the Clemans Building. Running errands, I thought, and dismissed Christie from my mind.
I shouldn’t have done that.
By five o’clock, I hadn’t heard from Marv Petersen. By five-thirty, the paper was almost ready to go to Monroe in the morning. I’d saved a four-inch hole on page one for the Tuesday night City Council meeting that I would cover and report. Carla had performed adequately on the jack-o’-lantern reshoot, Vida had found a high school head shot of Bob Lambrecht, and we had all contributed to filling up the “Scene” column.
Carla and Ginny had gone home. Vida was sorting through the mail that had piled up while she worked on her section of this week’s paper. Leo was getting a head start on the Thanksgiving special edition to be published November eighteenth. With our Wednesday publication date, we actually have to put out two Thanksgiving papers, with the first carrying all the grocery and other celebration-related ads. The paper that’s delivered the afternoon before the holiday is stuffed with Thanksgiving-related copy and art, but most of the ads are looking ahead to Christmas.
Leo was laying out an ad for Delphine Corson’s Posies Unlimited. “Is that a co-op with FTE?” I inquired, stopping at Leo’s desk.
“Not this time,” Leo replied with the crooked grinthat matched his broken nose. “I talked her into going full-bore for Thanksgiving. A quarter page, with a drawing by one of the kids in the high school art class. Look—it’s not bad, it’s different, and it’s free. The kid just wants his name in print.”
I admired an ikebana arrangement of chrysanthemums in a wooden bowl. The sketch was signed by one of the Olson kids. His mother was half-Japanese, the daughter of a Seattle soldier and his war bride. Nancy Olson didn’t sound Asian, nor did she look particularly Japanese. Still, she was definitely considered different in Alpine, or, at best, exotic. So was her son, Matt, the artist.
“Can Delphine do ikebana?” I asked. “It’s a real art form.”
Leo shrugged and lighted a cigarette. “Who knows? Who cares? How many locals can tell ikebana from a ripe banana? I told Delphine if anybody asked for an arrangement like this one, to charge a hundred and fifty bucks. That ought to get them to switch to a nice potted plant.”
Vida’s voice erupted from the corner desk. “Delphine’s lost weight. I almost put it in ‘Scene,’ but you never know how people will react these days. They might consider it sexist, or else they’re dying of cancer.” Vida’s expression displayed disapproval of both rationales.
Leo, who had his foot propped up on a new box of copy paper, turned to Vida. “Hey, Duchess,” he said, using the nickname he’d coined and which Vida detested, “you ought to live in L.A. if you think people around here are touchy. You wouldn’t believe the kind of shit I got myself into down there.”
“Which,” Vida replied archly, “is no doubt why youare now here.” With a withering look, she ripped open another envelope.
Leo laughed, blew out a cloud of smoke, and addressed me again. “Hey, babe, guess what? I was going to pay bills today. But I didn’t have to—one of those goddamned little gnomes at the bank is doing it for me. Thanks for hauling my ass over there yesterday.”
I nodded and smiled, albeit thinly. Ed Bronsky was hardly an upper-class kind of guy, but he’d almost never used crude language. I was no prude, certainly not after twenty years of working on a met daily, but in my tenure on
The Advocate
, we’d set a certain tone. Or maybe Vida had. It might be a good idea to ask Leo to watch his mouth. He wouldn’t bother Carla, who probably didn’t notice, but I was certain that he was, as Vida herself would put it, “getting her goat.” And Ginny’s, too.
This wasn’t the proper time, however. Vida was present, Leo was in a good mood, and I still had to face the City Council meeting at seven-thirty.
“I’m glad it’s
I shouldn’t have done that.
By five o’clock, I hadn’t heard from Marv Petersen. By five-thirty, the paper was almost ready to go to Monroe in the morning. I’d saved a four-inch hole on page one for the Tuesday night City Council meeting that I would cover and report. Carla had performed adequately on the jack-o’-lantern reshoot, Vida had found a high school head shot of Bob Lambrecht, and we had all contributed to filling up the “Scene” column.
Carla and Ginny had gone home. Vida was sorting through the mail that had piled up while she worked on her section of this week’s paper. Leo was getting a head start on the Thanksgiving special edition to be published November eighteenth. With our Wednesday publication date, we actually have to put out two Thanksgiving papers, with the first carrying all the grocery and other celebration-related ads. The paper that’s delivered the afternoon before the holiday is stuffed with Thanksgiving-related copy and art, but most of the ads are looking ahead to Christmas.
Leo was laying out an ad for Delphine Corson’s Posies Unlimited. “Is that a co-op with FTE?” I inquired, stopping at Leo’s desk.
“Not this time,” Leo replied with the crooked grinthat matched his broken nose. “I talked her into going full-bore for Thanksgiving. A quarter page, with a drawing by one of the kids in the high school art class. Look—it’s not bad, it’s different, and it’s free. The kid just wants his name in print.”
I admired an ikebana arrangement of chrysanthemums in a wooden bowl. The sketch was signed by one of the Olson kids. His mother was half-Japanese, the daughter of a Seattle soldier and his war bride. Nancy Olson didn’t sound Asian, nor did she look particularly Japanese. Still, she was definitely considered different in Alpine, or, at best, exotic. So was her son, Matt, the artist.
“Can Delphine do ikebana?” I asked. “It’s a real art form.”
Leo shrugged and lighted a cigarette. “Who knows? Who cares? How many locals can tell ikebana from a ripe banana? I told Delphine if anybody asked for an arrangement like this one, to charge a hundred and fifty bucks. That ought to get them to switch to a nice potted plant.”
Vida’s voice erupted from the corner desk. “Delphine’s lost weight. I almost put it in ‘Scene,’ but you never know how people will react these days. They might consider it sexist, or else they’re dying of cancer.” Vida’s expression displayed disapproval of both rationales.
Leo, who had his foot propped up on a new box of copy paper, turned to Vida. “Hey, Duchess,” he said, using the nickname he’d coined and which Vida detested, “you ought to live in L.A. if you think people around here are touchy. You wouldn’t believe the kind of shit I got myself into down there.”
“Which,” Vida replied archly, “is no doubt why youare now here.” With a withering look, she ripped open another envelope.
Leo laughed, blew out a cloud of smoke, and addressed me again. “Hey, babe, guess what? I was going to pay bills today. But I didn’t have to—one of those goddamned little gnomes at the bank is doing it for me. Thanks for hauling my ass over there yesterday.”
I nodded and smiled, albeit thinly. Ed Bronsky was hardly an upper-class kind of guy, but he’d almost never used crude language. I was no prude, certainly not after twenty years of working on a met daily, but in my tenure on
The Advocate
, we’d set a certain tone. Or maybe Vida had. It might be a good idea to ask Leo to watch his mouth. He wouldn’t bother Carla, who probably didn’t notice, but I was certain that he was, as Vida herself would put it, “getting her goat.” And Ginny’s, too.
This wasn’t the proper time, however. Vida was present, Leo was in a good mood, and I still had to face the City Council meeting at seven-thirty.
“I’m glad it’s
Similar Books
