The Glory of Green (17 page)

"I should have known Fran never lived in that mobile home," I said.

He was ill at ease, and the out-of-left-field comment threw him. "I'm not following you."

"She would never have put up with that catfish skull in the bathroom."

"That was all me." Chris offered a half smile.

"I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or not. But I'm not throwing you back."

"Are we OK then?" He put his arm across the back of the swing, the way we had sat so many times while getting acquainted.

"I suppose so, but we still don't have a place to live . . . and no more secrets."

"Let me show you one more house possibility," he said. "It's a long shot, but it's been on my mind."

Chris drove, taking a left out of the driveway, away from Grace Chapel and town, and headed west past the monument to the boll weevil, a reminder of Green's unending economic challenges, making another turn about ten miles later onto a small paved road.

"I've never been way out here," I said.

"I hope this go-cart of yours can make it." Chris swerved to miss a pothole. "This is my parents' land." He made another turn, down a grown-up, rutted drive.

A weather-beaten Louisiana-style house, similar to Helen's, sat covered in vines, trees up to the porch.

"This was my grandmother's house."

A snake slithered into the tall grass as I got out of the car, and Chris had to pull me up onto the porch, the steps long gone. "Watch your step. Most of this is rotten."

"Great." I gingerly stepped over a cracked board, trying to keep my balance.

He pulled a skeleton key out of his pocket. "Believe it or not, the front door stays locked."

"From the looks of things, vandals have found other ways in." I stayed close to Chris.

"There used to be a screened door here, but someone stole it a few years ago. Daddy always thought it was funny that they took the screened door and not the antique wooden one."

"It's a work of art. I've never seen such a beautiful door in my life." It had four different colored stained glass panes, in rich colors you seldom saw in modern glass. The bottom had a four-panel design with dogwood blooms carved on every panel.

Chris gave the door a shove to unwedge it. "The house has settled," he said. "It'd have to be leveled, among other things."

We stepped into a wide hall that went straight to the back of the house.

"It started off as a dogtrot," he said. "All the rooms open off this hall, and the kitchen and the side porch were added through the years."

Peeling pink and gray floral wallpaper was torn back, revealing a fabric that resembled cheesecloth over wide boards. The ceiling was made from beaded board, and the windows were largely intact, huge old glass that showed bubbles in the afternoon sun.

The entire time I oohed and aahed over its details, I fluctuated between thinking how pale the prefab houses looked compared to this and wondering how you breathed new life into a long abandoned house.

"This was grandma and grandpa's bedroom, and here is the living room." Chris walked to the other side of the hall. An old wood-burning stove sat in the corner, a pipe running out the window.

"Here's Grandma's sewing room, and the dining area and kitchen. The kids always had to eat out there." He pointed to the little porch, lined with windows.

"Look at this piece of furniture." I touched a screened door on the front of a cupboard. I heard a creature scurry inside it, and I stepped back so quickly I bumped into Chris.

"That was Grandma Craig's pie safe. I forgot it was out here.Now that I look around, it's probably the only thing salvageable about the whole thing, that and the front door."

He steered me back toward the front. "It would cost a fortune to remodel this place, even if we did the work ourselves, which we don't have time to do. We could build a brand-new place for what we could fix this one up."

"It is awfully far out here. But it sure has a lot of character."

Candy and Cookie Sheridan's vegetarian cooking class has been postponed until after Christmas, due to insufficient registration. "We look forward to explaining the myths surrounding protein in main dishes," Cookie said.
However, county agent Toby Howell says he has added an additional session to his upcoming free Wild Game Preparation and Cooking seminar. He requests students bring their own game.

—The Green News-Item

A
lex gave his notice on the Monday after the house-hunting trip, the week before Katy and Molly headed to college, and a month before Tammy's wedding.

I could barely listen for scratching the redbug bites accumulated while walking through the grass at Chris's grandmother's house.

They were especially bad behind my knees and where I had worn short socks with tennis shoes. Thank goodness I hadn't been in my sandals, recently bought from Eva's department store as I began to replenish my wardrobe.

"Will two weeks be enough notice?" Alex asked.

I dabbed calamine lotion on my arms where I had gotten a nasty case of poison ivy.

"Two years won't be enough. Plus, it's hard to concentrate on my best reporter leaving when I'm itching to death. I don't want to talk about it."

"Your best reporter? I'm your only real reporter."

"I thought you turned down those job offers."

"I did at first. West News, that chain where you did the consulting, came back with a better offer. I'll be the news service reporter in three states. Apparently they like the things you told them."

"That must be why they never called me back."

"You may have been a little, well, offbeat for them."

"Offbeat? I'm a rule follower. I do things by the book."

"Maybe you used to, but you do things different down here in Green," Alex said. "Plus, you gave the impression you weren't interested. The editor in Boise said you were casual in your presentation and made it clear you had too many commitments in Louisiana to do the kind of travel they wanted."

"I did?" I tried not to claw my armpits in front of him.

"They're super impressed with what the paper's doing.They say our coverage is better than most of the big guys, even though they can't quite figure out how you make it all work."

"Can't you wait till next year?" I felt guilty preying on his conscience, but I didn't know what I was going to do. I was soon to have a staff of three. If I was lucky, and Molly could work out her schedule, I might have three and a half.

"They've about run out of patience with me. I put them off before, and it's now or never."

"Are you sure you want to live out West?"
And make twice as much money and see the country and go to training sessions at that cool retreat center?

"I'm young and single, so I figure the timing's right. I could never have gotten this job without you. You taught me way more than I learned in J-school."

For a minute, I forgot the itching.

"You've done a fantastic job, Alex. At my former paper, I'd send my staff off with wishes for a great future. But it's hard to let you go."

"It's hard to go." He wiped at his eyes surreptitiously when he reached the door. "Is poison ivy contagious?"

I heard whooping and hollering from the newsroom, and I hobbled in there, not sure if it was the dried pink lotion, the bites, or Alex's announcement that had paralyzed me.

"Oh, my," Tammy said. "You are eat up with redbugs."

"Is that poison ivy?" Iris Jo asked, backing off. "I'm too close to finishing my chemo to get covered up with that stuff."

"What are we going to do?" Katy moaned.

"It's not leprosy," I said. "I'm sure it'll go away in a few days."

"I mean about Alex," she said.

"
We
aren't going to do anything. If memory serves me correctly, this time next month, you'll be on your way to become a television commentator."

"Reporter," Katy snapped. "I'm not trying to be an anchor.Maybe I shouldn't go. Maybe I should stay here and help out."

A tiny feeling of temptation ran through me, but I knew it wasn't right.

"Under no circumstances are you staying. Maybe we'll let you work here next summer, if a highfalutin television station doesn't grab you."

"First Tom and now Alex," Katy said.

"I'm not dying," Alex said, sitting on the edge of his desk."I'm moving to Idaho."

"Might as well be dead," the intern said. "We'll never see you again." I used to worry about Alex flirting with Katy. She had turned eighteen two weeks ago, and I thought they might have gone on a date to mark the occasion.

"I'll be back. Or you can visit me."

Molly breezed through the lobby wearing her smock from the convenience store where she worked evenings and most Saturdays. She stopped so suddenly her tennis shoes made a squeaking noise.

"Why does everyone look so serious?" she asked, stepping into the newsroom, and then looked at me. "Is that poison ivy?"

"It's a designer mixture of redbugs and poison ivy," I said.

"Alex is leaving," Katy said. "He took that job out West."Molly rushed over to Katy to console her and then gave Alex a hug.

"Miss Lois," Molly said, echoing Katy's question, "what are we going to do?"

"We'll figure it out. Don't forget the staff party at the country club next week. We've got lots to celebrate—college, a wedding, the end of Iris Jo's chemo, and a bon voyage.Now if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for another lotion application."

When I got into my office, I pulled out Aunt Helen's typewritten history of the newspaper, seeking insight.

Iris slipped in quietly. "This could be an answer to part of our financial problems," she said. "Alex is our highest paid employee, which isn't saying much, but it will help."

"How can we be a newspaper without news?"

"Linda's ready, and you know it," Iris said. "She can step in for Alex in a heartbeat. Molly can do Tom's layout work. I'm stronger now, so I'll take over all the accounting and some of the advertising. You can help with the rest of the advertising."

"I'm not a salesperson."

"You've called on all the big accounts for nearly three years now."

"Have you been taking bossy lessons from me?"

"You know I don't like bossing, but we need to tighten our belts."

"If we tighten them any more, we'll have to close the doors."

"Who's going to write editorials?" I asked.

"You and Linda."

"Who's going to take pictures after Tammy gets married?"

"You and Linda."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

We kept the celebration dinner small, adding only a handful of correspondents to the staff guest list.

Katy came in holding hands with Alex, although she pulled away the moment they entered the small reserved dining room.

Molly brought a young man who looked vaguely familiar, and I finally placed him as the football player she had talked to the first time I went to a Rabbits game. His clothes were slightly worn but clean, and his shoes looked like they were two sizes too small. He practically limped as Molly led him into the small party room.

"Coach," he said, holding out his hand. "Mrs. Craig. Thank you for having me."

"Thank Molly." I shook his hand. "She's the star."

Molly beamed.

The two walked over to where Alex and Katy stood with Iris and Stan.

"What's his story?" I asked Chris, who had refused to wear a tie to the function but looked cute in a blue shirt and khakis.

"That's Anthony Cox, the kid who lives out where we found Mr. Sepulvado."

"In that house that's falling down, the one with the little sister and the baby?"

"That's him. He's got great potential as a player and he's a solid student. I have high hopes for him. He has another year of high school because he missed a year when he was in grade school. His mother moved and never got him enrolled or something strange like that."

Bud escorted Anna Grace into the room, no cane or walker in sight. She did, however, seem to be leaning heavily on his arm. A widower since January, Bud, at least ten years younger than Anna Grace, had a spring in his step that I had never seen. Tonight he wore slacks and a knit shirt, his volunteer police uniform apparently in storage for the evening.

"I hope you won't think less of us," Anna Grace said, "But Bud and I are dating."

"Now why in the world would I think less of you?"

"His wife only passed away seven months ago, but we're not getting any younger. After my incident at your wedding reception, he finally took notice."

"That's pretty dramatic flirting, Anna Grace. In most cases an ambulance is not required."

"A woman's got to do what a woman's got to do. I even got him to buy a laptop. You should see the e-mails he sends me.They're quite clever."

Last year we had led Bud and others kicking and screaming into the digital age. Now he was courting online?

Before I could get my mind around that concept, in walked Linda with Doug, the police chief. "It's not a date," she said when I dragged her to the side of the room, "but I couldn't bear to come alone. I hope you don't mind that I brought a source."

In my days in Dayton, dating a source would have been cause for a reprimand or a personnel powwow. Tonight it felt as though Linda had made another move forward on her journey.She had been divorced from an abusive husband for years and held back from the group on most occasions.

Tammy whooshed into the room, carrying her camera as always, Walt following in her wake.

"Thank goodness," Linda said, heading back to Doug."Perfect timing to get your attention off me. The queen bee herself."

I walked over to Chris, leaning against the wall, taking it all in. "It's only a little while till their wedding," I said. "Walt looks dazed."

"I know the feeling," Chris said.

"Not long now," I said to Walt.

"Can't get here soon enough," Walt said, shaking hands with Chris and giving me a peck on the cheek.

"Are you sure we can't twist your arm into coming?" Tammy asked. "We've got a beautiful beach house rented for family and friends."

"You don't want us at your wedding," I said. "Does the word
hurricane
mean anything to you? Besides, if Chris and I don't find a house soon, my husband will be looking for a new wife."

"The only thing that sounds better than a vacation to Florida is a house with more than one room," Chris said. "But Lois sure is going to miss you."

"I'm only going to be on vacation for two weeks," Tammy said. "One week for the wedding and one for the cruise."

"You're coming back?" I suspected my expression was thunderstruck.

"Of course I'm coming back. Were you going to fire me for getting married?"

"We all assumed you wouldn't make the drive from Shreveport. It's been so wild that we haven't—" My voice trailed off.

"I'm learning how to be a photojournalist," Tammy said."Surely you didn't think I'd become one of those ladies who lunch or play tennis on weekday mornings?"

"That sounds enjoyable. Are you sure?"

"The only people I know in Shreveport are Walt's parents and a few snooty women I met at his country club. It's not nearly as friendly as this one."

"We found a house south of Shreveport," Walt said. "It's a shorter commute for Tammy, and I can work at home if I want to."

"I was going to ask you about a four-day week," Tammy said, fidgeting with the blue glass beads she wore. "I read that it's called flex time."

"That's the most wonderful idea I've heard in months," I said. Stan and Iris walked up to see what I was laughing about."Did you hear that, Iris? Tammy's not leaving us after all."

"I told you this would work out," Iris said. "You're going to love married life, Tammy. It's the best."

Chris gave me a look that I would walk through fire to see."It certainly is," he said.

The evening was filled with toasts and roasts and more than a few tears.

"No excessive partying at the University of Georgia," I told Katy, "and remember that people around here root for LSU. No speeding to Alexandria," I said to Molly. "You two girls have reminded me how journalism is supposed to work." I handed them each a framed page of the first tornado extra and a gift card.

I turned to Alex. "Keep making them think we're smart down here. We couldn't have gotten where we are without you." I gave him a leather notebook with his name embossed on the front. "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and never forget that citizens have a right to know."

I saw Katy reach over and squeeze his hand.

"To Tammy and Walt, may your marriage be picture perfect."I handed Tammy a high-end digital camera, bought with bonus points from one of the
Item's
credit cards. "I can't wait to see how you develop."

The small group laughed.

"To a woman of faith and strength, Iris Jo." My eyes welled up. I pulled out a beautiful pink blown glass vase I'd found at Rose's shop. "To your victory over cancer. And your marriage, which came on the day we needed it most."

I lifted Tom's green eyeshade. "Finally, to the most courageous of all, Tom, who gave his life trying to warn us about the storm. He's the least likely angel I ever met, and yet I feel him looking over my shoulder every single day."