Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction. Anything recognizable from Newsies belongs to Disney and not to me.
Chapter 54: An Unexpected Agenda
Katherine's laugh bubbled up as she and Jack left the theater hand-in-hand, making their way down the steps to the street.
"...then Specs doused the fire with Albert's seltzer water," Jack finished grandly, wrapping up his story, "and ever since, no one's let Elmer anywhere near an open flame."
Katherine chortled, wiped a mirthful tear from her eye with her free hand. "Your boys sound like a bunch of mischief-makers! Why am I not surprised?"
"I got probably hundreds of stories like that," Jack admitted, looking pleased at her amusement. "They's a handful, that's for sure, but it's never borin' with them around."
"It's good they've got you to look after them," Katherine remarked, smiling at the barely-concealed pride in his voice, "otherwise the lodging house might be in danger of burning down - literally!"
"Well, a fella does what he can." Jack gave a modest shrug.
"Speaking of the newsies," Katherine glanced at her wristwatch, "don't you have a celebration to get to?"
Jack stopped walking and slapped his forehead, cursing mildly under his breath. "Forgot about that," he muttered. "Was supposed to be there at seven - what time's it now?"
"Just a little half past," Katherine answered, glancing at her wristwatch. "You won't miss much if you hurry."
He gave her a guilty look. "It don't seem right for me to just leave ya like that when we just finished our first real date."
She waved him off. "I enjoyed the show, Jack, and your stories, too, but we don't need to stand on ceremony. It's important for you to celebrate with your boys, and we'll see each other again soon enough. I really don't mind if you want to head out."
He hesitated. "For sure?"
She nodded firmly. "For sure. Tell them I said hello, and enjoy yourself."
The relief in his eyes was thanks enough, and he flashed her a quick grin before turning to jog off in the direction of Jacobi's Deli. But before he'd made it halfway down the block, he suddenly turned and came sprinting back to plant a quick kiss on her cheek.
"You's a gem, Plumber," he murmured in her ear. And then he was off, dashing down the street again.
Katherine watched him go. Then, she turned and began walking purposefully in the opposite direction. It had worked out in her favor that Jack had been too preoccupied with his nearly-forgotten engagement with the newsies to ask her where she would be heading next (he probably just assumed she'd go back to her apartment). She had a very important man to see, and while Jack wouldn't have been able to stop her from pursuing an audience with him, it was easier not to have to deal with any well-meaning objections.
The excitement of the strike being settled, the thrill of having been able to convince Jack to stay in New York, and the pleasant recollection of the time they'd spent together on their spontaneous date all hummed in the back of Katherine's mind, but with each step she took towards her destination, that hum quieted until it was a barely perceptible whisper, carefully hidden away but kept close like the memento of a loved one sequestered the pocket of a soldier about to be deployed.
Her footsteps carried her to Newspaper Row.
Bypassing the office of The Sun, she made her way down the street to the imposing establishment that was her father's headquarters for The World. The grand-looking "Pulitzer Building" was not quite ten years old, and she could still remember coming to visit the site when the structure was being built from the ground up, standing at the edge of the construction area in her knee-length silk skirts, surreptitiously kicking at little pebbles and bits of rubble while her father was preoccupied in conversation with the foreman.
Their weekly visits to the construction site were usually followed by an early lunch at Delmonico's, which was only a short carriage ride away (or a moderately easy walk if the weather was good). Katherine could still taste the buttery tang of Hollandaise sauce running over warm, crispy bacon and a perfectly toasted English muffin - her father always ordered the restaurant's speciality steak, but eggs Benedict were her favorite.
Over the meal, her father would alternate between quizzing her on whatever lessons she'd been learning from her tutors and expounding (sometimes rather long-windedly) upon the importance of hard work and innovation. Katherine generally listened politely but with half an ear, focused on her eggs and eager to get to the end of the meal, when her father would always order her a half-dozen bonbons to take home. Looking back on it, she wished she'd been old enough to treasure those times for what they were - rare moments of connection with the man whom she called father but seldom saw, as he was dedicated to building his business empire which left him little time for directly interacting with his daughter.
Their lunches at Delmonico's were an unusual and relatively short-lived exception. When construction on The World's headquarters was completed a year later, their routine came to an end, and though Katherine at the time had lamented the loss of eggs Benedict and bonbons more than the loss of her father's company, she knew now what a brief and precious time it had been, even if recalling it now was bittersweet.
The fond memory gave her strength as she reached the entrance of The World, now closed for the day. The doors were locked, but Katherine knocked anyway, hoping that Hannah would still be in despite the lateness of the hour.
It was not her father's secretary who answered, however, but Willie the janitor. He opened the door, looking surprised to see her, but obligingly ushering her into the lobby and turning on the overhead lights that had already been extinguished for the day.
"A pleasant eveinin' to you, Miss Katherine," he said politely. "You needin' to go up to see your pa?"
Katherine nodded. "Is he still in his office, Willie?"
"Hasn't budged since this afternoon," the janitor answered. "I was up there dustin' in some of the empty offices earlier, and I heard him tell Miss Hannah he was gonna be workin' late tonight."
When was the man ever not working late? Katherine thought wryly. She smiled at Willie. "Thank you; I'll go up to see him now."
"You want me to fire up the elevator, Miss?" he asked. "I can have it ready to go in a jiffy."
"No, thank you," Katherine answered. "I actually wouldn't mind the walk this evening."
The janitor touched his cap respectfully. "Well, if you need anything else, just let me know, all right?"
She thanked him, then turned to make her way up the stairs. It would be a long walk up to her father's office, but it would be some much-needed time to prepare herself for the impending meeting, and she knew that she would need to bring all of her focus and acumen to bear if she was to have any hope of a successful outcome.
By the time she'd climbed all fifteen sets of stairs, she knew that she was ready. Making her way down the hallway to Pulitzer's suite, she walked through the open door of the receiving area. A light was on in her father's office, and as she peeked in, she saw that he was bent over his desk, looking through the numbers in his ledger.
Katherine stepped across the threshold and slowly drew near, knowing that he must have caught sight of her by now even though he gave no acknowledgement of her presence.
She came to a stop in front of his desk.
"Apa*," she said quietly.
The use of the childhood moniker was deliberate, and she held her breath as she waited to see how he would respond.
Pulitzer said nothing, but his finger abruptly ceased moving across his ledger. Then, after a moment, he slowly took off his glasses, set them down on the desk, and looked up at her.
"What is it, Kit?" he asked calmly.
Katherine felt her shoulders droop slightly in relief.
"I wanted to talk to you," she said, taking a seat in one of the high-backed chairs that flanked her father's desk and scooting closer so that they still sat at a comfortable distance but without the barrier of the work surface between them. "About the strike. And about Jack."
"Yes? And what about them?" There was a bit of brusqueness in the man's tone, and Katherine knew she would have to tread carefully. She'd managed to get past her father's first line of defense, but that didn't mean they were on an equal playing field by any means, and she still wasn't sure exactly where he stood when it came to either of the two subjects she'd broached. She would need to be straightforward (her father hated to waste time) but tactful if she wanted to get answers out of him.
"I was surprised that you offered Jack a job working here," she said, deciding to start off with a more or less innocuous observation. She knew that the professed motive had been to get at Roosevelt, but her father was far too canny for that to be his only purpose.
"The boy has potential," Pulitzer said simply. "And talent."
Katherine nodded in agreement; Jack's artistic knack was what had initially caught her attention too. It made sense that her father would want to leverage that talent for his own purposes. But something about it still seemed out-of-character. Joseph Pulitzer was enough of a giant in the newspaper world where he could have a line of gifted would-be cartoonists waiting outside of his office ready to offer their services if he really had a position that he was looking to fill. So why had he offered the job to Jack?
"I suppose a better question might be, 'why didn't he take me up on it?'" her father mused when she didn't say anything aloud. "I offered him a chance to get out of a dead-end profession, a profession that he looks to be getting rather long in the tooth for, if my eyes don't deceive me. If he knew what was good for him, he would have signed on right away."
"He didn't say no," Katherine pointed out. She had hoped that Jack would take the cartoonist job, too, but she hadn't wanted to push him in the moment, especially when he'd been only a step away from leaving New York altogether.
"The boy lacks ambition," her father said curtly. "And the decisiveness necessary to get ahead in life."
"You know nothing about what his life is like!" Katherine exclaimed, her anger on Jack's behalf making her bristle at the unfeeling criticism.
"And I suppose you do?" her father asked. "How long have you known this boy, Kit? A few days? A week or two, maybe?"
"Why does that matter?" Katherine retorted. "In the last two weeks I've seen and learned more about Jack than I have about other men I've known for years." The implicit accusation came out sounding more barbed than she intended, but she was riled up now, and the disappointments of her younger self were bleeding into what should have been her calm and rational demeanor.
So much for keeping a cool head.
Well, if she was going to abandon self-possession, she might as well do it full-sail.
"Do you even care about me, Father?" she asked abruptly, her voice quivering a little. "Did it ever occur to you that when you used me against Jack, when you baited and belittled him and then forced him to turn against the boys who are like family to him, that it would tear me apart inside? Did you ever stop to think about anyone besides yourself and building your newspaper empire?"
She paused only long enough to take a steadying breath before continuing. "I know that you see me as a traitor and a rival and that your philosophy on life is to overpower anyone who stands in your way." She looked at him, her eyes beginning to blur with tears. "But can't you see that I'm your daughter, too? Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Pulitzer hadn't said anything, but at her final question, he reached up and rubbed his eyes, a gesture Katherine had seen often enough when he was particularly troubled or vexed. When he spoke, his voice was weary.
"Did it ever occur to you, Kit, that a father might be hard upon a boy who fancied his daughter because that father did, in fact, care about her?" He gave her a pointed look.
"It - " Katherine struggled to answer. "It - hadn't occurred to me," she said haltingly.
Pulitzer sighed. "Young Mr. Kelly is passionate and charismatic, and he seems to possess a singular sense of loyalty and a high level of resourcefulness," he conceded. "But his emotional volatility won't do him any favors in life." He paused, then added, "I fear he lacks the resolve and dedication necessary to sustain a stable existence, as well as the ambition to get ahead. These things should be concerning to you if you plan to build a future longer than a week or two with him."
The sharp observation hurt, but there was a bit of truth in the sting.
"We're only just beginning to get to know each other," Katherine hedged.
"Which is precisely why it would be wise to consider the future now before you get too involved," her father stated in the same dispassionate tone. "I know you have a mind of your own, and that you'll do just as you please regardless of any counsel from me." He looked at her shrewdly. "But I'm not going to stand by and let a cocky near-derelict waltz his way into this family without at least attempting to test his fortitude first."
"But you offered him a job," Katherine stated, still trying to figure out how that unexpectedly generous proposal fit with her father's rather dim view of Jack.
"I offered him a chance to rise above his meager life on the streets," her father said shortly. "And a chance to make something of himself. If he truly cares about you, Katherine, he should be thinking about how he can improve his circumstances rather than simply survive. But whether he avails himself of my benevolence or not is up to him." The words were weighted, but Pulitzer said nothing more, only picked up his glasses, settled them on his nose, then returned to poring over his ledger, clearly indicating that the conversation was over.
"I'm not going to manipulate Jack into taking your offer," Katherine said. "It's his choice to make, not mine."
"Certainly," Pulitzer agreed, not looking up.
Katherine waited a moment longer, but the man said nothing more, so eventually she bid him a quick goodnight (which he returned in an equally perfunctory tone) and then made her way out of his office and down the stairs to the lobby.
Willie had just finished mopping the floor. "Careful, Miss Katherine," he warned. "It's a bit tricky steppin' around here."
Katherine nodded. Tricky indeed. The meeting with her father hadn't gone the way she'd expected - she'd come away from it with answers, but not the answers she'd been looking for - and it remained to be seen how the man's unexpected agenda would play out regarding her relationship with Jack.
She didn't plan on persuading him to take the job at The World, but now that her father had mentioned the advantages of the position, she wondered if maybe a casual broaching of the subject would be wise, just to put it back on Jack's mind. He'd had a lot to think about, so the job offer from Pulitzer had likely fallen to the wayside.
It couldn't hurt to bring the matter to his attention again.
A/N: Pulitzer is a pretty interesting villain as he's depicted in the musical. He doesn't get a lot of real character development or much of an arc throughout the story, so there's a lot of unknowns for a fanfiction writer to play with (it's also fascinating to read about the historical figure of Joseph Pulitzer and compare it to how he's portrayed in Newsies, but I digress…). What do you think, gracious readers? Is it possible that Pulitzer (the character) could have had a softer, more fatherly side to him despite his "bottom line" ruthlessness? Or were his actions in the musical reprehensible enough where this doesn't seem likely? I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this subject, as well as your reactions to my take on him in this chapter.
*Apa is the Hungarian word for "father." My headcanon is that Pulitzer, who was born in Hungary and knew the language, taught Katherine a few words here and there as she was growing up, and that she referred to him as "Apa" until she got older and began addressing him by his English title.
