her own corner desk, guarded by a large basket-shaped straw pocket-book with fake cherries on it, presided the woman reporter I already considered my rival because of her frequent sensational front-page stories: Joelle Cutter-Crane.
“Nice twist on the Jiménez stash, Joelle,” Norbright complimented her. “Readers have been calling in to comment. I’d like you to meet Emma Gant from North Carolina; she’ll be joining us in the newsroom.”
It hadn’t escaped my notice that Norbright had presented me to everybody rather than the other way round.
“I’m honored to meet you,” I told the small, brittle-featured woman with scarlet nails and a marcelled hairstyle and hair color similar to Tess’s. “I’ve been admiring your stories ever since I began subscribing to the
Star
in February.”
“How do you do?” said Joelle Cutter-Crane, barely glancing at me. She fixed Norbright with a hard, lipsticked smile. “It was my idea, not the copydesk’s, I want you to know, Lou, to give all that equipment in dictator Jiménez’s custom-built Cadillac—the machine gun and grenade racks as well as the luxury items—a box of its own.”
“Ah, Joelle, don’t we give you enough credit as it is?” Norbright teased.
As we continued on our rounds he said, “Joelle’s the ribbon on our package and we try to keep her happy. The team concept of newspapering is completely beyond her.” As he seemed too calculated a type to indulge in gossip merely for its own pleasures, I concluded he was giving me a token of his own “guidance.” The only trouble was, I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was saying it was better to be a ribbon or a team player.
Next stop was the morgue, the library in newspaper offices where you looked up the people and events you wanted to know about and the stories of yesterday you needed for background. The stories were stored in open cardboard file boxes containing alphabetically labeled envelopes stuffed with all the paper’s clippings on that topic. Tess’s sad story from the forties was lying there right now in an envelope bearing her ex-husband’s surname, and all Joelle Cutter-Crane’s old scoops could be found under the the letter
C,
as well as under the first letter of the subject of each scoop. The career of rapidly rising Norbright was stuffed into its envelopes, to be tracked whenever I could find the time. There would probably even be a file on P. Nightingale’s Club and its owner. And perhaps starting as early as tomorrow under
G
would begin the clipped and filed documentation of my own rising star.
The librarian for the morgue was the first person in our round of introductions to whom Lou Norbright showed deference. This person sat within her bubble of remoteness, a stack of Sunday
Miami Star
s spread out on a long table perpendicular to her desk. As we entered her glassed-in sanctum, she was in the act of clipping multiple copies of yesterday’s front-page lead, WHERE THE DICTATOR STASHED HIS MILLIONS , as its eight-column banner headline read, to go into the various envelopes: “Cutter-Crane,” “Jiménez,” “Venezuela,” “Dictators,” “Ex-dictators,” plus those of all the minor figures mentioned in the story, and probably even “Cadillacs, custom equipment,” from Joelle’s very own box idea.
“Moira, this is Emma Gant. We’ll be starting her off on the city desk. Emma, meet Moira Parks. I’m sure you know from J-school what an indispensable shop Moira runs.” Though Norbright spoke with his usual assurance, he seemed, in Moira’s domain, to take up only a normal amount of human space and not flow into hers. Moira Parks ceased applying her massive shears to yesterday’s big story and raised her thick, smoke-tinted glasses toward us. It was impossible to guess her age. She wore a shoulder-padded dress in a style from the forties. Her incredible mass of springy gray hair, the bottom clump somewhat restrained by an old-fashioned snood, suggested
“Nice twist on the Jiménez stash, Joelle,” Norbright complimented her. “Readers have been calling in to comment. I’d like you to meet Emma Gant from North Carolina; she’ll be joining us in the newsroom.”
It hadn’t escaped my notice that Norbright had presented me to everybody rather than the other way round.
“I’m honored to meet you,” I told the small, brittle-featured woman with scarlet nails and a marcelled hairstyle and hair color similar to Tess’s. “I’ve been admiring your stories ever since I began subscribing to the
Star
in February.”
“How do you do?” said Joelle Cutter-Crane, barely glancing at me. She fixed Norbright with a hard, lipsticked smile. “It was my idea, not the copydesk’s, I want you to know, Lou, to give all that equipment in dictator Jiménez’s custom-built Cadillac—the machine gun and grenade racks as well as the luxury items—a box of its own.”
“Ah, Joelle, don’t we give you enough credit as it is?” Norbright teased.
As we continued on our rounds he said, “Joelle’s the ribbon on our package and we try to keep her happy. The team concept of newspapering is completely beyond her.” As he seemed too calculated a type to indulge in gossip merely for its own pleasures, I concluded he was giving me a token of his own “guidance.” The only trouble was, I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was saying it was better to be a ribbon or a team player.
Next stop was the morgue, the library in newspaper offices where you looked up the people and events you wanted to know about and the stories of yesterday you needed for background. The stories were stored in open cardboard file boxes containing alphabetically labeled envelopes stuffed with all the paper’s clippings on that topic. Tess’s sad story from the forties was lying there right now in an envelope bearing her ex-husband’s surname, and all Joelle Cutter-Crane’s old scoops could be found under the the letter
C,
as well as under the first letter of the subject of each scoop. The career of rapidly rising Norbright was stuffed into its envelopes, to be tracked whenever I could find the time. There would probably even be a file on P. Nightingale’s Club and its owner. And perhaps starting as early as tomorrow under
G
would begin the clipped and filed documentation of my own rising star.
The librarian for the morgue was the first person in our round of introductions to whom Lou Norbright showed deference. This person sat within her bubble of remoteness, a stack of Sunday
Miami Star
s spread out on a long table perpendicular to her desk. As we entered her glassed-in sanctum, she was in the act of clipping multiple copies of yesterday’s front-page lead, WHERE THE DICTATOR STASHED HIS MILLIONS , as its eight-column banner headline read, to go into the various envelopes: “Cutter-Crane,” “Jiménez,” “Venezuela,” “Dictators,” “Ex-dictators,” plus those of all the minor figures mentioned in the story, and probably even “Cadillacs, custom equipment,” from Joelle’s very own box idea.
“Moira, this is Emma Gant. We’ll be starting her off on the city desk. Emma, meet Moira Parks. I’m sure you know from J-school what an indispensable shop Moira runs.” Though Norbright spoke with his usual assurance, he seemed, in Moira’s domain, to take up only a normal amount of human space and not flow into hers. Moira Parks ceased applying her massive shears to yesterday’s big story and raised her thick, smoke-tinted glasses toward us. It was impossible to guess her age. She wore a shoulder-padded dress in a style from the forties. Her incredible mass of springy gray hair, the bottom clump somewhat restrained by an old-fashioned snood, suggested
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