Some Meetings

HE WAS MANAGING EDITOR AT THE Tar Heel now, in charge of the other editors, scowling at them when they appeared likely to miss their page deadlines. Enjoying the force required of him, he found he had a knack for it, and could perform a convincing scowl when necessary. The job took up his weekdays from late afternoon until nine o’clock or so; he juggled it with his pasteup work, and with so many hours taken up by work, he was left with less time for brooding. The Tar Heel office looked a wreck with reporters hanging over their typewriters, yellow copy paper everywhere, desks jammed together, phones balanced precariously on stacks of old newswire stories, rolling chairs falling apart, some of them missing a caster. One day he saw Otis at the end of the line of desks; he was talking to the sports editor. Ronny threaded his way through the bodies and objects to say hello. He offered a handshake and grimaced at the way the big fellow squeezed his poor metacarpals. “There’s the guy I was hoping to see,” Otis said. “I took your advice.”

“He wants a writing job,” said the sports editor. She was dainty only in appearance and was very frankly eyeing Otis from head to toe. “Should I try him out?”

Ronny said, “Oh, sure. Otis is getting pretty good. We had a class in J-school together.”

“I’ll do anything,” said Otis. “Sports, I mean. Even the chess club.”

“Do we even have a chess club?” she asked.

“Otis and I put together a good article about Title IX for the long-form class,” said Ronny. “You already covered that a while back, though.”

“Yeah,” said the sports editor. “But we’ll figure something out.”

“Good deal. Make sure to get your page downstairs by the deadline. Later, Otis.”

Tempted, for a moment, to ask about Ben; but he packed the thought away.

His mother called on her wedding day, which surprised Ronny, because he thought the wedding had already happened. She had never mentioned this before when they talked but she had decided to wait to marry Rayford Placid. She and Ronny had been talking off and on, once she found out he had a phone. Sometimes when she called she reversed the charges. But it was all right. He had money now: two jobs, and his rent was cheap.

She told him about her honeymoon, which they had before the actual wedding. “Rayford took me to Las Vegas to one of the big hotels, and oh, Ronny. The lights were like stars and stars and stars, like a whole cloud of them.”

“Did you go gambling and stuff?”

“Oh, no, honey, I don’t waste my money. Ray wanted to but I told him what. You can bet I did.” Dragging on a cigarette, the small sharp puff.

“I can hear you smoking.”

“Please don’t worry me about that, I’m a newlywed.”

“Oh, Mama.”

“Just don’t start, is all. Are you doing all right? Your daddy said he called you.”