Her mouth pruned. “If we don’t resolve this now, I won’t be coming in tomorrow.”
Instead of reaching for his action figure of Luke Skywalker and imagining the Jedi knight drawing his light saber and blasting the superior smirk off Rhoda’s face, Flynn sat back.
The time had come, he decided, to do the blasting himself.
“Okay. First, I’m going to tell you I’m tired of you threatening to walk. If you’re not happy here, not happy with the way I run the paper, then go.”
She flushed scarlet. “Your mother never—”
“I’m not my mother. Deal. I run the Dispatch. I’ve been running it for nearly four years now, and I intend to run it for a long time. Get used to it.”
Now her eyes filled, and since Flynn considered tears fighting dirty, he struggled to ignore them. “Anything else?” he asked coolly.
“I’ve been working here since before you could read the damn paper.”
“Which may be our problem. It suited you better when my mother was in charge. Now it suits you better to continue to think of me as a temporary annoyance, and an incompetent one at that.”
Rhoda’s mouth dropped open in what appeared to be sincere shock. “I don’t think you’re incompetent. I just think—”
“That I should stay out of your work.” The genial tone was back in his voice, but his expression remained frigid. “That I should do what you tell me instead of the other way around. That’s not going to happen.”
“If you don’t think I do good work, then—”
“Sit down,” he ordered as she started to rise. He knew the drill. She would storm out, slam things around, glare at him through the glass, then make sure her next piece slid in only minutes before deadline.
“It so happens I think you do good work. Not that it matters a hell of a lot coming from me because you don’t have any confidence in or respect for my skill or my authority. I guess that makes it tough for you because you’re a journalist, we’re the only game in town, and I’m in charge. I don’t see any of those factors changing. Next time I ask for twelve inches, give me a solid twelve and we won’t have a problem.” He tapped the tip of his pencil against the desk while she gaped at him.
Perry White, he mused, might’ve handled it better, but he figured he was in the ballpark. “Anything else?”
“I’m going to take the rest of the day off.”
“No, you’re not.” He swiveled back to his keyboard. “Have that piece on the elementary school expansion on my desk by two. Close the door on your way out.”
Flynn went back to typing, pleased when he heard the door click closed instead of slam. He waited thirty seconds, then shifted in his chair enough to look through the glass wall. Rhoda was sitting at her desk as if paralyzed.
He hated confrontations like that. The woman used to sneak him gumdrops when he would come into the offices after school. It was hell, he decided, rubbing his temple and pretending to concentrate on his work. Just hell being a grown-up.
HE escaped for an hour in the afternoon to meet Brad and Jordan at the Main Street Diner. It hadn’t changed much since the three of them had gathered there regularly after football games or for late-night bullshit sessions that had revolved around girls and life plans.
The air was still ripe with the smell of the diner’s signature chicken-fried steak, and the counter still held a four-tiered display rack of that day’s pies. As Flynn looked down at the burger he’d ordered out of habit, he wondered if it was the diner that had gotten stuck in the past, or himself.
He frowned at Brad’s club sandwich. “Trade me.”
“You want my sandwich?”
“I want your sandwich. Trade me.” To solve the matter, Flynn switched the plates himself.
“If you didn’t want a burger, why’d you order one?”
“Because. I’m a victim of habit and tradition.”
“And eating my sandwich is going to solve that?”
“It’s a start. I also started breaking habit by reaming Rhoda out at the paper this morning
. Once she comes out of shock, I’m pretty sure she’ll start planning my demise.”
“How come you wanted his sandwich instead of mine?” Jordan asked.