Gwen nodded, then realized that he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she said.
“Every time this case starts to get to me, whenever Hutchinson doesn’t get me what I asked for,” Kent said, throwing one more insult toward his harried assistant, “I just look at that picture, think about you, and things get better.”
Just then, as she was about to answer, Gwen was distracted by a sharp smell, like something was burning.
“Oh!” Kent declared. “I almost forgot to tell you the best news of all.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, I don’t know for certain, but there have been a lot of whispers around the office that as soon as you get back to Chicago, the firm is going to throw us an engagement party! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Faster than a struck match bursting into flame, Gwen’s anger returned, magnified tenfold. “You…you’ve been telling people that we’re getting married?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked innocently.
“Because I haven’t accepted your proposal yet!” she hissed, the words louder than she would have liked in the narrow hallway. She cupped the receiver, trying to muffle her voice. “Kent, no matter what you think, we aren’t engaged!”
He was silent for a long moment; Gwen imagined that he was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped on his desk, thinking hard. “Why are you being so stubborn?” he finally asked. “I thought that we—”
“Don’t you remember our argument?” she interrupted. “I went storming off into the rain. I nearly drowned in the river! All because you can’t accept that I want to be a writer! Tell me you haven’t forgotten that.”
“Okay, okay, so I may have jumped the gun a bit,” he admitted, sounding as if he was trying to placate her. “But the reason I started to talk about it around the office was because I know that you’re eventually going to come around. You know it, your parents know it. I mean, what, are you really not going to marry me?”
Gwen was too stunned to answer. For the very first time, she seriously considered what it would mean if she didn’t accept his proposal. Even on the night she’d left him on the porch, she had thought that they would talk like adults, that there would eventually be a compromise, and that, in the end, she would become Mrs. Kent Brookings. But now, listening to the dismissive way he spoke, understanding that he hadn’t taken a single thing she’d said seriously, she started to think that this was the end for them.
But even as Gwen struggled with how to tell Kent what she was feeling, the burning smell she’d noticed earlier grew stronger. She was sure it was coming in through the window. Stretching the phone’s cord, Gwen peered into the night. What she saw made her pulse race.
A house was on fire.
Even in the darkness, she could see it clearly. It was close, a couple of houses farther up the block but behind her parents’, facing the next street over. Orange, yellow, and red flames licked hungrily up its sides, devouring it and sending smoke billowing up toward the stars. Faintly, she heard voices, shouts for help.
Gwen knew what she had to do. Every instinct she had, the part of her that wanted to be a writer, was screaming to go to the blaze, to record everything she saw. She needed to be there.
“I’ve got to go,” she told Kent.
“Wait a second, Gwen, don’t you think that we should—”
But whatever else he had intended to say was lost when she put the receiver back in its cradle, hanging up on him.
Even as Gwen started running, she shouted, “There’s a fire!”
Her mother appeared in the kitchen’s entryway, her expression concerned, a hand rising to her collar. “Where?”
“Look out the window!” Gwen yelled as she rounded the banister and raced up the staircase. In her room, she snatched up her new notebook and a handful of pencils. Back downstairs, she found her parents gawking at the blaze.
“We should call the fire department,” her father said.
Once again, the phone rang; it had to be Kent, calling back to resume their conversation. But even as her mother answered, Gwen was already gone, bounding down the steps and into the night, running toward the fire.
Outside, the smell of smoke was strong, nearly overpowering. It burned her nose, covering the neighborhood like a blanket. Gwen raced down the sidewalk, running as fast as she could. All around her, people stepped onto their porches, drawn to the fire just as she had been. In the distance, she heard the rise and fall of a siren.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Gwen cut through John Gabrielson’s yard, skirted a garden, vaulted over a low fence, and narrowly avoided colliding with a birdbath. Finally she plunged between some bushes, their branches clawing at her hair, her clothes, even her notebook and pencils, before bursting out a hundred feet from the raging fire. Shielding her face, Gwen gasped.
It was David and Elise Morgan’s house. Years ago, she had spent many an evening inside, babysitting the couple’s two children. Gwen had made cookies in the kitchen, hung tinsel on the Christmas tree in the living room, and read dozens of stories in the upstairs bedrooms. Now it was being destroyed before her very eyes.
In the short time since Gwen had first noticed the fire, it had grown in intensity. Flames poured from the broken windows and leaped out of a hole that had been eaten through the roof. Smoke climbed high into the sky, blotting out the moon and stars. A wall of heat pushed against her, keeping her from coming closer.
So Gwen stayed where she was. Though it was likely dangerous for her to be so close to the blaze, she felt no fear, but rather a twinge of excitement, even a swelling sense of duty. It wasn’t until the earsplitting sound of the fire engine’s siren drew near that she went to the front of the house.
The crowd that had gathered parted, allowing the fire truck through. Firefighters began to run in every direction, many carrying ladders, axes, and seemingly endless lengths of hose. Gwen recognized a lot of their faces, men from the community, volunteers who had been rousted from their homes—some surely just sitting down to dinner—and into the night. A few were still buttoning up their coats or putting on their hats. Their shouts were loud, even over the fire.
“—check ’round the back of the house!”
“Once we’re hooked up to the main line, turn the spigot!”
“…out of the house? Is there anyone still inside?”
In unspoken answer to the last question, Gwen searched for the Morgans and was relieved to find them. The whole family was huddled together on the front lawn, the parents clutching their children tight; Gwen was surprised to see how much the kids had grown in the time she’d been away. Neighbors gathered around them, offering their support, some pointing, many crying, as David and Elise’s home was destroyed.
Gwen sat on the curb opposite the house, out of the way but still close enough to see all that was happening. She pulled out her notebook and began to write down everything she saw. She wrote about the firemen’s shouted instructions, the sharp smell of the fire burning the back of her throat, the thunderous noise the Morgans’ porch made when it collapsed, Elise’s sobs as she fell into her husband’s arms, and the constant hiss of water spraying from the hoses as the fire was slowly brought under control, though far too late to save much. As she wrote, page after page was filled with her observations. Her hand moved fast, though it struggled to keep up with her frenzied thoughts, producing a flood of words. She was still scribbling notes, working on her fourth pencil, when a blanket was unexpectedly draped across her shoulders. She looked up to find her mother standing beside her.
Meredith took a seat on the curb. Looking at the house, she said, “What a shame.”
Gwen nodded. In the crowd, she saw her father talking with David Morgan, a sympathetic hand on the grieving man’s shoulder. She was too far away to hear what was being said, but she was certain that Warren was offering whatever help the now homeless family might need.
“What are you doing?” Meredith asked, pointing at Gwen’s notebook.
“
Writing down what I see.”
“Why?”
Gwen turned to stare at her mother.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Meredith replied soothingly. “I just don’t understand what would draw you to something like this.”
“Someone needs to record this.”
“But why you? To what end?” She nodded at the open pages, filled to overflowing with words. “Who is all that writing for?”
Her mother’s questions were simple, yet they profoundly shook Gwen. In some ways, they reminded her of the criticisms and dismissive things that Kent had said. If he could see her now, would he shake his head, smile at her condescendingly, and ask why she had run off to sit before a raging fire? She suspected he would. But Gwen wondered if he wasn’t partially right to doubt her. If writing was truly her passion, then who was she filling all these pages for? Was it just for herself?
Or could it be something more?
Sitting beside her mother, Gwen thought she might finally have an answer.
Chapter Thirteen
GWEN STIFLED A YAWN and pushed herself away from her father’s desk. Early-morning sunlight streamed through the window of the office, washed over the rug at her feet, and was slowly making its way up her leg. Songbirds called to each other, signaling the beginning of a new day, although Gwen’s old one had yet to end. Stretching her arms above her head, her body sore from sitting for so long, she glanced at the clock; it wasn’t quite seven.
She’d been up all night.
When Gwen had finally left the Morgans’ house, the wreckage still smoldering as the fire department sifted through what remained, she couldn’t stop hearing her mother’s words repeating over and over in her head.
Who is all that writing for?
Back in her bedroom, smoke clinging to her clothes, Gwen had begun transcribing her notes, organizing them, deciding what was important enough to keep and throwing away all that failed to meet that standard. Once she was satisfied that she had what she needed, Gwen had gone downstairs. Though it was late, already well past midnight, she’d sat down at her father’s typewriter.
And so, with a deep breath, she had started to write, hoping she wouldn’t make too much noise as she struck the keys. She kept telling herself to follow the advice Mr. Wirtz had given her back at Worthington.
“If you can make your reader believe in what you’re writing,” he’d said, “there’s nothing you can’t achieve.”
Because she was a perfectionist, Gwen agonized over each word, every sentence, and even the punctuation marks. She wanted nothing to be out of place. The balls of crumpled paper that soon filled the wastebasket, then overflowed onto the floor, were a testament to how difficult that struggle had been.
But now, finally, she was done.
Gwen picked up the two sheets of paper and read through them for what felt like the hundredth time. Absently chewing at one of her nails, she used a critical eye as she looked for mistakes. When she finished, Gwen smiled. There was nothing more she could do.
Now she just had to follow through with her plan.
Gwen paced back and forth in front of the Buckton Bulletin, her account of the fire clutched in her hand. Once she had finished writing, she’d sat down to breakfast with her parents; with a wrinkled-up nose, her father had commented that Gwen smelled like she’d been fighting the blaze, not writing about it. After a much-needed shower, Gwen had hurried to the newspaper office, anxious yet hopeful, only to find that it hadn’t opened yet. She glanced at the clock above the bank. It was almost nine. Where was everyone?
As if in answer, a voice spoke behind her on the sidewalk. “Now there’s someone I never would’ve expected to see this fine morning.”
Gwen turned to find Sid Keaton, the publisher of the Bulletin, walking toward her. Sid was a handful of years older than her father, but where Warren had grown plump sampling his wares, Sid was rail thin; she supposed it made sense, since words couldn’t make you fat. The newspaperman was nearly bald, with what little graying hair he had left hopefully combed over the top of his head. He held keys in one hand, a coffee cup in the other.
“Good morning, Mr. Keaton,” she said.
“Hello, Gwen,” he replied, flashing a friendly smile.
They had known each other for as long as she could remember. Sid Keaton and his wife, Marlys, were regular customers at her family’s bakery. Thinking back, she recalled that Sid was an avid fisherman. Most every visit, he would regale her father with tales of the latest lure he was using, something he’d cooked up with bobs, feathers, weights, and whatever else he thought might attract a fish.
“Have you had much luck fishing this spring?” she asked.
“The best in years,” Sid answered. “With all the rain we’ve had, to say nothing of the new lures I cooked up, they’re practically jumping into my basket. Why, just the other day…” But then he trailed off, looking at her suspiciously. “Odds are, fishing isn’t the reason for this unexpected visit, unless you’ve started a new hobby, in which case I’m all ears.”
“That’s not why I came by,” she admitted.
“So what can I do for you?”
Gwen took a deep breath. This was the moment she’d come here for.
“Did you hear about the fire last night?” she asked. “The one at the Morgans’ place?”
Sid nodded. “I did.”
“I was there,” Gwen told him. “I wrote about what happened and wondered if you might want to publish it.” She stuck out her hand, which trembled slightly, presenting her pages.
Gwen wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she’d expected: for Sid to throw her work on the ground in disgust, to jump for joy as he enthusiastically accepted it, or, more likely, something in between. At the very least, she thought he would look it over. Instead, the publisher stuck the pages beneath his arm, turned his key in the lock, and said, “Why don’t we go inside.”
Many years had passed since Gwen had last been to the Bulletin offices. Rows of desks were spread across the room, the typewriters and telephones all silent. There was a door at the rear, the glass stenciled with Sid’s name, which led to his office. It was so quiet that Gwen thought it resembled a funeral parlor more than a newspaper. At this hour, she imagined that the Chicago Tribune or the Daily News was a hive of activity, with reporters and photographers racing to get their stories submitted.
“Buckton isn’t like the big city,” Sid explained, as if he knew what Gwen had been thinking. “There isn’t a lot that happens in these parts, and since we publish only once a week, there usually isn’t any reason for someone to be here so early. When we get closer to going to press, things pick up.”
Sid led the way to his office, flipped on the light, and offered Gwen a seat. He tossed her pages down on his blotter, dropped into the chair behind his desk, and sipped at his coffee before asking, “How was school?”
“Good,” she answered.
“Where was it you went again?”
“Worthington.”
“That’s right,” Sid said. “For as much as your dad talked about you, you’d think I’d remember. What was it you studied?”
“Lots of things, but I was especially interested in writing.” Gwen paused. “A story I wrote was accepted by a magazine,” she added, feeling a bit self-conscious, afraid it would sound like she was bragging.
Sid nodded, but his expression didn’t change.
So Gwen set out to alter it.
She opened up, talking about how much she loved to write, how she often felt compelled to jot down everything she saw, that she thought she was improving, and that all she wanted was a chance to show what she could do.
“And that’s why you wrote this?” the publisher asked, pointing at her pages, still sitting on his desk.
“Yes,” she told him.
Sid leaned forward and picked up Gwen’s work. He opened a drawer, pulled out a pair of glasses, and put them on. He tipped back in his chair, causing the springs to protest, and began to read.<
br />
Gwen tried not to fidget, listening to the steady tick of a clock in the outer room. She’d written only a couple of pages, but it felt like it was taking Sid forever to review them. She kept glancing at him, trying to read his face for any reaction, unable to shake the nagging suspicion that the only reason the newspaperman was doing this was as a favor to her father.
So what happens if he doesn’t like it?
She wasn’t sure of the answer. Would one failure be enough to make her give up her dream? Would she admit that Kent was right, that she had been acting foolishly, and agree to become his wife? Or would a rejection just make her try harder?
Then Gwen thought of Hank. When she’d admitted to him that she wanted to be a writer, he had listened, and even been supportive. He was passionate about his own work, which showed in his craftsmanship, and he understood why she wanted it so badly.
Kent might not believe in her, but someone else did.
Finally Sid put her pages down and nodded. “It needs a bit of work.” Gwen’s face must have soured slightly, because he quickly added, “Relax. No one submits something that I don’t make changes to.”
“Did you like it?” she asked tentatively.
“Sure,” Sid told her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it was better than I thought it would be. Much better.”
Gwen swelled with pride, struggling to hold back a smile.
“There’s one bit of it that gives me pause, though.”
“What part is that?”
“Toward the end, where you suggest that the fire might be arson.”
Even as she had been watching the fire, it had struck Gwen as odd that there had been two blazes in Buckton within such a short time. As the night, or more accurately the early morning, had crawled along, that feeling had grown stronger. Trying to explain it, she had ventured the idea that foul play had been involved and inserted the conjecture into her article.
Sunday Kind of Love Page 13
