CHAPTER 7 #2
We all know the paper has taken a downward slide in the last few years, but these latest changes are the last straw.
Charging for announcements like we are some big-city publication goes against everything that makes Dahlia what it is: a community-first kind of town where you are proud to know and love your neighbors.
And your recent policy limiting what you call “features” in favor of “hard news” is completely backwards.
People in this town like reading good news about our friends.
Call it old-fashioned, but we like stories about Mr. Johnston’s pick-your-own blueberry farm, or the annual pictures of the end-of-year field trip, which you decided to nix.
It hurt my son’s feelings pretty bad when he didn’t get to see his friends in the paper.
I tried to explain, but frankly, I don’t understand either.
I highly recommend you reconsider your policies or you will find yourself entirely out of subscribers—and a job.
Sincerely, Joshua L. Jamison
He’d printed an address and phone number, all by the book, the whole thing far less than three hundred words, which meant it met all the standards for publication as a legitimate letter-to-the-editor.
The other letters she’d received had either been anonymous, or way too long, or contained name-calling and other slams, so even though she’d gotten her share of nasty calls and complaints, she’d actually been able to avoid printing anything in the paper. But this letter was fair game.
Well, fine, Joshua L. Jamison. I’ll publish your stupid letter. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to face the flames, and I’ve always come through.
She remembered the slams she’d gotten for months in New York over outing the senator’s daughter’s drug habit, or the time her old managing editor had gone to bat for her after she’d embarrassed the publisher’s wife with an expose of her law firm.
In a strange way, she sort of admired Joshua the Letter-Writer.
His name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
Still, it was a good letter. Objective, fair, pointing out the issue while allowing just enough emotion so others could relate.
And not even a single derogatory comment, while still managing virtuous outrage.
Well done, you self-righteous jerk.
She filed the letter in the typing stack for Tiff, then listened to her voicemail to find a cancelled subscription, two more complaint calls, and the most atrociously hokey story pitch possible, suggesting she do a profile on somebody’s great-aunt who’d gone to college with Meryl Streep.
As if. She gathered her keys and refilled her water bottle.
Time for some coffee and a walk the long way home.
She’d show Peter and his 5K-running fiancée.
“Well, hey, honey!” The high-pitched voice accosted her the moment she stepped into the sunlight. She peered and saw a track-suited older lady waving vigorously from a trim house two doors down. “Aren’t you the workaholic—in the office at eight on a Saturday morning!”
Rebecca’s smile felt dry and tight over her teeth. “That’s me. Hello, Mrs. Blackwelder.”
“Have a good day, sugar. I’m praying for you. Oh, now look out!”
Look out? Rebecca whirled to start down the steps and almost ran straight into a very tall, very well-built man who looked almost as taken-aback as she did. He wore a crisp blue and white button-down and a bowtie that somehow managed to look good on him, not in the least bit pompous.
“Good morning!” He grinned, an arm out to steady her.
“Good morning, yourself,” she said, breathless, self-conscious for the second time that day. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Well, I was just looking for the new editor, Rebecca Chastain.” He looked sheepish. “I know it’s a Saturday, but I guess I was just hoping to catch her and pitch a business idea.”
“I’m Rebecca,” she said, then took a step back, realizing she was gazing up at him. She motioned to her running clothes, forced a confident laugh. “Obviously I’m not dressed for work, but I have a few minutes if you want to talk now. Or we can chat next week.”
He was even more handsome than Peter, if that was possible.
The morning sunlight glinted off golden hair that was professionally styled, yet somehow tousled in a boyishly appealing way, and his biceps .
.. Stop it, Rebecca. Stop it now. Dating is off-limits, Nancy had reminded her in numerous therapy sessions.
She needed to work on herself. Not that she wanted to date anyone anytime soon.
But she certainly didn’t need to allow herself to get giddy over some perfect stranger.
“I’d love to talk now, if you really don’t mind.” He grinned again, motioned to the folders in his hand. “I won’t take long, but I’d love to show you something. I’m Erik, by the way. Erik Wennerman.”
“Nice to meet you, Erik.” She shook his hand, plastered on her professional smile.
She unlocked the door and motioned him inside, leaving the door open to send a clear message: All business.
Sitting back down behind her desk, she gestured to the chair in front of her.
“Have a seat. So, how can we help you?”
“Well, I’m hoping it will be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
” Erik sat up straight as he pushed one of the glossy folders before her, a well-designed logo for Wennerman Incorporated emblazoned in bold blue, black, and yellow on the front, with a yellow circle a bit like a setting sun on the horizon.
“My family runs a number of retirement communities in the area, and we partner with the local newspapers group to place advertising in every one of their newspapers in a three-hundred-mile radius.”
“Wow.”
“It’s a big reach.” He smiled again. “They offer us a good deal, and in exchange we commit to consistent weekly advertising support for every one of their papers. I got to thinking that your paper, even though it’s private ownership, might be interested in a similar arrangement.”
“How much are you talking?”
He slid the pricing sheet toward her, and she tried to keep a neutral face. It was significantly lower than the Dahlia Weekly’s normal ad rate.
“But it’s weekly support,” he said, eying her. “It would help us reach seniors in this area, which could be a strong market for us, and it would help you drive sales, which I’m sure you can use.”
The newspaper’s bank account balance flashed in her mind, and wheels began to turn.
“I’ll have to think about it—”
“Of course! There’s no rush. I happened to be in Dahlia today visiting my great-aunt and thought I’d pop by, introduce myself.”
She took the folder and the pricing sheet, slid it into her stack. “I’m really glad you did.”
His smile widened. “Me, too.”
Rebecca felt her cheeks begin to flush, and she stood, offered a hand.
“Well, it’s nice meeting you, Erik. Can I give you a call next week?”
“I’d love that.”
He stood, and they walked to the door together. He waited at a respectful distance as she locked up, then stood to watch her go. She noticed his car parked on the street, a new-model black Audi convertible—much nicer than the one Peter had kept in the garage—and gave a goodbye wave.
And turning to head home, she decided to skip the coffee in favor of a pounding all-out run.
She was out of breath and drenched by the time she got back to the house and found Granny in the kitchen, stirring something in a big pot over the stove.
“Gracious, girl, sit. You’re soaked!” Granny motioned to one of the wooden chairs at the small kitchen table, and Rebecca did.
“I’m fine,” she huffed out, laughing, but Granny brought her a tall glass of water, and she drank it gratefully.
Granny gave the pot one last stir and then joined her granddaughter at the table, where she had a big pile of string beans laid out on a dishtowel. She snapped the ends off a bean neatly into a big metal bowl and eyed Rebecca. “So what’s on your agenda today?”
Rebecca shrugged and forced a smile, her breath coming easier now. She thought about Erik Wennerman’s ad pitch, carefully avoiding any thoughts about his physique, hair, and smile, and the bank account numbers, which were far less appealing.
“I don’t know, work?”
“Oh, hon. You remind me of your Gramps.” Granny snapped the ends of the string beans one by one, popped the good ones into the bowl, the action almost a percussion beat. Snap-snap-ting. Snap-snap-ting. Rebecca grabbed a bean and joined in, the motion coming back quickly, like riding a bike.
Granny used to force her to help when she was a miserable, anxiety-ridden teen, and she remembered that first summer how angry she’d been about it, wanting to escape upstairs to read or write a letter to a friend back home about the injustice of her parents sending her away for the entire summer.
By the end of that summer, the bean-snapping had become their time.
Girl Time, Granny had called it, where Granny would share about customers, or Rebecca would regale her about the bass she’d caught in the lake or the progress she’d made fixing up Gramps’s tool shed.
Granny and Gramps had paid her well that summer for helping part-time in the shop, claimed they needed the extra help, but looking back, Rebecca didn’t think they needed much help at all.
It was she who’d needed the help, the escape from all the sophomoric melodrama back home, even though she didn’t think so at the time.
Her rhythm was smoother now, and Rebecca smiled at her Granny.
“You mean the workaholic tendency? Some lady accused me of the same thing. Mrs. Blackwelder of the ever-present tracksuit? Lives by the newspaper office? ‘Aren’t you the workaholic—in the office at eight on a Saturday!’”
Rebecca exaggerated the accent in a clear falsetto, and Granny laughed out loud, not missing a beat as she snapped the beans.
“Well, Becca, I’d say she’s probably right. You did a full run, then went to work?”
Rebecca shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. And besides,” she said, pausing mid-snap to pat her thigh pointedly, “I’m forty now. Staying in shape isn’t as effortless as it used to be.”
“Oh, sweetie, you are beautiful. But I won’t stop you from running. It’s good for the body, good for the soul. Just take it easy. Life is not a marathon.”
“I don’t know, Granny. Sometimes I feel like when I slow down, I can’t help but think of, well, everything.” Rebecca bit the side of her lip as she snapped a bean. She cocked her head. “Ever feel you have to work sometimes just so you can’t think? So you can’t give yourself time to get depressed?”
Granny continued bean-snapping, but her eyes shifted to the window, scanning the pretty yard beyond like she was searching for something.
“After your Gramps died, I did that for a long time. Threw myself into work at the shop, work at home, work cleaning out his old tools and those dusty books he couldn’t bear to throw away.
” She turned back to Rebecca. “But you know I was putting off the inevitable. Even though it felt right at the time. So I get it.”
Rebecca nodded, not trusting her voice yet. After a moment, she whispered, “I thought Peter and I would be married by now.”
“I know, girl.” Granny’s voice was soft. “You get through the best you know how. The sunshine is coming. Believe me.”
Rebecca wished she could.