“I’d love to talk now, if you really don’t mind.” He grinned again, motioned to the folders in his hand. “I won’t take long, but I’d love to show you something. I’m Erik, by the way. Erik Wennerman.”
“Nice to meet you, Erik.” She shook his hand, plastered on her professional smile.
She unlocked the door and motioned him inside, leaving the door open to send a clear message: All business.
Sitting back down behind her desk, she gestured to the chair in front of her.
“Have a seat. So, how can we help you?”
“Well, I’m hoping it will be a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Erik sat up straight as he pushed one of the glossy folders before her, a well-designed logo for Wennerman Incorporated emblazoned in bold blue, black, and yellow on the front, with a yellow circle a bit like a setting sun on the horizon. “My family runs a number of retirement communities in the area, and we partner with the local newspapers group to place advertising in every one of their newspapers in a three-hundred-mile radius.”
“Wow.”
“It’s a big reach.” He smiled again. “They offer us a good deal, and in exchange we commit to consistent weekly advertising support for every one of their papers. I got to thinking that your paper, even though it’s private ownership, might be interested in a similar arrangement.”
“How much are you talking?”
He slid the pricing sheet toward her, and she tried to keep a neutral face. It was significantly lower than theDahlia Weekly’snormal ad rate.
“But it’s weekly support,” he said, eying her. “It would help us reach seniors in this area, which could be a strong market for us,and it would help you drive sales, which I’m sure you can use.”
The newspaper’s bank account balance flashed in her mind, and wheels began to turn.
“I’ll have to think about it—”
“Of course! There’s no rush. I happened to be in Dahlia today visiting my great-aunt and thought I’d pop by, introduce myself.”
She took the folder and the pricing sheet, slid it into her stack. “I’m really glad you did.”
His smile widened. “Me, too.”
Rebecca felt her cheeks begin to flush, and she stood, offered a hand.
“Well, it’s nice meeting you, Erik. Can I give you a call next week?”
“I’d love that.”
He stood, and they walked to the door together. He waited at a respectful distance as she locked up, then stood to watch her go. She noticed his car parked on the street, a new-model black Audi convertible—much nicer than the one Peter had kept in the garage—and gave a goodbye wave.
And turning to head home, she decided to skip the coffee in favor of a pounding all-out run.
She was out of breath and drenched by the time she got back to the house and found Granny in the kitchen, stirring something in a big pot over the stove.
“Gracious, girl, sit. You’re soaked!” Granny motioned to one of the wooden chairs at the small kitchen table, and Rebecca did.
“I’m fine,” she huffed out, laughing, but Granny brought her a tall glass of water, and she drank it gratefully.
Granny gave the pot one last stir and then joined her granddaughter at the table, where she had a big pile of string beans laid out on a dishtowel. She snapped the ends off a bean neatly into a big metal bowl and eyed Rebecca. “So what’s on your agenda today?”
Rebecca shrugged and forced a smile, her breath coming easier now. She thought about Erik Wennerman’s ad pitch, carefully avoiding any thoughts about his physique, hair, and smile, and the bank account numbers, which were far less appealing.
“I don’t know, work?”
“Oh, hon. You remind me of your Gramps.” Granny snapped the ends of the string beans one by one, popped the good ones into the bowl, the action almost a percussion beat. Snap-snap-ting. Snap-snap-ting. Rebecca grabbed a bean and joined in, the motion coming back quickly, like riding a bike.
Granny used to force her to help when she was a miserable, anxiety-ridden teen, and she remembered that first summer how angry she’d been about it, wanting to escape upstairs to read or write a letter to a friend back home about the injustice of her parents sending her away for the entire summer. By the end of that summer, the bean-snapping had become their time. Girl Time, Granny had called it, where Granny would share about customers, or Rebecca would regale her about the bass she’d caught in the lake or the progress she’d made fixing up Gramps’s tool shed. Granny and Gramps had paid her well that summer for helping part-time in the shop, claimed they needed the extra help, but looking back, Rebecca didn’t think they needed much help at all. It was she who’d needed the help, the escape from all the sophomoric melodrama back home, even though she didn’t think so at the time.
Her rhythm was smoother now, and Rebecca smiled at her Granny.
