The Alpine Quilt Read Free Page A

won’t be in today?”
    Ginny Erlandson stopped just inside the newsroom door. “I don’t think Vida’s missed a day since she went to Oregon with you years ago,” our office manager declared. “She doesn’t even take vacation unless it’s family oriented.”
    I nodded. Vida’s defection was tantamount to abdication by Queen Elizabeth II. “Well, this
is
family oriented. We’ll have to struggle along without her.”
    “At least,” Leo put in, lighting a cigarette, “I can smoke in peace.”
    Ginny, however, scotched that notion. “You really should quit, Leo. It’s not good for you, and it smells bad.”
    “Half the people who come through this office smell bad,” Leo shot back. “The cigarettes protect me. A smoke screen, you know.” Happily, he puffed away.
    “Ugh,” said Ginny, with a shake of her stunning red hair.
    So the day began, routine despite the void. By nine-thirty, the first person seeking Vida arrived. Ethel Pike, steel-gray hair, stout, and stern, stared at Vida’s chair as if she could make our House & Home editor materialize like a genie.
    “Out and about, I suppose?” I heard Ethel say to Leo.
    “Ran off with the circus,” Leo replied, grabbing his briefcase and standing up. “I’m going to join her. We’ve got a really amazing trapeze act.”
    Leo left Ethel still standing by Vida’s desk. I realized that Scott had gone off on his regular city-county beat and that Ginny was at her usual post in the front office.
    “Good morning, Ethel,” I said pleasantly, emerging from my cubbyhole. “Vida’s gone for the day. Can I help you?”
    Ethel had no sense of humor. “Gone to the circus? I don’t believe it.”
    I explained that Leo was joking. Ethel’s round, rosy face didn’t crack a smile. “Some joke. I’d like to see Vida in the circus. Especially on a trapeze.” Judging from the grim expression, I guessed that Ethel was envisioning Vida working without a net.
    “You can tell me what you have for the paper,” I assured her.
    Ethel delved into her big blue purse and pulled out a manila envelope. “I’ve got two stories.” She opened the envelope and took out at least four or five sheets of handwritten ruled paper. “This first one is about me and Pike going to Orlando Tuesday. That’s where our son, Terry, lives with his wife and our grandkiddies. We’re taking the grandkiddies to Disney World, even though Terry’s snippy wife, Dawn, says they’ve been there about a hundred times. Now to me and Pike, Disney World is a place where grandfolks take their grandkiddies. I don’t care if they live within spitting distance, Terry and Dawn should have waited until we got down there. The kiddies are only six and eight. What’s the rush?”
    I was at a loss for words, maybe because Ethel had used up so many of them. “What’s the other story?” I asked.
    Ethel scowled at me. “Have you been to Disney World?”
    I shook my head. “Only to Disneyland, years ago, when my son was about seven.”
    She waved the pages at me. “You see? You could wait. Did his grandfolks go with you?”
    “My parents were dead,” I replied.
    “What about his daddy’s?”
    Having cut myself off from Tom Cavanaugh after he refused to leave his nutty wife, I had no idea where my son’s paternal grandparents were at the time. They, too, could have been dead, or living blissfully in Seattle’s Fremont district where Tom had grown up.
    “I was a single mother,” I finally said. “My brother—Father Lord—and I took Adam to Disneyland.”
    “Oh.” Ethel may have looked slightly deflated, but with her stoic features, it was hard to tell. She handed me the first two pages. “Here’s the story about our trip. I’ll bring more after we get back.” She held on to the other pages. “This is about the Burl Creek Thimble Club’s big reunion party Sunday night.”
    “This Sunday?” I tried not to look miffed. “If you’d brought it in earlier in the week, we could have run the