Journal of Desire Ch. 02

Pausing at the front door of the newspaper office, Robyn took a deep breath. She looked into the dust-stained window. The gray-haired lady on the other side of the window looked up from her desk and stared back. Robyn fought the urge to turn away.

What the heck, she thought. I've got to give it a try.

Robyn swung open the door as the lady brushed the droning flies from her worksheets, pushed the pencil into her large bun of hair, and stiffened her back.

"May I help you?"

Her icy tone was the one she reserved for salesmen and bill collectors. But Robyn met her piercing eyes with a smile.

"I'm Robyn Dunmore. My dad was the editor."

The old lady gave a sharp rustle to her long black dress as she stood up. She always used every inch of her six-foot frame to intimidate strangers. Her steel-gray eyebrows arched above bifocals.

"You're the fourth editor those meddling executors have run in here since Mr. Dunmore took ill," she said. "So don't you get fired up and try anything fancy. I've been here for ten years and I'll damn well be here long after Global Media takes over."

Robyn saw a head peek around the partition of a cubicle. The young man had thick black hair.

"Hey," he called. "I'm Barry English. The advertising salesman. You've just met Lucy Warren. Folks around here call her 'The Beast.'"

Lucy Warren loudly cleared her throat. Her fingers drummed sharply on the corner of her desk.

"Young man, you quit your flirting and go get those grocery ads. And don't stop to feed your smelly horses!"

"I'm going, I'm going," Barry English said. "Glad to meetcha, Miss D. See ya later, Beastie."

He swept out the door, grabbing pencils, notebooks and scraps of paper as he went.

Robyn forced back a grin as she turned to Lucy Warren.

"And what do you do, Ms. Warren?"

"It's Miss Warren, young lady! Not Ms. And certainly not Mrs.," she said. "What do I do?"

She swept her arms around. "Why, I do everything around here, of course! I run this place!"

Robyn could feel her muscles tense. She began walking through the office. Lucy Warren trailed on her heels.

"Then who does the sweeping, Miss Warren? You?"

"Of course not," Lucy Warren said. "I'm authorized to bring in a cleaning woman whenever I need to."

"Ask her to be here in the morning."

"Just wait a minute, young lady!" Lucy Warren puffed out her bottom lip.

"I've never had her in here more'n a couple times a year." She stroked her chin. "I'll have to get an okay from Jonathan Corsair of Global Media."

"Forget Mr. Corsair," Robyn said. "This isn't his newspaper. At least, not yet."

Robyn went to a back corner and poked behind a counter with a cigarette-scared top. Dust flew as she thumbed through hundreds of yellow sheets jammed on metal spikes.

Invoices stamped "Paid" were dated twenty and thirty years ago.

Subscription slips, most of them undated, betrayed their age with phone numbers that had only four digits instead of the current seven.

The ancient subscription rates recalled an era of seven-cent bread and penny candy.

"Tell the cleaning woman to throw all this stuff out, "Robyn said. She brushed the dust off her jacket sleeves. "We can put up a couple of partitions and create a private office for me in the morning."

Lucy Warren balked.

"Those things were there when I came here ten years ago," Lucy Warren said. "Global Media won't like this at all." She locked her arms across her matronly bosom. "I'd better check with Mr. Corsair first."

Robyn opened the door to a corner room. She snapped on the light and quickly jumped back.

"What's this mess?"

"This is the rest room, of course."

"I can recognize the fixtures," Robyn said. She tapped her dusty shoe against unlabeled brown jugs on the floor. Grainy white powder dusted the sink. Smelly yellow liquids were splattered over everything, even the toilet seat.

Miss Warren spoke up. "This is also our darkroom." She pointed to the tangle of rolls of negatives on the slippery floor. "This is where Barry develops our film and photos. Seems to take all day at it, too."

Robyn shook her head. "I thought we would have stopped developing film and gone digital years ago," she said. The sharp odors and the yellow stains brought back childhood memories. Her dad had fallen behind the times.

The rest of the office was just as messy. Giving worst offense was Lucy Warren's desk. There was only one bright exception. Barry's work table was spotless.

Robyn pointed to the dilapidated filing cabinet beside Miss Warren's desk.

"What's in that top drawer that won't close," asked Robyn.

"Different things," Miss Warren said. "I have to keep a lot of important records."

"For example?"

"Why, I don't know if I should tell you that, Miss Dunmore. I'm the only one who knows everything in this office."

Robyn put her hands on her hips. There just wasn't going to be an easy way. She made her voice very soft, so Miss Warren would have to listen closely.

"Starting tomorrow morning," Robyn said

carefully, "I want an updated total of paid subscribers every week. Where's our largest circulation? Where's the weakest? How many subscribers do we have in each neighborhood?"

Lucy Warren started drumming her fingers again.

"Don't know if I should give you figures like that," she said. "None of those other whippersnapper editors were interested in stuff like that."

"Another thing," Robyn said. "Tell Barry English that since he's our only ad salesman, he might as well carry the title of advertising manager. That means he has to make a list of all advertisers for the last three months. I counted over forty merchants just on Main Street. But this week we only had thirteen ads. Barely enough for a six-page paper. I want to know who's mad at us and why."

"Now, wait a minute," Miss Warren said. "Nobody's ever tried to run the whole show since your dad took ill three years ago. Barry takes the ad orders. The editor, whoever that might be at the moment, jots down the obituaries and weddings and city council meetings and stuff like that. I handle everything else."

Robyn drew her lips into a tight line.

"That's why my father's paper is nothing but another bone to be grabbed up by Jonathan Corsair. Since my father took ill, this newspaper had become a three-headed monster. And the laughing stock of this town."

Robyn looked Miss Warren straight in the eyes.

"But for the next ninety days, this is my paper."

Robyn strode toward the door, then glanced back at Lucy Warren.

"Please have this office cleaned before we have a staff meeting tomorrow morning."

Miss Warren tugged the pencil out of her hair bun and started to jot down some notes when the front door banged open.

A delivery man in a neat uniform tipped his hat. He looked Miss Warren up and down before turning to Robyn.

"If you're Miss Dunmore," he said, "this is for you." He thrust into Robyn's arms the largest bouquet of roses she had ever seen.

As Robyn's face turned crimson, Lucy Warren plucked the greeting card from the wrapping paper.

"Well, well, well," she clucked. "These are from Jonathan Corsair. He apologizes for the rude business confrontation so soon after your father's funeral. He wants to make amends, Miss Dunmore. He invites you to his home in Key West."

Robyn held the bouquet at arm's length. Her face wrinkled as if the roses had the odor of a skunk.

"Well, I wouldn't take these smelly things from the like of Jonathan Corsair." She thrust them at Lucy Warren. "Throw them out!"

Lucy Warren lifted her eyebrows and peered over her bifocals. She took one long-stemmed rose and stuck it into an empty soda pop bottle.

"Why, this will look just fine on my desk."