Adam's Daughter (61 page)

The questions kept coming. Most were about small concerns but Kellen answered each one patiently. She had purposely not been much of a presence in the newsroom during recent years and she sensed now that perhaps she had pulled back too far. As empathetic as Stephen was, it was different for employees to have the owner’s ear. Just as with the other newspapers, they needed to know a Bryant still cared.

A reporter who had driven in for the meeting from a suburban bureau talked about feeling isolated and unappreciated. A photographer complained about having to ration his film. The baseball writer bemoaned budget cuts that prevented him from covering spring training. A copy editor asked if the
Times
was going to start using computers, which triggered a long and lively debate about technology.

Kellen was listening to the exchange when she noticed Ian standing off in a far co
rner. He was watching her, his arms folded across his chest, his dark eyes glaring at her.

“Mrs. Hillman,” a voice called out. “I have a question.”

A young man took a step forward. He was about twenty-five, with keen eyes. Kellen had never seen him before.

“I grew up reading the
Times
,” he said. “I admired it and always wanted to work for it. During the year I’ve worked here I’ve heard lots of rumors about your selling, and like a lot of people around here, I get the feeling this is a rudderless ship.”

“What’s your question, Bailey?” It was the managing editor, Ray, bristling slightly.

The young man looked at Kellen. “Every great newspaper should have a vision, a concept of what it stands for. What’s yours, Mrs. Hillman?”

All eyes, which had been locked on the man, turned toward Kellen.

“I believe,” she said, “that a newspaper is unlike any other business, that it must somehow transcend its preoccupation with profit and loss to focus on a greater goal. I believe that a newspaper is a sacred trust, that it has an obligation to serve its readers first.” She smiled slightly. “And its owners second, if necessary.”

She
focused on Ian. “I know the
Times
has lost something, that some of its substance has drained away,” she said. “But I know that we can get it back. I see the
Times
as a paper that stands for what’s best in people, as a newspaper of great passion. And I see it soon taking back its place as the single most important source of information in this community. I don’t have to tell you that this is a special city, with a unique personality. Nothing can reflect that better than a good newspaper. And no one —- certainly not the
Journal
—- can do it better than we can.”

The young reporter was still staring at her.

“Vision is a difficult thing to articulate,” Kellen said with a smile. “That is the best I can do.”

The room was silent for a moment. Then Ray stepped forward and asked if there were any other questions. There
were none, so the crowd slowly dispersed throughout the newsroom. Clark came over to Kellen and Ray.

“I’m going to break that kid’s neck someday,” Ray said, jerking his head toward Bailey, who had returned to his desk.

Kellen watched the young man, who was now on the telephone.

“Where’s he from?” she asked.

“The
Oakland Tribune
,” Ray said. “He’s real talented. But a smart ass. I still ought to break his neck.”

“Don’t,” Kellen said with a smile. “He’s hungry, Ray. Besides, a healthy disrespect for authority is good in a reporter. And it was a good question.”

She turned to Clark with a sigh. “How about buying me a cup of coffee. I need it after that.”

They went over to the coffee maker in the co
rner. Clark handed her a plastic cup.

“You know, you handled that really well,” he said. “Just like your old man.”

“It’s funny. I get more nervous talking to them than I do the vice presidents,” she said. “But I survived this, so I guess I can survive the next month. I’m going to visit each of the papers in the chain. It’s time that the other rudderless ships got to see that someone’s still at the helm.”

“You’ll be gone a month?” Clark asked. “What does Stephen say?”

“He doesn’t like the idea very much.”

Clark hesitated.
“I’m worried about you, Kel,” he said. “You’ve been working too hard lately.”

“I’m all right.”

“There’s something bothering you,” Clark said. “Something you’re not telling me.” He paused. “It’s Garrett, isn’t it,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen him again?”

Kellen bit into the edge of the
Styrofoam cup, avoiding Clark’s eyes. “No, not since Carmel.”

Last week, not long after the weekend with Garrett, Kellen had confided in Clark. She had needed to talk and knew Clark could be trusted. She had told him everything, even about Sara. Clark had told her that he had always suspected it. And he cautioned that perhaps Garrett did, too.

“What’s wrong then?” Clark persisted.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said, about telling Garrett about Sara. I’ve been thinking that maybe he does have a right to know about her. But I just don’t think I can do it. I don’t know if I trust him. I don’t even know how I feel about him.”

“What about Sara?” Clark said. “If Garrett has a right to know about her, she certainly has a right to know about him.”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I thought once it was better if she didn’t ever know the truth, but now I’m not sure. I thought once that I loved Stephen but how can I if I’m constantly thinking of another man? I thought I knew myself, but I don’t.”

The sound of the wire machines filled the silence.

“How’s Tyler?”
Clark asked. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Kellen knew Clark was just trying to steer her to neutral ground. She was grateful and smiled.
“He’s happy. Truly happy.”

Clark shook his head. “Living all alone in the middle of that vineyard
. The boy’s still a lost soul.”

“Tyler?” she said softly, staring out over the newsroom. She tossed the unfinished coffee in the wastepaper basket. “He’s not as lost as most of us.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Kellen tipped the bellboy, and he left her standing alone in the middle of the suite. She kicked off her shoes, opened the suitcase and carefully took out the framed photograph. She set the frame on a bureau, positioning it so she could see the faces of Sara and Ben from wherever she was in the room.

Her eyes drifted to a large bouquet of white roses on a nearby desk. She picked up the card: Hurry home. We miss you. Love, Stephen.

She went to the window, pulling back the draperies.

Downtown Portland was spread out below her, its lights just beginning to break through the dusk.

She knew that the roses were Stephen’s way of apologizing.

Last night, they had had an argument on the phone. He wanted to know when she was coming home. Considering that she had been away now for four weeks, it h
ad been an innocent enough question. But in her fatigue, she had interpreted it as an accusation. They had argued, and finally, Stephen had said her trip was only an excuse to get away from him.

“
You’re pulling away from me,” he said.

The conversation ended, angry and unresolved.

Now, alone in the hotel so far from home, she realized that Stephen was right. Every day she felt herself drifting farther away yet she felt unable to stop it.

She turned away from the window and went to her suitcase. She quickly unpacked and orde
red a light dinner from room service and a copy of that day’s
Portland Press
. She changed into a robe and popped open her briefcase, extracting a thick folder labeled “Portland.” When the food and newspaper arrived, she set the tray on the bed and sat down, cross-legged, to begin work.

She first read the newspaper thoroughly then tackled the folder, which was filled with status reports on the newspaper’s finances, circulation, market position, and general health. Her routine had been the same for each newspaper she had visited.

She had guessed beforehand that she would be perceived as a dilettante owner making a token visit to the fiefdom. So she made sure she was prepared. She read the reports so she could handle the management; she read the newspapers so she could talk to the employees.

In each city, she had been greeted with wariness. No one from the Bryant family had been to the newspapers since Adam’s death ten years before. But by the end of each visit, Kellen had won the respect of those she met. And slowly, each newspaper took focus in her mind, no longer just a line on a balance sheet or a paragraph in a corporate report, but separate entities, each with its own personality and set of problems.

In Phoenix, reporters complained of salaries that had been frozen for two years. In Seattle, she discovered Ian had imposed a ridiculous “two-page rule” in an effort to force shorter stories to conserve newsprint. In Sacramento, she discovered presses in dire need of modernization. In San Diego, she discovered Ian had reduced the size of the comics so much they could barely be read.

Everywhere she went, she found good newspapers, but also a legacy of neglect. For more than a decade, Ian’s laissez-faire management and his insistence on a high profit margin for the sake of personal income had stifled the newspapers.

Adam Bryant’s dream had been undeniably compromised. Ian had taken a chain of powerful vibrant newspapers, joined by a singular vision, and turned it into a disconnected scattering of impotent profit machines.

The realization had left Kellen deeply saddened. But it had also crystallized her resolve. She would, she promised each person she talked to, do
everything she could to restore the lost vitality.

She was doing it for the newspapers and all the people who worked for her. But she was also, she knew, doing it for herself. After so many lost years, so many false starts, she finally felt as if the newspapers were truly becoming hers. They were no longer something she had inherited. They were something she had earned anew.

Kellen set the Portland folder aside, her thoughts going back to Stephen. She wished that she could make him understand that better. Lately, he had tried hard to be more supportive, but she still felt that deep down, he did not understand. To him, the
Times
was his profession, a certain part of his identity, to be sure, but something separate. But to her, the
Times
and now all the other newspapers were almost as essential as Ben and Sara, an extension of her, like family.

It was not something she could explain in rational terms. Perhaps it was not something Stephen could ever understand.

Suddenly, she felt very lonely. She glanced at the bedside clock. It was too late to call the children. Besides, she had already talked to them that morning from the airport in Seattle. Benjamin talked about his toys. Sara had been excited about going off to summer camp tomorrow. Their cheerful preoccupation with their own worlds made Kellen wonder briefly if they missed her at all.

She was tired but still keyed up. Finally, she got dressed and went downstairs to the newsstand in the lobby, hoping to find a diverting book. To her surprise, she found the newsstand stocked with out-of-town papers. She saw that day’s
San Francisco Times,
its gothic nameplate as welcoming as a smiling friend.

She scanned the front page. The lead was a story about the linkup in space of the American Apollo capsule and the Soviet Soyuz.

Kellen was about to turn away when a huge black headline on another newspaper caught her eye: TERROR FROM THE SKY.

A plane crash?
Why wasn’t it on the
Times
front page? In the next instant she saw the nameplate, the
New York Tattler
.

She picked up the paper and thumbed to the story, and as she read her mouth tipped up in a smile. The “terror from the sky” was an air-conditioning unit that had fallen out of a Manhattan apartment window, narrowly missing a lady but squashing her dachshund. The story was written in straight news style with no hint of irony, and by the time Kellen finished it, she was laughing. She paid for both papers and took them back to her room.