The Alpine Journey (2 page)

“Mmmm.” Vida was gazing not at me, but at the clutter on my desk. “You leave Thursday night?”

“Right after work,” I replied. “I'll be back Sunday.”

Her head shot up. “I'll go with you.”

“What?” Vida possessed her share of brass, but I couldn't imagine her horning in on my weekend with Mavis. “But… I don't know if Mavis and her husband have an extra …”

Shaking her head, Vida tapped one of the few bare spots on my desk. “I'm not intruding on your visit. I'll drive. I can drop you off in Portland and go on to my destination. I'll pick you up on the way back Sunday afternoon.”

I was flabbergasted. “Where are you going?”

But Vida's response was interrupted by Kip MacDuff, our back-shop wizard and county-wide deliveryman, who was dropping off the first editions of this week's
Advocate.
As he handed Vida a copy and dumped a
dozen or so on my desk, my House & Home editor made her exit.

“Looking good,” the young man said as he always did except upon the occasion when half the paper had been printed upside down. “Carta's pictures of the new campus came out real well, don't you agree, Ms. Lord?”

With a critical eye, I surveyed the tabloid-size front page. The photos in this week's issue were left over from the special edition, but were still worthy of publication. Carta may not know an inverted pyramid from the Sphinx, but she has a gift with the camera.

“Nice,” I said, nodding at the administration building and the lineup of students at the bookstore. “The college certainly helps offset the lousy timber business.”

Kip agreed wholeheartedly. At twenty-one, he had come of age in the shadow of the decimated logging industry. “I really like my sociology class,” he said, grinning at me from a face full of freckles. “Maybe next quarter I'll have time to take more than five credits.”

“Maybe you can,” I said in a noncommittal fashion. Between putting together the paper, the in-house job printing, and the Wednesday deliveries, Kip logged about thirty hours a week. At forty-six, I find myself increasingly amazed at the younger generation's lack of endurance—and ambition.

I could not, however, criticize my office manager, Ginny Erlandson, who is in her mid-twenties, and recently became the proud mother of a chubby, dour son. The baby, named Brad, was six months old, and Ginny had returned to work right after Labor Day. She had been gone five months, and during her absence we had made do with a series of temporary help that had included an alcoholic CPA from Snohomish, a scatterbrained former schoolteacher from Monroe, a disbarred attorney from
Wenatchee, and a local unemployed logger who had been arrested for making sexual advances to three of our paperboys. While Ginny was entitled to another month, I had begged her to come back early: she could bring little Brad with her, I would amuse him, change him, worship and glorify him—whatever was necessary to get his responsible, efficient mother back on
The Advocate
's premises.

“Mr. Bronsky's been trying to reach you again,” Ginny said in hushed tones, as if our former ad manager might waddle up behind her at any moment. “You told me not to put him through.”

“That was yesterday”—I sighed—“when we were up against deadline. I could talk to him today. I guess.” My tone suggested that I would just as soon put slivers under my fingernails.

Dutifully, I dialed Ed's number. He and his wife, Shirley, had recently moved into their new mansion, a pseudo-Mediterranean villa set in the woods above Railroad Avenue. They were still furnishing the place, but had disdained the advice of an interior decorator. It had finally dawned on Ed that the inheritance he'd received from an aunt in Cedar Falls, Iowa, wasn't going to last forever.

“We've got to take a meeting,” Ed declared after answering on the first ring. “How's this afternoon?”

With Wednesday as our publication day, we usually had a slight lull. Having worked for
The Advocate
, Ed knew the drill. I suggested four o'clock, which should mean that Ed wouldn't want to stay too late, lest he miss a meal.

“What about lunch?” Ed said, and I sensed the anxiety in his voice. “I'll treat.”

It was not quite eleven-thirty. His millionaire status notwithstanding, the fact that Ed had offered to pay was so unusual that I agreed.

“See you at the Burger Barn in half an hour,” Ed said. “I'll make reservations.”

No one has ever made a reservation at the Burger Barn, which, next to the local food bank, is the cheapest source of sustenance in town. With a shake of my head, I hung up the phone and considered my options for next week's editorial. The general election was coming up in November, and I'd been pushing an amendment to the county charter that would allow the sheriff to be appointed, rather than elected. I'd run one more hardhitting editorial before we went to the polls, but preferred holding off until the last Wednesday in October. For the coming week I'd concentrate on the state legislature's failure to continue programs designed to help depressed logging communities. While the two-year college was intended to reeducate disabled and out-of-work loggers, the tax break intended to encourage new businesses in timber towns had been extended to most of the state. Towns like Alpine and Hoquiam and Darlington and a host of others now had no advantage over their less economically distressed cousins. Future graduates of Sky-komish Community College would have new skills and trades, but might have to move elsewhere to apply them.

I had barely dug into my file when Vida returned to my office. She now wore her pillbox, though at a precarious angle.

“I'd like to borrow a map of Oregon,” she said, one hand on hip, the other leaning on the doorjamb. “You have a current one in your desk, I believe.”

I wasn't sure how Vida knew that. Only the previous
day I'd taken the map out of my aging Jaguar's glove compartment. But if Vida was omniscient, she was also not above peeking in my drawers.

I gave her the map. “Where did you say you were going?” I asked.

“I didn't.” She turned on her heel and walked out in her typical splayfooted manner.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting across from Ed Bronsky in a booth at the Burger Barn. He twitched, he fidgeted, he scooted around on the plastic-encased seat until I thought he'd slip off and fall under the table.

“What's wrong, Ed?” I asked after we'd put in our orders. “You seem upset.”

“It's
Mr. Ed
,” he replied, not looking at me. “I haven't had one nibble from a publisher.”

Mr. Ed
was his autobiography, which, amid high hopes and unrealistic expectations, he'd started sending to major publishing houses the previous autumn. I'd tried to warn him not to expect too much too soon, but as usual, Ed hadn't listened. Nor had he taken my suggestion that he should try to obtain an agent first.

“I don't get it,” Ed said, finally raising his fleshy beagle's face to meet my gaze. “All these so-called celebrities get big bucks for their life stories. What have they ever done that we don't know already? Blab-blab-blab—they're on TV all the time, shooting off their faces. But my story is different—it could be anybody's story—a small-town guy who suddenly finds himself rich. Now that's human interest. Can't those bigshot New York publishers see that? Or are they so caught up in city life that they've lost touch with the real world?”

“I take it you got another rejection,” I said, trying not to look like I-told-you-so.

“Knopf.” Ed hung his head. “That makes three. I'm at the end of my rope.”

“But not tiie end of the publishers' listings,” I pointed out, trying to be kind.

“That's not the point,” he asserted, settling his jowls onto his hands. “It's the way these East Coast bozos have dealt with me. All three of them have sent letters saying the same thing, and I have a sneaky feeling they're some kind of form. Nothing personal, nothing to show they like the writing or the idea or that they even read the manuscript.”

“I don't think you need to give up so soon,” I said as our waitress approached with Ed's double cheeseburger and my standard burger basket. I was lying, of course; in my opinion, Ed should have given up before he started. But then I
had
read the manuscript.

Ed waited until we had been served before he responded. “No, I'm taking a new tack. You've got the back shop up and running. I want you to publish the book.”

I'd been afraid of that. “We're not set up for big runs like that,” I said, a bit too quickly. “You know what we do—wedding invitations, posters, brochures, handouts. A book—a four-hundred-and-fifty-seven-page book—is way beyond our capabilities.”

But Ed shook his head, somehow managing to dislodge mustard from his chin in the process. “You could do it. It's just a matter of gearing up. I'll talk to Kip. We'll go fifty-fifty on the profits.”

“Whoa.” I practically choked on a french fry. “It doesn't work that way. From what I've heard in talking to some of my former colleagues who've had books published, authors get ten percent at most. We couldn't do a hardcover, we don't have a bindery. You'd have to pay us
to print the book and absorb the other out-of-pocket costs.”

“Such as?” Ed interrupted.

“Cover design, copy editing, photos—whatever.” I was speaking off the top of my head. I really didn't know what was involved except that I wished it wouldn't be me. “Then you'd have to figure out how to distribute it. Your profit would come out of the actual copies sold. Once we printed
Mr. Ed
, we'd be out of it.”

Ed chewed on his pudgy thumb. “How much?”

I shrugged. “Ask Kip. As I said, I'm not sure we could do it at all. He'd have to figure our cost and then calculate a reasonable profit. It'd get pretty complicated,” I added in a dark tone. I was well aware that Ed had problems with complications.

“Hunh.” Ed took a big bite of cheeseburger and chewed noisily. “Is Kip around this afternoon?”

“No. He's delivering the papers. Once he's done, he usually doesn't come back on Wednesdays.”

Ed chewed some more. “Okay, I'll drop by tomorrow, around ten. Be sure and tell him that.”

“I will.” Suddenly I felt for Kip, who was young, naive, and probably putty in Ed's beefy hands.

But most of all, I felt for me. Disaster lurked around the corner, and its name was
Mr. Ed.

At four-thirty on Thursday I was ready to leave. Just as I was about to tell Vida, the phone rang. It was Sheriff Milo Dodge, my longtime friend and current lover.

“Did you say you were going out of town this weekend?” Milo asked in his laconic voice.

“Yes, about six times,” I replied a trifle testily. “I'm leaving immediately.”

“Oh.” Milo sounded disappointed. Worse yet, from my
perspective, he sounded surprised. “I was going to come over tonight. I guess not, huh?”

“Not.” I tried to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “I'll be back Sunday night.”

“That's not good for me,” Milo said, and I could see him shaking his head and stretching his long legs out on his desk and cradling his coffee mug in his big hands. “I've got to go to Bellevue to see my son. I might be late getting back.”

When Milo and his wife had divorced several years ago, Old Mulehide, as he called his ex, had been granted custody of their three children. All were now grown, and Old Mulehide was remarried. One of the two daughters had also married, but the other girl and her brother were still in college, if on an irregular, desultory basis.

“I might be late, too,” I said. “Call me Monday.”

“Why do you have to leave so early?” Milo asked in a slightly irked tone. “You'll get into rush-hour traffic on 1-5.”

I knew what Milo was thinking, and it annoyed me: our physical relationship, which had begun some eighteen months earlier, was predicated on Milo's masculine whims. When he felt like making love, I was supposed to be available. When I felt like making love, he went fishing. Or so it seemed to me. Our friendship, which had been deep and true and real, seemed to have deteriorated from the moment we had fallen into each other's arms.

“It's a long drive, and we'll be going against traffic,” I countered.

“We'll?”
The word sounded strained. “I thought you were going by yourself.”

At least Milo had remembered that much, if not the departure time. “Vida's driving. She has to go to Oregon, too, and she's dropping me off in Portland.”

“Vida's going to Oregon?” Milo sounded flabbergasted, for which I didn't quite blame him. “Why?”

“I don't know,” I answered truthfully. “She hasn't said. Look, she's waiting for me. We have to stop at my house so I can drop off the Jag and grab my luggage. I'll talk to you Monday.”

“Okay.” There was a heavy sigh. “Have fun.” The sheriff sounded as if he were wishing I'd catch plague.

Vida and I were on the road in her big Buick by five o'clock. We planned to stop for dinner at the Country Cousin in Centralia. I had made up my mind not to ask any more questions until we were seated in the restaurant. Thus we engaged in chitchat for the first leg of the trip, mostly about Ed and his awful book. Kip was supposed to spend part of his weekend figuring out if the project was feasible. Vida provided dire warnings, all of which I already understood.

When at last we pulled off 1-5 around seven-thirty, I waited until we were served before I delicately probed into the reason for her journey. Vida, who was wearing the most god-awful green felt hat with what looked like turkey feathers, gave me her gimlet eye.

“Ernest has family in Cannon Beach,” she said after a long pause.

Ernest was her husband who had been dead for almost twenty years. There were many Runkels in Alpine, as well as Blatts, who were Vida's own blood kin. My House & Home editor discussed them freely and often. Indeed, I knew most of them by now, though I was still occasionally surprised when a shirttail relation surfaced.

“I didn't realize that,” I said in what I hoped was an innocent tone. “Have I heard you speak of them before?”

“No,” Vida said, and speared a leaf of iceberg lettuce from her salad.

“Are they close?” I inquired.

“No.” Vida nibbled on a bread stick.

I tried a slightly different approach. “Cannon Beach is a lovely little resort town.”