Ciji Ware Read Online Free Page B
Author: Midnight on Julia Street
folks’d figure you already knew .”
Chapter 2
December 21
Just after midnight Corlis stood on the carpeted ramp that led to the deserted newsroom and surveyed the rows of empty reporters’ desks and the news set beyond. The cavernous studio was shrouded in darkness, except for a few lights glowing in the assignment editor’s office, whose large picture window overlooked the open floor plan.
Fired!
Again!
Sensations of mild panic and bubbling rage boiled in her solar plexus as she stood holding in her arms a cardboard file box filled with the contents of her desk. She’d been in New Orleans for less than two months and already she’d been canned. Axed. Deep-sixed. Outplaced!
What is it with me? she wondered as moisture rimmed her eyes. Do I have some sort of Wage Earner Personality Disorder or something?
For a long moment she gazed around her and then she turned on her heel and fled the newsroom before the security guard arrested her for stealing her own laptop.
***
By the time she arrived at her brick row house on Julia Street, upriver from the French Quarter, the leaden weight that had pressed against her chest as she drove home had become an emotional volcano, poised to erupt. Fighting a lump in her throat the size of a praline, she trudged up the flight of stairs to her living quarters above the photographer’s gallery that fronted the deserted street. She balanced the cardboard carton full of her office possessions on one knee, while she opened the front door with her key and called out, “Cagney?”
She was startled by the shaky sound of her voice and distressed when her twenty-three-pound marmalade tomcat didn’t deign to appear in the foyer to greet her.
But then, Cagney Cat never came when called. It was a little game he played just to show her who was the boss on Julia Street. At times the feline’s red fur, slightly pugnacious attitude, and feisty independence prompted Corlis to think that the four-legged firebrand was the tough-guy actor, James Cagney… reincarnated.
Forlornly calling out to him one last time, Corlis walked down the hall and dumped the box on the desk in her home office. The small room had been the scullery and broom closet when the building was constructed in 1832, a time when most of the surrounding warehouses had yet to be built. Back then there had been plenty of servants available to scour and clean other people’s parlors. As of tonight, however, she couldn’t even afford her twice-a-month cleaning woman!
A long soak in a steaming bubble bath did nothing to soothe her soul, nor did the stiff shot of bourbon she downed from a Waterford crystal tumbler before crawling into bed. As she lay in the darkness, unable to sleep, listening to the late-night street noises up and down the old Warehouse District, Corlis had only one thought.
God almighty, what would Great-Aunt Marge say this time?
Would Aunt Marge, a celebrated reporter, consider tonight’s broadcast an example of heads-up journalism or another act of professional suicide? Had Corlis shot herself in the foot—again—or merely fired a volley on behalf of great reporting in a town that was too politically conservative and inbred to tolerate such an act of First Amendment freedom?
Everyone thinks I’m such a tough cookie, a chip off the old block. She reached for a tissue as tears began to spill down her cheeks. Well, I’m not!
It was nearly 10:30 p.m. in California. Struggling for composure, she turned on the bedside light. After a moment’s hesitation she reached for the phone beside her four-poster plantation bed that no man’s form had yet to grace. Margery McCullough’s number rang four times before her voice mail picked up. At eighty-eight years old, the self-described favorite “sob sister news hen” of the long-deceased newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst embraced all the latest electronic gadgets, including a laptop computer that she had purchased for herself when she bestowed a
Chapter 2
December 21
Just after midnight Corlis stood on the carpeted ramp that led to the deserted newsroom and surveyed the rows of empty reporters’ desks and the news set beyond. The cavernous studio was shrouded in darkness, except for a few lights glowing in the assignment editor’s office, whose large picture window overlooked the open floor plan.
Fired!
Again!
Sensations of mild panic and bubbling rage boiled in her solar plexus as she stood holding in her arms a cardboard file box filled with the contents of her desk. She’d been in New Orleans for less than two months and already she’d been canned. Axed. Deep-sixed. Outplaced!
What is it with me? she wondered as moisture rimmed her eyes. Do I have some sort of Wage Earner Personality Disorder or something?
For a long moment she gazed around her and then she turned on her heel and fled the newsroom before the security guard arrested her for stealing her own laptop.
***
By the time she arrived at her brick row house on Julia Street, upriver from the French Quarter, the leaden weight that had pressed against her chest as she drove home had become an emotional volcano, poised to erupt. Fighting a lump in her throat the size of a praline, she trudged up the flight of stairs to her living quarters above the photographer’s gallery that fronted the deserted street. She balanced the cardboard carton full of her office possessions on one knee, while she opened the front door with her key and called out, “Cagney?”
She was startled by the shaky sound of her voice and distressed when her twenty-three-pound marmalade tomcat didn’t deign to appear in the foyer to greet her.
But then, Cagney Cat never came when called. It was a little game he played just to show her who was the boss on Julia Street. At times the feline’s red fur, slightly pugnacious attitude, and feisty independence prompted Corlis to think that the four-legged firebrand was the tough-guy actor, James Cagney… reincarnated.
Forlornly calling out to him one last time, Corlis walked down the hall and dumped the box on the desk in her home office. The small room had been the scullery and broom closet when the building was constructed in 1832, a time when most of the surrounding warehouses had yet to be built. Back then there had been plenty of servants available to scour and clean other people’s parlors. As of tonight, however, she couldn’t even afford her twice-a-month cleaning woman!
A long soak in a steaming bubble bath did nothing to soothe her soul, nor did the stiff shot of bourbon she downed from a Waterford crystal tumbler before crawling into bed. As she lay in the darkness, unable to sleep, listening to the late-night street noises up and down the old Warehouse District, Corlis had only one thought.
God almighty, what would Great-Aunt Marge say this time?
Would Aunt Marge, a celebrated reporter, consider tonight’s broadcast an example of heads-up journalism or another act of professional suicide? Had Corlis shot herself in the foot—again—or merely fired a volley on behalf of great reporting in a town that was too politically conservative and inbred to tolerate such an act of First Amendment freedom?
Everyone thinks I’m such a tough cookie, a chip off the old block. She reached for a tissue as tears began to spill down her cheeks. Well, I’m not!
It was nearly 10:30 p.m. in California. Struggling for composure, she turned on the bedside light. After a moment’s hesitation she reached for the phone beside her four-poster plantation bed that no man’s form had yet to grace. Margery McCullough’s number rang four times before her voice mail picked up. At eighty-eight years old, the self-described favorite “sob sister news hen” of the long-deceased newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst embraced all the latest electronic gadgets, including a laptop computer that she had purchased for herself when she bestowed a
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