Stunned, she stood and walked through the door he held open for her. She wanted to ask him what on earth he meant by that last remark, but she knew exactly what he meant. It was his way of threatening her without ever having to admit that he’d threatened her.
Well, two could play that game. If he was determined to believe that it was in the best interest of both of them for her to stay away from Becky, then she was determined to believe just the opposite. And if he ever dared to call her on it, she would feed him a line of his own psychological gibberish and tell him that yes, indeed, she had done only what was in the best interest of both of them.
She only hoped Rob didn’t ask why his father had called her into his office. She would not tell him, because she had no intention of obeying Mr. Merrick’s demands. And she didn’t want to drag Rob into her rebellion.
* * *
Words strung themselves onto the page as Rob’s Selectric tapped out the rhythm that seemed to come so hard these days. He’d finally hit his stride on the story he was working on. Michelle was waiting on him, needing his story to lay out the front page, and things were more tense than usual in the newsroom. But he had a full page and a half and was on a roll with the final paragraph when the phone on his desk jangled.
He bit back some choice words and pounded his desk, but quickly composed himself before picking up the receiver. “Rob Merrick III. How may I help you?”
“Robert, yes… This is Jim Clemson at the Wichita Eagle.”
“Hello, Mr. Clemson.” He lowered his voice, wondering if Clemson had identified himself to Myrtle when he called. He’d known it was risky to give the Beacon’s number as a contact, but they couldn’t very well reach him at home on business hours, so he’d taken the risk. It wasn’t inconceivable that the Eagle would be contacting him about a legitimate business matter, but knowing Myrtle’s radar, she’d sniff out his betrayal quicker than a bloodhound on a wounded hare.
“I apologize for my timing. I know how crazy things are for a weekly on Wednesday morning, but we’ve been looking over your résumé, and we’d like you to come in for a second interview sometime next week. Is there a day early in the week that would work? Or, if not, we could wait until next Thursday, I suppose.”
Rob bit his lip. Of all the lousy timing. And yet, he had a feeling it was a test. And he had no intention of failing. “Great to hear from you, sir.” He ducked over his desk, hoping Clemson didn’t pick up the muffling of his voice. “I’m available Monday or Tuesday any time. You just let me know when to be there.” He’d have to jump through some hoops again to get away early in the week, but the fact they’d called him for an interview had his hopes high.
“Excuse me, Merrick”—Michelle appeared in his doorway—“are we gonna run that story this week or—” She clapped a hand over her mouth when she saw he was on the phone. Mouthing an apology, she slinked out of his cubicle.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Clemson. You were saying…?”
They set up an appointment, and Rob thanked him and hung up. Composing himself, he ripped his story from the Selectric and walked the copy back to the typesetters.
“Okay, Penn, it’s out of my hands.” Coming alongside Michelle at the layout desk, he grabbed a metal pica pole and went to work arranging waxed strips of type on a page, trying to sound casual. “You can give typesetting all your grief now.”
“Oh, yeah, try and shove the blame off on someone else.”
“No shoving on anybody. Just the facts, ma’am.”
“Fine.” She ran a strip of printed galleys through the waxer and shoved them at him. “Could you please fit these on page three? They all need to run this week.”
“Getting awfully bossy in your old age, aren’t you?”
“Just the facts, sir,” she deadpanned.
He whopped her arm with the pica pole.
She put on a good show like it hurt, but her laughter betrayed her.
Joy was checking ads on the finished pages a few feet away. She shot them the evil eye. He pretended not to notice, and he was pretty sure Michelle didn’t notice. But he probably needed to mention to Michelle—sooner rather than later—that he and Joy had a history. An unimportant history for sure, but Michelle might not see it that way. Especially if she found out from someone else. Most especially if she found out from Joy.
That thought almost terrified him more than telling his father he might be interviewing for a position at the Eagle.
Joy finished and went back to her cubicle, and Rob grabbed the opportunity to ask Michelle about her meeting with his dad. “So…I saw you in the boss’s office this morning. Everything okay?” It was always easier to ask hard questions while they worked side by side at the stand-up layout banks.
Still, it bothered him that she didn’t meet his eyes when she answered. “Everything’s fine. What are you, 007 or something?”
“So you’re not going to tell me what that was all about?”
“Nope.”
“Not even if I beat it out of you with this pica pole?” He wielded his weapon, trying for humor.
“Not even then.”
“Woo …must be serious.”
She sliced two paragraphs off a galley with her X-Acto knife before she looked up at him. “Just stop, okay? You don’t need to always know my business.” She said it in the same joking tone he’d used with her, but somehow he knew she wasn’t kidding.
Okay, then. He didn’t always need to know her business. But if he were a cat, he’d be dead from the curiosity right now.
Chapter 29
By Friday afternoon, the Beacon office had cleared out except for Myrtle and Joy. Michelle opened the half-pound bag of wrapped candies she’d bought at the drugstore on her break and held it out to Myrtle as she came in.
The receptionist held up a hand, palm out. “Don’t you tempt me, young lady! I appreciate the offer, but my figure can’t handle such temptations the way yours can.” She winked and lowered her voice. “And I’m saving some calories for all of the Christmas goodies that will start arriving in a few weeks.”
Michelle laughed. “It’s starting to feel like Christmas out there. I could swear I saw a snowflake.”
“Don’t even talk that way. I’m willing to wait for a white Christmas till December twenty-fifth.”
“I know. I’m not ready for winter either. But I do love a white Christmas.” She held up the sack of candy again. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
She wasn’t sure when things had changed, but sometime over the past few months she’d won Myrtle over. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for Joy Swanson. The advertising saleswoman had made it clear she had no use for Michelle, but Michelle had determined to be nice to Joy if it killed her. And it just might.
Seeing Joy in her cubicle on the other side of Rob’s, she carried over the bag and held it out as she had for Myrtle. “Caramels and peppermints and gumdrops. Would you like some?”
Joy ignored her question and held up a copy of this week’s paper. “Are you aware that the hardware store’s ad was on the wrong page?”
“No… Where was it supposed to be?”
“It said right on the insert sheet that they wanted it across from the booster club ad on the sports page.”
Why was Joy telling her? Rob always did layout for the sports page. And Joy always insisted on checking the ads before the pages went to the printer. In fact, Michelle was sure she’d seen Joy do just that on Wednesday. “Well, I didn’t lay out that page, but I’ll let Rob know. Do we need to run it again next week gratis?”
“It’ll be too late next week. You know their specials come from the franchise. I can tell you, they are not very happy. They’re probably going to want us to run next week’s ad for free, and then my name is the one that will be mud. With Mr. Merrick and with Jesse at the hardware.”
How in the world did the woman expect her to respond? “Well… Is there anything I can do to help?”
Joy’s office chair
squeaked as she swiveled forty-five degrees to face Michelle head-on. “As a matter of fact, there is something you can do. You can quit distracting Rob while he’s trying to lay out the pages. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been over there flirting like a seventh-grade cheerleader.”
“What? You mean—” The only responses she could think to come back with would likely get her fired and would most definitely require an apology later. She bit her tongue, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t accept responsibility for Joy’s ridiculous accusation but that wouldn’t sound patronizing either. Failing on both counts, she shrugged and, twisting the candy sack closed, walked back to her own desk.
She plopped into her chair, certain there must be smoke pouring out of her ears. The nerve! Had Miss Smarty-Pants given Rob the same lecture? Maybe that was why Rob had cut out early today. She’d heard him tell Myrtle he was leaving for the day and to take a message if anyone called.
But she couldn’t very well ask him where he was going after giving him such a hard time for being a snoop about her meeting with his father. And since she’d taken lunch to Becky and Eden yesterday, now she felt like she had another secret to keep—not just from Mr. Merrick, but from Rob.
She was going home to the farm this weekend, and for once, she’d be glad to get out of town. Maybe she’d leave work early. Nobody else seemed to think they needed to be in the office today. She’d promised to babysit Eden tonight, but if she packed now, she could leave for her parents’ directly from Becky’s.
She typed up a short article from some notes she’d made after an interview, afraid she’d forget details by Monday. But when that was done, she tidied up her desk, and without so much as a fare-thee-well to Ms. Joy Swanson, she gathered her purse and her bag of candy and went out the back door. She would call Myrtle from home and tell her she was gone for the day and to please take a message if anyone called.
If Rob could do it, why couldn’t she?
* * *
“We’re pleased to have you on board at the Eagle, Mr. Merrick.”
Jim Clemson pumped Rob’s hand, smiling. Rob still had no idea why the lukewarm response he’d originally gotten from Clemson had changed to a job offer—especially after Rob had called and changed the interview to Friday—but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“You’re sure we can’t talk you into starting any sooner?”
Rob shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but if it were the Eagle I was leaving, I would give you the courtesy of two weeks’ notice. I can’t do any less for my current employer—even if he is my father.”
Clemson threw back his head and laughed. “Especially since he is your father. Wouldn’t want to cut yourself out of an inheritance, now, would you?”
Rob didn’t think it was quite as hilarious as Clemson did, but he laughed along with the man. No sense in starting out on the wrong foot with his soon-to-be boss.
Back in the parking lot, he pondered what he’d just committed to. Had his decision made an important point—that he needed to be free to make his own way in the world, including the choice of who he fell in love with? Or had he, as Jim Clemson jokingly implied, signed away his inheritance?
Before climbing into the Pinto, he shed his suit coat and loosened his tie—and rued the fact that he’d soon be wearing a striped silk noose to work every day. He’d have to do some clothes shopping. He wasn’t color-blind, but he might as well be when it came to picking out shirts and ties that weren’t the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.
Maybe Michelle would come with him and help him choose his new wardrobe. Of course that meant he had to tell her why he needed a new wardrobe. But the thought of being able to drive to Wichita with Michelle in the passenger seat beside him—guilt-free—made it all worthwhile.
All he had to do now was figure out a way to tell his father he was leaving the Beacon.
He wasn’t sure which prospect frightened him more.
* * *
Michelle put down her book and glanced at the clock in Becky’s tiny dining room. Becky had said she expected to be home before nine, and it was already twenty after. Michelle had been happy for a chance to babysit Eden, but she was starting to worry. It wasn’t like Becky to be late.
The weather had turned wintry. Thanksgiving was almost two weeks away, but Allen would be home for the weekend to help Dad move cattle to the north pasture and Mom wanted the house ready for Thanksgiving. It was a Penn family tradition to decorate the Christmas tree even before Thanksgiving, and Michelle had agreed to come and help.
She’d spent most of the evening peering through Becky’s front windows, watching feathery flakes float down from a black sky. The streetlights illumined the swirls of white and gave the night a magical feel. The snow wasn’t sticking yet, but she worried about getting home with the worn tires on her Oldsmobile.
Dad had been bugging her to replace the balding tires, but money was still too tight to make a purchase like that, especially when she only put a few miles on her car each week. Dad would buy them for her in a heartbeat if she only mentioned that she needed them, but she was determined to make it on her own. She just needed time to save up a little.
She wished Becky at least had a telephone so she could let her parents know not to worry about her. But Mom knew where she was, and she knew about Becky’s phone situation, so hopefully she wouldn’t worry too much.
She got up and went to check on Eden again. The nursery was heavy with the mingled scent of baby powder and sleep. Michelle turned on the tiny lamp on the dresser and went to peer into the crib.
There was something so vulnerable and precious about a sleeping baby.
She stroked Eden’s cheek, almost wishing the baby would wake up so she could hold her again one more time before she left for the farm.
When she got to heaven, surely one of the first things she would ask the Lord was why he gave her such a passionate love for children, such a yearning to be a wife and mother, only to plop her into the life of a single career woman. It wasn’t fair.
The sound of the front door opening made her start. She quickly wiped away tears she’d shed unaware and prayed that Becky wouldn’t notice.
Chapter 30
“Where on earth have you been? I was worried sick.” Beth Penn wrapped her terry-cloth robe tighter around her and gave Michelle a hug and pulled her into the warmth of the farmhouse kitchen.
“It’s not even ten yet, Mom. Becky was a little late in getting home. You didn’t want me to leave a two-year-old home alone, did you?” She cringed inwardly, remembering that Becky had done just that not so long ago.
“Of course not,” her mother said. “But I wish that girl would get a telephone. What if the baby gets sick and she needs to call an ambulance?”
“It costs fifty dollars just to get the phone hooked up. Never mind how much the monthly bills are. She’s barely squeaking by as it is.”
Mom shrugged. “Well, I guess your grandmother managed to raise my mother without a telephone, but it would worry me to no end if you didn’t have a way to get in touch with the outside world.”
“If you didn’t have a way to get in touch with me and Allen, you mean.”
“You two are my outside world.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Oh, joy.”
Her mother gave her that look, but there was a twinkle in her eye.
“Speaking of Allen…” Michelle pointed to the door behind her. “I didn’t see his car. Is he home yet?”
“He’s out with Mike and Gary. Said he’d be late. And he wouldn’t give your dad or me any details, but he broke up with that Piper woman. Forgive me, but I could not be happier.”
“Mom! I hope you didn’t tell Allen that.”
Her mother looked askance at her. “I’m not completely heartless.”
“Did Dad go to bed already?”
“Yes. He was up at six hauling cattle. He didn’t get home for supper until almost seven. He said
to tell you ‘hi’ and he’ll see you at breakfast.”
“He thinks I’m getting up for breakfast?”
Her mother sniffed. “Of course you’re getting up for breakfast. But I might be able to talk Dad into staying in bed till eight.”
“Oh, please. That would be lovely. Nine would be even lovelier.”
“I’ll see what I can do. If this snow keeps up, you might get your wish. Now let’s get that tree decorated.”
“You still want to do it tonight?” She shrugged out of her coat and hung it on the rack in the hallway.
“Sure. I’m wide awake now,” Mom said. “Come and see the tree.”
Michelle had smelled the rich pine the minute she entered the house, but walking into the living room, the scent overpowered her and brought with it a parade of happy memories. Dad had outdone himself this year. He’d always cut a tree from their pasture, and every year she and Allen begged for a bigger one. In its stand, this tree almost touched the nine-foot ceiling of the old house. She jumped up and down and clapped, feeling like a little girl again.
Mom laughed and lugged a box of indoor lights from the sofa to the floor beside the tree. “You game?”
“Sure. We’ll surprise Allen when he gets home.”
For the next hour and a half she and Mom talked and laughed while they got out ornaments and decorations, each one bringing back a precious memory. She’d been extremely blessed to grow up in this house with the parents she’d been given. She had taken her happy childhood for granted until she got out into the world and saw how other people lived. She made a silent promise that she would never take lightly the gifts she’d been blessed with. And she’d do better at showing her appreciation too.
They were putting the finishing touches on the tree when they heard the back door open and Allen whistling as he clomped up the back steps.
She and Mom hurriedly put away the empty boxes and straightened the skirt around the Christmas tree. Michelle flipped off the living room lights for effect as her brother came into the room.
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