Adam's Daughter (47 page)

He rose and went to a window, staring out. It was a while before he turned back to her. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he said.

“Worry? But you knew I’d eventually read it.”

He said nothing.

“Stephen, what’s wrong?” she said. “Are you afraid I’ll come on too strong at the meeting Monday? You know I’m always careful about
—-”

“Yes, I know,” he said, without looking back at her.

The slight edge to his voice surprised her. She stared at his back. “What’s going on here?” she asked softly. “Talk to me, Stephen. This isn’t like you. Or us. We’ve always been able to talk things out before.”

“Well, we’ve never had quite this problem before,” he said
.

Finally, he turned and faced her. “I thought
the circulation problem would stabilize. But it hasn’t. It’s only gotten worse.” He shook his head. “And I’ll be damned if I know how to fix it.”

He went back to the desk and began to turn the pages of the newspaper slowly. “I’ve been sitting in here for the last two
hours waiting for you to get back,” he said. “I started looking through some of these old copies of the
Times
you keep around, the ones from when your father was alive. I got to comparing them with the
Times
as it is now.”

He didn’t look up at her
as he continued to turn the pages. “Funny how you can get so close to something you can’t really see it. On first glance, the
Times
looks as healthy as ever. But then you begin to notice some differences. I remember it being a bulky thing. But it’s smaller now.”

She came over to the desk and looked down at the two newspapers. In her entire life, she had never once heard Stephen sound so negative.

“There are some problems, Stephen, but it’s as good now as it ever was,” she said. “Because of you, we’ve won two Pulitzers in the last five years and —-”

“Prizes don’t mean a damn if people stop reading your paper,” he
said. “We’ve lost a lot of advertising, the news hole has shrunk, we’re running fewer pages.” He paused. “And it’s only going to get worse.”

He closed the newspapers and looked at her. “
I guess that’s why I didn’t tell you about what was in the report. Until it came out, I thought I could turn things around. But I was fooling myself.” His eyes held hers. “I just couldn’t stand your being disappointed in me.”

She stared at him. “Stephen, you shouldn’t take this personally. It isn’t your fault. It’s just as much my
—-”

“How can I not take this personally?” he said. “Your father gave me this job because he trusted me. And you trusted me, too, Kellen. Call it a misguided sense of honor, or maybe just plain old-fashioned ego, but I took that responsibility seriously
.”

His face was lined with fatigue. She understood now why he had been working so hard during the past year and she was angry
with herself for not shouldering more of the burden. Now, she knew with certainty, that she had to go back to work full-time. More than her own satisfaction was at stake. The
Times
needed her more than ever.

But she knew that right now she couldn’t tell Stephen that. All her life, she had looked to him for strength and reassurance, and suddenly she had to provide those things for him. If she told him now that she was going back to work, it would only confirm his feeling that she didn’t trust him. She would have to tell him of her intent, but not at this moment, when he needed her faith.

“You didn’t fail, Stephen,” she said softly. “You’re only one person and you can’t shoulder all the blame. It’ll work out. We’ll keep looking for answers. We’ll find a way.”

She hesitated then put her arms around his neck. “It will work out, Stephen. You’ll see.”

Stephen’s eyes were locked on hers. Finally, he kissed her, slowly at first, then with more intensity. His ardor surprised her; it had been so long since he kissed her that way and she felt herself responding. Slowly, a sense of renewed hope came over her.

Everything is going to work out, she thought.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

The vice presidents’ meeting was into its fifth hour and the strain showed on everyone’s faces.

Ian, who had showed up an hour late and taken his spot at the head of the long mahogany table, did nothing to hide his
irritation. Kellen sat in her place at the other end of the table. Stephen sat along the table with the six other division heads. Before each person was a copy of the blue-bound circulation report.

“Look, we can sit up here all day, and these figures will not change,” said the vice president of advertising, Dennis Dingman. “If circulation doesn’t start coming around, we can look forward to a drop in revenue next fiscal year of at least twenty percent. And that is the bottom line.”

Harry Beebe, the vice president of circulation who had been taking the brunt of the fire all afternoon, rose slowly. “Well, my bottom line went to sleep an hour ago,” he said testily.

He went over to the coffee
pot and poured himself a cup. “Anyone want any more?” he asked, looking around.

No one answered.

“I have to say something here.” It was Fred Chase, the production vice president. “It all starts with your guys, Harry. We’re getting a lot of cancellations because of late delivery. Maybe if you got the papers out to folks on time, we’d hang on to subscribers better.”

“And maybe if you guys got the paper off the press on time, we could make our delivery schedule,” Harry
shot back.

“Look, don’t blame us,”
Fred said. “We can’t print the thing until editorial gives it to us. And they’ve been playing pretty loose with deadlines lately.”

Kellen glanced at Stephen. “Fred, we’re just trying to get the latest news in,”
she said evenly. “We can’t push the deadlines up again just to allow for press downtime.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “We’re not going to hear that one again, are we? Next you’ll start in
again about getting computers, how we can solve all our composing room problems for the paltry fee of two million.”

“It’s two point five six million,” added George Avare, the vice president of finance
. “Money that we don’t have. For a system no one’s sure will replace good, old-fashioned Linotypes.”

“Look,”
Stephen said. “We won’t get anywhere pointing fingers. We have to solve this together. If we don’t, we’ll sit here and watch the
Times
die a slow death.”

He looked at Kellen, knowing how the words would sting. But
her face was a mask.

“I had some extra materials prepared for you,” Stephen said, holding up another report.

There a few weary sighs.

“I hope you read it,” Stephen went on, “because it summarizes what I think is the real problem.” He paused. “We’ve been sitting here talking about how to fight the
Journal
. But the
Journal
isn’t our real enemy. Our real problem is that things are changing. The
Times
is an afternoon paper and people just aren’t buying afternoon papers like they used to.”

Kellen listened as Stephen reiterated the contents of his report. She had read it this mo
rning and for the first time she had understood why Stephen was so pessimistic.

The rival
Journal
was succeeding because it was riding a wave of altered reading habits. It had started after World War II when people’s work patterns began to change, but the effect was too subtle then for anyone to really notice until it was too late. Industrial workers used to leave for work early and had no time to read a newspaper in the morning. So the afternoon newspaper of Adam Bryant’s day suited their needs.

But now, the economy was dominated by service workers, who went to work later and had time for a paper with mo
rning coffee. These workers came home later and when they wanted to hear the news, they switched on the TV.

“So what you’re
saying is that this is all just a national trend and there’s no hope of making this newspaper as profitable as it used to be,” Ian said.

“
Yes, it’s a national trend,” Stephen said. “But I don’t consider it hopeless.”

Stephen began to explain some tactics
but Ian thumbed through the report, pointedly ignoring him. Kellen wondered if he had come only to harass Stephen. Since his marriage, Ian had become little more than a visitor to the
Times
. She suspected it was because of Clarisse. She loved to travel and spend money, and she and Ian had done both extravagantly since their wedding.

When
ever Ian did show up at meetings it was only to complain about the flat revenues. In the past two months, he had been pressuring the vice presidents to find ways to cut back on expenses. Recently, he had convinced them to institute a hiring freeze in the newsroom.

Stephen finished his summar
y. “I know this is not encouraging,” he said. “But we can’t just look for Band-Aid solutions to stop the circulation drain." He glanced discreetly at Ian. “Or to inflate revenues.”

The room was silent. The animosity between Ian and Stephen had never been a secret and usually the other vice presidents just did their best to keep out of the way.

Ian lit a cigarette.
“Well, Stephen. As usual, you’ve given us an eloquent presentation of the problem, but no solutions,” he said.

Stephen leaned forward slightly. “
That’s right, Ian, I have no solutions. But I plan to keep looking for one.”

He sat back in his chair and
glanced at Kellen. “But I do have one idea that might help our delivery problem.”

His words took Kellen by surprise. He had mentioned nothing to her about any plan.
“It’s something I’ve been thinking about all weekend since the report came out. I was going to wait until I had solid figures to back me up but maybe it’s something we should talk about now.” He paused. “We could build a satellite printing plant in the suburbs.”

“What good would that do?” Ian asked.

“Most of our circulation is in the suburbs now,” Stephen said. “And it’s vital that we hold on to it. If the papers could be printed and distributed closer to their destinations, circulation there could be maintained. Of course, a new plant wouldn’t stem the circulation drop in the city but it would buy time until we can solve the rest of the problem.”

George Avare shook his head. “It would cost millions. You have any idea what real estate’s doing these days outside the city? It’s not cows living out there anymore.”

“He’s right. We can’t afford it,” Ian said.

Kellen cleared her throat, and everyone looked at her. “It won’t cost a thing to research,” she said. “George, why don’t you get together with Stephen and Fred and prepare a feasibility study. Once we have some facts we can meet again and discuss it.”

Ian slowly ground his cigarette in the ashtray. His eyes traveled over each face, coming to rest on Kellen’s.

“All right, we’ll go through with this little exercise,” he said. “But I can fill you in right now on the realities of this newspaper’s situation. Our revenues are the flattest they’ve been in twenty years and our expenses continue to climb. The reality is, there is no extra money for any expansion right now. And I’m certainly not about to dig into my own pockets to finance any harebrained schemes.
”

He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been very patient about this newspaper’s failure to generate more revenue. But my patience is wearing thin.”
He glanced at Stephen. “If what Stephen says is true about the
Times
fighting a losing battle, then I may have no choice but to try to protect my own interests and those of my family.” He paused. “If things continue on their present course, I may have no alternative but to sell the corporation.”

The room was suddenly silent as everyone stared at Ian in  shock. A few eyes shifted toward Kellen. No one had mentioned selling since Garrett Richardson had made his buy-out attempt eight years ago. All the men knew that Ian could make no such move without Kellen, but they also knew that Ian was capable of trying anything.