Read Online Cold Tea on a Hot Day by Curtiss Ann Matlock - Free Book Online Page B

hadenrolled Willie Lee in school, her arrangement with Ms. Porter allowed her to often work from home, and she had managed very well.
    “I have made arrangements with a high school girl to help me in the summer,” she told him, “but until school ends, I will only have her occasionally in the evening hours.”
    “Well now, I don’t see any problem at all with you workin’ from home,” said her new boss and publisher. “I already have laptop computers coming for everyone, and we’ll be installing a networking system so that any of us can work from anywhere in town, or in the nation, if need be.”
    Marilee thought that The Valentine Voice was suddenly on a rocket, being blasted into the twenty-first century.
    Moving purposefully, her boss went to stand behind his desk, placed his hands on it and leaned forward. “I want you to keep this to yourself for a few days. I’ll tell everyone shortly, but for now, I’m just telling you.” He paused. “We’re going to have to cut the paper to a twice weekly.”
    She took that in.
    He said, “I don’t imagine that comes as any shock to you.”
    “No…it doesn’t.” It saddened her, but it was no surprise. Everyone knew that Ms. Porter had been subsidizing the paper for years, and Marilee, having taken over for Ms. Porter, had consulted a number of times with Zona and knew the great extent to which that subsidizing had run.
    Tate Holloway eyed her with purpose so strong that heleaned even farther forward. “It is my intention to get this paper to be payin’ for itself. I’m out to build somthin’ here, Miss Marilee. And I’m going to need your help to do it.”
    “I’ll do what I can.”
    “I’m countin’ on that, Miss Marilee…. I sure am.”
    Gazing into his twinkling baby-blue eyes, Marilee kept tight hold on the chair back, as if holding to an anchor in the face of a rising, rolling sea.

Six
    Maybe She’s Human
    M arilee came out of Tate Holloway’s office and closed the door firmly, then held on to the doorknob for some seconds. Behind her, through the door, the low tones of music began—Charlie Rich singing from Tate Holloway’s stereo.
    Pushing away from the door, Marilee wrestled with high annoyance at her new boss. Tate Holloway was way too full of himself.
    The next instant Reggie was sticking a pen in front of her face, saying, “Tell us the news, Ms. James. Are we all goin’ to be swept out to make way for new employees to go with the new publisher?”
    This had been a major worry of Reggie and Leo’s, both being employed at the same place. Mainly it appeared to be a great worry of Reggie’s, since Leo wasn’t given to worrying over steady employment. Before coming to work at The Valentine Voice, he had held various positionsin automobile sales, insurance, cattle brokering, photography, trucking and a half-dozen others, several for no more than a week or two before either quitting or being fired. While Reggie defended her husband as trying to find himself and being a victim of too much feminine attention, it had been fact that he had not been able to keep a job of any secure endurance, until he had landed the one of sports reporter at the Voice. He proved excellent at it, and the one time he had shown any inclination to quit, Reggie had come in behind him and finagled a job of her own, thereby being on the scene to make certain he kept his position.
    A part of Marilee’s brain tried to be sensitive to all of this, but seeing everyone’s eyes, even Willie Lee’s and Corrine’s, turned in her direction made her very irritated.
    “Don’t put that thing in my face, Reggie. I need both my eyes.” She pushed Reggie’s hand aside and strode to her desk and began shuffling through files to take home.
    “Okay. So are you pissed off because you do not want to tell us that we are all about to be fired?”
    The breathlessness of the question struck Marilee, and she looked up to see Reggie’s thoroughly uneasy eyes. The precariousness of