Authors: Mimi Johnson
One brief story was about him losing his driver’s license when he was 19 after three violations for excessive speed. There was also a later piece by the
Record’s
state columnist titled, “Jack Westphal: All Grown Up,” written about a year into Jack’s tenure at the Cedar Rapids
Globe
:
“
He tries not to dwell in the past, either the pain or the glory. He rents out his father’s 1200 acres, banking the profits, working hard and living quietly in a small apartment with a Doberman and a blond named Bambi.”
Tess’s eyebrows went up at this last, and as she flipped the screen, she found dozens of upset letters to the editor, despairing that the clean-cut young man everyone was so proud of was living openly in sin. Finally there was another clip, just a squib really, about Jack buying the
Lindsborg Journal
. The files had no more personal mentions, no wedding announcements, no divorce decrees.
She went to the
Journal’s
website, and smiled as she read some of his work. He had a strong voice, a good eye for detail, and cranked out content like a machine. Although his pictures weren’t very good, nearly every story included a video as well as a slideshow with audio. The guy had to work constantly.
What she read stayed with Tess, and she thought about Westphal more often than she would have been comfortable admitting. But when she didn’t hear from him, she figured Bambi, or some more recent version of her, was probably in the picture.
It was nearly two weeks after the basketball tournament that the deep-voiced question came through an office phone without preamble. “Did you mean it?”
Tess frowned suspiciously, waiting for what might come next. Nothing did. “Who is this?” She was busy with something difficult on the screen and didn’t have time to entertain some screwy reader.
There was a soft laugh. “Jack Westphal. Did you mean it when you offered to advise on the
Journal's
art problems?”
She felt her face flush along with a pleasant uptick in her heart rate. “It depends. I’m on deadline at the moment. But if you …”
“I’m thinking about this weekend. I’ll be in town Saturday and need to buy some software. I’m having a hell of a time getting all this new photo equipment to interface with what we’ve got. I thought if it wasn’t too much trouble, you could help me out? But if you have to work …”
“Actually I’m done in the early afternoon.” She didn’t hesitate to let him know that she was free. “Where should I meet you?”
“I’ll pick you up at the
Record
about 2 o’clock. Hey, you wouldn’t be free for dinner too, would you?”
She felt a smile spread across her face. “Some friends and I were talking about taking in a movie, but nothing’s firm. I could manage it.”
“Great.” He sounded pleased. “I’ll tell Swede I’ve got a date.”
“What? This is a dinner with the governor?”
“Yeah. It’s his birthday, and he always asks me up.”
“Look, if it’s a family-and-close-friends kind of thing, then …”
“Oh no,” it was a chuckle, “no ditching me now. Besides, Swede’ll think it’s great. He’s been on me about living like a monk. See you Saturday.”
The line went dead, and Tess muttered, “Oh shit,” turning back to her work.
He still drove too fast. She noticed that from the minute she got into his Jeep. He wasn’t an aggressive driver, or even an impatient one. He just handled the wheel with a confidence that seemed completely at ease with the traffic and his ability to zip around it, his judgment of space, speed and distance unerring.
As he put in the clutch and glided into a parking space at the Apple Store, she couldn't stop the question, “Do you collect speeding tickets?”
He shrugged, pulling open his door. “Not as many as you might think.” He walked around to her side, extending his hand as she hopped out. “I tell you what, though, I was well under the speed limit driving home from the tournament the other night. I probably should have listened to you and Swede. It was a long trip home.”
“I hope the new Jeep didn’t let you down?”
“No, it was great, but the drifts out on the farmhouse road were pretty deep. I had to take a couple runs at a few of them to get through. I kind of took a flyer through the last one, ended up facing the way I came, right on the lip of the ditch. I thought for a second she was going to roll on in, but she hung on.” He smiled as he talked, clearly enjoying the memory.
“You live on a farm?”
He nodded and looked over to see her reaction. “My folks’ old place. My grandfather was born there.” She smiled.
He didn’t really need her help. He’d obviously researched what he needed and had the savvy to understand the fine points. “Too bad the software can’t take the pictures for us,” Jack said as he tossed the bag onto the back seat of the Jeep. “None of us on the staff are very good.”
“It’s a craft, just like any other. You improve with practice,” she said.
He nodded and started the Jeep. “Improve, yeah, but I just don’t have the eye for it. Not like you. You hungry? We could stop somewhere.”
“Not hungry, but I’d love a cup of coffee. There’s a nice little shop down by the
Record.
”
They sat at a back table talking, laughing often, and sharing stories. She told him about her family, though he still hadn’t brought up what happened to his.
He did tell her how absorbed the years had been since buying the
Journal
. “I had no idea what I was taking on,” he shook his head, remembering. “All the equipment was ancient, and so was most of the staff. There were a thousand details, and I sweated them all. When I put in the new computer and network system, I thought I’d never sleep again. Between that and the renovations of the building, I’d lie awake wondering how in the hell the bank ever thought I was worth the risk. But then we got a tidy little side business going, providing templates and support to small business that need a web presence, and our press does all the printing for publications in neighboring counties, even some for ad agencies in Des Moines. Those revenues more than cover the payments. Most of the old guard’s retired, and the
Journal
operations have finally crawled into the black.”
“So it’s a success story.” She was honestly impressed.
“Well, I still hold my breath every time I open the bill for newsprint. The print product’s days are numbered, but Iowa is full of old folks who still like to hold a paper to read their news, so for now we'll keep it going. Meanwhile the website is booming, and I’m focusing on working in more interactive stuff. There’s always something new to learn, new to try. It’s fun now, watching it all come together. Of course, my personal life hasn’t been much to speak of.”
“Ah, so that would be why the Governor is worried about you being a monk?” He just shrugged. “Tell me about this unusual relationship you’ve got with Erickson. I can’t imagine that he takes an interest in the love life of all his friends.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Well, we go back a ways.” Suddenly he looked at his watch. “Speaking of Swede, we need to leave for Terrace Hill in about an hour.”
She hadn’t realized how much time had passed. “I’ve got to get home to change.”
He shook his head. “No need. You look great.” She was wearing black jeans, half boots and a gray sweater.
“Oh no, I am not going to dinner at the governor’s mansion wearing this.” He started to protest, but she held up her hand. “You still want a date?”
He nodded. “Get going, and I’ll pick you up in 45 minutes. Where?” She gave him the address and hurried out.
It really was just a small group of friends and family, about 12 in all. Tess enjoyed the evening more than she expected. In spite of the grand setting, it felt like a casual dinner party. The most ill at ease seemed, oddly, to be Elizabeth Erickson.
On the drive home, Tess asked, “OK, what’s the deal with Elizabeth? She insisted on calling me Teresa, even after I told her I prefer Tess. And she called you John. Does anyone else call you that?”
“Only my mother when she was really pissed off about something, but other than that …” Jack shrugged. “Betty makes a point of being a very formal lady.”
“Yes, and I see that you and the Governor both seem to delight in refusing to use her full name.” A small smile played out his dimples. “Somehow they seem to be an unlikely couple, her and Swede. You realize she calls him Swan?”
“Yeah, his mother does too.”
“But aren’t they two such different women? Augusta’s all down-to-earth farm-woman.” Jack glanced over, pleased with her assessment. “She was talking about how her first paying jobs were hoeing beans and detasseling corn. She has no idea how fascinating and charming she is. But I felt sorry for her other son, Peter. He’s awfully closed in. I don’t think he said more than two words all night. Is he always like that?”
“Pretty much. Their dad was awfully hard on both the boys. Swede learned to take him on but Pete, I suppose, tried to fly under the radar by staying quiet. And he still is.”
He gave an easy swing of the wheel, coasting into the drive by her little Beaverdale brick house and killed the lights. For a second she just looked at him, considering, then asked, “Nightcap?”
“I’d have a beer if you’ve got one.”
She flipped on the entryway lights, pointed the way to the living room, and ran up the stairs calling, “Just let me lose this jacket and the heels. Make yourself comfortable.”
By the time she came in carrying a tray with his beer, her B&B and a sliced, ripe pear fanned on a pretty plate, he had lit the gas fireplace and turned on some music. With his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he sat on the floor, his back against the couch, one arm resting on a raised knee, thumbing through an album of her photographs he’d found on the bookshelf and put on the coffee table.
“You’re an artist,” he said as she put the tray down, his dark eyes lingering over a page of her work.
“No, I’m just a photographer,” she laughed as she said it, but he shook his head.
“What an understatement. They’re art, not newspaper photographs.”
She cocked her head, looking down at the face of an old woman he’d been studying. “I took that on Pine Ridge, working a story about the alcohol problem on the reservation. But you’re right. That was a shot I took for myself, not the paper. She’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
“She is the way you caught her.” Tess dropped down next to him carefully in her black dress. “Tell me something?” She took a sip from her glass waiting. “Why does someone with your talent go from the
Washington Tribune
to the
Des Moines Record
? Isn’t it usually the other way around?”
Her eyes narrowed, knowing it was bound to come up eventually, and asking in return, “How’d you know I’d been at the
Trib
?”
He shifted uneasily. “I googled you. And I was amazed at the pictures that came up. I was curious …”
“No, it’s OK.” She was relieved that she had an opening. “I actually looked you up in our clips.” They each laughed.
“Well, obviously we both know how to find things out. So you read about what happened to my family and all?” She nodded as he took a sip of his beer. “I’m glad, really, that I don’t have to explain. It’s a tough story to tell, and I hate the look people get, that awkward, sympathetic, my-god-what-do-I-say-to-this-poor-guy look. It’s easier, knowing you’ve already read the details.”
“Do you never talk about it?”
He frowned a little. “Not on first dates. It’s kind of a conversation killer, if you know what I mean.” She nodded. “So, what about you and the
Tribune
? No clips to help me out with that one. Was it a round of layoffs or …” He took a slice of pear, waiting.
Except for her closest girlfriend, she didn’t talk about what happened. Usually she told people she’d just gotten sick of the expense and congestion of the city. Sometimes she lied and said she’d been laid off, knowing she’d easily be believed. But looking at Jack now, she tried to be honest. “I was in a relationship that wasn’t very good for me. We reached a point of something having to give and, after a bit of a struggle, I realized it was going to be me.” She smiled crookedly.
He was watching her closely. “I’m sorry. He broke your heart.”
“No,” she looked away to the fire, and sipped her drink thoughtfully. “I knew I should never have started with him. It’s fairer to say I broke my own heart. But I recovered, scarred but wiser.”
He nodded and clinked her glass. “Same here.”
“Good.” She gave him a funny, sly grin. “So tell me about you and the ‘blond named Bambi.’”
“Ah-h,” he groaned and hung his head. “That damn column, ‘Jack Westphal, all grown up,’ but still too wet behind the ears to know to keep his private life away from a newspaper columnist. What a disaster! I can’t tell you how long it’s taken me to live that down. Obviously I still haven’t.” He looked over at her, chuckling a little. “She was sweet, Bambi. But she dumped me after about six months of neglect, took the dog, and married a construction foreman. Last I heard, she was still crazy about him and had two kids.”
“And since?”
“No one noteworthy. Like I said, I’ve kept myself busy.” She raised her eyebrows, and reluctantly he added, “Well, no more live-ins anyway. You?”
She shook her head. “Just a few dates. I needed to be on my own for awhile.”
His eyes seemed to grow darker as he looked at her, then he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet with him. They faced a framed picture on the wall. It was a forest, colors deliberately muted, and then in tiny, painstakingly thin brushstrokes, painted back in with soft, dreamy watercolor. The rainy landscape seemed to drip in the frame.
“This is amazing,” he said, still holding her arm. “I can almost feel the rain when I look at it. But somehow the tone is a little sad. Lonely maybe.” She looked up at him, surprised. “I can see it’s yours. Tell me about it. Where is it? How’d you do it?”