The Price Of Silence. Kate Wilhelm

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      If Barney could arrange his two classes for consecutive days, go over one day, come back the next…One long commute a week…He could stay in a motel one night a week…Have the rest of the week free…What he needed was access to a library—their apartment was crammed with the library books he needed for his research—and time. A lot of time without exhaustion from menial labor and, more important, without worry about money.

      She picked up the letter and went to the bedroom, closed the door softly, then sat on the edge of the bed and dialed.

      

      In the office of The Brindle Times, Johnny Colonna was glaring at his mother, who was holding the weekly edition of the newspaper and shaking it furiously.

      “It’s a shambles, a mess, a loathsome unholy mess!” she said again. “I won’t have it, Johnny. I’m telling you, I won’t have it! I’ll shut down before I let a mess like this go out again!”

      He looked relieved when the phone rang. “Yes,” he snapped. “Who?” He held his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s that woman, Fielding, the one who sent her résumé last week.”

      “Tell her we’ll call back in five minutes. And I’ll do the talking.”

      He repeated the message and hung up. “Mother, I thought we decided on Stan Beacham. Why bother talking to this one?”

      “I haven’t decided on anyone,” she said. “That man’s a twit. He’d stay just as long as it took to find something better. And he doesn’t know any more about computers than you do. I’ll get her résumé and make the call in here.”

      Ignoring the sullen look that crossed her son’s face, Ruth Ann marched from his office, crossed the outer office to her own and picked up Todd Fielding’s folder. None of the three women in the outer office dared glance at her on her first trip across their space, nor on her return. When Ruth Ann was in a snit, it was best to look very busy.

      Ruth Ann was eighty, and from the time of her father’s death when she was twenty-one, she had published, edited and, for much of the time, written every word in the newspaper. And, she had decided that morning, reading the latest edition, she would be damned if she would see it become a piece of crap. Crap, she repeated to herself. That was what it was turning into. Ungrammatical, words misspelled, one story cut off in midsection, strings of gibberish…Crap!

      She placed the call herself, seated at Johnny’s desk, while he took up a stance of martyrdom at the window. He blamed it all on the computer system he had installed the previous year. They would get the hang of it, he had said more than once. It just took time. Everyone knew it took time. Well, time had just run out, she thought as Todd Fielding answered the phone on the first ring.

      “Ms. Fielding, my name is Ruth Ann Colonna and I’m the publisher of The Brindle Times. I was quite impressed by your résumé. And by the quality of the trade journal you provided. I have to tell you up front that we could not pay you the kind of salary you were receiving previously, however there is a house available rent-free through another party, therefore not to be considered part of your pay package. You would be responsible for property taxes and insurance, roughly a thousand or a little more annually. We offer excellent health benefits.”

      Ruth Ann watched Johnny stiffen, wheel about and shake his head. She ignored him. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the journal,” she said.

      

      It was a long interview. Ruth Ann asked questions, and Todd answered in a straightforward way. When Ruth Ann asked what Barney’s dissertation was, Todd said, “The Cultural, Political and Religious Movements that Account for the Fluctuations in the Ascendancy of Rationalistic Belief Systems.”

      Ruth Ann laughed. “My God! That’s a mouthful. A philosopher, for goodness sake! I didn’t know anyone studied philosophy these days.”

      When Ruth Ann finally hung up, she regarded Johnny thoughtfully. “She’ll do,” she said.

      “Mother, be reasonable. You can’t hire someone you never even met on the basis of a phone call. And whose house are you offering a stranger?”

      “As for the first part, I believe I just did,” Ruth Ann said. “And the house is Mattie and Hal Tilden’s. Mattie begged me to put someone in it. Their insurance has quadrupled since it’s been empty, and she knows an empty house invites trouble. But you’re right about strangers. The Fieldings will come over on Friday to meet in person. And, Johnny, I suppose you haven’t even glanced at that journal, or paid much attention to her résumé. I suggest you look them over carefully. She’s had art training, and studied all sorts of computer technology, software and hardware, whatever that means. You don’t know a pixel from a pixie, and neither do I, but she does. She can edit, and she’s a good writer. She has excellent recommendations. If you take the press in the direction you’re thinking of, you’ll need someone just like her.”

      She walked to the door, paused and said, “I want to see every word, every paragraph, every ad on paper before you go to press next week. Every goddamn word.”

      

      In her bedroom Todd disconnected and carefully put the phone down on the bed. She stood up, flung her hands in the air and screamed a Tarzan yell of triumph, then raced from the room, only to meet Barney in the hall. He looked sleep-dazed and bewildered.

      “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

      “It’s going to work! I’ve got a job! Oh, God, you’re wearing too many clothes!” She began to pull at his shirt. “We need to celebrate! Right now!” Giving up on his shirt, she yanked off her tank top, and started to wriggle out of her shorts.

      Two

      On Thursday morning Todd sat cross-legged on the floor, both arms crossed over her breasts, fingers crossed on both hands. When Barney glanced at her as he started to dial, she crossed her eyes.

      Sputtering with laughter, he hit the disconnect button. “Stop that!”

      “Can’t. This is how I work magic.”

      He turned his back and dialed Victor Franz’s number. Victor was his adviser, his mentor, a father substitute who treated Barney like a protégé.

      She listened to him explain the situation, and then could make no sense of his monosyllabic end of the conversation. “Yes…. No…. Sounds good…. No problem….”

      He hung up and turned around to her, his eyes shining. “You’re a witch,” he said. “Classes on Thursdays and Fridays. He’ll arrange it. And no motel. He said I should plan to use one of his kids’ rooms.”

      Victor’s three children were all grown and gone, and he and his wife were keeping a big farmhouse with several acres of apple trees until he retired in two years. They also had two big, shaggy Australian shepherd dogs and numerous cats.

      “But there’s a catch,” Barney said, pulling Todd to her feet. “Once a month I have to stay over until Sunday while he and Ginny go to the coast to visit her folks. I have to dog-sit, cat-sit and house-sit.”

      “Oh no!” she cried in mock dismay. “And have his library at your disposal! Merciless man!”

      Barney laughed and drew her closer, biting her СКАЧАТЬ