“Did Graydon tell you anything?” Josh demanded. “Did they fire him? Mia’s place is hiring and if we end up with another director anything like Stephen, I’m out of here.”

Slowly, I sat in my chair. I needed to reassure everyone that things would work out, no matter what. But how could I do that when I had no idea what was going on?

“I know the board met this morning to discuss a personnel matter,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

“That’s all anyone knows,” Holly said. “You need to find out for us, Minnie. Everyone’s . . . we’re all terrified they’re firing him. Denise has been out for his blood for weeks, and you know that she’s good friends with half the people on the board.”

I nodded. That had been my fear, too. “I’ll go up and talk to him,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean he’ll tell me anything.” Or that if he did, I’d be able to share it with the rest of the staff. He might only tell me in confidence and I couldn’t break my word on something like that.

Josh, who rarely asked for anything, glowered at me. “But you’ll try. Right?”

Of course I would. I got up and went to the door. “On my way.”

When I got upstairs and poked my head in his office, Graydon was talking on the phone, his voice low and his face serious. He saw me, paused, put his index finger up, indicating that he’d be done in a minute, and turned away, still talking quietly.

Not wanting to intrude, I went back downstairs, assuming that he’d give me a call when he was done.

But he never did.

*   *   *

Over the weekend, I’d managed to persuade Rafe that, if I came up with a plan to reunite Ash and Chelsea that (1) wouldn’t be anything that would show up on the front page of the paper and cause one or both of us to lose our jobs, and (2) didn’t involve too much effort on his part, he’d join me in carrying out the plan.

I’d decided on a two-pronged strategy. We’d talk to Ash first, then Chelsea, same night in two different locations. Ash was easier, because he’d been on the same bowling league for years, and it should be easy enough to pull him aside between games. Chelsea was a little harder to figure out, because we didn’t know her nearly as well, but I finally came up with a plan that didn’t involve Rafe at all, which pleased him so much that he started whistling as we walked to the bowling alley.

Over our clasped hands, I squinted up at him. “That’s from a musical, isn’t it?”