I missed the Main Street meeting but I’m all for preserving the East End. Why shouldn’t we? Didn’t we all grow up skating at the Starlight? Famous mobsters slept at the Sands. Even Frank Sinatra, if the rumors are true. (Which I believe. My great-grandmother saw him there.)
The mural is a great start. Let’s band together, SBB, to love our town. All of it. Not just the West End.
EMERY
Her third edition was in the can. So far, so good. She’d spent last Thursday and Friday courting advertisers. Her pitch went something like, “Do you want to advertise in theGazette? We have amazing rates.” Yet potential clients stared at her as if to say, “And?” So she blathered on about the value of a print paper, then ended with “Please, please, please buy an ad. I promise it won’t go missing.”
Okay, maybe she didn’t say the last part, but that’s how she sounded to herself.
When she returned to the office Friday afternoon, she emailed Elliot.“Please hire an ad salesperson. Even part-time.”
Nevertheless, she’d landed a couple of accounts—small Mom-and-Pop businesses—and on Saturday morning, she sent over the contracts.
Now it was Sunday afternoon, and she was alone in the office, reading the paper. She reread her piece on the Main Streetinitiative. Every time she heard or read about the prince and Malachi, she was moved.
Sea Blue Beach,remember who you are.
Reaching for the banana left over from her Friday lunch, Emery made her way to Rachel Kirby’s digital morgue. What if she created a “From the Archives” section and ran old stories about the town? It would add interest to the initiative. And it fit the brand she wanted to establish for theGazette.
Taking a bite of banana, she began clicking on folders, looking for a place to start. The morgue had only a few issues from the first year the paper was in production, but she found with a photo of Malachi Nickle and Prince Blue roller-skating at the Starlight.
Emery downloaded the archive and emailed it to Junie.“Do you think this will print well if wecreate an archives section in the paper?”
She emailed back almost instantly.“Yes.”
The afternoon sun sat in short blades across her office floor by the time she emerged from the world of the morgue. Fascinating. She’d found emails between Rachel Kirby and members of the House of Blue’s Chamber Office, even the queen herself.
But more than anything, the stories and history made her fall in love with this special town. And she almost felt called to remind everyone.
Night was falling when she gathered her things. She was about to shut off her office light when an idea hit and started to sink in.Nooooo. It was crazy, right? Even if it wasn’t crazy—which it was—she couldn’t possibly...
She paced around the newsroom desks, once occupied by a half dozen reporters but now sat empty. She’d have to think about this. Pros and cons. Even the best idea had a few cons. Crazy ideas had even more. Think. And talk to Caleb. Even Simon. Or maybe she should just do it, then wait and see.
But first, think. Sleep on it, as Mom used to say.
She walked down Rachel Kirby Lane to Avenue C, considering her idea. What were the cons? They’d say no. What were the pros? They’d say yes. Then, of course, that would start a whole other list of pros and cons, but her idea was worth a try.
She arrived home—already the Sands Motor Motel felt like home—to find Delilah by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, head back, eyes closed. The guests from Cottage 4 sat across from her, playing guitars and singing.
“Michael, row your boat ashore . . .”
Emery took the chair next to Delilah.
“There’s nothing like folk music,” Delilah said. “It’s got heart.”
“You should know, since you were one of the queens of the genre.” Emery sat forward to see Delilah’s face.
“So they say, but I don’t live in the past, Emery. Music is something I love, but it wasn’t my calling. Not for my whole life, anyway.”
“That’s a gutsy declaration. Most people find their calling or passion and cling to it.”
“It crushes some of them too. They have no sense of who they are outside of their so-called calling.”
“Are you about to tell me why you walked away from an amazing career?”
Delilah reached over and patted Emery’s arm. “No. Just enjoy the music.”
Emery sank down in the Adirondack and closed her eyes, drifting away on the melodies intertwined with the crackling fire. Then Delilah was shaking her awake. The fire had died, and the guitar players were gone.
