Love That For Me by Abby Knox

 

ChapterOne

Jessica

Yesterday’s interviewleft me in a sour mood.

Then, the overdue notice on my apartment door turned my mood from sour to downright ornery. I know my rent’s late. Also, my car is in the shop, and my student loan payment is in default. As my grandmother would say, I have to rob Peter to pay Paul, but Peter’s pockets are emptier than my cheese drawer.

I’m always grumpiest in the days leading up to payday.

At least the sun is shining in the big Montana sky, and I’m caffeinated thanks to a free coffee from Nate, the barista who’s dating my coworker. And I may not be able to drive to work due to a bum transmission, but I’m walking to the office with my favorite people. We all have our moments.

“So let me get this straight,” I say as my coworkers and I stop and stare yet again at the dilapidated downtown movie theater. “A billionaire tech geek can get permission to build an enormous, soulless hub here that he’ll probably abandon in twenty years, yet the coolest building in town is left to rot because there’s no money to fix it up. Make it make sense.”

“Sounds like a juicy angle for your story.” Meredith steps off the sidewalk and into the shade of the marquee advertising Jurassic Park.

More accurately, the marquee advertised Jurassic Park over 30 years ago. Since then, the letters have been comically rearranged by unknown pranksters. According to locals, the mysterious miscreants ran out of ideas about a decade back, and the sad marquee has spent the last ten years urging folks to come in and see something called “Arss Pick.”

Weird that the town just left it like that.

I sigh. “Sure. The perfect story angle to give Donna hives.”

I know I’m behaving like a baby. My first interview with tech guru Alex Martin left me irked.

The oh-so-precious genius agreed to speak to me after his handlers put me through more hoops than the people who approved my one-time White House press pass.

When I’d finally gotten Alex Martin on the horn, he spoke to me for all of three minutes.

First, he’d wasted thirty seconds of the interview apologizing for not being good at interviews, even though he’s given dozens, if not hundreds of them. That aw-shucks-ness might work with the average female T.V. reporter. But not this bitch.

Then, he’d wasted even more time flirting with me. This may be out of line, but you have a very soothing phone voice, Jessica.

Please.

I’d popped off one question from my list of nineteen.

What sort of incentives did you get to build here?

Mr. Martin then spent what remained of the interview babbling in tech-speak about servers and things no one understands. By the time he took a breath, one of his crew had cut me off, saying he was needed elsewhere.

Clueless. Tacky. Out of touch.

Though, Mr. Martin did have a sultry phone voice, one he cut out that phony awkward shit. I’ll give him that.

Doesn’t matter. It was a terrible interview, and the bottom line is I blew it, and I might never get that chance again. Martin FutureTech will build its servers and satellite campus on the outskirts of town, but the man himself would never deign to show up here. Certainly not for a cheesy small-town groundbreaking ceremony.

Franny, our crime reporter, sniffs. “Donna’s old-school,” she says, stepping past the barricade and toying with the flimsy one-by-two boarding up the front entrance to the theater building. “She should be all over our butts to find out what the mayor promised ol’ Alex Martin to seal the deal.”

Franny’s not wrong. Donna should be all over this angle, yes. Our editor loves us to dig up dirt on the rich and famous.

However, Alex Martin, billionaire that he is, is single-handedly keeping the Darling Creek Daily News afloat. Donna might have a problem with a story that could put an advertiser in a negative light.

I hope not, though. I am curious about what perks the town leaders dangled in front of Alex Martin. This man is putting our tiny ranching town on the map, and I want to know why he picked it.

“I’ll just bet he’s got ideas to build a crypto mine in the mountains or something worse,” Franny says, testing out how much of her torso can fit in the gap.

“God, I hope not,” I say, wincing. I love this town, love the scenery, the peace and quiet. It’s been good for me. If Alex Martin starts fucking around with our serenity, I’ll scream. However, that’s just Franny postulating with nothing to base that on.

Meredith touches a hand to her stomach and looks wary. She’s doing that absentminded stomach-touching thing a lot now that she’s beginning to show. “The wood is there for a reason, Franny,” Meredith warns. “Let’s not mess with it.”

I agree. “The building is a hazard,” I say.

“Then it needs better security,” Franny counters, jiggling the board.

Holmes, our sports reporter, usually doesn’t tag along on our morning coffee runs, but today he’s here for…some reason. From the looks of it, his mission is to glare at Franny.

I can’t blame Franny for her curiosity. It’s a beautiful old building.

“I don’t think I can fit,” Franny says. “Meredith, come on over here. You’re teeny.”

I scoff. “Sure, send the pregnant lady into the dangerous, abandoned building,” I say sarcastically.

Meredith laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m not going in there.”

At least we’re all here together in case Franny gets herself into trouble.

The three of us watch Franny as she gives up on the boarded-up doors and instead wipes the grime off the glass-windowed ticket booth with the elbow of her coat. “Maybe there’s something in there we could use to pry it open.”

“Hey, crime junkie, that’s called breaking and entering.”

Meredith and I suffer whiplash from turning to look at Holmes so fast, both of us surprised to hear actual words come out of the reticent lone male reporter.

“He’s right,” I say to Franny.

“You guys are no fun,” she grumbles.

I sigh. It would be nice to see this place cleaned up at some point. “The paper has archival photos of this theater packed to the gills back in the 1940s. Can you imagine? The velvet seats…the old romantic movies….”

Franny mutters and dusts off her coat. “Guys, there could be a drug den or dead bodies in there. Do the cops even check on it?”

I draw my lips into my mouth, stifling a snort. A subtle elbow to my side tells me Meredith is also on the verge of laughing.

“Drug dens and serial killers are probably not the threat here as much as black mold and mice infestations. But go on and get hantavirus if you want,” I say.

“Lead. Asbestos.” Holmes is back to blurting out nouns while not-so-subtly going around Franny to block the entrance with his body. Good man.

Despite the lack of verbs, I know what he’s getting at. “And you wanted the pregnant lady to go in there?” I ask.

Franny shakes her head. “No, not anymore.”

“Good,” I say.

“I’ll come back later with my favorite crowbar to get my story.”

“Have to work. Can we go now?” Holmes mutters. Does he not realize he can leave us behind whenever he wants?

Meredith and I glance at each other. “Favorite crowbar?” Meredith mouths as we make our way back to the office.

“That implies she has multiple crowbars,” I whisper as we walk side by side.

Meredith snickers.

When we arrive at the newspaper office, a stretch SUV limousine is parked out front along the street.

My stomach lurches. That’s an unusual site for our sleepy little town. It couldn’t be Alex Martin, could it?