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What Armand wanted done, she did.
    â€œWhat else you got?” the old man asked.
    John clamped the phone between shoulder and ear and pulled a handful of papers from the briefcase. He had dummied the week’s pages at home the night before. Now he spread out the sheets. “The lead is a report on the education bill that’s up before the state legislature. It’s a thirty-inch piece, across the top and down the right-hand leg, photo lower left. I’m following it with opinion pieces, one from the local rep, one from the principal at Cooper Elementary.”
    â€œWhat’s your editorial say about it?”
    â€œYou know what it says.”
    â€œThe na-tives won’t like it.”
    â€œMaybe not, but we either put money into schools today or into welfare tomorrow.” The source of that money was the problem. Not wanting to argue it again with Armand, who was one of the wealthiest of the landowners and would be soaked if property taxes doubled, he pulled up the next dummy. “Page three leads with a report on Chris Diehl’s trial—closing arguments, jury out, verdict in, Chris home. I have a piece on profit sharing at the mill, and one on staff cutbacks at the retirement home. The newcomer profile is on Thomas Hook.”
    â€œCan’t stand the guy,” Armand muttered.
    John uncapped the thermos. “That’s because he has no people skills, but he has computer skills. There’s reason why his business is worth twenty million and growing.”
    â€œHe’s a kid .” Spoken indignantly. “What’s he gonna do with that kind of money?”
    John filled his mug with coffee. “He’s thirty-two, with awife and three kids, and in the six months he’s been here, he’s tripled the size of his house, regraded and graveled the approach road, built another house for an office in the place where a god-awful eyesore stood, and in doing all that, he’s used local contractors, carpenters, masons, plumbers, and electricians—”
    â€œAll right, all right,” Armand’s growl cut him off. “What else?”
    Sipping coffee, John pulled up the next page. “There’s an academy update—message from the head of the school. New year starting, one hundred twelve kids, twenty-two states, seven countries. Then there’s police news, fire news, library news.” He flipped open the Wall Street Journal and absently scanned the headlines. “There’s the week in review from papers in Boston, New York, and Washington. And ads, lots of ads this week”—he knew Armand would like that—“including a two-pager from the outlets in Conway. Fall’s a good time for ads.”
    â€œPraised be,” said Armand. “What else?”
    â€œSchool news. Historical Society news. Tri-town soccer news.”
    â€œWant some breaking news?”
    John always wanted breaking news. It was one of the city things he missed most. Feeling a twinge of anticipation, he sank into his desk chair, brought up a blank screen, and prepared to type.
    Armand said, “They just read Noah Thacken’s will, and the family’s in a stew. He left the house to daughter number two, so daughter number one is threatening to sue, and daughter number three is threatening to leave town,and none of them is talking to the others. Look into it, John.”
    But John had retracted his hands and was rocking back in his chair. “That’s private stuff.”
    â€œPrivate? The whole town’ll know by the end of the day.”
    â€œRight, so why put it in the paper? Besides, we print facts.”
    â€œThis is facts. That will is a matter of public record.”
    â€œThe will is. Not the personal trauma. That’s speculation, and it’s exploitative. I thought we agreed—”
    â€œWell, there isn’t a hell of a lot of other excitement up here,” the old man remarked and hung up the phone.
    No,