“I’ll talk to Mr. Jacobs about it later today,” Philip said. “How does that sound?”
Mary was thrilled but tried not to show just how much it affected her. The thought of Matthew succeeding made her heart sing.
She felt like giving Philip a hug but restrained herself.
“Philip!” The door to the shop burst open and a woman came running in. Mary recognized her as Greta Barden, one of the girls who used to pal around with Sarah until she found a beau. After that, she didn’t seem to have time to spend with any of her girl friends. Mary was a little surprised the young woman was calling Philip by his first name. “Philip, you’ll never guess. You’ll never guess!”
Greta bounced on her toes, clapping her small hands together. She herself was a small girl, no more than 5 foot 3, 100 pounds soaking wet. She reminded Mary of a pixie.
Philip was laughing, though, and looked at Mary’s confused face with amusement. “Mary, I don’t know if you know my cousin Greta?”
Mary smiled wide, her eyes turning back to the excited girl who ran to them, still bouncing up and down.
“I know you,” Greta said as if she considered it the greatest privilege on the plant to know Mary. “You’re Sarah’s friend, aren’t you? The schoolteacher?”
“Why yes I am,” Mary said. “I know you, too. How have you been?”
“Oh, I’m just so excited,” the girl gushed. “So excited! There is a women’s theater troop coming through. Can you believe it? They are stopping here for three days and will put on a show a night. Oh, I’m so excited. That never happens. No one comes to Glenwood, not to entertain us!”
Mary had to laugh. Greta was right but the enthusiasm with which the young woman said it was what amused her. “That’s very true,” she responded, turning to look at Philip to see what his reaction was. His smile revealed how delighted he was by his cousin.
“You just have to say something about it in the paper, Cousin,” Greta said. “You have to let everyone know they are coming so they sell a lot of tickets and maybe they’ll keep coming back. That would be a dream come true for me! I plan to join an acting troop someday, you know.” Greta lifted her hands up and twirled like a ballerina, quite skillfully, Mary thought. And gracefully, too. Her long blond hair was back in a braid but it managed to lift up in the air, adding to the effect of the pretty girl dancing before them.
She closed her eyes, danced a little jig and ended it with a curtsy in their direction.
Philip immediately brought his hands together, clapping.
“Wonderful dance, Greta! You look beautiful!”
Greta’s blue eyes sparkled at her cousin and she crinkled her nose up at Mary. “Isn’t he delightful?” she giggled.
Mary blushed furiously. Was she supposed to respond to that?
“You haven’t said if you will write about it for me, Philip. Oh, please say you will. I want everyone to know they are coming!”
“Do you want to write something?” Philip asked. Mary could tell by the tone of his voice it was something he hadn’t thought of before and was offering out of the kindness of his heart.
Greta immediately shook her head, however. “Oh, no, I’m not good at things like that. That’s what you do!”
“I don’t know if I can, my dear. But I will try.”
Greta looked less enthusiastic than before. “Oh, I hope you will.” She sounded somewhat defeated. Mary felt sorry for her. She was so happy when she came in. Now she looked disappointed.
“There, there,” Philip said as he walked toward her and gave the young woman a hug, having to bend down like she was a child. “I said I’d try. I need to have the time to do it and I just have to make sure I’m publishing what the public wants to read about. I’ll do some research and let you know.”
“Okay.” It seemed there was no dampening of Greta’s spirit. The happiness in her voice had returned and she gave Philip a tight hug that made him gasp.
“Can’t breathe,” Philip said, even though he sounded like he could breathe just fine.
Greta laughed, a tinkling sound that made Mary smile wider. The girl let her cousin go and skipped out, waving a goodbye at them.
“What a delightful young woman,” Mary said, her eyes following Greta as far as she could see her through the window before looking back at Philip. “I didn’t know she was your cousin. Isn’t she one of the socialites in Glenwood? Her mother and father both inherited a lot of land and money, didn’t they?”
Philip nodded, his eyes also on the girl as she ran down the street. “Yeah, they did. They are loaded.”
Mary couldn’t help giggling. “So you are going to write about the theater troop?”
Philip looked doubtful. It made Mary’s heart sink.
“I doubt I’ll be able to.”
“Be able to?” Mary gave him a frustrated look. “Or is it that you don’t want to write about them because they’re women? Women don’t travel around entertaining folks very often. It should be something you’d want to write about. Would it be different if they were men?”
Philip gave her an odd look, one that she couldn’t quite decipher. She thought maybe he might be offended that she would think of him so harshly, as a misogynist. He also looked confused, like he didn’t quite understand what she was saying.
“It’s not because they’re women. I didn’t say that. Why would you think that?”
Mary shrugged, trying to contain her shame for having overreacted. “I haven’t seen you put any effort at all into raising women’s issues up so people will know what’s going on out there. And it’s not just women either. Funding has been cut to the schools. You never mention anything about that.”
“Regardless, it is too late to change what will be coming out this week. Everything has already been set in place.”
Mary tried not to say anything but her mouth was quicker than her brain. “That’s a likely excuse.” Her tone was extremely sarcastic. She was immediately regretful.
Philip looked like he’d been slapped.
Mary felt the shame of being the one who verbally did the slapping.
Chapter 14
Philip sat behind his desk, stewing over the unkind remarks the schoolteacher had said. He couldn’t understand why she felt the need to think badly of him. He wanted to write and print articles on much broader topics than he was allowed to.
It irked him that he wasn’t free to publish whatever he wanted. With the mayor constantly breathing down his neck he felt restricted, like his hands were being tied.
He heard John coming from the back of the shop where they kept supplies and looked up to see him going through the lobby to the printing room.
“John!” he called out, standing with his hands flat on his desk, leaning over it to see if John had heard him. His employee stopped and leaned back to look at him.
“Yeah, let me put this stuff in here and I’ll come in there, Philip.”
Philip nodded and sat back down. He heard John setting the boxes and supplies he’d been holding down in the printing room and a few moments later, he was strolling through the door into the office.
He dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk as if he was exhausted. “What’s on your mind?”
Philip knew he was frowning and probably looked a little angry. He could tell by the way John was scanning his face. “Did you see Mary leaving a while ago?”
John lifted his eyebrows. “Didn’t see anybody, boss. I’ve been back doing inventory. She got ya troubled, huh? What did she do?”
Philip shook his head, running one hand through his dark hair. “She didn’t do anything. She’s just headstrong and… well, a bit foolhardy. Thinks she understands how the newspaper business works.”
John shrugged. “She’s a fine woman but she doesn’t work in this industry. How would she know? What did she say?”
“She said something that got my attention. The funding for the school has been cut. I knew that there were budget cuts but I didn’t know the sc
hoolhouse was affected by that. And when you think about it, where did that money go? I haven’t seen any major improvements to Glenwood since the mayor took over and he’s the one doling out the cuts. What do you know about it?”
He used a curious tone of voice for the question, so John wouldn’t think he was implying the other man was responsible for his father’s actions.
John pulled back one side of his lips and pulled in a deep breath through his nose. “I’m afraid I don’t know much, Philip. And I’ll be honest with you, I know he’s my pa and all, but I haven’t seen any improvements. Not any.”
That aggravated Philip. Had no one noticed? It seemed to him that if the mayor’s own son was in the dark about it, probably everyone else was, too. Where was the money going? What was the mayor doing with it?
“I’m gonna do some investigating into this, John. I just want to tell you now. I want to know why there have been cuts to the school’s budget when they have so little to work with already, according to Mary. I need your help. Are you willing to do that for me?”
He knew it might be hard for John to research his father’s work. There would be a conflict between his love for his father and what the right thing to do was.
John, however, didn’t look perturbed by the idea. He nodded, his eyes wandering as they often did when his mind was working out a plan. Philip was glad to see he was taking the news that his father might be corrupt so easily.
“I think that sounds like a real good idea,” John said. He seemed almost excited by the prospect. Philip got the impression John wasn’t too happy with his father, and finding out he’d been doing illegal things wouldn’t be a surprise to him.
It was kind of sad, Philip thought. But no one said evil people didn’t have children.
“We’re going to come up against some opposition, that’s for sure,” Philip said. “I don’t know how many people might be involved in this. We’re going to have to look under some pretty big rocks.”
John grinned, nodding his head. “I’m up for the task, boss.”
“Great. I want to print the article on the front-page next week, if we uncover anything newsworthy. And second page will be about the women’s troop coming through town. Greta was right; they need some advertising. And their story will be very unique, I’m sure.”
John looked surprised. “What are you talking about?”
“I guess you hadn’t heard. See, that’s why they need advertising. Somehow Greta found out about a theater group coming through Glenwood to stay for a few days and entertain us. All women.”
John grunted. “Well, that’s unique.”
Philip nodded in agreement. “Very. That’s why I think they’ll have quite a story to tell. I think we can sell a lot of papers if we include those two stories.”
“Sounds good. So, what do you want me to do first?”
Philip sat back in his chair and thought for a minute. He cupped one hand under his chin and let his eyes drift around the room. “I think you should be the one to get some information about the budget cuts. You probably don’t want to talk to your father about it, so maybe some of the other people on the budgeting committee. They’ll know who you are and won’t think twice about telling you what they know.”
John nodded. “Yeah, we entertained many people while I still lived with my father. They all got to know me pretty well. I may be living on my own and married with a child on the way, but they all still think of me as the Hanover boy.”
The two men laughed.
“I’m glad you’re willing to help. I don’t know what you might find. You may want to think about that before you go asking questions.”
John shook his head. “I’m not worried about it. It’s my pa who makes the enemies, not me. Everyone knows no one tells Rory Hanover what to do. That includes his kids. Mostly his kids. Me and Sherrie have never had any say in what Pa does. Ma doesn’t either. That’s just the way he is.”
Philip had always thought something must have happened to Mayor Hanover that made him the bitter, greedy man he was. He didn’t see how a man like that could attract a wife and have children with her, and a marriage that seemed at least somewhat successful from the outside.
John’s mother, Sheila, was no pushover. But she had never once interfered with anything her husband did in his role as mayor. She moved around town, mingling with the other socialites, getting the daughters ready for their lives as wives and mothers, making sure the girls were fed the finest foods and clothed in the best fabrics.
“Do you have a plan in mind? I could have sworn I saw you thinking something up a few minutes ago.”
John laughed, pleasantly. Philip responded with a grin. “Yeah,” John said. “I was actually thinking about Pa’s study and how he never went in there during dinner time. Thinking how I could take Emma over there for a family dinner tonight or tomorrow. See what I can find in there while everyone is distracted.”
Philip was impressed with John’s cleverness. “Do you think he’d keep records like that in his study? Wouldn’t anyone see them?”
John snorted. “No one goes in my pa’s study but him. Not even the housekeeper goes in there to clean. He cleans it himself, I guess. Won’t be surprised if there’s a layer of dust on every thing he hasn’t touched in a while.”
“Have you ever been inside?”
John replied, shrugging, “Back when I was younger. I know where it is and what it looks like. I used to go get him for dinner and things like that so I know what it looks like inside. But I haven’t lived there in years. Probably still looks the same now. He’s not a big one for change.”
Philip nodded. “Well, let me know what you come up with. I’m going to interview the ladies in town and see who knows what about this theater group. When they get to town, I’ll talk to them too. Get their schedule, their back story, places they’ve been.”
“Sounds good. I’ll give you my information when I have it. You can write the story. I’m not touching it.”
Philip nodded. “I know. Thanks for the help.”
“Anything I can do,” John grinned as he stood up. “You just let me know.”
Philip watched his friend walk through the door and turn in the direction of the printing room. He was glad he had such an influential employee. John certainly didn’t have to work for the newspaper. Whether he was there just to spite his father or not, he did a good job and had strong work ethics. He could go far in the newspaper industry if he really wanted to. Own his own printing press. He certainly knew how to work it.
Mary’s idea of having young Matthew come in and work for him sounded like a good plan, too. He’d told her to tell the boy when she saw him next to come by and meet him. After she explained how important it was for Matthew to stay in school, Philip decided he wanted to help the boy. Working with his parents instead of trying to go around them certainly sounded like a better idea to him. He planned to stop by their house before going home at the end of the day.
Chapter 15
Philip was excited about his new plans by the time he left the office that day. He mounted his horse, humming a tune and tapping his thigh to the beat in his head. Everyone in town would be pleased with the new turn the paper was taking… everyone except a few certain businessmen and of course, the mayor.
But he was willing to take the leap. He wasn’t doing it just to impress Mary, though he thought that might be a few extra bonus points for him. He hoped so. Every time they met, he was more impressed with her. She wasn’t just another pretty woman in Glenwood.
His Rainbow After the Rain Page 9