gaze to his. “What’s in it for you?”

Lou’s shoulders go back in defense. “My job is to facilitate the buys and get as much money for our sites as we can to pay off some of our debt, which is extensive.” He didn’t answer my question, but I have a feeling a board seat or maybe a percentage of the deals is in the works for him.

My staff, my amazing staff, pushes into my thoughts. I have a duty to them to keep us going.
Fuck!
“Okay, let’s go back in.” I nod.

“What are you going to say?” Lou shouts. He is on my heels, almost bumping into me as I stop in the glass doorway of the fishbowl.

“All right, Mr. Khan. You have a deal. We’ll reconvene in a week.”

Chapter Three

After the meeting, I am on my laptop finishing up an article for Fierce in my suite at the W Hotel. No way was I going to stay at Curve in those depressing cubicles, especially since Lou was still there.
Asshole.

Stepping to the window, I twist my curly hair into a ponytail and look out over the sunny afternoon of San Francisco. Deep breath, slow release. I’m hyperaware that in a few weeks, I could lose everything I have ever worked for. I imagine selling my apartment and moving to Vermont, like in the movie
Baby Boom
, sans baby.

Punching the keys on my computer, I pull up thefiercest.com and check the content feed. The recent piece we ran about interracial dating is getting good reviews. I click our news site and scroll through, trying to envision gossip posts. I can’t.
I can’t put gossip in here
. Gossip tears people down. It can ruin people’s lives.

My head fills with all the slurs and slanders I’d endured growing up as a mixed kid. In high school, Tony Giuseppe started a rumor that my black father was in jail and my white mother gave me up, all because I wouldn’t let him go up my shirt after the sophomore dance. He was such a
dick.

The truth is my parents died in a car accident when I was eight. And they loved each other, despite the shit they got for being an interracial couple. My father’s mother raised me and peacefully passed away when I was thirty. Maybe that’s why I had gotten married then, to ease the loneliness, but now the marriage is gone too.

I shake myself. Fierce is a forum for change, for positive reinforcement, not mean-girl rhetoric. But I can’t lose it either. It’s all I have left.

A muffled ring fills the room. Skirting my still-packed bags, I fall onto the king-size bed and grab my phone.

“’Sup, Tina?” After the meeting, I called Tina, but of course she already knew what happened. Now I find myself listening numbly as she fills me in on the club.

“I spoke to Viper’s PR,” she says. “You are all set for tonight. It’s a two-story hip-hop club and street art gallery called Muse. Several actors, athletes, and musicians will be there. And I hear the owner is well connected.”

“Connected? Mafia?”

“No, former lawyer or something…whatever. Listen. You are on the list at the VIP entrance, and they worked out an exclusive interview with the owner, so call his marketing director when you get there.”

“Yeah. No problem.”

“Dolly, you’re good. I have faith, but there is one thing I’m concerned about.”

I frown. I can’t handle another surprise. “What?” I ask cautiously.

“What are you going to wear?”

I sit up like a shot. “Did you just ask me that? My clothes are what you are concerned about? This isn’t a date, Tina. It’s work.”

“You need to look sexy. Rumor has it the owner likes model types.”

I sigh. “As opposed to the other club owners who just like us regular girls? Shocking.”

“You know what I mean. You need celebrity attention. If you go there in your hipster flats—”

“Uh, excuse me, they are Chanel.”

“—and your tangerine work dress that you wear with that black suit jacket.”

My jaw drops, and I stare at my unpacked bag. I love that dress.

“You won’t keep anyone’s attention. You’re beautiful Lex, with a rack like Christina Hendricks and a booty like Serena. Show some cleavage, for Christ’s sake.”

“Should you be saying ‘Christ’s sake’? You’re Jewish. And stop exaggerating. I’m not twenty-two anymore, but I keep it tight. I mean…I try.”

I wander over to the mirrored wall of the dressing area. My white V-neck T-shirt shows just enough décolletage to be edgy, and my butt is squeezed into a pair of dark-wash skinny jeans accented by a thin black racing stripe down the side. The strappy heels I’m wearing tie it all together. She’s crazy. I look good.

“I can dress myself, Tina.” I purse my lips, slap a hand on my bump, and give my reflection a few booty pops. My ponytail bounces along before I stop and roll my eyes at my reflection. I’m too old for this shit.