The Wrong Place At The Right Time

“Anna, we’d like to see you in a moment in our office” Her editor at National Geographic, Sue, called out to her from across the office.

“This is it!” Anna exclaimed, “this could really be it for me” she mumbled to herself, collecting a few of her papers and her laptop, and made her way hurriedly to her editors’ office.

She opened the door to find a man and a woman, her editors, both seated next to each other at the same desk. They were both senior editors of the magazine, and judging from their facial expression, something was deeply wrong. They were both wearing a stern look on their faces and she almost felt her heart sink in their presence.

“Please be seated, Anna.” Richard invited her inside the office, in a strained tone, and as soon as Anna sat down, she saw their vexed expression in their eyes.

Sue, the editor-in-chief, was an older woman of about 50 years of age with short platinum-blonde hair and a stern upper-lip. She was well-known in the office for her capricious, temperamental behaviour, as well as her statement dark leather boots, and one always found themselves on edge with her, as they found it unpleasant when she started off on one of her long-winded rants, and bursting into a fit of anger. Anna found herself in the same position, but straight-away Sue gave off a calm and composed air about her. She didn’t know whether to be glad about this or concerned.

“Anna, when we hired you we could tell that you were going to be a promising writer. Young, talented, straight out of George Washington university as a straight A student. But that’s not only why we hired you. You had a spark to you, a kind of if you like subversive nature, where you were always eager to report on a story no one else had and you were so intent on making it into your own. And really, here at the National Geographic, we’re all for that…”

Anna looked down at the satinwood desk, and saw a hard-copy of her article on their desk all in a muddle, with scribbles and red circles everywhere and most striking of all, a dozen red question marks scattered over the page.

“...but your work over the past few months has been too controversial. Do you know how much trouble we’ve been in after your drug cartel article in Mexico? Your article contained a lot of details which weren’t even accurate, such a basic element of good writing. Telling a story of 15 kids through one child? That’s not a smart journalistic move, Anna, you know that. But you know what? We gave you a second chance…”

Anna looked down at her hands, which she closed together and placed on her lap. She had cocked-up, big time, and she wasn’t sure what price she was going to have to pay. She placed her arms on the table, twiddling her thumbs nervously.

“And you know what? We’ve checked the details of your new article, and again it’s ambiguous at best.” Sue paused for a moment, and drew her breath before saying: “This isn’t easy for us, but we’re afraid we have to let you go, Anna.”

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Anna was never the sort of girl who liked going to bars, she usually found the guys there sleazy and she was never really into beer, she was more of a wine person herself, sophisticated even as she would like to think. But that cold, crisp early December night, as Anna was walking home she decided she was going to go into one, I mean, that’s what people would do in the movies if they’re having a tough time, right? She saw a Southern-style bar with wooden columns which sheltered the outside porch area. She went inside and sat down on one of the cushy stools.  

“What would you like to drink, Miss?” The bartender asked her, giving off a slightly Southern accent himself.

“I’ll just have a beer, please.”

“What kind? A bud ice?”  She could recognise a tinge of judgement in his eyes, but she didn’t care.

“Yeah, sure, thanks.” He made his way across the bar, and opened a door on the far side, presumably to get a pack of beer from the basement.

She sat there for a few moments, looking around the bar having never really been in one before and she noticed a guy across the bar from her who had fixed his gaze on her. “Oh no” , she thought to herself, “Do I really have to deal with this now?”. He was hesitant at first, but he soon plucked up the courage to shuffle his way around the bar so he was seated right next to her.

“You know, it’s unusual to see a girl here sitting at a bar in this place all by herself.” he turned himself around to face her. He was quite attractive: he had a broad face with mousey-brown hair and hazel eyes. He was a little unshaven but at first sight there was nothing to suggest he was the sleazy type at all.

“So you came over here because you took pity on me, huh?” She smiled sardonically, and her eyes revealed a twinge of sadness. Was this really happening? All she wanted to do was sit by herself without this guy intruding.

“No, it just looked like you needed someone to talk to.” He replied, matter-of-factly. “So do you?” His dark, wavy hair fell over his eyes a little bit.

“Well thanks a lot for your concern, but no, no I don’t.” She thought she was concealing her disappointment well, but obviously she wasn’t. She wasn’t at all.

“Can I at least buy you a drink?”

She really studied him for a second. He was wearing a since expression, and even though she was one to always have her guard up around guys, especially in this kind of setting, she had reason to believe he was trustworthy. Her eyes softened a little before she spoke.

“Okay, sure.”

A few moments passed before the guy said anything. Someone put a song on the jukebox, “Sweet Home Alabama”, and the pretty lights started flashing in time with the song.

“So why are you here, if I may ask?” He took a swig of his beer.

“I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t want to go home.” She looked down at her pale hands, sitting on her lap.

“Why?”

“I got fired from my job today.” She finally looked at him, for a long, drawn-out moment.

“Oh… I’m sorry,” he paused for a second “What did you do?”

“I was a journalist for the National Geographic.”

“Wow, a journalist, eh?” He said, with a judgemental smile. “And I figured they were too uptight to show themselves in a bar.” He laughed a little, but she looked at him like she wasn’t in the mood for his jokes.

“I really enjoyed it, writing articles, travelling around, capturing people’s stories” her eyes lit up with animation for a second, “but my editors’ were right, my articles got less and less accurate and I just jumbled a dozen or so stories into one person’s. I guess I wanted people to feel more emotionally susceptible to the story, to really care. I guess I thought they wouldn’t if they were individual stories on one article. I don’t know why I even thought that now...” Now it was her turn to take a swig of beer.

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself.” His words surprised her, in a way, “Everyone messes up now and then. You know, if it was your passion, maybe you just got caught up in it too much and you got lost along the way. It happens to the best of people, you know.” His expression grew serious as he was saying all of this. This deeper layer he had revealed just then interested Anna.

“You seem like you know all this from experience..”

“I do… But it’s a long story,” he said “My name’s Sam by the way, what’s your name?”

“Anna.”

“Nice to meet you, Anna.”

Meanwhile, a young, tall, dark-haired man wearing an old, oversized, black hoodie walked into the bar at this moment. He had a shady look about him, and the bartender seemed to recognised him straight away, despite his face being hooded. The young man had one hand in his front pocket of his hoodie. The bartender walked over towards him, and soon a kafuffle was starting behind Anna and Sam.

They looked around to see the young man holding a gun to the bartender’s face. The bartender was sweating with fear, but trying not to show it, in the face of a much younger man who was clearly unstable as his own hand was shaking, although he gripped his gun tightly

“Put the gun down, Bobby…” He uttered in a composed tone, putting his hands up as a sign of surrender “...we can talk about this.”

The young man seemed angry and mentally unstable. “No... we can’t... it’s too late for that. You had 7 years to talk to me, and now is the only time you’re willing to?” He released the safety latch on the gun.

From out of nowhere, a quiet, female voice came from behind him. “Think about what you’re doing…” The young man looked around and saw Anna. Sam was astonished, looking at her like she was crazy.

“Excuse me? Here I am, a gun in my hand, and you seem to think you have a say in what I’m doing?” He was in a state, on the one hand he looked so quivery like he’d just seen a ghost, and yet on the other hand he possessed an all-consuming anger and his nose was flaring.

Anna flinched for a moment. Sam was making a warning signal expression through his eyes, but she still went ahead anywhere. “I just don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind right now…”

“Excuse me?” The young man waved his gun around, before stepping slightly towards her in an intimidatory manner. “You seem to think you have any right to have a say, huh?” He moved the gun away from the bartender and towards the young woman.

Sam stood up from his stool and placed himself in front of the young woman, with his hands up, in an act of defending her. “Hey, let’s just cool it for a second, man.”

“Don’t you tell me to cool it, man,” he warned him, and looked behind him at Anna “You should be telling your girlfriend over there to cool it, telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.”

“Or you could just tell me that yourself.” Anna stared at him coldly.

The young man tried to dodge his way past Sam. “One more word out of you, Missy and I swear-”

CLANK. The bartender had come up behind the man and taken him out with a frying pan, and he was now lying on the floor unconscious.

“Holy s**t.” Sam gasped, turning around to face Anna. “You know, Anna, you’re pretty damn crazy. You could have gotten yourself killed back there.”

“No she isn’t, actually,” The bartender intervened on Anna’s behalf, “I don’t know what I would have done if she wasn’t there distracting him for me. He could have taken me out for sure.”

Sam looked at her, with a new respect in his eyes. That was pretty damn smart. “Yeah, I guess it was a little.” She smiled, but you could tell she was still a little shaken up about the whole ordeal, looking down at the young man on the floor.

A silence passed between them.

“So Anna, can I buy you another drink?”