Carolyne Aarsen - A Heart's Refuge

The harsh click in her ear told Becky how soothing her words had been.

Becky shoved her hands through her hair and grabbed the back of her neck. It felt as tight as a guitar string.

And in five minutes she had to face Rick Ethier.

She wondered if she had time to run across the street and grab a bite to eat. Better not. Instead she pulled open her desk drawer and pulled out the grease-stained bag. She shook out the rest of the muffin into her hand and popped it into her mouth. Two days old, but it was a much-needed snack.

She gathered up her papers and slipped them all into her portfolio, along with her Day-Timer. A paper covered with scribbles fluttered to the floor and she bent to pick it up. Notes for her most recent book.

Since Rick had come, she hadn’t had a spare minute to work on it. And if the past few days were any indication of the work Rick required to change the magazine’s direction, she wouldn’t have any time until Rick left.

In twelve months.

Dear Lord, am I ever going to get anywhere with my writing? The prayer was a cry of despair. She looked over at her crowded bookshelf. Her own book sat tucked away amongst all the others. But one book does not a career make, and if she wanted to live her dream, she needed at the least a multibook contract.

All her life she had wanted to be a fiction writer. But she had loans to repay and she had to live. So she took the job her father offered and for three years she had poured her heart and soul into that first book in her infrequent spare time.

When she received the call that this, her first book, had been bought, she broke down and cried like a baby. Then she celebrated.

Though her parents were overjoyed for her, her mother had given her the best advice. Advice, she was sure, countless other authors had received.

“Don’t quit your day job.”

So she stayed on with Going West, editing and writing nonfiction during the day, writing fiction in the evening, begrudging each minute away from her work as she put together her next book.

Then came Rick’s review, the sales figures just behind that, and her publisher started stalling on a contract for her option book. And now she didn’t have the time to work on it.

Becky pushed herself away from her desk. Enough wallowing. She had other things to discuss with Rick.

Such as maintaining her “day job.”

Becky strode down the hallway to Rick’s office but was stopped when she faced the closed door. One of the many changes that had swept through this office since Rick took over. She knocked lightly.

“Come in.”

To her surprise, Rick wasn’t elbow-deep in the computer printouts that dominated his desk, but instead stood by the window, looking out over the town to the mountains beyond.

“I love the view from this office,” Becky said with forced cheer. She was going to be nice. Going to be a good example of Christian love. “Though it always makes me want to quit what I’m doing and head out to the mountains.”

Rick shrugged. “I suppose it could, if you were the impulsive type.”

In spite of her good intentions Becky felt her back bristle.

Nice. Nice. I’m going to be nice.

“So what did you want to discuss today?” she asked, sitting in her usual chair in one corner of Nelson’s office.

She wanted to give him a chance to talk before she brought up her own grievances.

“I’ve been working on clearing up the deadwood.” Rick dropped into his chair, massaging his temple with his forefinger. “This magazine is practically in the Dark Ages.”

“Considering that we don’t use a Gutenberg press to put out the paper, that seems a bit extreme,” Becky said, tempering her comment with a smile.

Rick gave her a level glance but Becky held her ground. She had promised to be nice, but he didn’t need to be so cutting.

“Just because Going West has a glossy cover doesn’t mean it’s keeping up.” Rick pushed himself ahead, pulling a pencil out of the holder on a now-tidy desk. “We’ve got to move forward.”

“From the phone calls I’ve been getting, that means leaving behind people like Gladys Hemple and Alanna Thompson.”

Rick shrugged again. “Alanna was a terrible writer. Overly emotional and bombastic. Gladys, an anachronism.”

“I would think that would be my call to make.” Her words came out clipped. Tight.

“Would you have cut them?”

Becky held his gaze, trying to distance himself from the harshness of Rick’s words, so close to what he had said about her own writing.

“I don’t know. I guess it would have depended on this ‘vision’ we are going to talk about right now.”

“They don’t fit. I would have told you to cut them anyhow.”

Becky held his gaze, realizing that she was dealing with a far different sort of publisher than Nelson and his easygoing approach.

“And who or what are we going to replace them with?”

“I’ve got a guy lined up to do a weekly column. Gavin Stoddard.”

Becky struggled to keep smiling. To stay positive as her brain scrambled for words that weren’t confrontational. “Gavin has a rather cynical take on Okotoks. What would he do a column on?”

“He’s on the local chamber of commerce. He has a thriving business in an area that’s expanding. He’s exactly the kind of person that can give some helpful advice to other businesses.”

“So that’s your focus? Business?”

Rick leaned forward. “In order to increase advertising revenue, we have to make the magazine appealing to the business sector of our readership.”

“But more ads means fewer features. That would make it…” She stopped just short of saying “boring.” Too confrontational.

“Make it what?”

She waved the comment aside. “I would like to get back to Alanna and Gladys. Please let me know before you do something like that again, so we can discuss this together.” She held her ground, knowing that she was right. “It makes my job difficult otherwise. I’m still editor and I prefer that we work together.”

Rick swayed in his chair, his finely shaped mouth curved into a humorless smile. “Do you think that can happen?” he asked.

Becky accepted the challenge in his gaze even as she thought of the book she couldn’t finish. She needed this job for now, but she wasn’t going to get pushed around.

“I think it can. As long as we keep talking.”

But even as she spoke the words, Becky realized he had been right about one thing that he had said earlier.

Twelve months was going to be far too long.

The day had disappeared, Rick thought, looking up at the darkening sky with a flash of regret.

This morning, when he came to the office, the sun was a shimmer of light in the east, the dark diminishing in the west. Now the bright orange globe hovered over the western horizon. In the east, the dark was now gaining.

While he was tied to his desk, dealing with reluctant employees, courting new advertisers, wrestling with his editor over the new plan for this magazine, the sun had stolen across the sky and he had lost an entire day.

Glowering, he walked to his vehicle, a battered and rusty Jeep. He patted its dented hood, as if commiserating with it. “Only eleven months and twenty days to go,” he murmured, “and we can be on the road again. Outside during the day, the way we should be.” He glanced around once more. The town looked complacent this time of evening. Most people were, he was sure, sitting at the dinner table, eating with their families.

Domestic bliss.

An oxymoron as far as he was concerned. When he and his mother lived with Colson, all he remembered of domesticity were large cold rooms that echoed as he walked to the wing of the house that his grandfather had set aside for Rick and his mother. He remembered sad music and the sounds of his mother’s muffled crying.