The Inquirer

by Jaclyn Dawn

  “This is done,” Dad said, pointing at the laptop.

  “It is done, Dad. I realized that this summer.”

  “We can’t,” Nathan said in almost a whisper. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?” Dad demanded.

  “We took advanced payments from the advertisers, and we don’t have the money to pay them back,” Nathan said. It was my turn to be dumbfounded. “There were student loans and business expenses and—”

  “Get my chequebook, Judith,” Dad said. “How much?”

  “No,” I said. “You can’t.”

  “How much?” Dad repeated.

  “Probably about forty-five hundred,” Nathan said. “I won’t know for sure until we see what the last issue brought in.”

  Dad’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. Mom returned from the study and handed Dad the chequebook for their personal savings account. He signed a blank cheque, using his thigh as a table. I was frozen in a state of shock with the Inquirer lit up on the laptop screen in front of me. Dad handed the cheque to Nathan, and Nathan took it.

  “Make it go away,” Dad said. He looked at me in a way he had never looked at me before. “All of it. You, too.”

  Dad dropped the chequebook on the coffee table and grabbed his crutches. The front door slammed behind him. Without saying a word, Mom picked up the chequebook and walked quietly from the room.

  CHAPTER 38

  I SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUTSIDE WITH MY DAD WATCHING THE CATTLE being loaded into the truck. Instead I was crying in my old bedroom. I couldn’t stop. It was like all the anxiety of the summer was pouring out of my eyes and nose. The wastebasket was filled with crumpled tissues. I wasn’t a pretty crier, which Nathan didn’t need to point out but he did. Mom didn’t bother checking in on us. She was cleaning. I heard pots clanging in the kitchen and then a little while later the vacuum cleaner humming in the living room.

  “We used all that money to pay off my student loan, didn’t we?”

  “My flight, printing, extra deliveries … it added up,” Nathan said, but I knew that we had overextended because I was going to Kingsley for two weeks and didn’t want to run into Mike before having paid off the student loan for which he had unknowingly co-signed. I sure hadn’t expected to see him on the first day and in our driveway.

  Neither Nathan or I had been foolish enough to think of the Inquirer as a long-term venture, and yet we had started counting on the income. I pictured Dad’s face. The hurt and the anger. The disgust. Growing up, I had been the one to leave for school, leave for sleepovers at Danika’s house, leave for summer camp. I had spontaneously moved out to live with Mike after high school and had moved to Vancouver. I had always been the one leaving, but also had always been welcomed back. My parents had always been there for me. Now they were telling me to leave. I had overstayed my welcome. I had never imagined that was possible.

  The Inquirer needed to either fulfill advertising commitments or reimburse the advertisers. The money left in the company account and the proceeds from the current issue also needed to cover taxes and remittance. After crunching numbers, we confirmed that Nathan was right. If we folded the Inquirer right then, we needed four thousand five hundred dollars to break even.

  “I have three thousand in my chequing account. It was my student loan we paid off, so it only makes sense that I replace the money,” I said.

  “Isn’t that your tuition money?”

  “I will take the semester off and save up for the winter semester. Rule eleven.”

  “There is no rule eleven.”

  “I’m making a rule eleven. Don’t spend money you don’t have.”

  Nathan looked as doubtful as I felt. We both knew I couldn’t make that kind of money as well as pay for living expenses in that short time. And it wasn’t likely that I would get another student loan, especially on my own.

  “We have most of the next issue prepared. Do we finish one more? We can take a gamble and print extra copies, hoping the vandal story sells.”

  I shook my head. Rule ten: quit while you’re ahead. When we had made that rule, we had meant know when to end an article or drop a story. We should have known when to quit the Inquirer.

  At the truck stop diner, Officer Petersen was sitting at the same corner table as before. He was eating poutine Kingsley style—French fries topped with cheese curds and gravy—and flipping through the latest issue of the Inquirer.

  “Cops are trained to sense fear like a dog,” Nathan whispered. “We don’t want him thinking we are scared.”

  “I am scared,” I whispered back.

  Bobby didn’t say anything as we joined his table.

  “Can I get you anything?” the same teenaged waitress as before asked.

  “Just water, please,” I said. She looked irritated. Water didn’t earn tips. I was too nervous to eat anything, though, and anything with caffeine wasn’t good for my already high anxiety. Nathan ordered an iced tea.

  We waited in silence until the waitress served our drinks. Then Bobby wiped his mouth with a napkin and sat back in his chair.

  “Rough morning?” he asked, taking in my swollen red eyes.

  “You could say that. Dad found out about the Inquirer,” I said. Nathan and I had decided it wouldn’t hurt if Bobby knew he wasn’t the only one who knew our secret. It would possibly take some power away from him. “I’m sorry we weren’t much help with your case.”

  “You were,” Bobby said. “We found yellow spray paint hidden in the spare tire in the box of Mike’s truck that matched the spray paint on Alek’s car.”

  “I knew it,” said Nathan.

  Spray-painting MIAH’S BITCH on Alek’s car when the Inquirer had just published an article that would make Mike the obvious suspect didn’t seem like Mike’s style. He liked to work in the grey area. I pictured him slipping out of the bar unnoticed for a half hour. Was it two years of pent-up anger fueled by alcohol and seeing me with another guy—two, if you count Nathan—that made him sloppy? Maybe RC had been an accomplice. Would he have trashed his own brother-in-law’s car? The article for the Inquirer was writing itself in my head, a reflex in the tabloid business where quick turnarounds were pivotal.

  “It wasn’t Mike,” Bobby said. “It was the nephew defending Uncle Mike’s honour while drunk on Grandpa Pete’s whisky.”

  “Austin!” I imagined his teenage eyes travelling up and down the length of my body. I could picture him spray-painting the car and smashing the windshield and headlights. I could imagine Mike’s role, too: encouraging his troubled nephew while maintaining deniability. That was Mike’s style.

  “Petty crimes are why Claire sent Austin to Kingsley for the summer. She was hoping some positive male influence and tough love from Peter and Travis could straighten him out. I had my suspicions it was him.”

  “If you had your suspicions, why did you need the Inquirer?”

  “The article gave me a reason to approach the Hayeses without outright accusing anyone. They agreed to a search without a warrant knowing I could get one because of the article. If nothing turned up, they would have been just a couple more people mad at the Inquirer.”

  “So you needed the article, but didn’t need the emails,” Nathan said. Bobby looked at him for a couple seconds before answering.

  “It’s my job to explore every angle,” he said at last. “Alek has decided not to press charges. Travis is going to pay for the damages and have Austin work off the debt on the farm. Case closed.”

  I hadn’t seen Alek since the night we introduced Nathan to Whyte Avenue. Was it only a week ago that we had danced until our feet ached? We had talked a couple times on the phone, me sitting in Mom’s kitchen twirling the cord of the outdated phone between my fingers, but not since branding, when Bobby had collected Mike to search his truck.

  “Now,” Bobby said as he tapped the cover of the Inquirer and regained my focus.

  “We’re done with that,” I said.

  “That’s it? I feel cheat
ed. I had all these arguments prepared on how these types of papers don’t work in small towns. How you’re going to get sued or get the snot kicked out of you by some angry country boys,” he said. He looked pointedly at Nathan.

  “Well, we’re almost done,” Nathan said hesitantly. “We need to print one more issue. We already accepted money for advertising and people are relying on the calendar.” The last argument sounded weak now that we were in front of a police officer.

  “You wouldn’t want to leave your readers hanging on the vandal story either,” Bobby said dryly. He looked at us for a moment, thinking it through, I assumed. “And I hear Trula and Roland are back together.”

  Nathan opened his mouth, but I kicked him under the table.

  “Last time we met, you said that you never had these problems at the station or at home when the Gazette was reporting the local news,” I said.

  “The Gazette didn’t sell eight hundred copies every two weeks or help solve crimes either,” Nathan muttered.

  “You sell how much every month? And collect for advertising?” Bobby broke his cool façade for the first time. I glanced at the waitress, who was so bored she didn’t even try to look like she hadn’t overheard the outburst.

  “Jack Whitby, your father-in-law, was the publisher of the Gazette, right?” I asked in a low voice.

  Bobby leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. We had his attention. After we finished our proposal, Bobby agreed to one more issue. He stood to leave, tucking the Inquirer under his arm and pulling ten dollars out of his pocket for his bill.

  “I know your dad, Miah,” he said. “He’s a reasonable man. Make sure he sees that the tabloid wasn’t all bad. I’ll give you the same advice I gave Austin yesterday, though. If you can’t show your face or tell the truth about what you’re doing, maybe it’s not all good either. I’ll be in touch.”

  CHAPTER 39

  NATHAN AND I STUFFED THE LUGGAGE INTO THE BACK OF MY JEEP. There was no tearful, touching goodbye scene. Dad stayed in the house. Mom sat on the porch steps with the dogs panting at her feet after a vigorous game of fetch, just like the day I had arrived. As I backed up to turn around in the driveway, Nathan rolled down the passenger-side window.

  “Thanks for everything,” he called. Mom waved.

  As we pulled away, Nathan watched the farm fade in his side-view mirror. Kingsley was more than a set with a cast of characters to him now. Well, at least the farm was.

  Nathan reviewed everything we had already reviewed a hundred times over the last twenty-four hours. Eventually, he gave up talking. We listened to the radio until I pulled into the departures drop-off zone at the airport an hour later.

  “You sure?” Nathan asked.

  “I can’t keep running away.” Those words had become my mantra. I can’t keep running away. I can’t keep running away. I can’t keep running away. “Remember, I’m going to write the feature and you’re going to print it the way I send it this time, okay?”

  “Don’t write anything stupid,” Nathan said. He gave me a hug across the middle console before hopping out of the Jeep and grabbing his duffle bag from the back seat.

  When I got back to the farm, my heart, head, and fingers ached. I had chewed my nails too short. Mom and Dad must have been outside somewhere because the house was still. I lay on my bed and soon fell asleep. When I woke up from one nightmare, I rolled over and had another. I heard the phone ring a couple times but didn’t care who called. No one called me for dinner. My stomach growled, but I had no desire to eat. Eventually, everything was dark. Mom and Dad must have gone to bed.

  My nightmares since Concerned Citizen’s first email were similar to the ones I had had before I ran away from Kingsley and for quite awhile after. They were of my parents abandoning me. Of being replaceable and Mike saying, “I told you so.” Of Mike cheating on me with Danika or Tamara or the teenage waitress from the truck stop. Sometimes Mike would morph into Alek, who would also cheat on me. Of Alek being disgusted that I was the co-publisher of the Inquirer. Of Nathan blaming it all on me. Of the town turning on me and my parents and one another with torches at night like in an old horror film. Of being sued and losing the farm. Of going to jail and never having a single visitor.

  The worst was the return of a recurring dream from my days living with Mike.

  I tried talking to Mike, my mom, my dad, Danika, even the lady who worked at the post office … but the words wouldn’t come out.

  My chest tightened up and my breath came short. I was having a panic attack. People looked at me like I was a little kid throwing a tantrum over a chocolate bar Mommy wouldn’t buy her in the grocery store.

  “Smarten up,” my mom said.

  “Smile, Miah,” my dad said. “You have such a pretty smile.”

  Mike winked at me, which was the point in the dream when I discovered that my tongue had been cut out. I couldn’t talk.

  I hadn’t had that dream since Nathan and I started the Inquirer. I couldn’t go back to the way it was. I couldn’t.

  In the morning, I felt good for about thirty seconds. That’s how long it took for reality to wash over me. Lying there staring at the ceiling and feeling like an ice cream scoop had been used to hollow out my insides, I wasn’t surprised to smell baking bread. Mom worked when she was upset. I rolled out of bed, worried that if I didn’t, the pattern would be scrubbed off the dishes, the freezers would be overflowing with baked goods and casseroles, and the vacuum cleaner would burn out. Also, I was tired of people making decisions for me.

  Mom was in the kitchen. The cupboards were clean and the sink was shining.

  “Baking bread in the heat of summer. What was I thinking?” she said. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. The room was already like a sauna with the oven on, and we hadn’t even reached the hot part of the day yet. “I’m going out to the garden. Are you coming?”

  “Sure,” I said, grabbing a bun. I was going to make a conscious effort to fix my weight.

  We busied ourselves weeding between the rows in the garden and filling a ten-gallon bucket with produce ready to be eaten, stored, canned, or blanched.

  “I said it once and I will say it again: I acted perfectly fine that day at the store,” Mom said.

  “I know, Mom. It wasn’t meant to …”

  “I have a few questions,” she said. I braced myself for a lecture. “Are you Deirdre? Where did you get that strawberry–rhubarb tart recipe? And do you know who stole the baby Jesus? Because Edith says it was the Plunket boy and I just can’t believe that. And where do you get all this information? Some of it is entertaining, I’ll give you that much. Maybe Education isn’t the right choice for you.”

  “Believe me, it is. I’m not cut out for the newspaper business.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of fiction writing,” she said, giving me a stern look.

  For the next three days, I followed her around as she did her chores and I talked. I told her about my old life in Kingsley and about my new life in Vancouver. As memories and thoughts hit me, I blurted them out loud. I told Mom about Mike getting drunk and forgetting my twenty-second birthday and about trying to be perfect so he wouldn’t replace me. I even told her about when he drank and no didn’t mean no, but he was always really sorry if he remembered. I told her about wanting to do something more with my life. I even admitted that I had thought about how convenient the schedule as a teacher would be if I ever did have children of my own. These things didn’t need to be in print, but they needed to be said. She didn’t have to ask too many questions once I had started talking. She did have a few more, though.

  “Mom!”

  “What?” She laughed. “There was a picture of you and Alek kissing in the dirt, oblivious to people taking pictures twenty feet away from you. ‘Is Alek a summer fling or a prospect?’ is a valid question. The boy has called the house twice since Nathan flew home, and as far as I know you haven’t called him back.”

  The notepad by the p
hone also said Mike had called. She didn’t question my not calling him back.

  Dad still didn’t say more to me than Morning, Pass the salt, and G’night. In the evenings, I worked on my share of the final Inquirer articles in the living room while Mom knitted. Dad sat on the porch and went to bed early. He didn’t even join us when I tried luring him in by putting the football game on TV.

  “He’ll come around,” Mom said.

  CHAPTER 40

  ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MOM WAS SITTING ON THE COUCH KNITTING and I was still struggling with the feature article for the last issue of the Inquirer. Usually I didn’t have time to waste over one article. In Vancouver I had classes, homework, the bistro, and a social life to work around. Back at the Kingsley pace of life, I wondered how I had once fit it all in. After reading and rereading professional tabloids to develop the voice, the articles had come easily, though. Especially when I hadn’t cared about the content and no one had known I was the one who was writing it. My phone vibrated.

  Nathan: Check the email

  I opened the Inquirer inbox.

  From: Concerned Citizen (concernedcitizen@freemail.com)

  Sent: July 29, 2015 7:52:21 p.m.

  To: Kingsley Inquirer (theinquirer@freemail.com)

  Subject: Gazette Terms & Conditions

  Jack agrees to your proposal, but I would like to clarify and emphasize the following:

  1. Circumstances surrounding the Kingsley Inquirer and the Inquirer’s cancellation will remain confidential. (Disguised under ‘police business’ when/if necessary.)

  2. Advertising will carry over from the Kingsley Inquirer.

  3. All proceeds from the reformed Gazette will go to you until your debt is paid off. Then all proceeds will go to Jack until you have reached equilibrium.

  4. Herein the two parties will come up with systems and roles for operating the reformed Gazette.

  5. I no longer have to deal with this and can watch football in peace.