Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies. All other characters belong to their respective creators.

Chapter 04. The Assistant's Assistant

She was going to die.

She just knew it. One of these days, the drivers inside their fancy cars, honking their horns irately at her were going to flip and just run her over. She apologized profusely as she crossed the streets and snaked in between cars, paying little respect to the "Don't Walk" signals. Of course, no one paid any attention her apologies. All they saw was some crazy girl jumping out in front of cars when they had the right of way. No one saw, or cared really, that she was carrying bags upon bags and balancing four coffee trays in her arms. If anything, they added to her overall look of crazy.

Ah, New York City.

For the most part, Acorn loved it. She loved it, mostly because she finally had a job. For months, she had been agonizing over every little detail of her resume and what seemed like hundreds of cover letters. There were so many jobs she never heard back from, despite her impeccable record and qualifications, that she almost gave up. But she persevered. After countless applications and interviews, she had finally been offered a job as the Assistant to the Assistant to Mr. Joseph Pulitzer of the Pulitzer Publishing Company.

It was a tedious title, but she was grateful. She really was. Despite the life-or-death traffic-jumping her job required, and the cursing she endured every morning, and the general lack of appreciation for her efforts, she was grateful. She was working at a highly regarded company, on the same floor that the famous Mr. Pulitzer frequented for his meetings. The only downside was her immediate boss.

He was…

To put it lightly, he creeped her out.

Acorn scurried into the Pulitzer building as the automatic doors were about to slide shut. She tried to walk as fast as she could in her shoes heels. She had no mobility to check the time on her watch but she couldn't shake the sinking feeling that she was late. Ahead, Acorn saw the elevator doors opening. Perfect timing, if she could just make it.

"Wait! Hold the doors, please!" she shouted, but her voice was muffled by the rumbling of paper bags at her sides and the sloshing of iced coffees. She prayed someone heard.

Jack Kelly heard. His hand shot out between the sliding doors at the last moment and held them open. A girl—he assumed it was a girl from the hurried clicking of heels—struggled inside. He couldn't see her head as she was hidden behind the precariously stacked trays of Starbucks coffees in her arms. The aroma of roasted beans filled the elevator. At both her elbows were two brown bags threatening to split at the seams. One was filled with what Jack recognized as Dunkin' Donuts boxes, and the other, Krispy Kremes. She stuck a finger out, trying, futilely, to press the floor button.

"I'll get it," Jack offered and punched in the button with his knuckle. He recognized the floor housing Pulitzer's elaborate conference room. He looked over at the towering mountain of coffees. "Ya need help with that?" Jack asked.

"Hmm? Oh, no. I'm fine, thank you very much," came the muffled answer.

Yeah, right, Jack thought. He reached up and unloaded three stacks of coffee from the girl anyway. He adjusted his grip on them—they were startlingly weighty. He could see her face now and realized that he'd never seen the girl before, which was surprising considering he thought he knew everyone in the building. She had long, straight blonde hair and focused green eyes, with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. He was studying her, trying to determine whether she was a new intern, and she was staring at him, wondering how one could have such perfect facial planes. He had such deep brown eyes…

She almost dropped her coffee tray. Acorn shook herself out of her reverie and collected her thoughts. Looking at him apologetically, she said, "You really didn't have to do that." The gratefulness was written in her face, however.

"No problem," he said, shooting her an amiable grin. "So, uh… is Pulitzer havin' a party?"

"Ha, yes. I mean, no - he has his weekly board meeting this morning."

"Huh. And he can't make up his mind which donuts he likes best?" he asked, indicating the bags hanging at her sides.

She sighed. "He's very particular."

"No kidding."

"It's not really him, you see. I don't think Mr. Pulitzer cares for donuts—or anything sweet, really—in the first place. It's my boss," she explained. "Mr. Pulitzer's Assistant."

"So, you're the Assistant's Assista—" The smile vanished from Jack's face as he processed his thought. When he finished thinking, a laugh of astonishment escaped from his throat before he could stop himself. "You're Jonathan's Assistant?" He tried to stifle his laughter with little success. He couldn't wait to tell the guys about it—Jonathan had an Assistant. When he saw the serious look on her face and realized being Jonathan's Assistant was no laughing matter, he quickly broke off. He cleared his throat. "That's… tough."

"Tell me about it," she mumbled.

The doors slid open. Like a gentleman, he let her exit first, offering to help carry the trays to the conference room. She gratefully accepted and led the way to the room.

Upon entering through the paneled double doors, Acorn glanced at the clock ticking on the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. She had five minutes to spare. She quickly set up the boxes of pastries and coffees on the side table, taking the trays Jack had carried for her. "Thank you for this," she said. "I really appreciate it."

"Why, Good Morning, Mr. Kelly!"

Jack stiffened, mouthing something close to an expletive. He rolled his eyes before turning and facing Jonathan, who had just entered the room. "Jonathan," he said, nodding his head in acknowledgment.

"I hope you are bonding with our little interns," Jonathan said optimistically.

"Sure am look at the time I'm late for a meeting," he said quickly. He addressed Acorn. "It was nice meeting you." He lowered his voice so the Assistant wouldn't hear. "Good luck," he said, grinning and shifting his head slightly in Jonathan's direction. Then Jack, seeing that Jonathan was about to make conversation again, made his exit by practically running out of the room.

She suppressed a chuckle, looking after the door through which Jack made his escape.

"Tick tock, Miss Acorn," came Jonathan's voice, jolting her from her thoughts. "Mr. Pulitzer will be in any minute."

She hastily returned to organizing the donuts on the table, sneaking a resentful look towards Jonathan's back, who was carefully—lovingly?—dusting off the large oak and leather seat that belonged to Mr. Pulitzer. She shook her head resignedly.

He's so weird.

"Did ya know Jonathan has an Assistant?"

"Haha! Good one."

"I ain't kidding. Met her in the elevator."

Specs' brows snapped together, as he couldn't understand why anyone would want to work for Jonathan. He shrugged and let out a low whistle. "Well, she must be crazy or damn gutsy."

"And here I thought Jonathan liked to do everything himself," David said.

"Seems like Mr. Uptight's gettin' a little spoiled."

"Just what we need. A spoiled Jonathan," Specs muttered.

It was half past noon and Jack was rounding up the gang to get lunch. He grabbed David and Specs from Finance first, checked into HR for Pie and Dutchy, and the five made their way up on the elevator to gather the rest of the employees. They split up: Jack went to get Swifty and Race, who was napping; Specs, Dutchy, and Pie went to unglue Skittery from his game of Mahjong, and David continued up to the Editorial floor to catch Snoddy and Kloppman.

The "Big Boys" lunch outing was something the group did at least once a week. It had begun when they were all interns, when Kloppman, the company's longtime Executive Editor, took them under his wing and treated them out to lunch one day. It somehow became a tradition with this exclusive club, that at the end of each week they gathered the usual group and headed to the local diner. Perhaps it was their way of celebrating another five days survived at the Pulitzer Publishing Company.

"Race," Jack called, nodding his head.

Race opened one lid in response and quickly interpreted the subtle signal. "Lunch," he said, rubbing his hands together in eager anticipation.

Jack then turned to Swifty, who was utterly absorbed in a conversation he was having on his cell phone. No doubt with his girlfriend. Again. Unfortunate timing for Jack, considering whenever Swifty talked to his girlfriend, the call lasted for hours. Jack knew he had to wrestle Swifty's attention towards him and get him off the phone somehow.

"Hey, Swifts." Swifty held up a hand, asking Jack to wait a moment as he continued listening to his girlfriend yammering on the phone. "Did ya know Jonathan has an Assistant?" Jack asked, blatantly ignoring the signal.

Swifty looked like he stopped breathing. Eyes wide, he turned his attention to Jack. "What?"

Jack continued breezily, deliberately baiting him. "Yeah, met her in the elevator."

"It's a gir—is she crazy?" A sharp yell blared from his cell phone. "No, not you. I didn't say you were crazy. No, Jack was just telling me about this girl—no, what! Of course, I'm not seeing anyone else! Jack was just - he's - the guys are going out for lunch and he's—god, of course they're not more important than you."

Jack faked offense at Swifty's statement. When Swifty continued to soothe his girlfriend and ignored him, Jack sighed and turned to Pegasus, sitting in the next cubicle. "How the hell do you deal with this every day?"

Peg simply pointed at her earphones.

"Smart."

"Look, no, I'm not exasperated, sweetie. I—I—I have to go… I'm not trying to avoid you. You know I…" Swifty eyed Jack cautiously before returning to his girlfriend. "You know I love you," he mumbled lowly so that his friend wouldn't hear.

"Hurry it up, pal," Jack said bluntly. "Kloppman's waiting."

"I really have to go, Stacy. I'll call you after lunch. Okay. Love you, bye." Swifty shut his cell phone with a snap and stared at Jack with astonished eyes. "What were you saying about a chick and Jonathan having a crazy Assistant?"

Stepping off the elevator, David walked down the lushly carpeted hall and pushed past the heavy paneled doors to the Editorial Floor. The richly decorative entries, newly renovated, always reminded him of some medieval castle doors; he proposed a theory once, that the doors—so ubiquitous in literature as symbolic images—were deliberately implemented by Pulitzer to subconsciously motivate the Editors to dig deeper into their worlds of lore to search out the next worthy literary sensation. The guys called him a nerd when he shared his idea. But David didn't doubt Pulitzer's capability to make such grand implications with seemingly subtle decisions as designing a simple door. Despite the old man's oddities, he was fairly creative. He didn't get into the publishing business just for the sake of it, after all.

David had found one enthusiast for his theory, at least. Actually, the two had become fast friends over that very "door" theory. He drew near her desk now and just saw the top of her hair from the high walls of her workspace. Two pens precisely held the high chignon of blond curls in place. He rested his arms on the edge of the wall and looked down at her desk. With a dramatically red pen, she was scribbling notes on the margins of a manuscript. Sitting at the corner of her desk were three large mugs filled with various colored and tipped pens and highlighters; David guessed that was the collection she'd been accumulating from her co-workers through the months. He thought he could recognize two or three from her collection as his own. She was extremely diligent and fairly organized in her work—one could tell from the systemized way she arranged her post-it notes—but she had a strange absentminded tendency when it came to those pens; she was a "serious pen hog," as she remorsefully admitted once.

"Hey, Stress."

Stress practically jumped out of her seat. When she saw David standing above her, she let out the breath that had caught in her throat. "David, hey. You scared me."

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. I just thought you were Snoddy."

"I'm looking for him actually." David searched across the floor towards Snoddy's desk. Empty. "You know where he is?"

Stress shrugged, her cat-like green eyes suggesting that she really didn't want to know where Snoddy, a fellow Editor, was.

David flinched a little. "He giving you a hard time?"

She sighed. "He's worse than usual."

As though they had timed it, Snoddy strode into the room at that very moment. Right on his heels was Jake, one of the new Editorial interns, taking down every word Snoddy uttered into his notepad.

Snoddy spotted David first. "Hey, Davey!" he greeted heartily. "How you doin'? Have you met Jake yet? He's my Assistant for the summer," he introduced.

"Hey, Jake," David said.

"Jake's actually in the same fraternity that I was in back in College," Snoddy said. He wrapped his arm around Jake's shoulder good-naturedly. "We're brothers," he said smugly.

"That's great. I bet you guys, uh… have a lot in common."

Stress sunk lower into her chair, as though bracing herself.

"Do we ever!" Snoddy exclaimed enthusiastically. "We were just talking about all the frat rites we had to go through. There were some crazy nights. One time we had like ten kegs of—well, I guess I shouldn't say too much since you're not Pi Kappa Alpha, you know. We've got to keep our secrets secret! Our brotherhood is awesome, though, isn't it?

"Sure is," Jake agreed with gusto.

"It just brings back so many memories," Snoddy said fondly. "Did you know we won fraternity of the year every year I was there? We were the best."

David saw Stress suffering and he could now see why. Snoddy was incredibly proud of his fraternity days and tended to go on longwinded, one-sided discussions about "how awesome Pi Kappa Alpha" was. Now with Jake in the office, he probably spoke of nothing else. David needed to change the subject and fast. "Hey, speaking of…" David blanked on a coherent segue. "So the guys are getting lunch," he said directly instead. "I just came to get you and Kloppman."

"That's awesome! Hey, we should bring Jake along. The kid's like my protégé, you know? Gotta teach him everything I know, since we're both Pi Kappa Alpha and all. And let's face it, I know a lot."

David conceded agreeably. "Yeah, sure, I mean, I'm sure the guys won't mind."

"Awesome. That's totally awesome. We'll go get Kloppman and meet you downstairs."

"That sounds great," David said as the two strode away, their steps perfectly in synch. He glanced down at Stress.

She caught the pity in his eyes and asked hopefully, "Want to switch offices for a day and see how long he can talk about Pi-whatever without taking a single breath?"

"Ha! No, thanks. I already know."

Stress sighed, disheartened. "I just don't see how he hasn't run out of frat stories yet. I think I'm going to have to move my desk."

David suddenly let out a surprised yelp as his phone had started to vibrate in his back pocket. "I need to switch that off," he reminded himself. He checked the caller ID. "Hey, Jack," he answered.

Stress' ears perked up at the name.

"Yep, I'm on my way. Snoddy's picking him up. Okay. See you in a few." David ended the call and addressed Stress, who was gazing at David's phone with an odd, faraway look on her face. "Uh, well, I have to go. The boys are all getting lunch at the diner 'round the corner."

"Tibby's? I love that place. You should try their Santa Fe wrap combo," she recommended. "It's my favorite."

"That's funny," David said softly with a chuckle.

Stress narrowed her eyes at him curiously. "What is?"

"That's Jack's favorite, too."

Author's Note: This chapter, particularly the relationship between the Assistant and the Assistant's Assistant, was partially inspired by Acorn's review.

Shoutouts going out to: Polaroid [you were the star!], Corky [haha, tackling Dutchy], Adren [middle school sounding reviews are fun reads :) ], Repeat [I'm glad you're liking Skittery as a character!], Song For A Rainy Day [I cracked up when I read "Hot-Nerd city." Definitely my type, too ;) ], and Stress [I do like to mess with Skittery… I'm biased, as you know!]