Bright Lights, Big City

The next day, the narrator wakes up early. He arrives at the office half an hour early and first sees Meg, who warns him that Clara is enraged over the French article, particularly because it’s too late to retract it from the issue. The night before, there was a meeting to decide on what to do. Megan expresses her sympathies, knowing that the writer has a reputation for being sloppy. She argues that the narrator didn’t have enough time to fix the innumerable errors. Rittenhouse also expresses his sympathies, while Yasu Wade jokes at the narrator’s expense. Wade then taps the narrator on the hip and points to the door, where Clara is watching him. She asks the narrator to come into her office right away.

Once inside, Clara tells the narrator that he screwed up and reminds him that, in 50 years, the magazine has only retracted one story. She presents him with the additional errors that she found. She also says that the proofs are unintelligible. She couldn’t see what he had and hadn’t corrected. Clara then mentions that this isn’t the first time that the narrator has screwed up. Due to his inability to perform his job, she’s firing him.