“I’m going to break that kid’s neck someday,” Ray said, jerking his head toward Bailey, who had returned to his desk.
Kellen watched the young man, who was now on the telephone.
“Where’s he from?” she asked.
“The Oakland Tribune,” Ray said. “He’s real talented. But a smart ass. I still ought to break his neck.”
“Don’t,” Kellen said with a smile. “He’s hungry, Ray. Besides, a healthy disrespect for authority is good in a reporter. And it was a good question.”
She turned to Clark with a sigh. “How about buying me a cup of coffee. I need it after that.”
They went over to the coffee maker in the corner. Clark handed her a plastic cup.
“You know, you handled that really well,” he said. “Just like your old man.”
“It’s funny. I get more nervous talking to them than I do the vice presidents,” she said. “But I survived this, so I guess I can survive the next month. I’m going to visit each of the papers in the chain. It’s time that the other rudderless ships got to see that someone’s still at the helm.”
“You’ll be gone a month?” Clark asked. “What does Stephen say?”
“He doesn’t like the idea very much.”
Clark hesitated. “I’m worried about you, Kel,” he said. “You’ve been working too hard lately.”
“I’m all right.”
“There’s something bothering you,” Clark said. “Something you’re not telling me.” He paused. “It’s Garrett, isn’t it,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen him again?”
Kellen bit into the edge of the Styrofoam cup, avoiding Clark’s eyes. “No, not since Carmel.”
Last week, not long after the weekend with Garrett, Kellen had confided in Clark. She had needed to talk and knew Clark could be trusted. She had told him everything, even about Sara. Clark had told her that he had always suspected it. And he cautioned that perhaps Garrett did, too.
“What’s wrong then?” Clark persisted.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said, about telling Garrett about Sara. I’ve been thinking that maybe he does have a right to know about her. But I just don’t think I can do it. I don’t know if I trust him. I don’t even know how I feel about him.”
“What about Sara?” Clark said. “If Garrett has a right to know about her, she certainly has a right to know about him.”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I thought once it was better if she didn’t ever know the truth, but now I’m not sure. I thought once that I loved Stephen but how can I if I’m constantly thinking of another man? I thought I knew myself, but I don’t.”
The sound of the wire machines filled the silence.
“How’s Tyler?” Clark asked. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
Kellen knew Clark was just trying to steer her to neutral ground. She was grateful and smiled. “He’s happy. Truly happy.”
Clark shook his head. “Living all alone in the middle of that vineyard. The boy’s still a lost soul.”
“Tyler?” she said softly, staring out over the newsroom. She tossed the unfinished coffee in the wastepaper basket. “He’s not as lost as most of us.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Kellen tipped the bellboy, and he left her standing alone in the middle of the suite. She kicked off her shoes, opened the suitcase and carefully took out the framed photograph. She set the frame on a bureau, positioning it so she could see the faces of Sara and Ben from wherever she was in the room.
Her eyes drifted to a large bouquet of white roses on a nearby desk. She picked up the card: Hurry home. We miss you. Love, Stephen.
She went to the window, pulling back the draperies.
Downtown Portland was spread out below her, its lights just beginning to break through the dusk.
She knew that the roses were Stephen’s way of apologizing.
Last night, they had had an argument on the phone. He wanted to know when she was coming home. Considering that she had been away now for four weeks, it had been an innocent enough question. But in her fatigue, she had interpreted it as an accusation. They had argued, and finally, Stephen had said her trip was only an excuse to get away from him.
“You’re pulling away from me,” he said.
The conversation ended, angry and unresolved.
Now, alone in the hotel so far from home, she realized that Stephen was right. Every day she felt herself drifting farther away yet she felt unable to stop it.
She turned away from the window and went to her suitcase. She quickly unpacked and ordered a light dinner from room service and a copy of that day’s Portland Press. She changed into a robe and popped open her briefcase, extracting a thick folder labeled “Portland.” When the food and newspaper arrived, she set the tray on the bed and sat down, cross-legged, to begin work.
She first read the newspaper thoroughly then tackled the folder, which was filled with status reports on the newspaper’s finances, circulation, market position, and general health. Her routine had been the same for each newspaper she had visited.
She had guessed beforehand that she would be perceived as a dilettante owner making a token visit to the fiefdom. So she made sure she was prepared. She read the reports so she could handle the management; she read the newspapers so she could talk to the employees.
In each city, she had been greeted with wariness. No one from the Bryant family had been to the newspapers since Adam’s death ten years before. But by the end of each visit, Kellen had won the respect of those she met. And slowly, each newspaper took focus in her mind, no longer just a line on a balance sheet or a paragraph in a corporate report, but separate entities, each with its own personality and set of problems.
In Phoenix, reporters complained of salaries that had been frozen for two years. In Seattle, she discovered Ian had imposed a ridiculous “two-page rule” in an effort to force shorter stories to conserve newsprint. In Sacramento, she discovered presses in dire need of modernization. In San Diego, she discovered Ian had reduced the size of the comics so much they could barely be read.
Everywhere she went, she found good newspapers, but also a legacy of neglect. For more than a decade, Ian’s laissez-faire management and his insistence on a high profit margin for the sake of personal income had stifled the newspapers.
Adam Bryant’s dream had been undeniably compromised. Ian had taken a chain of powerful vibrant newspapers, joined by a singular vision, and turned it into a disconnected scattering of impotent profit machines.
The realization had left Kellen deeply saddened. But it had also crystallized her resolve. She would, she promised each person she talked to, do everything she could to restore the lost vitality.
She was doing it for the newspapers and all the people who worked for her. But she was also, she knew, doing it for herself. After so many lost years, so many false starts, she finally felt as if the newspapers were truly becoming hers. They were no longer something she had inherited. They were something she had earned anew.
Kellen set the Portland folder aside, her thoughts going back to Stephen. She wished that she could make him understand that better. Lately, he had tried hard to be more supportive, but she still felt that deep down, he did not understand. To him, the Times was his profession, a certain part of his identity, to be sure, but something separate. But to her, the Times and now all the other newspapers were almost as essential as Ben and Sara, an extension of her, like family.
It was not something she could explain in rational terms. Perhaps it was not something Stephen could ever understand.
Suddenly, she felt very lonely. She glanced at the bedside clock. It was too late to call the children. Besides, she had already talked to them that morning from the airport in Seattle. Benjamin talked about his toys. Sara had been excited about going off to summer camp tomorrow. Their cheerful preoccupation with their own worlds made Kellen wonder briefly if they missed her at all.
She was tired but still keyed up
. Finally, she got dressed and went downstairs to the newsstand in the lobby, hoping to find a diverting book. To her surprise, she found the newsstand stocked with out-of-town papers. She saw that day’s San Francisco Times, its gothic nameplate as welcoming as a smiling friend.
She scanned the front page. The lead was a story about the linkup in space of the American Apollo capsule and the Soviet Soyuz.
Kellen was about to turn away when a huge black headline on another newspaper caught her eye: TERROR FROM THE SKY.
A plane crash? Why wasn’t it on the Times front page? In the next instant she saw the nameplate, the New York Tattler.
She picked up the paper and thumbed to the story, and as she read her mouth tipped up in a smile. The “terror from the sky” was an air-conditioning unit that had fallen out of a Manhattan apartment window, narrowly missing a lady but squashing her dachshund. The story was written in straight news style with no hint of irony, and by the time Kellen finished it, she was laughing. She paid for both papers and took them back to her room.
She sat down on the bed and spread the Tattler before her. She turned the pages slowly, shaking her head and smiling at the tabloid’s lurid mix of stories.
“I will say this for you, Garrett,” she said softly. “You made me buy the thing.”
She leaned back against the headboard then glanced over at the phone. After a moment, she picked up the receiver and dialed Garrett’s house in Tiburon. After ten rings, she hung up.
She dialed Garrett’s office in New York. It rang seven times and she was about to hang up when Garrett’s voice broke in with an impatient “Hello.”
“It’s me,” she said. “Kellen.”
“I was just going out the door,” he said. “I wasn’t going to answer the phone. I’m glad I did.”
Kellen’s mind went blank. Her impulse to call was dissolving into uncertainty. “What are you doing at work so late?” she asked.
“Working hard. Trying not to think about you.” There was a long pause. “Why are you calling, Kellen?”
“You made me laugh. The story about the killer air conditioner.”
“Ah, yes. Wrote that headline myself.”
She took a breath. “I want to see you again, Garrett.”
“I can be there tomorrow.”
“No, I’m not in San Francisco. I’m in Portland on business. I’ll be here two days then I’m going to Las Vegas.”
“I’ll meet you there.” His familiar elegantly accented deep voice made her shut her eyes. “Las Vegas,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to see it. I’ve never gambled before. Have you?”
“No,” she said softly.
“Well, we’ll try our luck together,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Kellen sat in the car, searching for Garrett in the crowd exiting the terminal, afraid she would miss him. But she spotted him easily, standing out from the Bermuda shorts crowd in his three-piece suit and tie. She honked the horn to get his attention and as she watched him make his way toward the car her pulse quickened. If she had had any doubts about calling him, they had evaporated with the sight of him.
He tossed his suitcase in the back and got in. “It’s eight o’clock at night and it’s like a bloody oven!” he said.
“Welcome to Las Vegas in July. Maybe I should have asked you to meet me in Seattle instead.”
They looked at each other and for a moment Kellen tensed, waiting for his kiss. But he leaned back in the seat and yanked off his tie.
“No, this is fine,” he said with a smile. “I’m just happy you called. I’d have gone to hell itself if you’d asked.”
She maneuvered the car into the traffic. “That’s exactly what some people might call this place,” she said.
As they drove toward the Strip, they were both quiet. Kellen could see that Garrett was tired but she knew that he was waiting for her to set the mood and pace. She was the one who had called him. It was up to her to set the ground rules.
As they pulled onto the Strip, the sun was going down. The overwhelming kinetic neon of the casinos competed with nature’s own show, a sky streaked with blazing bands of red, orange and purple.
“My god,” Garrett whispered. “This is like being trapped inside a kaleidoscope.”
“I know,” Kellen said. “It doesn’t even seem real. Nothing in this town does.”
Garrett continued to gape as Kellen led him through the faux-rococo lobby of Caesar’s Palace, through the clamor and congestion of the casino. Upstairs, in the suite she closed the door and it was quiet.
Garrett glanced around the suite with a small smile. It was enormous, furnished in white and royal blue with chandeliers, marble, gilt, and statues, including a cherub fountain.
“How wonderfully decadent,” he said.
She smiled. “Why don’t you shower? I’ll order dinner.”
A half hour later, Garrett emerged from the bedroom wearing a bathrobe, toweling off his hair and looking considerably revived. He looked at the dinner, at the candles and the bottle of wine. Kellen poured a glass and handed it to him.
He smiled. “Haute Brion. Plump white bathrobes. Gold telephone in the loo. You stage a fine seduction.”
When he leaned in to kiss her the smell of his clean skin was intoxicating. She brought her arms up to encircle his back. He pulled back slightly to look at her.
“No pressure this time,” he said. “I promise.”
They stood, holding each other for a moment, both uncertain what to do next.
“Let’s start with something easy —- dinner,” Garrett said finally.
At first, conversation was strained while they ate, but helped along by the wine and by Garrett’s stories about the Tattler, they both began to relax. By the time Garrett came to the end of a long funny story about one of his reporters, Kellen had tears of laughter in her eyes.
“It’s good to see you laugh,” he said. “Even if it does come at the expense of my fine publication.”
“Oh, Garrett, how do you expect me to take the Tattler seriously when you don’t?”
“But I do take it seriously,” he said. “Very seriously. I want the Tattler to succeed.” He paused. “So much so that I may have to finally admit that I’m wrong about its approach.”
“What do you mean?”
He took a drink of his wine. “The formula isn’t working here like it does in England or Toronto. Strangely enough, your idiotic brother understood that better than I did.”
Kellen tensed. “Ian?”
“Yes. He told me once that I underestimated American tastes. And he was right in a way. In London, the Sun is popular because the working class likes to shock the establishment. But in New York, the working class likes to think of itself as middle class. So scandals and bare-breasted women don’t sell. Especially to advertisers.” He smiled. “I did all my research about America but failed to take into account the upwardly mobile American ego.”
“Is the Tattler in trouble?” Kellen asked.
“It loses money. But its circulation has stabilized, so I suppose it can go on living off the British operation. The question is, how long can my ego continue to take a bruising? I was picturing myself as quite the media mogul.”
He was smiling in a self-deprecating way, but Kellen sensed he was more bothered by the Tattler's situation than he wanted to admit.
“So what will you do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I still believe the city needs a good, blue-collar newspaper. Maybe I just need to rethink how the Tattler should fit in.” He grinned. “What do you think I should do with my smutty rag? Should I clean it up and go after my share of the brie and Chablis set?”
“I think you should trust your instincts. That’s what my father always said about running newspapers.”
“Sound advice.” Garrett poured out the last of the wine. “Shall we get another?”
Kellen smiled, shaking her head. “I’m half-drunk now.” She leaned back, closing her eyes and stretc
hing her arms languidly above her head. She looked back at Garrett in time to see him watching her and she resisted the urge to pull the gaping neckline of her blouse together.
“So what were you doing in Portland?” he said.
Since Garrett’s return, they had not once discussed the newspapers. All she had was his one declaration that he now wanted her, not them. She wanted to believe him, not just for the security of the newspapers but for her own sake. She realized in that one moment that she had called him in the belief that they would take up where they left off in Carmel-—an affair, purely sexual and uncomplicated. But seeing him now, she knew that was not what she wanted at all. She wanted, with all her heart, to trust him enough to love him again.
“Learning,” she said finally.
She went on to tell him about her visits to the papers, about the problems she saw and the solutions she was considering. She told him, too, about the morning conversion plan to help the Times. He listened intently to all of it then leaned back in his chair.
“Your brother called me the other day,” he said. “He’s pressuring me to buy again. He’s lowered his asking price.”
“What did you say?”
“The same thing I told you. That I’m not interested.”
“You were right about him, Garrett. He’s crippled the newspapers.”
“But you’ll change that.”
She looked back at him, surprised.
“Eight years ago, I didn’t think you could,” he added. “Which is one reason I came in and tried to take over. But you’ve changed. I don’t know what it is exactly. It’s as if you’ve finally grabbed ahold of what’s yours instead of waiting for someone to just hand it to you.”
His words were so unexpected that she could only stare at him.
“But Ian’s hard to fight,” she said. She fought back tears. “Sometimes I’m so angry at my father,” she said softly. “For leaving me with...”
She got up abruptly, went to the sofa and sat down, her back to him. After a moment, Garrett came over to her.
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