While I Couldn't Breathe, He Was With Her novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Sponsor

The station loses its sponsor to Haskins Group, and Joan's bonus is the price of Kirsten going home.

I slept on a friend's couch and bought a new inhaler at the pharmacy on the way in.

I was at my desk at seven forty when Joan Mabry came around the partition with two coffees.

She put one in front of me and glanced at the glass wall of the manager's office.

"He's been furious since six," she said quietly. "It's the sponsor. Something happened and he won't tell me what."

"I'm fine," Joan said, because I was staring at her. "Go in. I'll hold your coffee."

I went into the office.

The manager did not ask me to sit.

He pushed one sheet across the desk.

"The sponsor withdrew at six this morning. Full withdrawal. They're asking us to end the program."

The letterhead said Haskins Group.

At the bottom was the round embossed seal I had pressed my thumb into at a hundred dinners.

"Kirsten," he said, and I could hear him choosing the words, "whatever is going on between you and Mr. Haskins, settle it privately. This station can't carry your argument."

I put the paper down.

My phone buzzed on the edge of the desk.

Nolan: Come home tonight. We'll talk properly.

I read it once.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

He had known me for five years, and he knew I would never let the show die.

He knew what Joan was carrying.

When I came out, Joan was standing right outside the door, trying to look as if she had not been listening.

She smiled too brightly.

"So? Are we on air Thursday?"

Three episodes were left, all paid by the sponsor, and the bonus at the end was all that stood between Joan and the loan her husband had signed in her name.

It was due on the thirtieth, and the collectors had promised to call her parents next.

I looked at the two coffees in her hands, and at the pocket of her cardigan where she kept the court notice folded very small.

"We're on air Thursday," I said.

"Oh, thank God." She grabbed my arm. "You don't know what that bonus means. I won't forget this, Kirsten."

"There's nothing to forget."

She hugged me with a coffee in each hand, and I felt the hot cardboard through my sweater.

I thought about the house with the code that did not know me.

I thought about the diamond necklace on the counter, and the face Nolan had made in the mirror.

I could have walked out of the station and gone to the airport.

Instead I texted him.

I'll come at six. Bring whatever you're offering.

He answered in under a minute.

Thank you. I'll be waiting.

He did not say sorry.

At five thirty I took my badge from the lanyard and put it in my bag so nobody in the lobby would see it.

Joan caught me at the elevator.

"Kirsten, wait. Whatever it costs you, you tell me, all right? You tell me."

"Go home and sleep," I said. "You look terrible."

"I look wonderful," she said. "I'm about to be rich."

She laughed, and her hand went up to her chest, and she waited a second before she dropped it.

I did not ask.

I should have asked.

The doors closed between us, and I rode down alone to go back to the man who had cut my call.

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