Free Not My Type by Melanie Jacobson

drove the choice in our name. It’s a play on Real Salt Lake, the soccer team, to get us more hits when people do Internet searches. Get it? It’s real, but it’s also real, ” she said, giving the last word the proper Spanish pronunciation.
    “Nice,” I said. Ellie Peters was a very smart girl. Er, woman. Young lady?
    “We’re looking at new ways to draw reader interest and create some buzz. We get high traffic before the weekend when people are Googling searches for places to eat or stuff to do. We want to convert more of that traffic to click throughs for other articles, not just our restaurant and theater reviews. We sell a fair number of ads to restaurants, but if we could attract more readers to our other content, we could charge more for what we already sell, plus attract whole new categories of advertisers.”
    I nodded. It sounded like pretty straightforward common sense.
    “That’s where you come in,” she said. “We want new, fresh voices to uncover the quirks and secrets of the city for our readers, someone that our target demographic can relate to. I think that’s you.”
    “Me?” Remembering Tanner’s diatribe the week before, I cleared my throat and took a stab at total transparency. “I’m inexperienced, but I learn fast. You won’t find anyone willing to work harder, and I’m full of ideas.”
    She smiled. “We’re not worried about your experience. I know you can write. I read through your blog archives—” and here again, I experienced a rush of relief that I had taken down the posts not fit for potential employer consumption— “and you have a great voice. I also asked Anna to send me copies of the features you wrote for North Valley Gazette. You have a good sense of story and a subtle sense of humor.”
    “Wow, uh, thanks,” I stammered and then felt like I was about fourteen and Ellie was the senior cheer captain deigning to sit with me at lunch. Pull yourself together, I scolded.
    “You’re welcome, but I’m stating the facts. I think your style is a good fit for us, and we can polish you in editing where you’re still green.”
    Holy cow. It sounded like she was on the verge of whipping out a contract for me to sign on the spot. Maybe I was more awesome than I realized . . .
    “We’ve got a special assignment we’d like to start you out with,” she said.
    Yes!
    “Are you single?”
    Wha . . . ? I nodded, stupidly.
    “Perfect. Then you’re definitely the right girl for this assignment,” she said.
    “Great?” I said, but I was so confused that it came out sounding like a question.
    Ellie laughed and tucked her hair behind one ear, better exposing the hand-worked silver curlicue earrings dangling from her lobe. This girl had an impeccable sense of style. “Based on the hits different articles and search terms get within the website, we think we could grab another huge chunk of Internet traffic if we added a Sex in the City– type feature, and we want you to be our Carrie Bradshaw.”
    My jaw dropped. I couldn’t find the presence of mind to do more than stare, slightly horrified. Sex in the City ? Had she seen on my totally sanitized, painfully accurate résumé that I was a BYU graduate? What kind of craziness was this?
    The look on my face sent her into another peal of laughter, and she took a minute to pull herself back together.
    “I’ll clarify,” she said when she had calmed down, although she grinned broadly. “This is a highly modified, no-sex version. It would be more like Love in the City than Sex in the City. ”
    I was less alarmed but still confused. “I don’t understand where you’re going with this,” I said, careful to keep my voice neutral so I didn’t sound negative.
    “Forget Sex and the City ,” she said. “Bad comparison. I’ll pitch it a different way. A significant number of the visitors to our magazine are drawn by search terms related to dating, especially Internet dating. Anytime we run a feature about the do’s and