April 26th and I’m almost feeling good. The Burberry jacket is a step up, I muse. And I certainly feel more at ease in the 6th Avenue milieu of hyper paper pushers, diamond dealers and town car smog this time around. But the building—that god-forsaken white monolith—still makes my tongue twitch and my throat constrict—like someone high on the 17th floor had force-fed me a spoonful of sodium from the non-existent News Corp cafeteria.

Hadn’t they done their research? Didn’t they know who they were interviewing? Didn’t everyone check into “Gawker” on their lunch hour? I am the enemy—the tell-all blogger “Belle” that slaved away at their affiliate news station—and yet my name persists in bold type in their Outlook.

BROOKE PARKHURST: 3PM INTERVIEW
POSITIION—“PAGE 6” STAFF REPORTER.

I’d be the “fourth chair,” replacing Jared Paul Stern, Fernando Gil, Lisa Marsh and Christopher Tennant. A few friends were excited by the prospect of my potential day job—elated, really, “Think of the perks! The drinks, the dinners, the PARTIES! We’ll have CARTE BLANCHE!” We? Then there were the few trusted advisors that simply asked, “Why check your baggage onto a sinking ship?”

But, it was PAGE 6.
It was the dapper Richard Johnson.
It was the rag that jumpstarted my mornings, giving me a Gatsby glimpse into how the other half lives.

I had declined Richard’s lunch invitation, instead favoring a trip to company headquarters. We’ll call this my Russian Roulette. I like taking chances. I like that nauseating, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. More than anything, I relish the thought of running into one of my old producers by the elevator bank. I see this scenario as saying that, in a few short years, I had moved from peon to personage… But, how the hell would I explain my presence back inside the computerized gates?

One limp handshake later and it was too late. The elevator sucked me and Richard up to the high floors, back into the world of Murdoch, madness and shady deals…

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