Page 4 of In a Word, Yes

Here’s a sad fact. Every week in the US, two community newspapers—these ink-and-paper bastions of civilization—meet their end. Go belly up. Join the choir invisible. Or, as my dad likes to put it, take a dirt nap.

Fortunately, small-town journalism in Charity Falls is still alive and ... mostly kicking. Although our team would breathe easier without the perpetual struggle to keep the lights on around here.

Who could imagine living in a world where you have no idea what’s happening close to home—the stuff your neighbors careenough about to bite their nails over or go to bat for? Newspapers are community glue!

Well. For now, anyway, the belovedMountain Messengerhas not yet gone the way of so many small papers. Mine is a job that matters, and I won’t spend the day pining for anything more.

Have I mentioned I love newspapers?

Moving on to the announcements page, I delete those no longer relevant—last weekend’s GiddyUp 5k fun run and a seniors’ pickleball tourney—replacing them with the new blurbs, including the one Ian provided. Things are looking nicely balanced. I’m on schedule.

At least, until the trio of cowbells hanging from the front doorknob jangles, and in walks a familiar hunched figure wearing a navy ball cap with the VFW emblem.

“G’morning,” he growls in a voice so husky I’m guessing he hasn’t used it yet today. Unsurprisingly, the gentleman carries a wrinkled scrap of paper that looks a lot like the torn-off corner of a piece of junk mail.

Oh, Baxter. How many times have I kindly reminded him that the deadline to turn in an announcement is eleven o’clock?

“Happy Monday, Baxter,” I manage to say brightly.

He’s unshaven again today. And when he offers me the note, I pretend not to notice his worsening hand tremor. Two months ago, we printed his wife’s obit, and he hasn’t been himself since.

“What have you got for me?”

Baxter flicks the paper scrap I now hold, with the air of a former hard-shell military commander. “It’s all right there, see? We need donations for the VFW–American Legion raffle. Can you get that in this week’s paper?”

Up close, his face appears unusually puffy, calling attention to constellations of age spots. A lump rises in my throat. Suddenly I’m staring into the eyes of my grandmother, her face ballooned as the result of a steroid she had to take for some infection or other. It was the last time I saw her before she passed.

A glance from Baxter’s shaky handwriting to the wall clock confirms it’s 11:46. Still, how can I say no to this dear old crank? You have to admire someone who’s always on mission.

I offer my warmest smile. “Sure. I can get that in there for you. No problem.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“Oh, uh, Baxter?” I say as he shuffles unsteadily to the door. “May I interest you in a slice of Dot’s apple-walnut bread for the road?”

Behind thick lenses, Baxter’s eyes widen. “Oh-ho-ho. You betcha.” Who knew the man has a dimple when he smiles?

After seeing him out, I’m back at it, reworking the announcements page to accommodate Baxter’s late addition. But what’s this in the blurb above it? A typo?

Writers group seeks members. Strong tea, gentle critique. Thursday evenings, 6:30 p.m. at Sweet Reads. Bringyour WHIP.

Wait, what? This can’t be right—although I don’t doubt that attending a critique group would be torturous. Snickering, I riffle through the papers on my desk for Ian’s announcement. Here it is. It reads “Bring your WIP.” As in W-I-P. Work in progress. Okay,phew.This makes sense. Which means I allowed spell-check to add theh.

In other words, a high-tech Freudian slip.

The pang in my abdomen is telling. If I’m honest, I’d love to be the kind of person who joins a writing group, sauntering into a crowd of strangers ready to bare her creative soul. The kind of woman who cranes her neck to the sky and says “Why not?” Besides, what else do I have going on Thursday nights while Chase is at tae kwon do?

But when I imagine walking in with my 17,229-word unfinished manuscript in hand, something no one apart from my parents and Savannah knows about, my chest tightens. The smell of Dot’s apple-walnut bread turns cloying.

What had Ian been thinking, inviting me? For all he knows, I craft nothing more than the occasional obituary. Well, there’s been that handful of times my editor threw me into the deep end—a couple of new-business profiles, filling in during Brad’s vacations. And then a year ago or so, Sam convinced me, despite my objections, to cover a local woman’s campaign to restore a beloved local landmark.

The result? Ruinous! Thanks tomy story, one of Charity Falls’ esteemed citizens was cast in a negative light. Clearly I’m meant to cocoon myself here at the front desk, where I can’t do any real damage.

***

By four o’clock, the paper’s off to the printer, and what to do about dinner sits uppermost in my mind. It doesn’t help that Meg roosts atop my desk, a spiky-haired pixie on a shelf, swinging her blood-red Chucks and singing the glories of Rigo’s Tacos. Brad and Dot hover around my station as well, hanging on every detail about the town’s newest food truck.

“In a nutshell,” Meg concludes, “teeming with juicy goodness and cotija cheese.”