It was a copy of one of the popular technology journals, and on the front, of course, was Daniel.
It wasn't a picture of him that I had ever seen before. He was standing behind a podium, giving some kind of presentation, and they'd managed to catch him at a moment when he looked remarkably like a dictator. The headline said:
DANIEL IN THE LION'S DEN
And underneath was the tagline:
Billionaire in danger of losing it all?
Despite my better judgment, I flipped to the article and began reading.
Like many before him, billionaire tech mogul Daniel Thorne is being weighed, measured, and may be found wanting. Accusations of insider trading have brought the formerly private mogul into the limelight, and it's not very flattering…
So, more of the usual. Rolling my eyes, I skipped a few pages.
…the source, who insisted on remaining anonymous, says that she dated Thorne for several years before he became such a runaway success. But even then, she claims he was arrogant and self-righteous - and that he often hinted at beliefs that rules didn't apply to him the same way the did to other people.
Hurriedly, I crumpled up the magazine and shoved it into the little garbage compactor under the sink, burying it under some coffee grounds. I had no idea when it started coming, but he certainly didn't need to see that and find out that his utterly insane ex-girlfriend Flo, who'd once tried to ruin our lives, was out there talking about him.
I'd caught a few of the headlines that had been coming out since this whole mess exploded. I tried to avoid them as much as I could, for my sanity's sake, but I'd caught Daniel looking at a few of them online - stuff like THORNE IN DISGRACE from the tabloid rags, while the serious business outlets ran multi-page stories dissecting every aspect of his life history that they knew. But this was something different. This was so…personal. I had a horrible, crawling sensation on the back of my neck.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the door buzz.
I advanced towards it cautiously, finally reaching the peephole and peering out. There was a young woman standing in the hallway. I hardly recognized her at first, until I realized that it was the same girl from his last interview - but with her hair pulled back severely, and wearing a sharp suit and standing with her shoulders drawn back. I was determined to turn and walk away, but a part of me was morbidly curious to find out how much she knew - and how. And besides, she was reaching for the buzzer again, and I didn't want to find out what was going to happen if she woke Daniel.
I yanked the door open. The girl was taken slightly aback.
"Oh, hello," she said, looking me up and down. I was wearing some baggy yoga clothes I'd pulled on after rolling out of bed, no makeup, and hadn't bothered to brush my hair. I couldn't wait to see how they'd describe me in the inevitable sidebar blurb.
I just had to make sure the visit didn't warrant an entire article.
"What brings you here on this beautiful morning?" I asked, with the most wan smile I could muster. She kept standing there, a few feet away, looking at me like she thought I must smell bad.
"I…is Mr. Thorne home? I was just hoping to get few comments from him on the recent events."
"And he'd love nothing more than to relive the nightmare for your readers' entertainment, I'm sure," I said, smoothly. "But Daniel's sleeping at the moment, so you'll have to come back some other time. Or, better yet, don't."
Her eyes were sharp and unforgiving. Part of me was thrilled that I was right about her previous behavior all being an act designed to put Daniel off his guard, but I had to admit - if only to myself - that there was something a tad bit intimidating about her. Maybe it was just the complete transformation from innocent young reporter to the hard-nosed journalist I now saw in front of me.
"Well, that’s just fine." Her lips were slightly pursed. "I'm going to write the story either way. I just thought it would be better to get it from the horse's mouth, but I can fill in the blanks on my own."
"That sounds an awful lot like a threat," I said. She was peering over my shoulder, like she thought she was going to see him lurking behind me.
"Oh, it's not a threat at all," she said, finally retreating. "It's just a statement of fact. Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mrs. Thorne."
I slammed the door in her face.
***
A few days passed, and I'd almost forgotten about the encounter. So far, she was the only one who actually had the proverbial balls to come to the apartment. Daniel's phone had stopped ringing off the hook since he put his tech guys on the task of blocking the numbers of every single journalist he had in his contacts, which made things almost preternaturally calm. If I let my mind wander, I could almost forget for a moment that we were a household in crisis.
But just for a moment.
As I walked into the living room one day, Daniel actually looked up at me. That was either a good sign, or a bad sign. Probably bad.
"You didn't tell me someone came here."
The statement was vague enough that I could have played dumb, but there wasn't any point.
"I didn't think it was worthwhile," I said. "You were asleep and I wasn't going to wake you up. I didn't tell her anything."
He silently spun his computer around so I could see the screen.
It was a gossip blog, an offshoot of one of the big papers. It was headed off with a giant picture of me, obviously snapped from the other side of the street while I was headed home from yoga. I looked like a complete mess, of course.
Underneath was the text - not long enough to qualify as an article, really, as I'd suspected. But they still managed to spin it into something. I couldn't bring myself to read the whole thing from top to bottom, but the words that jumped out at me were bad enough:
…disheveled and disgruntled, refusing to wake Mr. Thorne for a comment on the current events. She slammed the door in our reporter's face…
"Oh my God, are they serious?" I shook my head at the screen, turning away when I couldn't stand to read anymore.
"I wondered the same thing," said Daniel, flatly. "Did you really slam the door in her face?"
"She wouldn't leave," I said, frowning. "Are you really going to blame this on me?"
"You have to treat these people with kid gloves," said Daniel, in a tone that suggested I was just a bit stupid for not already knowing this. "They can destroy you. It doesn't matter if they're rude to you, you can't be rude to them."
"Sure I can! People do it all the time," I insisted.
"Yes, but you're not Russell Crowe. And neither am I, for that matter." He slammed the laptop shut and got to his feet. "In the future, just let me deal with the journalists, all right?"
"She came to the front f**king door!" I found myself shouting. "Of the place where I live! I'm supposed to just what, ignore that? Or wake you up, when you're finally sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks and weeks? I just thought you should get a good night's sleep for once!"
"Once again, just let me handle it. Whatever 'it' is. Don't try to figure it out yourself, don't question whether or not it demands my attention. Just assume that it does."
"Yeah, okay, sure. I'll make sure to do that." I turned and stormed out of the room, retreating to my studio and slamming the door. I didn't know what the hell he expected me to do. I had no idea how to handle any of this, and it was all being dumped in my lap at once, and quite frankly, I still thought I'd handled the situation with that journalist pretty well.
I wasn't about to start playing nice with these people - for what? So they could just turn around and write more lies to suit whatever they wanted their headline to be? I couldn’t believe that Daniel still thought there was a way to reason with them - after everything they’d said about him, how could he?
I found myself alone again that night, cracking open a bottle of wine and sitting a silent kitchen with my thoughts. Not the most ideal situation, but Lindsey had found a way to work in an important business meeting into her trip, and Daniel was meeting with his broker again to go over what the technical team had found.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the magazine article. The more I drank, the more I stewed. Right about the time I realized I ought to stop, I decided to open another bottle instead and rummaged a pen and paper out of one of the drawers.
Handle them with kid gloves. Fuck that. I was going to offer them a piece of my mind instead. Specifically, Tim Calamazzo, the writer credited for "Daniel in the Lion’s Den."
My lip curled into an involuntary snarl just thinking about it.
Dear Mr. Calamazzo,
It’s quite likely that you don’t know me. Or perhaps you do. Either way, I doubt you gave me any sort of consideration when you wrote your "article" entitled "Daniel in the Lion’s Den," featured in the most recent edition of the magazine. I have to give credit where credit is due - your article was compelling enough to suck me in, initially, which is more than it ought to have done. You can give yourself a pat on the back for that one.
The headline caught my eye first. I’m sure you were quite pleased with yourself when you came up with it, although it does imply a certain level of sympathy that neither you, nor most of your colleagues in the press, seem to feel for the article’s subject. After all, in the Biblical story, we’re not meant to identify with the lions. Perhaps you intended it to be ironic?
After a promising beginning, I was deeply disappointed to open the article and find that it was another cheap shot at a man who has reached heights of success that you yourself, Mr. Calamezzo, will almost certainly never see.
I hesitated here, but only for a moment. I was on a roll. I scribbled feverishly, my pen moving across the page at an almost frightening speed. The words were coming into my head faster than I could get them down.
At this point it might be worth mentioning that Daniel Thorne in my husband. I am almost certain that this fact will cause you to completely ignore my letter, as I’m clearly too close to the subject to have any kind of objectivity on the matter. Which is all that matters to people like you, isn’t it? Making sure that you don’t accidentally treat your subjects as human beings. God forbid. But even if objectivity is your only goal, even you should be able to realize that the current tone being taken in the media - by yourself as well, Mr. Calamezzo - is borne of jealousy, greed, and petty anger that you’ve decided to direct at an innocent man.
Daniel Thorne will almost certainly be acquitted of these ridiculous charges (though if he isn’t, I imagine he’ll have people like you to thank for it). But regardless of the outcome of his trial, he will always be remembered as the man who cheated, who took unfair advantage of a system that is set up to favor people like him. Everyone who reads an article like yours is going to assume his guilt, because they know that if they were in his shoes, they would have done it. This is their sole criterion for judging him. Their own greed, and their own guilt.
I hope you are happy with your hand in this. I hope you sleep well at night, Mr. Calamezzo. I truly, truly do.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Madeline Thorne
When I let the pen drop on the counter, I realized my hands were shaking. My hands, my arms, my whole body - the hysteria that I’d been stifling and stuffing down bubbled to the surface, and suddenly I was crying. The tears were big and hot as I sat there on the kitchen stool, rocking back and forth, hugging myself tightly. Now that I’d opened the floodgates, there was no closing them again. I sobbed and sobbed. Droplets fell, mercifully blurring the words I had just written. I already hated myself for writing them.