Cold Tea On A Hot Day. Curtiss Matlock Ann
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concerned with being politically correct and watching the bottom line dollar. Newspaper publishing as it once was, with editors who spoke their fire and light, drank whiskey from pint bottles in their desk drawers and smoked big stogies, with no thought of the fate of their jobs or pensions, only the single-minded intent to speak the truth.
The good parts of the old days were what Tate intended to resurrect. Here, in this small place in the world, he would pursue his mission to speak his mind and spread courage, and to enjoy on occasion the damn straight wildness for the sake of being wild.
Yes, sir, by golly, he was on his way.
Tate alighted from the BMW, slammed the door and took the sidewalk in one long stride. A bell tinkled above as he opened the heavy glass front door and strode through, removing his hat and taking in the interior with one eager glance: brick wall down the left side, desks, high ceiling with lights and fans suspended. Old, dim, deteriorating…but promising. A city room, by golly.
“Can I help you?”
It was a woman at the front reception desk, bathed in the daylight from the wide windows. A no-nonsense sort of woman, with deep-brown hair in a Buster Brown cut and steady black eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses. Cheyenne, he thought.
“Hello, there. I’m Tate Holloway.” He sent her his most charming grin.
“You’re not.”
That response set him back.
“Why, yes, ma’am, I believe I am.” He chuckled and tapped his hat against his thigh.
She was standing now. She had unfolded from her chair, and Tate, who was five foot eleven, saw with a bit of surprise that he was eye to eye with her.
“You aren’t supposed to be here until Saturday.”
“Well, that’s true.” He tugged at his ear. He had expected to be welcomed. He had expected there to be people here, too, and the big room was empty.
“But here I am.” He stuck out his hand. “And who might you be, ma’am?” he drawled in an intimate manner. It had been said that Tate Holloway could charm the spots off a bobcat.
This long, tall woman was made of stern stuff. She looked at his hand for a full three heartbeats before offering her own, which was thin but sturdy. “Charlotte Nation.”
“Well, now…nice to meet you, Miss Charlotte.”
She blinked. “Yes…a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holloway.” She wet her lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t say that right away. It’s just that Marilee said you weren’t coming until Saturday.” There again was the note of accusation in her voice. “We aren’t prepared. We are…” She looked around behind her at the room and seemed to search for words. “Well, everyone is busy working for the paper, just not here.”
“I’m glad to see that,” Tate said. “I didn’t expect a welcoming committee.”
A spark of suspicion about that statement shone in her eyes, before she blinked and said, “I’m assuming you know that Chet Harmon, Harlan Buckles and Jewel Luttrell have all quit in the last month. June Redman has taken on the layout, and she’s out gettin’ her mammogram this afternoon. She used to just work part-time, anyway. Imperia is out on some sales calls. Leo and Reggie and Tammy are on stories, and Marilee’s had to go find her little boy.” She paused, then added, “Zona’s here, of course.”
“Marilee James? Her little boy is missing?” He recalled the woman’s voice on the phone, deep and soft, like warm butter. He had been anticipating seeing her and felt a bit of disappointment that she wasn’t here. Actually, saying that he didn’t want a welcoming committee was a fib, as this woman recognized. Tate had anticipated being greatly welcomed…at least, he had expected to be received with some enthusiasm.
The woman nodded. “Willie Lee. He’s wandered off from school again. He’s eight years old but learning disabled.”
“I see.”
“He is sweet as the day is long, but he tends to drift away. And he is not afraid of anybody in this world. That’s the worry…so many strangers come down here these days from the city.”
He felt vaguely guilty, since he had just driven in from a city. “Well, I’ll just have a look around.”
The woman blinked, as if surprised.
Just then a door from an office down on the left opened. A person—a small woman—appeared, saw Tate, and stepped back and shut the door. It happened so quickly that the only impression Tate had was of a small, grey-haired mouse of a woman. The office had window glass, but dark shades were drawn.
Tate looked at the brown-haired woman, who said, “That is Zona Porter—no relation—our comptroller.”
Tate waited several seconds to hear more, to possibly be introduced to this woman, but just then the phone on the desk rang, and the brown-haired woman immediately snatched it up.
“Valentine Voice, Charlotte speaking.” She gripped the telephone receiver. After several seconds, she told whoever was on the other end, “I’ll have Marilee call you back about that. She’s had to go out after Willie Lee. He’s wandered off from school again.” Her eyes lit on Tate. “Oh, wait! Mr. Holloway, the new publisher, is here. You can talk to him. Hold on a minute while I switch you over to another line…yes, he’s the new owner, Ms. Porter’s cousin…. I know it isn’t Saturday, he came early. Now I’m switching.”
She said to Tate, “It’s the mayor. They’ve landed the detention center after all, and he wants to give you the story.”
He stood there staring at her, and she stared back. Then a ringing sounded from a room behind Ms. Nation.
“Go on and get it in Ms. Porter’s office,” the woman ordered, shooing him with her hand. “I have to keep this phone clear in case anyone calls about Willie Lee.”
Tate turned and strode down the wide reception area to the opened doorway, the office he remembered as his uncle’s. Two long strides and he reached the enormous old walnut desk. Almost in a single motion, he tossed aside his hat and answered the phone, at the same time pulling a pad and pen from the breast pocket of his brown denim sport coat.
His journalist’s instincts had kicked in. He was a newspaper owner, by golly.
The mayor, a meek but earnest man with extremely thin fingers and hair, drove Tate out to see the site for the new detention center that would employ a hundred people right off the bat.
There was a lot of controversy over the center, the mayor admitted. He stuttered over the word controversy. Tate listened to the man’s explanations and read a bit between the diplomatic lines. Many people didn’t want what they thought of as a prison in their midst.
The mayor drove him all around, giving him a guided tour of the town and surrounding area. He took him into the Main Street Café and introduced him around, and then over to Blaine’s Drugstore and introduced him to Mr. Blaine, the only person in the store at the time and who seemed reticent to break away from his television. His only comment on the detention center was, “They’ll need a pharmacy, those boys.”
After that Tate walked with the mayor, who shyly requested being called Walter, up and down both sides of the street, the mayor introducing him to various shop owners, who all said more or less, “Hey, Walter,” and slapped the mayor’s back fondly and got a warm backslapping in return. The mayor was generally beloved, Tate saw.
When he finally begged off from a supper invitation by the mayor and returned to the newspaper offices, Miss Charlotte was on her feet.
“I’m glad you are back. It’s after five o’clock, and time for me to go home. Leo took the disks for the mornin’ edition up to the printer. We didn’t think we could wait for you,” she added in the faintly critical tone Tate was beginning to recognize. “Harlan used to handle it. Since he quit, we’re all just sort of filling in