Page 12 of Bad Words

“Yet,” Hayden said.

This clarified nothing about whether I’d ruined my life.

I lowered myself into a chair. “Before you say anything, I’m sorry.”

“Obviously.” Scott leveled an uncomprehending look through his glasses. “I mean, for goodness’ sake, Selina. Why didn’t you just leave?”

I folded my hands on the table. It wouldn’t sound professional to plead temporary insanity, or to admit that even now, the memory of Parker Navarro’s martyred expression made me want to shatter something. Poor baby, rolling in his piles of hundred-dollar bills!

“You’re right,” I said stiffly. “Yes. I should have left.”

“But you didn’t,” said Hayden. “And now we all have to try to salvage the situation. Even us … what was it? ‘Venture vultures’?”

I winced.

Hayden crossed her arms and leaned toward me. She’d tinted her lips in that gradient style, the inner edge darker than the outer. She looked like she’d recently drunk somebody’s blood. “Luckily for you, Scott’s been reminding me how much of a value add you are to this team, in terms of engagement.”

“Right. Thank—”

She held up a hand. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to write a statement. You’ll apologize to Parker Navarro. You’ll apologize to our subscribers. You’ll remind everybody that thanks to Nextward, City is in a better spot financially than it’s been for a decade—which is true, in case you forgot.”

I bit down on my cheek. Yes, technically, our financials had stabilized, after six months of watching our ferociously talented coworkers pack their desks and say they’d go into marketing.

“And,” Hayden went on, “you’ll publish a retraction about Parker Navarro’s new book.”

The words hit like a slap. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I can’t do that,” I said.

“Yes, you can. Or you can hand in your resignation.”

“Hayden, I can’t retract a review. It’ll cast doubt on our entire editorial process.”

Scott broke his silence. “Selina’s right. Moving to change the piece suggests that we might have published it to target Parker Navarro. Our credibility would suffer enormously.”

The frustration ballooned in my chest. “I’m sorry, but I have to say this: Any apology is going to suggest there’s something questionable about our process. Or that there’s something remotely acceptable about an author tracking me down at a party to pick a fight about a review.” I moved to the edge of my seat. “Hayden, I shouldn’t have had the argument. I know that. But backing down isn’t the answer. It’s a disservice to our readers.”

“Oh, please—our readers? Don’t pretend you were thinking about our readers last night. Do you think they wanted you to say any of that?”

Scott held up an index finger. “Actually, Hayden…” He rotated his laptop to show her a graph, a line tracking along at the bottom of the screen. “The data team sent me our subscription numbers this morning.” Scott prodded the final point, which leaped halfway up the screen. “City’s had more new subscriptions in the past twelve hours than in the last two weeks combined.”

Hayden seemed unimpressed. “Well, yeah. That video is everywhere. More awareness means more subscribers. That doesn’t mean people like anything Selina said.”

“But they do,” Scott said. “The reactions aren’t universally positive, but…” With another few clicks, he pulled up a couple of posts on Bluesky:

@narizsuperlativa: Was Selina Chan wrong? Every corner of publishing has become obsessed with hype, buzz, and relentless bite-sized positivity to the point that criticism is existentially endangered. Sorry your feelings got hurt, Parker, but if you don’t have sharks in the literary ecosystem, you get fifty thousand minnows, where every minnow is some terrible book that publishers are trying to sell to you as the Second Coming of Sally Rooney.

7,187 likes 1,320 reposts

@arslonga_vitabrevis: Hilarious that people are offended by Selina Chan talking about paywalls, like a journalist’s livelihood has no relation to her publication’s financial solvency.

5,226 likes 522 reposts

“Yes,” I said, pointing to the posts. “This is who we’re writing for. If I go back on everything I said last night, it’s going to alienate these people, who probably make up our whole subscriber base.”

Scott nodded. “When op-eds come out about this, I’m expecting journalists to sympathize with Selina, too. Critics need to write honestly about what they feel.”