Page 127 of Run
I tilt my head at her. “Red, you could never disappoint me.”
***
Work this week has been busy. We have a special section coming out with the weekend edition, which means I have more ads to create and pages to design. And, of course, the salespeople are telling me their clients have last-minute tweaks to their ads, and no one in the newsroom is able to get me their copy on time.
I’ve been coming in early and staying late to get the extra work done, and it’s getting on my nerves. Ari has been substitute teaching every day, so she leaves in the morning, and since I work until press time, sometimes we are just ships passing in the night. I feel bad knowing she has dinner alone sometimes, but she often meets up with Sophie or Fonz, or goes to the Millers’ house.
“EJ, what’s the ETA on that spread about the revitalization?” my boss, Cherise, calls from the doorway of my office.
“Give me about an hour?” I swivel in my chair to face her.
“Make it forty-five minutes. Have you gotten the artwork for the story about the new playground construction yet?”
I wince. The answer is no, Monty hasn’t gotten his photos to me yet. But I hate to throw him under the bus. “Uh, no. But I think I saw—”
“Monty!” Cherice storms away from my door and heads into the bullpen.
Sorry, Monty. You’re on your own.
Deciding I’m going to need some caffeine to make it through this day, I grab my hoodie and head out of my office, stopping at Lizzie’s desk. “I’m getting a cappuccino next door, want anything?”
She swivels around in her chair. “You know, you are so much more talkative these days. There was a time that I didn’t even know if you were back there, holed up in your little lair. Now you’re just a Chatty Cathy.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” I push away from her cubicle.
“Wait!” She calls. “I want one of those cinnamon scones.”
“Ooh, you getting coffee?” Monty asks as he approaches me. “I’ll take a half-caff, light and sweet. You owe me for siccing Cherise on me.”
“I didn’tsicCherise on you, she attacked all on her own.”
“If you’re taking orders …” the other reporter starts in.
“I’m not.”
“Oh, don’t be such a fuddy duddy,” Dee says as she walks back from the front office. “Here, I’ll write down everyone’s orders.”
I run a hand down my face. “Life was easier when I stuck to myself.”
As Dee makes a grocery list of orders I need to pick up from the coffee shop, I look over Lizzie’s shoulder at her computer screen. She’s got the county database open, and it looks like she’s doing some sort of land search. “What are you working on?”
“Oh, just trying to find the true identity of a campaign donor for a new candidate who threw his hat in the race for mayor.” She rolls a pen between her fingers.
“Say, can you look up anyone on the city and county records websites?”
Lizzie purses her lips. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On how much info you have on them.”
“Do you have to have a name?”
“Not all the time.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Why do you ask?”
Dee finishes making the coffee list for me, folds up the paper, sticks it in my hoodie pocket and pats it. “Don’t screw up the soymilk latte. I’m lactose intolerant and I have a date tonight,” she says before sauntering back up to her desk.
I turn back to Lizzie. “Do you think you could help me find someone?”
