Front Page Love

by Paige Lee Elliston

  Bonnie, the young waitress, hustled over to the booth, pencil poised over pad.

  “A small dish of chocolate,” Julie said. “And I mean small, Bonnie.”

  “Sure.” The girl smiled. “What about you, Officer?”

  “Just coffee for me, thanks, Bonnie. That sundae you made for me last week was dynamite, but it’s a little early for—”

  A crackle came from the small radio receiver on his belt. He pulled the receiver from its rectangular leather holster and held it to his ear. The smile disappeared from his face as if it’d been slapped away. Ken stood. “I’m really sorry—I need to run. That was the chief. We’ll do this again soon, OK?”

  Julie watched Ken hustle to the front door. In seconds, she heard the deep roar of his engine.

  “Wow,” Bonnie said.

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “My sentiments exactly.”

  Heat rose in shimmering curtains, like the air above a roaring fire, from the tar surface. Her boots sank into it, reminding her of the grasping, disgusting floor at the Bulldogger. She pawed through her purse for her rarely used press card, found it, and held it in her right hand as she pushed open the door. The cool air that greeted her was almost, but not quite, worth the trek across the parking lot.

  Coldwater General wasn’t a large hospital. Only four floors in height, it was a boxlike structure with the aesthetic appeal of a chicken coop. Julie knew the physicians and the staff were excellent and that the hospital was highly rated, but even driving by CG released butterflies in her stomach.

  The critical care area, she knew, was on the top floor. She strode confidently past the desk and switchboard on the main floor, and no one questioned her. She was the only passenger in the elevator that took her to the CC unit. The doors slid open directly in front of a nursing and reception module, with the rooms spread as spokes around it. The antiseptic smell was stronger here, and the usual hospital background noise seemed subdued, allowing the monotonous but essential-to-life beeps of monitors and other sorts of machines to be the dominant sound.

  A nurse seated behind a window looked up at Julie.

  “I’m here to see Dean Kendricks,” Julie said.

  The nurse’s eyes opened wider for the briefest part of a second before she recovered her equanimity. “Are you family?” she asked.

  “No. Press, actually,” Julie said, holding up her card. “I only need a moment—or if I could see Dean’s mom or dad, that’d be fine.”

  The nurse stood. “One moment please,” she said and entered an office situated behind her. In a moment she came out, followed by another nurse, an older woman who walked slowly to the window.

  “I’m sorry, but Dean Kendricks died of his injuries an hour ago. His family was with him at the end. We’ve already made the announcement to the News-Express.”

  Julie sat in her truck and paid no attention to the searing temperature around her. Tears streaked her face, and her hands tortured and shredded a tissue she’d gotten from her glove compartment.

  “Julie?” She looked up to see Ian Lane standing next to her vehicle. “I guess you heard about the Kendricks boy, right?”

  She nodded her head.

  “I was just with the family. I saw you leaving the fourth floor and I called to you, but you didn’t stop. I caught the next elevator, but it took forever.” He paused. “Did you know Dean well?”

  Julie shook her head. “I didn’t know him at all, but I almost got into an accident with him yesterday. I saw Maggie this morning and told her about it. She’ll tell you. OK?”

  “Sure. But will you stop by later? Maybe right now isn’t the time to talk, but I can see how upset you are. Will you do that? Maggie would love to have you, and so would I.”

  “I . . . I can’t, Ian. I’m sorry. I’ll be in touch tomorrow, with both of you.”

  Ian nodded, and when Julie looked at him she saw how drawn and tired his ordinarily open and cheerful face was, how fatigued and reddened his eyes were.

  “Tomorrow, then,” he said. After a moment, he added, “It’s always hard to lose someone. When it’s a boy who’s barely started his life, it’s that much more painful.”

  Julie couldn’t speak. She met the sad eyes of her minister—her friend—again. Then she looked away and started her engine.

  The story seemed to cascade from her, at first with the unrestrained power of an opened fire hydrant, but then, later, with the steady flow of a spring stream, constant, strong, but controlled and headed in the right direction.

  Her photo layout skills weren’t great, but it didn’t matter. The News-Express staff would take care of all that. The pictures magically appeared from the tiny disk in her camera and then on pages from her printer, and she taped them roughly where she wanted them on her pages.

  Julie stopped writing at about midnight, ate a can of cold vegetable soup and an apple, and went back to her office. She’d tended to Drifter when she’d arrived home hours earlier and applied the ointment as instructed later, but those were the only two breaks she’d taken from her keyboard and monitor.

  An hour before dawn, the story was finished, edited, and ready for review by Nancy Lewis.

  Julie enjoyed early mornings—or she had enjoyed them until the drought came. Now, even with the sun barely beginning to assert itself, the air that had always been clean and fresh and invigorating was like a wet shroud cast over the earth, and the breathing of it brought no pleasure and no promise of a new day.

  Drifter stood quietly in the cross ties as Julie worked ointment into the heels of his front legs. He crunched a carrot sloppily, and the familiar grinding and the slight, sweet scent of the carrot and Drifter’s healthy breath lifted Julie’s spirits a bit. She performed her stall-cleaning chores automatically, almost robotically, but the physical exertion felt good after her hours in her office chair. Hefting wet, manure-laden straw with a pitchfork into a wheelbarrow wasn’t exactly a membership in an exclusive health club, but the chore quickly relieved the soreness in her shoulders and back. As she wafted agricultural lime on the stall floor, she heard the tires of a car or truck rolling over the stones and dirt of her driveway.

  Anyone who knows me well enough to visit at 6:00 a.m. will know I’m in the barn, she thought, continuing with her chores. The thud of a vehicle door closing and a loud bark stopped Julie. Danny! And look at me—hair like a tornado hit my head, lime all over my hands, teeth unbrushed . . .

  Danny used his hip to ease the big sliding door open a bit more and stepped into the barn, Sunday right behind him. “Morning,” he said.

  He looked like an illustration from an L.L. Bean catalog, casual, comfortable, his jeans clean, the sleeves of his chambray work shirt rolled neatly to his forearms, his face freshly shaved. In each hand he held a steaming plastic cup of coffee. “I thought I’d start my day here—take a quick look at Drifter and have coffee with his glamorous owner.”

  Julie chuckled. “You’ll have to try the lady of the house. I’m just the barn troll.”

  Sunday poked his snout at Julie, his tail wagging so hard his entire back end was wiggling. She crouched and rubbed his sides. Danny waited as Julie greeted his dog, and then extended one of the cups.

  “I’m real fond of barn trolls,” Danny said. His smile was warm, and there was laughter in his eyes—and real fondness too, Julie thought.

  “Thanks,” she said as she stood up and reached for the cup of coffee. “Do you want me to bring Drifter out into the cross ties?”

  Danny set his cup on the floor and selected an apple from the basket on the shelf. “Nah—I’ll go in the stall. I just want to make sure everything looks OK.” He stepped across the central aisle, worked the latch, and moved into the box stall with Drifter, palming the apple to the horse. Danny leaned for a moment and inspected the abraded areas to which Julie had minutes before applied the salve. “Fine,” he said. “Looking good.”

  “Did you expect improvement this soon?” Julie asked.

  Danny came out of the stall and cl
osed the gate. “Well,” he said, blushing slightly, “actually, no. I just happened to have this thermos of coffee and a couple of throwaway cups and not much to do today.”

  Julie laughed delightedly. “That’s all the reason you need, Danny. Slow day, huh?”

  “Yeah. What about you? How’s the series going?”

  “I guess that remains to be seen. I wrote the first piece last night, though.” She paused for a moment. “If you have a few minutes, how about reading it while I shower? I’m going to run the manuscript over to Nancy at the Express, but I’d really like to get your opinion of it first.” She was suddenly embarrassed. “If you have time, I mean. You don’t have to read every word—maybe just kind of scan it, see if the premise works for you.”

  “Time is one thing I have a ton of today. I’d love to read it.”

  She set Danny up at the kitchen table with a copy of the article and the pictures and left him there with Sunday on the floor at his side. She hurried through her shower—water conservation—but dallied in her bedroom, dressing slowly. She wasn’t able to keep her mind off Danny reading her article downstairs.

  Two thousand and some odd words will take time to read. Why is it so important to me that Danny likes what I’ve written? Is that because I’m unsure of my work—or unsure of Danny?

  She tugged on a pair of socks, noticing that her big toe peeked pinkly back at her through a sizable hole. Of course I’m unsure of Danny. There’s nothing to be sure of at this point. But . . . he did come here to see me, not to tend to Drifter. That’s good. That’s very good.

  When Julie came down the stairs in fresh jeans and a summer blouse, Danny was leaning back in his chair, the pages of the article piled neatly in front of him.

  “So . . . ?” Julie asked, her voice sounding tentative, almost pleading, to her own ears.

  “It’s . . . it’s perfect, Julie. It says what lots of us think, and it’s strong and articulate and . . . what? . . . real, I guess. The stuff about the guys out of work, and the description of the bar and those geezers killing time with the beer and whiskey . . . it’s great writing.”

  Julie began to speak, but Danny held up his hand, stopping her.

  “Let me finish, OK? The material about Dean Kendricks and how he ended up in the Bulldogger and was served even though he was underage—illegal—and what happened afterwards reads like the books of Ann Rule, the true crime writer. I could feel your emotion in the words, Julie, but the text is restrained, controlled, just as it needs to be to make the point. Great work.” He picked up the top page, the one with Rick Castle gesturing from the doorway of the bar. “Great photo too. And the skid marks tell their own story. Your boss will love it. Guaranteed.”

  Julie pulled out a chair and sat down across from Danny. “Nancy handed me free rein on the series, but there are always editorial considerations. Still, I gave the piece my best shot.”

  “I can see that, and so will all your other readers.”

  She couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “Thanks for taking the time to look it over, Danny. I appreciate what you’ve said.”

  He smiled back at her, and their eyes remained together for a long but not uncomfortable amount of time. “How about a celebratory dinner tonight? Burgers at the café—maybe an order of onion rings? Fried chicken? This is a special occasion—the menu is wide open to you tonight. Even a sundae for dessert, if you like.”

  “Wow,” she said. “What a deal! But how about this? Why don’t you come over at about 7:00, and I’ll grill that huge steak you gave me the other day?”

  “You shouldn’t have to cook today, Julie. I was only joking about the café. I’d like to take you to the new restaurant over in River Falls.”

  Julie moved around the table to stand closer to him. “That’d be fun—but not tonight. I worked all last night on my article, and I’d really like to just have a nice meal and relax. OK?”

  “I’ll tell you what, then—I’ll make a salad and bring the dessert.” He stood and shoved his chair back under the table, standing within inches of Julie.

  “Perfect,” she said. “See you about 7:00, then? And I’ll have a treat for Sunday too, so make sure you bring him.”

  Danny stepped toward Julie, closing the short distance between them, and drew her close, with his hand softly touching the back of her neck. She felt the hardness of his forearm across her shoulders and breathed in the light, masculine scent of his aftershave. They separated after a few wonderful seconds, without embarrassment, as if they’d somehow agreed to something important without actually stating it in words.

  “See you then,” Danny said.

  Julie watched from her kitchen door as Danny, with Sunday in the passenger seat next to him, drove past the house and bumped his way down the driveway, the dust he raised hanging in the air behind his truck. She listened as he shifted smoothly through the gears—and kept on listening until there was nothing but the buzz of insects to hear. As she turned away a headline popped into her mind.

  Ace Investigative Reporter Wins Nobel and Veterinarian

  Julie drove down Main Street with her air conditioner on full power. It was a few minutes after 8:00, but vehicular traffic was very light and pedestrian traffic nonexistent. The time/temp clock in front of the bank read 104 F. She passed the Bulldogger and noticed perhaps a dozen cars and trucks in the parking lot. Her skid marks and those of Dean Kendricks remained etched into the surface of the street, mute testimony supporting the first article of her series. She shook her head sadly.

  Poor kid—and poor, bereaved family. Why does something like this have to take place before people recognize what’s happening right in front of them?

  The words of Bonnie, the young waitress at the café, returned to Julie. “Cool guy. Heck of a roper. Cute too.”

  Julie flicked on her signal and turned into the News-Express parking lot, finding a place a few spots away from the cluster of cars and trucks already there. She was reminded of the price of her new Dodge each month when her payments were due, and she wasn’t going to allow dings and dents to diminish its value.

  The walk to the employee entrance was a journey through a steam bath, but the cold air inside refreshed her. She went to her cubicle and sat in front of her keyboard. A stack of mail was overflowing her in-basket, and she separated the mail quickly, tossing the junk into the wastebasket at her side. Reader mail she set aside on her desk. She answered each piece she received from those who wrote to her, regardless if they agreed or disagreed with whatever stance she’d taken in her column.

  She turned on her computer and waited for it to boot up. An icon indicated that she had email, which she looked over quickly: a few cartoons sent by other staff members, a notice about a company picnic, miscellaneous spam addressed to “Dear Reporter.” There was nothing worth reading or saving, and she took a perverse bit of pleasure in tapping the delete key until her screen was clear. She tucked the mail she’d set aside into her purse and stood, grabbed her leather folder, and started to her boss’s office.

  Nancy Lewis’s door was closed, which was a very rare phenomenon. Elisha, Nancy’s secretary, was drinking coffee and eating a toasted bagel.

  “Morning, Leesh. Nancy busy?” Julie asked.

  “Some kind of a budget meeting. A bunch of suits got here early, and they’ve been in with her ever since. It’s supposed to go most of the day, according to Nancy.” Elisha looked over at the closed door. “Nancy hates meetings. She said she’d rather have a root canal than spend a day with those bozos.”

  “I can’t blame her.” Julie smiled. “I’m glad we peons don’t have to be involved in stuff like that.” She took her article from her leather folder. “May I leave this with you to give to Nancy as soon as you can? It’s important.”

  “ ’Course. I’ll hand it to her the minute she comes out.” She took the pages from Julie and glanced at the top photo, giggled for a moment, and then laughed. “That’s the guy from the Bulldogger, isn’t it?”

 
“Yep. Flattering shot, don’t you think?”

  “It’s perfect.” She paused for a moment. “Ummm . . . Can I read this?”

  “Sure—help yourself. But not a word to anyone until after Nancy approves it, OK? It’s the first part of my series.”

  “You have my word on that, Julie. Why the secrecy, though?”

  “It’s the first story of my series, Leesh. It’s pretty hard-hitting, and I’m a little nervous about it.”

  Elisha waved away Julie’s concern. “You’re Nancy’s star, Julie. She’d publish your grocery list if you submitted it.”

  “I doubt it.” Julie laughed. “I can’t afford groceries, anyway. I’ve got a horse to feed.”

  “Speaking of which, Michael has talked about nothing but Drifter since we were out to your place. He’s told the other kids that Drifter is going to be his horse—that he’s going to buy him from you and keep him in our garage. I was wondering if I could bring—”

  “Elisha, I’ve told you and told you, anytime you want to bring Mike out again is fine with me. Evenings, weekends, whatever. So quit asking and just do it, will you?”

  Elisha’s teeth were a beautiful white against her dark skin. “You’re a peach, Julie—and I’ll take you up on that. Mike has a new cowboy hat he’s dying to show off to you.”

  “Great. How about if you call first and then meet me at Maggie’s ranch? I’ll ride Drifter over, and Maggie has a sweet ol’ mare we can put Mike on, and I’ll take him out on some trails.”

  “He’ll think he’s in heaven!”

  “Good. Let’s do it, then.”

  Elisha’s smile stayed with Julie, buoying her spirits until she began the walk across the parking lot to her truck. Sheets of scorching heat shimmered ahead of her like desert mirages, and the tar moved slightly under her boots. She used her key to open the door, avoiding touching the scorching chrome. She walked around the front of the truck and opened the passenger door in the same manner. There was no more breeze than there would be in an oven roasting a turkey, but at least the captured heat could escape. Leaving her windows down when she parked wasn’t a good alternative; she’d spent several hundred dollars for the CD and speakers option, and she frequently left her camera in the glove compartment. Coldwater was a small town inhabited by good people, but still . . .