Chapter 2
Two
pine (v.): to yearn intensely or persistently, especially for something unattainable
The beginning-of-the-week hush still hangs over the news office’s dark-paneled interior.
Out here alone at my station, I rather imagine myself captain of a very small ship.
I key in new help wanted ads for Blue Lake Resort and Trading Post Café.
Servers are ever in short supply in a tourist town.
A flick of the wrist. A click of the mouse. The design program bows to my whim.
Here’s a sad fact. Every week in the US, two community newspapers—these ink-and-paper bastions of civilization—meet their end. Go belly up. Join the choir invisible. Or, as my dad likes to put it, take a dirt nap.
Fortunately, small-town journalism in Charity Falls is still alive and . . . mostly kicking. Although our team would breathe easier without the perpetual struggle to keep the lights on around here.
Who could imagine living in a world where you have no idea what’s happening close to home—the stuff your neighbors care enough about to bite their nails over or go to bat for? Newspapers are community glue!
Well. For now, anyway, the beloved Mountain Messenger has not yet gone the way of so many small papers. Mine is a job that matters, and I won’t spend the day pining for anything more.
Have I mentioned I love newspapers?
Moving on to the announcements page, I delete those no longer relevant—last weekend’s GiddyUp 5k fun run and a seniors’ pickleball tourney—replacing them with the new blurbs, including the one Ian provided. Things are looking nicely balanced. I’m on schedule.
At least, until the trio of cowbells hanging from the front doorknob jangles, and in walks a familiar hunched figure wearing a navy ball cap with the VFW emblem.
“G’morning,” he growls in a voice so husky I’m guessing he hasn’t used it yet today. Unsurprisingly, the gentleman carries a wrinkled scrap of paper that looks a lot like the torn-off corner of a piece of junk mail.
Oh, Baxter. How many times have I kindly reminded him that the deadline to turn in an announcement is eleven o’clock?
“Happy Monday, Baxter,” I manage to say brightly.
He’s unshaven again today. And when he offers me the note, I pretend not to notice his worsening hand tremor. Two months ago, we printed his wife’s obit, and he hasn’t been himself since.
“What have you got for me?”
Baxter flicks the paper scrap I now hold, with the air of a former hard-shell military commander. “It’s all right there, see? We need donations for the VFW–American Legion raffle. Can you get that in this week’s paper?”
Up close, his face appears unusually puffy, calling attention to constellations of age spots.
A lump rises in my throat. Suddenly I’m staring into the eyes of my grandmother, her face ballooned as the result of a steroid she had to take for some infection or other.
It was the last time I saw her before she passed.
A glance from Baxter’s shaky handwriting to the wall clock confirms it’s 11:46. Still, how can I say no to this dear old crank? You have to admire someone who’s always on mission.
I offer my warmest smile. “Sure. I can get that in there for you. No problem.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“Oh, uh, Baxter?” I say as he shuffles unsteadily to the door. “May I interest you in a slice of Dot’s apple-walnut bread for the road?”
Behind thick lenses, Baxter’s eyes widen. “Oh-ho-ho. You betcha.” Who knew the man has a dimple when he smiles?
After seeing him out, I’m back at it, reworking the announcements page to accommodate Baxter’s late addition. But what’s this in the blurb above it? A typo?
Writers group seeks members. Strong tea, gentle critique. Thursday evenings, 6:30 p.m. at Sweet Reads. Bring your WHIP.
Wait, what? This can’t be right—although I don’t doubt that attending a critique group would be torturous.
Snickering, I riffle through the papers on my desk for Ian’s announcement.
Here it is. It reads “Bring your WIP.” As in W-I-P.
Work in progress. Okay, phew. This makes sense.
Which means I allowed spell-check to add the h.
In other words, a high-tech Freudian slip.
The pang in my abdomen is telling. If I’m honest, I’d love to be the kind of person who joins a writing group, sauntering into a crowd of strangers ready to bare her creative soul.
The kind of woman who cranes her neck to the sky and says “Why not?” Besides, what else do I have going on Thursday nights while Chase is at tae kwon do?
But when I imagine walking in with my 17,229-word unfinished manuscript in hand, something no one apart from my parents and Savannah knows about, my chest tightens. The smell of Dot’s apple-walnut bread turns cloying.
What had Ian been thinking, inviting me?
For all he knows, I craft nothing more than the occasional obituary.
Well, there’s been that handful of times my editor threw me into the deep end—a couple of new-business profiles, filling in during Brad’s vacations.
And then a year ago or so, Sam convinced me, despite my objections, to cover a local woman’s campaign to restore a beloved local landmark.
The result? Ruinous! Thanks to my story, one of Charity Falls’ esteemed citizens was cast in a negative light. Clearly I’m meant to cocoon myself here at the front desk, where I can’t do any real damage.
***
By four o’clock, the paper’s off to the printer, and what to do about dinner sits uppermost in my mind.
It doesn’t help that Meg roosts atop my desk, a spiky-haired pixie on a shelf, swinging her blood-red Chucks and singing the glories of Rigo’s Tacos.
Brad and Dot hover around my station as well, hanging on every detail about the town’s newest food truck.
“In a nutshell,” Meg concludes, “teeming with juicy goodness and cotija cheese.”
I sigh inwardly. If I could wish away my son’s over-the-top aversion to any single food group, it would be tacos.
“Ooh, trivia nights are starting back up over at the food carts,” Dot sing-songs.
As activities go, this ranks somewhere on my list of things that would require a personality transplant. Too fraught with opportunities for public embarrassment. Besides, I don’t exactly keep up on pop culture the way Dot does.
Suddenly Sam’s rusty-old-tuba voice blares through every desk phone. “Confab, everyone. My office.”
Brad performs an exaggerated eye roll, scarfs the heel of his apple bread, and chases it with a coffee swig.
“Day’s not over yet,” he says, brushing crumbs from his neatly trimmed goatee.
I have to smile. Brad Vickery is twice divorced.
Dot Stubblefield, an empty nester. And Meg Malone appears committedly single, a lone eagle.
Chances are good I’m the only one here whose day is far from over.
Even if what the rest of the day holds is repotting my jungly dieffenbachia, boiling macaroni, and joining Chase to knock out the next installment on his fastidiously charted tree diagram of every Star Trek episode since the dawn of television.
The editor in chief’s office smells like old saddles and cigars.
Sam doesn’t stop pecking away at his keyboard until we’re all assembled around the ancient hulk of his desk.
Seated, I once again take pains to avoid eye contact with the open-snouted, fang-toothed head of a black bear staring down at me from the wall above Sam.
Taxidermy is so not my vibe.
Sam slips off his wire-rimmed readers and chucks them atop a disorderly stack of paperwork.
“Here’s the whole shootin’ match,” he says, lacing his fingers and leaning forward.
“I’m down by two freelancers for the next couple ’a months.
Now, I’ll do what I can to pick up the slack, but with Noleen’s surgery coming up, I can only shoulder so much. ”
I stiffen, an invisible dart pricking my conscience.
Poor Sam. So many unknowns with his wife’s cancer.
His voice contains even more gravel than usual.
Did Meg just flick an accusatory look my way?
True, I didn’t land this job based solely on my mad data-entry skills.
Desperate for work, I’d also trumpeted my almost-degree in journalism.
But then he says, “So I’ll need you all to keep your ears to the ground,” and my shoulders begin to relax.
“Put some feelers out. We could sure use another go-to correspondent. Two would be better. Meanwhile, Brad, you’ll cover the city hall beat until Floyd returns in November.
” Brad opens his mouth to argue, but Sam cuts him off with, “And for goodness’ sake, make it shine. Lucy hasn’t got time for rewrites.”
I nod along with the others and push my glasses farther up my nose. This isn’t directed at me after all. But there it is, the briefest brush of Sam’s gaze on me. And in it, a flash of disappointment. At least, that’s what I think I see.
Oh, come on. Do I look like the savior type? No one here could possibly believe that.
Dot’s apple bread sits like a stone in my stomach. I hate it when I can’t make everyone happy.
It cost me nearly everything to learn that people-pleasing isn’t kindness. It’s selling your boundaries hoping someone will call it love.
“Puts me in a real pickle with the McPhersons,” Sam continues, “at a time when what they need from me is another round of belt-tightening. Much as I hate to saddle you all with worry . . .” He levels an apologetic gaze at us. “I need to say it. This little ship of ours is listing dangerously.”
I swallow hard. What a grave image. My coworkers and I sit motionless.
While at one time the Messenger was locally owned, it’s now part of a family-owned regional chain of small weekly gazettes, which, frankly, is the only reason it’s still afloat.
And I happen to know Sam’s been summoned to meet with the McPherson Group soon because I booked his flight to Kalispell, Montana.