went back home to write the article.' He cleared his throat, and his smile faded.
'Also, two of the graves were my parents'.'
'I'm sorry.' Sue looked away, not knowing what to say. She focused her gaze on an oversize bee de scuttling across the dirt. 'You know, if this is inconvenient, I could come back another tim em
'Inconvenient? You're a lifesaver. I need someone right now.' Sue licked her lips. 'I'm not sure how much help I'll
'Don't worry about it. I'll teach you what you need to know. Right now, I'll take you on a tour of the facilities.' He opened the door and stepped aside to let her in.
Inside, the newspaper office seemed bigger than it looked from the street. Next to the window was a low naugahyde couch and a wire rack filled with copies of last week's edition. Across from the couch, a kindly looking old lady sat behind an overlarge desk sorting through what looked like bills or invoices. There was a modular room divider in back of the woman's chair, and a cat calendar and various photos of cats clipped from magazines were tacked to the fabric wall. Over the top of the divider, she could see into the room beyond.
'This,' Rich said, gesturing elaborately toward the old lady, 'is Carole Taylor. My right arm. She mans--or womans, or persons--the front desk, answers all phone calls, deals with all walk-ins, is in charge of circulation and billing, and does many other things too numerous for me to mention and too complicated for me to understand.'
Carole giggled. 'Knock it off, Rich.' She smiled at Sue.
'How are you, dear?' 'Fine.'
'Rich never has been able to do a proper introduction.
You're Susan Wing?'
'Yes. Sue.'
'Well, I'm glad that you're here. We're both glad that you're here.'
Sue immediately liked the woman. She had a soft, al most musical, voice and a natural air of friendliness. She looked the way Sue had always imagined Santa's wife would look: white hair in a bun, plump happy face, small wire-rimmed spectacles.
Rich walked behind the desk and put an arm around Carole's shoulder.
'If you have any questions about any thing and I'm not here, ask Carole. Come to think of it, even if I am here, ask Carole.'
The old woman giggled again.
The editor walked around the side of the room divider, motioning for Sue to follow. 'Enter the newsroom.'
The 'newsroom' was not as glamorous as she'd thought it would be. In fact, it seemed depressingly mundane, even slightly run down, looking more like the tired office of a failing realtor than the bus ding information vortex she'd seen in cinematic newsrooms. Four parallel rectangles of fluorescent light were inset into the stucco ceiling. One of the bulbs in the middle rectangle had burned out, and while there was no lessening of illumination, the darkened light bar added to the office's overall air of shabbiness. She followed Rich across the faded gray carpet. There were only three desks and one table, all piled high with mail and typing paper. A third table lay overturned against the wall to the left, a clamp on one of its upward-pointing legs. Adjacent to the largest desk was a small stand on top of which was situated a computer terminal.
Two open black doorways disrupted the otherwise perfect white of the back brick wall.
'It's not much, but it's home.'
Sue nodded, saying nothing.
'You were expecting 'Lou Grant'?'
She reddened. 'No, it's not that . ,. 'Of course not. Look, I know this place doesn't look great. But you'll get used to it. It's like a cheap car. It'll get you where you want to go.'
Sue gave him a halfhearted smile,
'Over here is my desk.' He walked over to the large desk with the adjacent computer. 'Over there'mhe pointed toward the desk with the least amount of clutter' is where you'll be working. The other desk is Jim Fredricks's.'
'How many people work here?' . 'You're looking at 'em. This is strictly a two-man operation--or a two-man- one-woman operation, now that you're here. Jim works part time and covers sports. Four or tve people contribute weekly' columns and, of course, we print letters, but all of the news stories, features, and editorials are written by me.'
'Why did the other person quit, the person before me?'
'My wife? She got a job at the Church of... at Pastor Wheeler's church.'
'Oh.'
'Do you know Pastor Wheeler?'
She shook her head.
'I don't either. Anyway, this is it. This is the Gazette. A few years ago, we did have another reporter, a kid about your age from the U of/L Tad Pullen.i don't know if you remember reading his byline. It was just about breaking us to keep him on. As I'm sure you've noticed, there's very little real news in Rio Verde. There's also very little real advertising. The Gazette is not a big moneymaking operation. Tad eventually found a job up in Flagstaff.' Sue nodded.
A kid about her age.
Other people her age had already graduated from college, were already starting careers, and here she was, still living at home, still clearing tables, taking night courses that didn't have enough people to keep them open. The optimistic enthusiasm she'd felt when she'd awakened this morning had entirely dissipated.
Rich put his hand on top of the computer. 'We have only the one VDT, so if you're going to be m'waiting articles for us, this is where the deed will be done. Of course, you can write your original out in long-hand or on a typewriter at home, whatever makes you feel comfortable, but you'll eventually have to retype it on the VDT because this is where we put your story on disk. We'll then take the disk over to the Compugraphic, which prints out a camera ready copy.' He nodded toward one of the open doors in the back wall. 'Come on, I'll show you.'
They walked across the worn carpet to the doorway. Rich went in front, flipped on a light. 'Pasteup.'
Sue glanced around. The entire left side of the room was taken up by two upward slanting tables with tops of cloudy glass. Against the facing wall was a huge blue machine on top of which was situated a strange black object that resembled an overlarge film canister.
'The Compugraphic,' Rich said, following her gaze.
He walked over, flipped up a corner panel of the machine, and placed the black canister in the niche. He shut the panel. 'Your disk will go here,' he said, pointing toward a narrow horizontal slot next to a series of square green and red buttons. 'We flip the switch, there are some noises and gyrations, and, voila, exposed paper rolls into that black doohickey I just put inside there. We take that to the darkroom, put it in another machine, and camera ready copy comes out.' He moved beside a flat table to the left of the Compugraphic, touching a low silver object that looked like a rolling pin welded to a paper cutter.
'We wax the copy here, and paste it up on the light tables. Once the entire newspaper is pasted up, it goes to the printer.
'Any questions?
Sue shook her head.
'Don't worry. You won't be tested on this. I just wanted to acquaint you with the place. You'll have plenty of opportunity to learn how everything works later.'
Rich led the way out of the room, shutting off the lights behind them.
He peered into the next doorway over. 'Darkroom,' he said. 'Not much to see there.' He reached in, closed the door. 'And that's it. That's the tour.' The two of them walked back to Rich's desk. He seated himself behind the desk, motioned for her to take the metal folding chair opposite. 'Now the question is, do you still want to go through with this, or do you want to quit?'
'Drop the, class? Never.'
'Good.' He picked up a round piece of flat white plastic, spun the smaller concentric circle attached to it, reading the numbers on the edge of the circle. 'Do you know how to work a pica wheel?' She shook her head.
'Do you know what a pica wheel is?'
