My phone rang or I would have thought of something else to torment him. “Hello.”
“What’s so funny?” It was Aunt Wheeze and she could hear the laughter in the background.
“Nothing much. What can I do for you?”
“I ran into my sister. You know, the one who’s suffering her second childhood or senility—take your pick. You’d think she was the only person in the world to have a date, and, Nickie, it’s not like she’s going out with him by herself. She’s going to the movies with Ed Tutweiler Walters and various BonBons. Well, he only asked her so she wouldn’t feel left out. After all, he knows how close I am to my sister and he could see how she was feeling. He’s a very sensitive man. He knows all the lyrics to love songs and not just Cole Porter but country-and-western. He also studies religions. Like I said, he’s very sensitive. I suggested we go together—the more the merrier, you know, that’s my motto—and that sister of mine flew all over me like a wet hen. You have to do something with her and—”
I interrupted. “Aunt Wheezie, I’m at work and I’ve got a deadline. Why don’t I stop by about six and you can tell me everything?”
“I’m on the flower committee at church and we have a meeting then. Let me tell you why I called.”
At last.
She launched another verbal missile. “I’m sick and tired of Juts with her outlandish costumes and the hair. A woman her age should look dignified. I tell her but she goes out and buys more flaming-red lipstick. It goes up the cracks in her lip. Makes her look like an old bag. You don’t see me wearing that color, do you?”
“Can you come to the point?”
“Rude! You’re rude, crude, and unaffected.”
“I’ve got a deadline.”
“I’m driving over to the big shopping mall in Emmitsburg and if I don’t find what I want I’m going up to York.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You can’t tell me what to do or how to do it. My 1952 Chrysler runs better than any car in this town. And I’m only on the second one for parts. The third one sits in my garage brand-new and I start it every day like Pearlie told me. I can go anywhere. I can go to California in my car.”
“I thought you were afraid of earthquakes.”
“I am. The entire state of California will fall into the Pacific Ocean.”
“Don’t worry about it. The fish will reject it. There will always be a California.”
This stopped her for a moment. She recharged her batteries.” Well, I am going to the Emmitsburg Mall and I only called because I like someone to know where I am at all times. Just in case.”
“You called me because you want me to take you to the mall.”
“Would you?” Her voice dripped with honey.
“Yes.” I was resigned. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want her to die on the way to the mall. Think of the innocent people she’d kill along the way.
“I can be ready in an hour.”
“You can wait until Saturday. I have to work.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. What time?”
“Pick you up at ten.”
“Let’s take my car. It rides better than that Jeep. Besides which I don’t want to look like a field hand. Ladies don’t drive Jeeps.”
“We’ll see, Aunt Louise. Bye now.” I hung up. At least she respected my work.
“The last thing to die on your aunt Louise will be her mouth.” John’s shoulders started to heave up and down. He laughed hardest at his own cracks.
“This is a rare day of agreement for us, John.”
A pink glow on the Confederate statue turned to red, then mauve and finally purple. Sunset produces such a sadness in me. Deep down I wonder if I’ll live to see the sun come up again. I have never taken life for granted. Today, as the staff left, one by one, bundling up, for the temperature was falling again, I watched them cross the Square or walk around the corner. The changing light seemed to change them too. Their features became softer and as they walked away they reminded me of a tintype, of people frozen in time.
Daylight savings would be here in another week and then sunset would be pushed further and further back until June 21, a Midsummer’s Night, my favorite day of the year.
By nine I was in Jackson’s office. Pewter ran up and down his library shelves but she wasn’t destructive. Lolly worried her rawhide chew and Jackson worried me.
“You’ve got to think the way they think.”
“Jackson, I can’t think like a banker. I can’t sink that low.”
“Very funny. I prepared your forms and financial statement. We’ve done the best we can do.”
“What do you mean, exactly, when you say think like Foster Adams?”
“Don’t personalize it.”
“Okay, okay.”
“When a banker examines a loan application, he or she has a checklist of items. They want the financial statements of the Clarion. They’ve got those so they can project income. They know that the circulation can be improved. But what they really think about is a worst-case scenario. What can they grab to support the debt if—”
“The Clarion’s been around since before the Revolutionary War. She’s never going under.”
“That’s not their viewpoint.” “Well, what the hell do they want to know?”
“First and foremost, how will they be repaid. Can the collateral cover the debt if there’s a fire sale.”
“A fire sale! I don’t like this, you know.” “You need to know what you’re up against.”
“Diz Rife. I think he’ll outmaneuver the Thurston Group in the twinkling of an eye.”
“We’ll get to Diz later. Let’s put ourselves in Foster Adams’s shoes. He wants to support your application.”
“He does?” I was happy.
“Yes, but he has to take it to Baltimore. He might need more collateral than you’ve got. He’s got to sell you and the Clarion to people who don’t even see small towns anymore. They fly, or drive on the Beltway.”
“Figures are figures whether they know us or whether they don’t.”
“Right. That’s why I’m providing you with this rundown. A bank will lend seventy-five to eighty percent of the current appraised value of property. You’re in good shape there because the Clarion is prime real estate in a prime spot and your farm’s good too. Where you run into difficulty is on the printing press. Usually a bank will lend fifty percent of book value on used equipment depending on the condition—”
I interrupted, which I rarely do. But I was excited. “Arnie Dow keeps that machine running. He loves that baby. It might as well be new.”
“I don’t doubt it, but Chesapeake and Potomac isn’t going to see it that way. That equipment is both so specialized and so old that the bank won’t lend you anything on it. Zero.”
“Zero?” I was aghast.
He nodded his curly head. “I don’t know if everything else we’ve got will cover it.”
“Jack, are you serious? They’ll not value the press at all? It’s a beauty, that press. I mean, we do papers the old way, the real way, with lead and grease and—”
“I know, but from their viewpoint there is a limited resale market. It’s worthless to them.”
“Goddammit, what do they know about newspapers?”
“They know the industry’s computerized now and that the Clarion could reduce its workforce by one third, easily one third, if it would go to cold type.”
“I don’t believe in putting people out of work just so you can have new machines.”
He kicked off his shoes. “I don’t either. I’m starting to agree with you about full employment versus constant technological replacement of people. I guess it’s the spinning-jenny argument all over again.” He sighed. “But there has to be a middle ground.”
“Societally, yes. Where the Clarion is concerned, no. I’d die before I’d fire Arnie and the guys in the back room. So there’s an easier way to print a paper. Is it more fun? Does it serve the community any better? What we
’ve got is plenty good enough and as time goes by people can visit us the way they visit Williamsburg.”
“No doubt they will.” He took off my shoes and rubbed my feet. He sat on the sofa while I lay across him. “Have you any stocks or bonds or anything else of value you may have overlooked?”
“Pewter and Lolly.”
“Worth their weight in rubies.” He rubbed between my toes and on the ball of my foot. “Feel good?”
“Very relaxing.”
“There’s one other thing that the bank will examine. That’s the integrity of the borrower. You’re blue chip there, honey.” He moved from my feet up my leg.
“What is there about massage that’s so wonderful?”
“Depends on who’s tickling your fancy.” He kneaded my calves. “Hard from riding. Are you going out Saturday?”
“If I get back from Emmitsburg in time, I think I’ll take a long, languid ride.”
“Hey, while you’re over there pick me up some polo shirts, the stone-washed kind.”
I pulled my leg away. “Buy them yourself. I’m not your wife.”
He laughed. “You could have been.”
“Surely you jest.” I put my leg back into his hands.
“No, I don’t. I bounced between you and Gene like a pinball.”
“This is historical revisionism on a par with Stalin erasing Trotsky’s name from the history books. You liked me, Jackson. You always liked me, but when Regina fully flowered, shall we say, you went wild. You wanted to hump your parts raw.”
“It wasn’t like that at all.”
“You were crazy about her. Well, who wouldn’t be? Raging lust, that’s how I remember you way back when.”
“You make me sound pretty superficial.”
“Weren’t you? I was. Isn’t that what being young is all about?”
He smiled and kept rubbing. “You weren’t as superficial as you make out and neither was I. You have to learn to forgive yourself for being ignorant. We were all terribly smart when we were in our twenties but we were ignorant.”
I knew what he meant. “Maybe so. But I look back on the young me and I am embarrassed, if not mortified, sometimes.”
“You make me feel young right now.” He began rubbing my thigh.
“Bull. A man thinks he’s only as old as the woman he’s sleeping with, and I’m not but three years younger than you.”
“Nick, do I ever get through to you? You keep me at arm’s length. You do make me feel young. Why do you have to push me away when I say something like that? I have feelings. I’m not a block of wood, and contrary to what you and your women friends think, I’m in touch with my emotions and I’m willing to bet there are other men who are too.”
I could feel the crimson on my cheeks. “Goddammit, I hate phrases like ‘in touch with my emotions,’ I hate the whole phony psychological claptrap of our times, and I really hate it from you. You have feelings. I’m glad. I have them myself but I have the good sense to keep them to myself.”
“You wouldn’t keep them to yourself if I were a woman. I thought about what you said last week. Remember? You twitted me about what if you woke up a male, what would I do? What if the metamorphosis worked on me? What if I woke up female? What would you do then?”
“It would be the same.”
“No, it wouldn’t. You’d take me seriously then.”
“I take you seriously now and I’m guilty as hell.”
“You don’t think I’m not? But I can’t help myself. I think about you all the time, Nickie. I want to be with you. Don’t you ever think about me?”
“I do.” I lowered my eyes. This wasn’t going as I had hoped.
“Well, what do you think? Why don’t you talk to me?” The little muscles around his jaw tightened.
“Does it make it any easier if I do? For me it only makes it harder. It’s difficult enough to feel something. Having to talk about it only makes it more painful. Maybe talking about emotions releases them for some people—most of them on talk shows, I might add—but it sure doesn’t do it for me. It makes them worse.”
Jack smiled. “So our relationship is that painful.” It was a sad smile.
“Yes.” I breathed deeply. “How many times have I kissed you since we were children? Social kisses. Hi and goodbye. Glad to see you. Why was the kiss under the mistletoe at the hunt club Christmas party the kiss that did me in?”
“I felt it too.”
“Were you as surprised as I was?”
“Uh—probably not.” Jack’s smile was brighter. “I’d thought about you that way before. I don’t think you focus much on romance or sex. Actually, Nickie, sometimes I think you clean forget about sex.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but I’m your favorite info-maniac.”
“You never stop—maybe that’s why I love you.” He put his arms around me.
I hugged him in return. “You’re right. Everything you say about me is right. My eye is on the target. I really do forget about the mush stuff but—you made me remember. Someday years from now I’ll remember that Christmas party with fondness but right now, honey, it’s hard. I’m torn. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes. I know what you mean.” He stroked my hair. “But I’m not sorry about what you call the mush stuff. I’ve complicated my life and I’ve complicated yours and I love my wife and—” he paused, “you make me feel wonderful. I’m not sorry.”
I did feel sorry and I intended to tell him. I meant to break it off but he was so defenseless, or that’s what I told myself. This wasn’t the night. He was on my team. He did care about me and what happened to me and he wanted me to get the Clarion as much as I did. I needed him. I guess I needed him far more than I knew.
15
MR. PIERRE IS PISSED AND URSIE PAYS A CALL
WEDNESDAY … 8 APRIL
The American Society of Newspaper Editors, meeting in San Francisco yesterday, elected its first woman president, Katherine Fanning, editor of The Christian Science Monitor. Happy though I was about this, I recalled that once, ten years ago, I’d written an editorial in which I indiscreetly made a reference to Mary Baker Eddy. I said she was responsible for more death than Hitler. I thought it was funny. Christian Scientists did not. Apart from the incensed letters to the Clarion received from our readership, I was subject to a stinging rebuke from the then editor of The Christian Science Monitor.
That taught me two things: The press does have power. Who would have thought a reporter on a tiny newspaper would reach into the inner counsels of one of the most powerful papers in America? And one of the best too. Second, I learned that while I believed nothing was sacred, most people did not share my irreverence. These sensitive beliefs are a little bit like the human ego: You think it’s hidden but it’s easily reached with an insult.
Charles appreciated the volume of mail even as he didn’t appreciate the tone of it. Charles took the middle course, which meant few feathers were ruffled. Being a proponent of free speech I utilized this precious amendment perhaps once too often in my youth but it stirred the readership. It began to stir Charles. Instead of reining me in, he gave me more latitude. He enjoyed the spectacle without having to face it emotionally. I was left to confront whatever hornet’s nests I stirred. But that’s as it should be. Charles was my editor, not my protector. I was proving so successful in my ability to rough up the conservatives of our area that he lured John Hoffman to the Clarion. Now John could rile the liberals and me, too, on occasion. Attacking personalities was off-limits. We had to stick to issues and so we did. Our readership grew by 1,722 subscriptions over that period. Our rough readership statistics put us somewhere around 5,000. That doesn’t seem like much, but consider how small Runnymede is. I knew, in my heart, that if I could buy this paper I could double our readership. I was full of ideas, energy, and passion. As the owner I would have to be more circumspect than as a reporter or editor. After all, if businesses don’t place ads, we go broke.
We did lose an ad once and it wasn
’t my fault. John came out guns ablazing against abortion. He so offended Trixie Shellenberger, M. D., over at the Medical Arts Center that they pulled their ads for three months. To Charles’s credit he made no excuses for John nor did he tell him to tone down.
To me befell the task of the rebuttal. As I couldn’t have an abortion myself but feel every woman has the right to make her own decision, my rebuttal was halfhearted. I think I offended almost as many people as John, because I wasn’t championing their cause. I didn’t get mad at John; I got mad at Charles for sticking me with the damned rebuttal. That was one of the few times I’ve lost my temper with him.
Blue pencil smeared all over the page in front of me. I gave up. This article was without salvation. I wondered how many blue pencils I’d used up in my lifetime. Would they girdle the globe or merely stretch to Des Moines, Iowa, and back?
“Roger.”
“Yo!”
I handed him his article. “Are you trying to make this as illiterate as possible?”
“No, it comes naturally.” He grinned with good nature.
“How about another try? You don’t have to dazzle me with transitions. Just tell me the story.”
“Okay.”
I glanced out the window and beheld Mr. Pierre bearing down on the office. Before I had time to marvel at his haste or make my escape to the back, he was inside the door.
“Bellissima!” He kissed me. His voice lowered; his right eyebrow shot up conspiratorially. “Well?”
“Uh—I’m working up to it.”
“Lâche!” He evaporated as quickly as he had materialized.
I think he said that I chickened out in French.
Apart from my disappointing Mr. Pierre and myself, the day was tolerable. I stopped off at Darby’s Folly to groom Kenny and ride him for a too-brief half hour.
Then I went home and cooked spaghetti. I don’t like spaghetti but I like cooking even less. It was easy. Pewter stole half of it off my plate. That habit was my fault because I’d set a place for her and we’d eat together. As Pewter matured she decided my food was better than cat food. So I’d put some of my food on her plate. But she ate so much faster than I did she’d have her face in my food within minutes of being served.
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