Whirlwind

Kate glanced at Tommy. He was a good-hearted, hardworking kid, she thought, before her concern shifted to whether Chuck and Dorothea had assigned a reporter to monitor the possible storm.

She took stock of her temporary “squatter’s” desk, at the artifacts left by the previous occupant; the torn city map pinned to the fabric half wall, alongside the calendar and the fading list of contact numbers.

She had worked at a newspaper in Ohio before she was laid off. Now she was a week into a three-week “internship” at Newslead’s Dallas bureau. Internship? It’s an all-out job competition.

Kate was one of three reporters in the program. The other two candidates were experienced and they were Texans.

Roy Webster, 42, had been with the Houston Chronicle for twenty years before he was laid off. His team had been a finalist for a Pulitzer for its coverage of Hurricane Ike.

When they had all first met, Webster had extended his hand. “You’re not from Texas, are you, Kate?”

“No, I’m not.”

“You chose a helluva way to get to know the state.” He winked.

The other candidate, Mandy Lee, 33, was a general assignment reporter and former teen beauty queen, who’d won two state news awards before she’d taken a buyout from the Dallas Morning News.

She was cool to Kate when they’d met.

“Canton, Ohio? I didn’t know they even had a paper in that itty-bitty town.” Mandy showed Kate her pageant-winning smile.

Kate knew she was at a disadvantage. She’d also sensed that Dorothea Pick had disapproved of her being on the short list.

“You’re fortunate to be here,” Dorothea had said. “There were so many strong candidates right here in Dallas.”

For his part, Chuck Laneer, impressed by Kate’s doggedness when she’d worked in Ohio, had been firm but fair.

“Just show us your best,” he’d told her.

Oh, she’d do more than that.

Roy and Mandy may be better qualified but Kate was a never-say-die fighter. At the end of the internship, one of them would have a job. The others would go home unemployed.

Losing out was not an option for Kate. These days most newsrooms across the country were cutting staff. Few were hiring. This was Kate’s best shot at a full-time job, maybe her only shot, and so far it was not looking good.

So far, her work had received little play, or had resulted in inserts in other peoples’ stories. She’d had her name on only one item that had been picked up nationally. She’d put a lot on the line to be here.

She could not fail.

Kate met the eyes of Grace smiling from her screen saver, and a wave of guilt rolled over her.

Did I make the right decision, doing this?

Grace, Kate’s six-year-old daughter, was back home in Canton, staying with friends. Lord, how Kate missed her; she hated being away from her but she needed a full-time job. She was laid off from the Repository six months ago and this Dallas internship was her best shot at a new start.

But so far, it was not going well. She needed to deliver stronger stories.

Kate’s phone rang. It was Dorothea.

“Got your story. Come see me.”

When Kate got to Dorothea’s desk, the news editor patted a chair she’d rolled next to hers. Kate’s story was up on her monitor.

“Have a seat,” Dorothea said. “I want you to see what I’m going to do.”

Dorothea Pick, second in command at the bureau, was in her late forties. Kate thought she wore a little too much makeup and with her overarching eyebrows, appeared to be in a state of perpetual surprise, or anger. She had a lovely voice that dripped with Southern charm that bordered on condescension whenever she addressed Kate about her work.

“This is well written but it’s not a national news item.” Dorothea’s extension rang. She glanced at the number. “Hang on, I need to take this.” Into the phone, she said, “Where are you? Okay, what do you have? Yes, yes...but did it touch down?” After waiting for the answer, Dorothea glanced to Chuck Laneer’s glass-walled office. They could see him on the phone, standing at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, bifocals pushed atop his forehead and pointing a remote at his flat-screen TV. “I’m going to pass you to Chuck.”

Dorothea transferred the call and resumed her work with Kate’s story. Her mouse and keyboard clicked as she removed line after line.

“As you know, this tragedy was reported regionally, so at best this is an updated regional brief and regional briefs are one hundred words, maximum.” With surgical precision, she’d reduced Kate’s story to ninety-five words. “And, as we know, briefs don’t run with bylines.”

Kate watched Dorothea delete her name.

“There we go,” Dorothea said. “How’s that?”

“I don’t understand why this is not a story,” Kate said. “This man was a volunteer firefighter, an ex-Marine who’d done duty in Afghanistan. He stopped to help a woman who’d been visiting her dying husband in the hospital and paid for it with his life. The person responsible for killing him has so far gotten away with it.”

Dorothea nodded and smiled. “Sorry, it’s a traffic accident. Now you should get moving to the assignment I gave you.”

“The one about the meeting on city parks?”

“It concerns Dealey Plaza.”

“But there’s a severe storm approaching, possibly with tornadoes. Maybe I could help cover the outcome? The meeting doesn’t sound like hard news. I could pick it up later.”

“We’re fine with the storm. We need someone at the parks meeting.”

“But—” Kate shot glances at the news assistant monitoring the scanners and Chuck Laneer in his office on the phone “—I really think—”

“Are you refusing an assignment, Kate?”

“No, not at all.”

“Did you read the report on Dealey Plaza that I gave you?”

“Yes. But all it suggests is planting some trees.”

“You’re not from Texas, so you can be forgiven for not understanding that Dealey’s a national historic landmark. Anything concerning the plaza interests editors across the country. You’d better hurry along.”

Kate returned to her desk for her things.

Biting back her frustration, she pulled on her raincoat, unable to dismiss the niggling feeling that Dorothea was attempting to thwart her. In the past week she’d given the two other interns bigger stories that got major national play. It seemed Dorothea went out of her way to feed Kate scraps and soft news.

“Everybody stop what you’re doing!” Chuck’s voice boomed.

He stood in the doorway of his office holding a notebook in one hand and his glasses in the other. Thirty-nine hard years in news were written in the lines that creased his rugged face.