Читать книгу The Debutante's Second Chance - Liz Flaherty - Страница 5

Window Over the Sink, Taft Tribune: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Susan, I’m married to my high-school heartthrob, and have three great kids. I named this column “Window Over the Sink” because it’s my favorite part of my house. I call it the poor woman’s therapist, because when I look through its panes at the Twilight River and imagine the breeze singing through the sycamores and maples and cottonwoods, I feel immense comfort. I’m writing this first column right around April Fool’s day because that’s something else that gives comfort in this life: being a damn fool once in a while….

The first column appeared on Micah Walker’s desk on the last day of March, before he’d even put out the first issue of the Taft Tribune with his name on the masthead as the owner-editor. The article was in a plain, white, number-ten envelope that had been mailed in Taft; the return address was a post office box. The column ran about seven hundred words, neatly printed on a laser printer. Some of it, like “high-school heartthrob,” made his journalistic side wince, but the terminology fit in the small Indiana town on the Twilight River. If he tightened it a little, it would fit right into the Tribune.

Allison Scott, the reporter who had come with him from Lexington to work on the Tribune, stood in the doorway of his office. “Did you write this by any chance?” he asked when she came in. He handed her the column.

“No,” she said instantly, and began to read. When she was finished, she looked wistful. “I kind of wish I had. It’s not technically perfect, but you sure can feel it.”

“You’re a romantic.” She was, but that didn’t stop her from being one of the finest reporters he’d ever met. “I’ll tighten it up and run it. I don’t think ‘Susan Billings’ is her real name, but that’s who we’ll make the check out to.”

“Don’t tighten it,” Allie suggested. “Let the feelings come through.” She turned to go.

He nodded. “Where are you off to?”

“A meeting. Domestic Violence Awareness. They’re going to discuss a sheltering system for battered women and children, the Safe Harbor Railroad.”

Micah shook his head. “Little towns are supposed to be utopian. They shouldn’t need that kind of group. Let me know if there’s something the paper can do,” he said, “without endangering anyone, I mean.”

“I don’t know if they’ll even let me in. Secrecy is the reason for its success, I guess.”

He nodded, half-listening. “How’s your mother?” he asked, without looking up.

“What?” Allie sounded startled.

“You know, your mom. How’s she doing?” Micah never interfered in anyone’s private life; he was pretty proud of remembering that Allie’s mother had been ill.

“Oh. Better. Much better.” But she seemed shaken by the question.

“Good.” He smiled absently in her direction, his mind already moving away. “That’s good.”

“Well.”

She seemed uncharacteristically indecisive, and he looked at her again. “Was there something else, Allie? Do you need a few more days off?”

“No. No, thanks.” She straightened. “Well, I’m off to the meeting. You’re right, though—how could a place that produces a ‘Window Over the Sink’ need an Underground Railroad? It just seems wrong.”