Page 122 of Hello, Summer
“If I have to, you have to,” Grayson said.
Her cell phone rang. It was Roger Sistrunk. She was being bookended by editors, not a feeling she enjoyed.
“Just read your story,” Sistrunk said. “It’s too long. It’s too wordy, too speculative, too gossipy. And FYI, nobody but livestock breeders use the wordimpregnatein this century.”
She spent the next thirty minutes making fixes to herAJCstory, cutting, pasting, and nitpicking word choices with Sistrunk, whose hatred of adjectives was well documented among the hundreds of reporters who’d worked for the veteran editor over the years.
Finally, he pronounced the story fit to print. “We’re done,” he said abruptly. “Hey, Hawkins, you might have a future in this business.” He chuckled at his own joke and disconnected.
With a heart full of dread, she turned her attention to Rowena’s latest Hello, Summer column.
The Women’s Circle of the Silver Bay Presbyterian Church went into emergency session this week following the tragic death of our favorite local congressman, the honorableU.S. Rep. Symmes Robinette.
Anticipating an overflow crowd at Saturday’s funeral, Women’s Circle presidentSylvia Bevinannounced that the after-service reception has been moved to the much larger gymnasium at First Baptist Church.
Rumor has it that in addition toFlorida governor Roy Padgett,the Florida House Speaker, state attorney general, and a large delegation of other dignitaries from Tallahassee are expected to attend Symmes Robinette’s service.
All eyes will be on youngCharlie Robinette,whose announcement this week that he would run for his late father’s seat—as well as his allegations of elder abuse against his mother, the vivacious and popularVanessa Robinette—has divided the loyalties of family and friends.
Your correspondent has learned that Charlie Robinette had assumed he would succeed his father in Congress, reportedly at his father’s request, until recently, when the thirty-four-year-old attorney began squiring an attractive local divorcée to local social events.
The divorcée, who has a young daughter and has only recently split from her husband, reportedly did not meet with the approval of the younger Robinette’s parents. Vanessa Robinette has told friends that she and her husband recently began having doubts that their son was ready to take the national stage.
Of course, your correspondent will be attending both the after-service reception and the private, invitation-only dinner, which will be hosted by Mrs. Robinette later that evening at her lavish oceanfront home on Sugar Key.
Our sources tell us that one name that won’t be on the invite list for Vanessa’s dinner is retired railroad executive and longtime family friendMiles Schoendienst,who has accepted the role of campaign chairman for Charlie Robinette.
Coordinating floral tributes for the reception will beAgnes Ryan and Babs Tillery.
Conley’s thoughts returned to her own story and Vanessa Robinette’s assertion that “chemo brain” was to blame for her husband’s lack of sleep and out-of-character generosity in giving away the family farm.
She decided that if Merle Goggins over in Bronson County was interested in what kind of drugs Symmes Robinette was taking, she was interested too.
On a whim, she emailed an old friend from college, Carol Knox, who’d switched majors their sophomore year and had eventually become an oncology nurse. They’d stayed in contact over the years since, mostly through Facebook.
She knew Carol now lived down in St. Pete.
“Hey, gurlll. Can you give me a call? Working on a hot story and could use some research help,” she wrote, adding her phone number.
Conley turned back to Rowena’s column, typing it into the system, editing, refining, and generally trying to make it not so Rowena-ish. For the second time that morning, she pushed the Send button.
When her cell phone rang, and the number on the caller ID had a 727 area code, she grabbed for it.
“Carol? How are you? Thanks for getting back to me so fast.”
“Good to hear from you,” Carol said. “I’m actually sitting at the airport, and I’ve got nothing better to do.”
They exchanged a few pleasantries, catching up on each other’s lives, with Conley promising to get down to St. Pete soon for a visit, and Carol promising to read Conley’s stories online.
“Here’s what I’m working on,” Conley said. “You know who Symmes Robinette is?”
“The congressman, right? From up in the Panhandle. He died recently, right?”
“Yeah. He was killed in a one-car crash, forty-five miles from his house, at three in the morning. And according to his wife, he had end-stage cancer.”
“How old was he?”
“Seventy-seven. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma last fall, treated at Walter Reed, but then his wife decided to bring him back home to Silver Bay.”
