The Pen Pal Who Turned Out to Be My New Boss novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Ask Us
Dear Whoever Answers,
I lost my father in March and I keep setting out two coffee cups. My family says it is time to stop. I don't know who to ask, because the person I used to ask is gone.
Cups in Everett
That was the first letter to the new address, forty minutes after I emailed a dozen readers who had written to the old one.
At two o'clock on Tuesday I stood at the head of the long table in the big conference room.
Thirty people were looking at me, and I had nowhere to put my hands.
Marguerite sat in the corner by the radiator, in my usual place, in her coat.
She had told me she would not say a word.
"Here is the problem," I said.
"On Saturday the sale goes to a vote."
"The first thing Brightline wants is a column called Lark, which can't be signed by anyone who exists."
I pulled up a slide with one line on it.
"So I want to run a column called Ask Us, answered by two people with their real names. Marguerite Lundin and me."
Nobody spoke.
"I'm twenty-seven," I said. "She is thirty-eight. We will disagree in print."
Someone in the back laughed softly.
"We will tell the readers who we are and what we don't know," I said.
"If a letter is about grief, we say we haven't been through it, and we say who has."
I looked at the web editor, who lost her father two years ago.
"You'll help us name who to send them to," I said.
She went pink and nodded.
Robin put up her hand.
"I'll shoot the portraits," she said. "Two women, one desk, no retouching. We'll run it on the cover."
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