The Matchmaker Maneuver (Wishful Romance Prequel)

Chapter 1

Myles Stewart had been driven by a single aspiration since he was eight years old: Become Perry White.

Upon the disappointing discovery that he could not, in fact, go work for The Daily Planet, he’d set his sights on The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe. His family had assumed he’d outgrow the desire and would fall in line with their expectations by the time he graduated college. They figured he’d tire of the life after he bounced from The Times-Picayune up to The Seattle Times, then over to The Philadelphia Daily News. But he never tired of the chase, of the quest to be the first in the know, of the pursuit of truth.

Then the bottom fell out of journalism. Every paper in the country experienced mass layoffs and downsizing. Realizing his days were probably numbered in Philly, Myles did something that baffled his big city colleagues. He came home to Mississippi and bought a struggling newspaper in a town where, his friends were convinced, absolutely nothing happened.

“Did you hear about the police chase in Lawley last week?”

“No. What happened?”

“This guy stole an ambulance and led them on a high-speed chase out of town. Got up to eighty-five miles an hour. While he was driving, he took his clothes off and tossed ’em right out the window. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but he ended up stopping at the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church and walked right on in during the middle of service. Naked as the day he was born. The police tased him right there in the center aisle. Read it in the paper this morning.”

“My Lord. What is the world coming to?”

Myles smiled to himself. That one had been particularly entertaining to follow up on.

Okay. So The Wishful Observer wasn’t The Daily Planet. But unlike their metropolitan counterparts, small town newspapers were, according to some, still a viable market. So what if Warren Buffett couldn’t pull it off? He wasn’t a newspaperman. As owner and Editor-in-Chief, Myles intended to bring The Observer back from the brink, along with his whopping staff of three people, two of whom were part-time.

After two weeks on the job, Myles was willing to admit he might’ve bitten off a bit more than he’d meant to chew, but he loved nothing more than a challenge. Right now, that challenge was rapidly immersing himself in the community in order to suss out his existing and potential audiences. So far, that had meant multiple artery-clogging breakfasts at Dinner Belles Cafe, where, praise God, he’d gotten his first properly cooked grits since he left for college.

“Your usual, sugar. Bowl of grits, two biscuits, and bacon.” The waitress slid the plate in front of him.

Myles offered her a broad smile, delighted that he’d graduated to having a usual. “Thanks, Corinne.”

“Can I top off that coffee for you?”

“Sure can.” She leaned over to fill his mug.

“So, what’s your story?” he asked. In his two weeks coming in here, she’d been his waitress almost every day, and he’d formulated his own version of what he imagined her life was out of his observations. She worked in a greasy spoon, yet was painfully thin. A faint odor of cigarette smoke clung to her clothes. She was friendly with customers, downright flirtatious with the men, in a way that said she’d been used to male attention earlier in her life and expected it as her due. No rings. He was betting on former high school queen fallen on harder times. He wanted to know how much of it was right.

One carefully tweezed brow arched up. “My story?”

“Sure. Everybody’s got one. What’s yours?”

“Oh, nothin’ that interesting.”

“Everybody’s interesting,” Myles assured her.

“You’ve got me beat on that one, Mr. Big City Reporter. Lived all over and ended up here. I can’t imagine why you’d want to do that.”

“I wanted a different life. And good grits.” He spooned up a bite of his. “Mmm.”

“Well, we do have those. You enjoy now.” She headed off to check her other tables.

As he worked his way through the grits, Myles tuned in to the other conversations around him.

“Have you seen the new ER doctor?” The woman behind him almost purred it.

“We have a new ER doc?”

“Dr. Chad Phillips. I had to take my grandmother in for chest pains—she was fine, by the way—and he was the one on duty. I swear, he could give me a breast exam any time.”

Her companion snorted. “I thought you said he was an ER doc.”

“They’re supposed to be well-rounded.”

Myles wondered if he could get the good doctor to agree to a profile piece introducing him to the community. From the sounds of it, if he were single, that might result in him being mobbed by all the unattached women in town. But maybe the guy could wangle an endless supply of casseroles and pies out of the deal.

The bell over the door rang. A balding man Myles pegged to be in his mid-forties came inside, a stack of papers in his hand. He skipped the meet-and-greet so common with other patrons and headed straight for the counter. The kitchen door swung open and Myles’ favorite character ambled out. Mama Pearl Buckley was, he’d learned, queen of two things in this town—pie and gossip. Which was why he’d made Dinner Belles his informal bullpen. Almost nothing went on in Wishful without her knowing about it.

“What can I do for you, Nate?”

“I was hoping you’d put up a flier about auditions.”

“Sure. What’s the show this time?”

“White Christmas. And it may end up being our last.”

“How’s that?”

“The Madrigal is in hock up to its balconies. Mr. Stanton’s kids started looking into things after he passed a few months ago and the whole thing’s a mess. This show is our stay of execution. If we can raise enough, we might be able to save it.”

She accepted one of the fliers. “You know I’ll help however I can.”

Myles slid from his booth and walked over. “Excuse me.”

Both of them turned toward him.

“I couldn’t help but overhear. I might be able to help a bit myself. I’m Myles Stewart, the new editor of The Observer. If you’ve got a few minutes to sit down with me, I’d love to run something in the paper to let the rest of the town know what’s going on.”

Nate brightened. “That’d be great. Mama Pearl, can I get a cup of coffee since I’m staying?”

“Comin’ right up.”

The two men retreated to Myles’ booth. Myles pulled a steno pad and pen from his messenger bag, prepared to take notes.

“So, tell me about the Madrigal. I gather it’s a theater?”

“It is. Our community theater, over on Front Street. It was built back in 1912, as a home for Vaudeville.”

“Seriously? In a town this size?”

Nate shrugged. “Wishful has always been a home for the arts. They ran live productions until the start of World War II. There was a brief stretch where it was almost converted to a movie theater, but then Edward Stanton bought it in 1958. He performed the first restoration and expansion because he didn’t believe that the people of Wishful should miss out on the arts just because it was small. Over the years, the Madrigal has earned a reputation as one of the best community theaters in the south. We’ve done everything from Shakespeare to Rogers and Hammerstein. I’ve been directing productions there for the past twenty years. It’s a real part of town history. But, like so many things around here, it’s seen better days.”

“I understand Wishful’s economy has been in a decline for the last couple of decades.” Myles had seen back issues of the paper talking about it.

“Probably a bit longer. It’s started to turn around under the leadership of the new city planner, but she’s just one person and can only do so much. Our best shot is to put on a show that’s sufficiently popular to bring in folks from the surrounding areas, raising enough revenues to pay off the debts enough to bring them current.”

“How much will it take?”

Nate named a figure that had Myles whistling. “Damn. You’ve got your work cut out for you.” He hoped like hell the actors in this community theater were better than most of the community-level shows he’d seen. “The Observer will help however it can. I’ll be happy to write a human-interest piece to go in the next edition, as well as announcing auditions. Do you think you could make time later today to meet me and my staff photographer for a quick little tour? A pic of the stage would make for good front page imagery.”

Nate slid from the booth. “I can do that. Around three-thirty?”

“We’ll be there.”

“I appreciate your help, Mr. Stewart.”

“Myles, please.”

“Myles then.”

“I’ll do what I can to connect everybody to the plight of the Madrigal—whether they’re into theater or not. Really give them a feel for what they’d be missing if it closed its doors.”

“It’s a good start.” Nate paused at the door. “But the only way to truly experience the theater is from the stage.”