Gone to Green (30 page)

The two men and Major Wilson, Eva's brother, had plagued me since I stumbled into buying the newspaper. They certainly did not approve of how I ran
The News-Item.
But they had never acted like they wanted it back.

“Don’t fret about it,” Kevin said. “They can’t hurt you. Wanting to do something and actually doing it are two different things.” She straightened up the cubicle. “Why don’t y’all come with me over to Mama and Daddy's for black-eyed peas and cornbread … see if we can’t salvage some good luck for you on New Year's Day.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said. “I’d just as soon start this year over.” I touched the small bandage and picked up my purse. “I guess there's no point in trying to pay you for this, is there?”

“First patient of the year is on the house,” Kevin said.

At that instant Eva's cell phone rang, and I jumped. As the new mayor of Green, Eva was always on call and insisted we publicize her phone numbers. Her phone rang steadily.

She frowned as she took the call. “You’re sure? Speak louder. You’re breaking up. Downtown, you said?” Eva inhaled deeply. “I’ll be right there.”

She snapped her phone shut, dropped it into her purse and grabbed her keys. “There's lots of smoke downtown,” she said. “Looks like one of the buildings is on fire.”

“Which one?” I asked, jumping up and grabbing my coat. “Is it the paper? Your store? I’m coming with you.”

“You know as much as I do. Fire downtown,” she said. “Let's go.”

“I’m coming too,” Kevin said, flinging an array of medical supplies into a black canvas bag.

As we stepped outside, smoke rose in the distance. Kevin's clinic was about ten minutes from the paper, and my heart pounded hard for about the sixth time today. My newspaper building sat right in the middle of downtown. So did Eva's department store. And the antique mall owned by my good friends Rose and Linda. And the Cotton Boll Café.

I ran through a list of properties that could be on fire, trying not to let my imagination go crazy, surprised at how much I loved the places that popped into mind.

Before we got out of Kevin's parking lot, my cell phone rang. “Lois, I hate to bother you but … ” Iris Jo, my business manager and neighbor out on Route 2, sounded breathless, and, as usual, the connection was weak. “The paper's on fire. Looks pretty bad. They’re calling for help from out in the parish.” She was a gentle, straightforward woman, and her words were uncharacteristically rushed.

“Slow down,” I said. “Tell me everything. Where are you?”

“On my way. I just got the call from Stan. The Fire Department notified him. Looks like it's in the press area. Not sure how long it's been burning. Tammy discovered it when she went in to post the obits. Said it was smoking then. Now it's flames. Through the roof.”

“Is Tammy okay?” I asked, terrified. “She didn’t go in the building, did she?”

“She tried to, but the smoke was beginning to seep out. Thank goodness she turned around and called the fire department. Stan said she's crying and sitting on the curb across the street.”

When we arrived, flames were shooting out of the roof of my newspaper, and streams of water were being sprayed at the building and those nearby. Tammy stood near her car with Iris Jo and Stan, the maintenance guy.

I thought I might throw up as I looked at their faces and back at the building.

The mayor and I rushed closer, but were quickly scolded. Kevin surveyed the area, sizing up the need for her services.

“Hold it right there. No civilians allowed,” a young deputy said.

The mayor and I talked over each other. “I need to get information.” “We need to know what's going on.”

“I’m the mayor. I want to assess the damage. And I’m a business owner nearby, as you very well know, young man,” Eva said, pointing her finger at the poor officer assigned to keep spectators at bay.

“I’m the owner,” I said. “How bad is this? Is it nearly out? What happened?”

Kevin stepped between the policeman and us. “Dr. Kevin Taylor, sir. Local physician. Available to help as needed.”

As she talked, Stan walked up, a somber look on his face. “Miss Lois, Mayor, Dr. Taylor,” he nodded at all of us in greeting. “I’ve got the latest info. No need to put yourself—or someone else for that matter— in danger by getting any closer.”

I turned, not calmed but reassured. Stan had worked at the paper since he was a boy and knew the place inside and out. He made sure the newspaper got printed, no matter what. Twice a week. Every week.

Stan was one of those steady people you don’t notice until you need them. “They got the call about twenty-five minutes ago. Tammy called first and then someone who was driving by. Both reported fairly heavy smoke. They’re close to getting the blaze under control. Looks like it's in the press room. Old Bossy may be crankier than ever after this.” Stan's nickname for the ancient press had come about years ago when he realized the press ruled the roost.

“But what about the damage? How bad?” My stomach churned.

“There’ll probably be more damage from water than fire. They hope to be able to tell us something shortly.” He paused as Iris Jo and Tammy rushed up, hugging me and assuring me everything was going to be okay.

I turned to Tammy to make sure she was all right, but she got to me first. “What happened to your eye?” she asked.

“My eye?” I had totally forgotten about my dog bite. Suddenly, I realized my head throbbed. I touched the bandage gingerly. “Sugar Marie apparently doesn’t approve of people hugging her mayor.”

“Sugar Marie? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Tammy generally focused on whatever was right in front of her. “Sugar Marie?” She almost smiled. “She figured out you’re afraid of dogs. Poor little scamp. I bet she's in big trouble now.”

“Poor little scamp?” I stopped short of arguing with her, remembering my business was burning. “Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital, or have Kevin look you over?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Tammy said, waving her hand, rubbing her nose with a tissue. “The worst part is watching our baby burn. This was going to be our year. I keep trying to figure out what I could have done. How could I have acted quicker?”

I patted her arm and hugged her again. Down here in Northwest Louisiana, hugging saved a lot of words. People hugged you to say hello, say good-bye, to share your happiness and ease your sorrow. In the past year, I had become quite the hugger.

“Tammy, you did the best you could. You always do. Now tell me what happened, step-by-step.”

She began one of her breathless Tammy explanations, offering details from the type of soft drink she sipped when she pulled up to her realization that the building was on fire.

“It must have just started when I got here,” she said. “There weren’t any flames or anything.”

She hesitated.

“It was creepy, though,” she said. “Didn’t smell right inside. You know how
The Item
always smells. That sort of ink, paper, musty smell? It was different today. More like a funky sort of electrical smell, like when you forget you left the iron on or something.”

I had worked in newsrooms for nearly three decades and knew exactly the first smell she spoke of. Newspapers have a distinct odor when you walk in … and that varies only slightly from paper to paper. The scent was comforting to me. I dreaded how
The Item
would smell after the fire.

“Then I caught a whiff of smoke and ran back outside, looked up, and saw lots of smoke and called the fire department,” she said. “Not many people downtown today, you know. Except a car or two … Sunday-driver types. Wish they would have called.”

Over the next few minutes the fire department, made up of a mix of paid staff and volunteers, put the fire out, with little visible damage outside. Not surprisingly, a sort of carnival atmosphere had sprung up over the past hour as people rushed to the scene, a common occurrence in Green.

As people gathered, someone I didn’t recognize served hot chocolate and bottled water from the nearby café and another person handed out leftover Christmas candy.

“Sometimes I think this town doesn’t even need a newspaper,” Tammy said, waving to a group nearby. “Neighbors spread the word faster than CNN.”

Applause broke out as the firefighters wrapped up, although the deputy still looked miffed at the crowd's intrusion. The head of the fire department motioned for Eva, Stan, and me to come nearer and offered to show us the damage. “This is by invitation only, not a public viewing,” he said. “Send your folks on home. We’ve got it under control, and there's nothing they can do today. It has to cool down. We’ll watch it.”

Kevin, who had been busy bandaging a slight burn and getting a big splinter out of a firefighter's hand, invited several people to her parents’ house on the lake. “We all need a bite to eat,” she said, “and to catch our breath. Let's go over and see if we can’t manage to get this year headed in the right direction. We’ll get my daddy to pray over us. If that doesn’t help, nothing will.”

Slowly, the crowd wandered off, reluctant to leave the scene. “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said, wishing I could escape with them. “Keep an eye on Tammy.”

As the fire chief described the damage, I took notes, an old habit and my only way of remembering with my brain so addled. The power had been turned off in the building, and the captain gestured with a large flashlight, almost as though conducting an orchestra.

Stan walked next to him, listening intently and occasionally asking a question. The damage, which had seemed so extreme during the ruckus, was not too awful. However, everything was a mess—a complete, soggy mess.

“Why, here's your problem right here, I believe,” the chief said, making a clucking noise and shining his light closer. “Looks like that plug caught on fire. We’ll check that out when the insurance fellow and the fire marshal from Shreveport come take a look.”

Stan squatted down, frowning, and examined the cord without touching it. “That's odd,” he said. “I just replaced that cord about two months ago. When we thought Miss Lois was going to sell the paper, we got everything all spiffed up.”

I was surprised, not knowing he had been getting everything in order to help me. My efforts to sell the paper secretly had been a big bust, thank goodness. The next thought that popped into my mind was how happy I was to have kept the paper—pretty funny under the circumstances.

Stan looked closer, and I leaned in. “Can we get her running by next week?” I asked. “Or should I start making some calls to our backup print sites?”

“I’ll give it all I’ve got,” Stan said. “Luckily, we printed our holiday issue on Tuesday, so that buys us a little extra time. If I can’t get the old girl up and running, nobody can.”

With inspections and production questions and suspicions whirling, we headed over to the home of Marcus and Pearl Taylor. A lively, supportive crowd had assembled, each person with an opinion on the fire. I glanced around, amidst hugs and words of encouragement, but couldn’t see the one person I wanted to see more than anyone else. Where was my neighbor Chris? He always made me feel better.

We gathered in a circle in the living room and held hands while Mr. Marcus prayed one of his awesome prayers. “Oh, Mighty God,” he said in his deep southern voice, “I thank you for this New Year, for the blessings of the year past and for the safety of Your servants who fought today's fire. We beg for wisdom for the months ahead and ask that we may be useful to Thee, no matter what the days bring.”

The black-eyed peas tasted good, but I could not fully enjoy them.