Gathering String (14 page)

“Look, I’m going to be talking with the coaches over at my table.” Markie pointed his chin toward the broadcast equipment set up in a quiet corner. “And I’m hoping the governor will say a few words. Sure would like for you to join us.”

“Oh thanks, Gary. It’s always nice to be asked, but I need to get after this.” He pointed down at the laptop.

“No. Actually the new guy, Tom, is reporting. He tells me the liveblog had almost 6,000 readers. I’m doing the pictures.” He laughed a little. “Anyway, that’s what I’m trying to do. Not my strength, but for now at least, I’m better than the kid.”

Markie shrugged. “Well, if you finish up, and we’re still talking, stop on over. I always like to get your take.”

“Will do.” Markie moved off, but before Jack could sit back down the
Record
sports columnist stepped up, chatting about the game, asking Jack a few questions, and then pulling out his notebook and taking notes. While they were talking, Tess saw Westphal return a wave to a couple writers from other papers, and they started over too. “Look,” Jack said, moving away from the table, “let’s step over here, out of the lady’s way.” She watched them walk away, wondering why the reporters were so interested in what Jack had to say.

She was posting her last picture when he broke free. “It was a close game, guys. The girls should be proud of themselves.” He was talking over his shoulder as he moved back toward the table. “I’d better get to this now. The photos always take me forever.” He plunked down, shaking his head, thumping at the keyboard, and muttering, “Wake up,” at the black computer screen.

She looked over at him, curious. “Do you always get quoted by the other papers?”

“Only at basketball games.” Jack clicked the toolbar, jaw set, with a frown of concentration between his eyes, when they again heard a jovial call. “Jackie!”

Westphal hung his head with a frustrated sigh, and she leaned in to whisper, “Does everyone in this room need to talk to you?”

He rolled his eyes, “Seems like it.” Again the speaker clapped him on the back, and Jack turned. “Hey, Swede.”

Tess looked up into Governor Erickson’s face. He nodded to her, saying, “Well hello, Ms. Benedict. Always good to see you.” She’d shot his picture many times, but so did a lot of photographers. She was always surprised that her name came to him so easily. He said to Westphal, “It’s still snowing like hell; we could get over a foot. The wind’s blowing like a son of a bitch, and they’re telling me there’s near white-out conditions to the north. It’d be a nasty drive home. Better stay with us tonight.”

Jack shook his head. “Can’t. I need to get back to cover the Lutheran church’s 150
^th
anniversary celebration in the morning.”

Erickson leaned down to say confidentially, “Don’t try it, Jackie. They’re going to close I-35 in the next hour. You can get an early start in the morning. Pastor Doug will probably postpone the celebration anyway.” Erickson glanced over his shoulder at the broadcaster’s setup in the corner. “Look, Markie’s waiting for me to do this radio thing. You joining us?”

Jack shook his head and muttered, “I can’t stand that guy. The ten-year-olds in the stands tonight know more about the game than he does.”

Erickson threw back his head with a shout of laughter. “That’s what I love about you, Jackie. Nobody’d ever guess what’s going on in that head of yours.” He moved off, calling over his shoulder, “You’re staying with Betty and me tonight. No arguments.” Jack shrugged, turning back yet again to the screen, but catching Tess’s eye.

She laughed, and he asked her advice on cropping and toning a few of his best shots. They chatted easily as he plugged his audio recorder into the computer to add some crowd noise and public-address announcer clips to a slideshow. After packing their equipment and stepping out of the pressroom, he said, “I really appreciate your help. All the technology changes so fast, I’m always playing catch up with something …” He broke off as two boys approached, one carrying a basketball.

“You Jack Westphal?” one asked in the squishy tones of a voice in the throes of change. Jack nodded. “My dad says he went to every game you played in Ames while you were at Iowa State. He says he saw you sink 10 three-pointers in one three-minute stretch against K-State.”

Jack laughed, shaking his head. “It was seven in about five minutes, and a fluke at that. I got hot, and K-State wasn’t very good that year.”

The other boy spoke up. “Your dad was a good basketball coach, right? He taught you to play?" Jack nodded again. "Well, Ben and I thought maybe you’d show us a few moves.” He inclined his head toward the empty court. Jack looked around, noticing that there were still a few people lingering, some of them reporters.

“Sorry, guys. Not tonight. I promised to walk this lady to her car.” Both boys flushed at the rejection. “But look,” Jack said, taking the ball, “here’s a tip. When you’re at the free throw line, hold the ball with the seam resting on the tips of your fingers. Just let it balance there, like this, see?” He held up his hands a little in front of his face as if taking a shot. “Let it sit right on the tips. When you’re ready to let it fly, flex those fingers, and you get a little bit more pop. Puts a nice controlled spin on it too.”

“Dad says you shot over 90 percent from the line,” the squeaky-voiced kid said.

Jack grinned. “Yep, but that was a long time ago.” He and Tess continued down the sideline, the boys trooping ahead of them.

“So, you were a basketball star.” One of the boys turned back, a shocked look on his face at Tess’s ignorance. “That’s why they all wanted to talk to you about the game.”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know about being a star. We were a good team. All of us got a lot of press.”

They reached the edge of the court, and the boys ran out ahead of them, Ben calling, “Hey Jack, throw it in to me.”

Jack took a quick glance around. The cleaning crew was moving through the aisles, eyes on their work. Everybody else around seemed equally unaware, so he took two quick dribbles, raised his arms over his head in a graceful arc, and put the ball in from the sideline of center court, catching nothing but net.

“Whoa!” Both boys stopped short, open-mouthed and delighted. Jack chuckled, gave them a wave, and taking Tess’s elbow, began walking. “Let’s go before they ask to see that again.” He looked around again, hoping no one noticed.

“Actually, I walked through the skywalks from the
Record
.”

She wondered if he would just go on his way at that, not wanting to walk all that way in the opposite direction, only to come back for his own vehicle. But he said, “That connects up on the mezzanine.”

It was easy to talk to him as they strolled, comfortable and dry in the heated skywalk, the thick windows showing fat, heavy flakes sifting down and blowing under the streetlights. “So you played for Iowa State?”

“Um-hum, about eight years ago.”

He was only a little older than she. “What was that like, playing in front of a huge crowd like tonight?”

“Oh, it was crazy, scary, exciting. I’d dread it, but once we started playing, I’d get lost in the game. When the buzzer sounded, I couldn’t wait to play again.”

“I always wonder about how painful it is, being that young and blowing a play in front of so many people. That girl tonight, think of the courage it took to put up that last shot. What if she’d missed?”

“Well, you get a thick skin real quick," he said. "There’s nothing as humiliating as going up for a dunk in front of a crowd of 14,000 and having the ball come winging right back into your face. Laughter that loud really bruises the ego.”

“Small?” She leaned back, exaggerating the effort it took to look up at him. He smiled. “So you went to the Journal right out of school?” If there was a fly in this very good-looking Westphal ointment, it was that he was stuck at such a small paper.

“No, I worked at the Cedar Rapids
Globe
a few years. They’re not corporate owned and I thought they’d be more nimble than Gannett's
Record
about adapting their business model. But even with them, it was just too frustrating. So I bought the
Journal
a little more than five years ago to take a crack at it myself.”

“Wait," she stopped walking in surprise. "You own it?”

His smile was more of a wince. “Well, technically the bank and I own it.”

They were nearly to the branch off to the
Record
, and she was sorry. This guy was full of surprises. Where did someone so young get the money to buy a newspaper? “So you’re a publisher.”

“I guess so,” he shrugged. “But I’m also a reporter, a blogger, the editor, a piss-poor photographer, and a lot of nights, I empty the trash.”

They laughed together, stopping at the
Record
entrance. “Sounds like a lot of work.”

He nodded. “More than I ever guessed. It’s good though. Lindsborg’s my hometown. I grew up there.”

“So your family’s there?”

The barest trace of a frown appeared between his eyes. “They were. Except for a great uncle and a couple of distant cousins, they’re all gone now. But it’s still home.”

She heard the evasive note in his answer, but felt herself too much a stranger to probe. Nodding toward the windows, she took her equipment from him. “You’d better get over to Terrace Hill. Not many people get invited over there for an evening in front of the fire on a snowy night.”

“It looks like the worst of it’s passed, and the plows have been out awhile. It’ll take a little longer than usual, but I bet I can make it in about three hours.” She glanced at her watch. That would make it almost two in the morning when he got back, and only if he was right about the roads. “There’s too much waiting for me at work tomorrow to camp out with the Ericksons tonight. Besides, Betty isn’t a barrel of laughs. The hometown folks really aren’t her thing. Swede knows that. He won’t be surprised when I don’t show.”

Tess looked doubtful. “She can’t be that bad. Why not stay warm and dry?”

The smile played out his dimples. “Well, I also picked up a new Jeep last week. I haven’t had a reason to put it in 4-wheel-drive yet, and this is a pretty good snowfall.”

“Well then, don’t let me keep you.” She had to laugh at the mischievous grin.

But he didn’t seem in much of a hurry. “Right, well, thanks again. I’ve really got to do something about art for the
Journal
. It’s not my talent, and both the online and print products are kind of suffering for it.”

“If you need a consult, you know where to find me.” Two coworkers came through the door, and stopped, asking Tess about the game. When she turned back to introduce him, he was already a few steps away.

“I’d better get moving,” he called back to her. She was sorry for the interruption.

The day after the tournament, she asked the columnist on the sports desk about Jack Westphal. He rolled his eyes and smirked, “Well, he’s not my type, but he’s always been a pretty popular guy.” He gave the word “popular” a twist that told her he’d been asked about Westphal by women before. “Read the clips. We’ve spilled a lot of ink on the guy.”

He was right. Whatever Jack’s protest at the word “star,” he was the driving force behind Iowa State’s basketball teams after his freshman year. On top of that, there were several references to the personal trauma that had shaped his college years. Skimming, she quickly found the story that explained it all.

His parents, older brother and younger sister had gone to the first home game Jack played his freshman year. It was a cold, foggy fall night when the Westphal family started the two-hour drive back to Lindsborg, and speculation was that there was an icy patch on bridge over the interstate. Or maybe Jim Westphal fell asleep. In any case the car, traveling at a high speed, had gone into a skid, went airborne, and rolled into a ravine where it burst into flames. All four were dead at the scene.

Tess studied the photo of a heart-wrenchingly young Jack Westphal leaving the church after the funeral, head down, longish blond hair falling over his eyes, the future Iowa governor’s arm around his shoulders, his eyes red-rimmed.

One accident, his whole family gone. The entire state had followed the young man’s career with an interest that went beyond sports. She understood it. Nearly all of Iowa must have been pulling for him to overcome, to thrive. He hadn’t let them down. Team leader, conference champions, making it to the NCAA Final Four his senior year, plus the double major in journalism and business with a 3.7 grade-point average, the story on Jack’s graduation was triumphant.