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Chip?
    “And he starts Monday.”
    I slumped, helpless against the onslaught.
    “He has an MBA and a journalism degree from Columbia.”
    Wow. That was pretty good. I mean, nothing compared with three years at Fairleigh Dickinson and a frickin’ lifetime spent pouring out blood sweat and tears at this very studio , but, hey. Pretty good. Had this supposedly fabulous Chip person ever been to New Jersey in his life? Had he interviewed Bon Jovi at the opening of the Prudential Center? Did someone with a name like Chip even know who Bon Jovi was?
    “They’re grooming him to run the whole station in a few years. I wish I could afford to keep you, Becky—but with your seniority …”
    My insides felt hollowed out. I looked at Oscar in shock. He looked back at me, pitiful little undereducated me, with my stupid T-shirt and my stupid hopes and my stupid decade of living for this damn place. I couldn’t stand being seen that way. I plunged my face into my hands.
    “Shit,” I mumbled against my palms. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”
    “Oh, Becky,” Oscar said. “I’m so sorry. I fought them as hard as I could.” He came back around his desk and put his hand on my arm. He probably meant it to be comforting, but it plopped there like a cold, dead fish.
    “The only thing that makes this okay for me,” he said, “is that I know you’ll land on your feet.”
    Well, glad it’s okay for you , I almost snapped, but for me it’s a real bitch. But that would hardly have been professional. Hardly have been worthy of someone who was supposed to “land on her feet.”
    Ha! In this economy. With an education that apparently wasn’t even good enough to guarantee security at a job I’ve had since before I was legal.
    “Me?” I managed to reply. “Of course. Yeah, definitely.” Let me just go polish up my resume. I mean, make a resume. I mean, learn how to make a resume.
    Shit .

 3 
    I stumbled into the hall, half blind with the tears I’d utterly failed to hold back. Fired. I’d been fired. Or laid off? Or … I didn’t have a job. Either way.
    It was dawn in New Jersey, and I didn’t have a job.
    Anna was waiting at my cubicle clad in a T-shirt that said WAY TO GO, BECKY ! Well, at least she had that part right. I had a long, long way to go.
    “What’s going on?” she asked, the smile fading from her face as she got a good look at mine.
    I filled her in on the details and watched her expression go from shock to outrage to bafflement. “What are you going to do?” she asked. The unspoken part of her question hung in the air: What are you going to do if not even this place will have you?
    “I’m going to get a box,” I replied. “And I’m going to empty out my desk. And you’re going to help me.”
    She nodded, somber. “Right.”
    “But first”—I grimaced—“we’re going to change our shirts.”
    After more than ten years at the station, I had a lot of stuff to load in the car, and I made everyone I found wearing one of those stupid WAY TO GO, BECKY ! T-shirts help me pack up. Oscar was giving me six weeks’ pay but had offered, oh-so-generously , to let me not do the six weeks of associated work, to give me time to find a new position.
    A new position, away from Channel 9. The thought was inconceivable. Where would I be without this place? Who would I be? I’d been employed at Channel 9 since before Mom had sold her house and moved to the Sunshine State. I’d been at Good Morning, New Jersey since the year I’d lost my virginity. I’d been a production intern here when other folks my age were folding sweaters at the Gap. They probably wouldn’t even hire me at the Gap because the only, only thing I’d ever known how to do was produce the morning news.
    What in the world was I going to do now?
    I tamped down my panic as Anna approached, then slapped on my bravest smile. She gave me a mock salute. “All packed up, chief.”
    “Great,” I said. I took a deep breath. Here goes