Mary McBride - The Magnate's Takeover - The Magnate's Takeover

“Well, perhaps it’s time to settle down, boss. Or at least to think about it.”

The kid rarely, if ever, made personal observations or remarks. A few days ago such comments might’ve earned him a dark, scathing look and a swift verbal reprimand. Today, however, David felt much too mellow and too downright happy to do anything but say, “Maybe you’re right, kid. Maybe you’re right.”

Now, after a few hours of sleep, he felt somewhat restored, but that little thread of giddiness and gladness was still there inside him. Instead of his habitual Grinch demeanor, he felt almost like a little boy on Christmas morning, and that was some kind of first, he decided, because even when he was a little boy, there wasn’t much giddiness or gladness in him. None, if truth be told.

“Libby, Libby,” he muttered into the mirror while he shaved. “What the hell are you doing to me?”

After he showered and dressed, he punched her number into his cell phone. She’d written it down for him before leaving, but now he couldn’t remember if it was her cell or the front desk at the crummy motel. Either way, there was no answer, which made him feel a little sad and lost for a moment, until feeling sad and lost made him feel like a real jerk.

So, he proceeded to call the Halstrom home office in Corpus Christi. Surely there would be somebody there he could yell at in order to drive this sappiness out of his system.

Once Libby and Doug were downtown, she asked him if he’d mind if they stopped at the newspaper’s office for a minute so she could drop off some film for developing. Leave of absence or not, she’d become incredibly spoiled by the paper’s freebies. Most newspapers had gone completely digital these days, but the St. Louis paper, out of nostalgia perhaps or pure laziness, still maintained a small, cramped and cobwebby darkroom.

Inside the building, she didn’t want to waste time so she tried hard to avoid people she knew—and there were so many of them—as she made her way to the northwest corner of the third floor where her good pal, Hannah Corson, was on duty, looking harried and hassled as always. Libby plucked several film cans from her handbag.

“Can you run these for me, Hannah? No rush, but it’d be wonderful to have the prints in two or three days.”

“Sure. No problem.” Hannah took the film cans and promptly stashed them on a shelf in a little metal box labeled “To Do.” “So, it’s good to see you, Libby. How’s everything going out at the Weary Traveler?”

Libby couldn’t help but laugh. Her coworkers must’ve come up with a few hundred alternate names for the Haven View in the past decade, most of them rather risqué if not downright X-rated. A few brave souls had even come out to spend the night in one of the little cabins, and although they all claimed to have enjoyed the experience, she noticed nobody ever made a return engagement.

“Everything’s going great,” she said, surprised that she actually meant it.

“How ‘bout hanging around and having lunch with me?”

“Thanks, Hannah, but Doug’s waiting for me downstairs.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll give you a call when your prints are ready. Probably day after tomorrow. I’m backed up here for the Sunday edition. You know how it is. I miss your nice, crisp black-and-white shots, Libby.”

Already at the door on her way out, Libby blew her a kiss. “Thanks, Hannah. I owe you. Again.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody owes me,” the woman grumbled. “I really should change my name to Hannah Kodak, I guess.”

When she got back to the street, Doug had moved to the driver’s seat of her ancient minivan. “Hop in, Libby,” he said, starting the engine. “Come on. Shake a leg. We’re already ten minutes late.”

She hopped in, and immediately reached for the seat belt to yank it across herself and fasten it tight. Doug had always been a very creative driver, and now that he was in his late seventies, he didn’t seem to feel the rules of the road applied to him personally. She held her breath as they whizzed three blocks north and then two blocks west to the Heaven’s Gate facility.

For all the time Libby had spent at the newspaper’s office these past years, she rarely visited the adjacent area to the north. Little wonder, because there wasn’t much there except crumbling, boarded-up buildings and vacant lots filled with weeds and every kind of trash imaginable. Ever since finishing her book about down-and-out motels, she’d been hoping to be struck by an idea for another book.

It occurred to her now that there was a strange, haunting, even terrible beauty in all this urban decay. There was a burned-out church on a corner that almost seemed to be begging her for a series of photographs. Libby filed the notion in the back of her brain, hoping that once the repairs were accomplished at the motor court, she’d have time to pursue the concept.

Doug whipped the minivan into a small gravel parking lot, hit the brakes and skidded to a stop, then turned off the engine. “Here we are, Libby, my girl. Let’s go. We don’t want to keep Father James waiting all afternoon. He’s a very busy guy.”

As she climbed out of the vehicle, she remembered to check her cell phone for messages. Good grief. There were a half-dozen calls, all of them from David. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered or alarmed. Well, emergency or not, he’d simply have to wait until she met with Father James. The fate of the Haven View seemed to be hanging in the balance of this quickly arranged meeting. She couldn’t allow anything to distract her.

Not even David.

After their meeting and a brief tour of Heaven’s Gate, Father James walked Libby and Doug out to the parking lot. The priest had listened intently to their proposal and seemed to be fascinated by it even though the fine points hadn’t been worked out yet. In all honesty, the plan was barely past the light bulb over the head stage, but Libby and Doug had been eager and enthusiastic in their presentation, if not burdened by the details. Obviously the fifty thousand dollars provided Father James with more than a little incentive to take it under consideration.

“I’ll present it to my board of directors when we meet early next week,” he told them. “And I expect they’ll be equally intrigued and enthusiastic.”

Libby tried hard to hide her disappointment at the delay. “I don’t suppose you could do it any sooner.”

He gave her a patient, practically angelic smile, one he must’ve used a hundred or more times a day in this facility, and then he shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“That’s plenty soon,” Doug said. “And remember, both of you, we still have to present this plan to Elizabeth, and Lord only knows—pardon me, Father—how she’ll respond. She can be downright cranky and stubborn as all get-out sometimes.”

Libby rolled her eyes.

Father James gazed heavenward a moment, then said, “Well, I’ve been known to get cranky and stubborn myself. If this is meant to be, my friends, it will happen. Perhaps we should simply leave it at that for the time being.”

Easier said than done, Libby thought on the drive home. It wasn’t going to be so easy for her to put the brakes on her big plan, even if only until next week. Now which one of them was going to make a heartfelt presentation to Aunt Elizabeth, she wondered.

Afternoon westbound traffic was fairly light, so she used her right hand to flip open her cell phone which now registered two additional calls, both of them from David. Libby couldn’t help but smile. Persistent fellow, her handsome architect, wasn’t he? And, oh my, she thought, how she adored it.

Doug pointed to her phone. “That wouldn’t be your new suitor, would it, Libby?”