The Hands of a Woman by Traci Tyne Hilton

Author:Traci Tyne Hilton [Hilton, Traci Tyne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Proverbs 31 House

Chapter Seventeen

Red was waiting for me outside the “Good News Club.” Voices murmured behind the closed door. I wanted to poke my head in and get a whiff of the dying world of journalism, but we had an agenda.

“I’m glad you could come.” Red offered me his hand. “Let’s head upstairs to my office. I would have just told you which room it was, but this is my first day on the job, and I didn’t know.”

“They didn’t just give you Bruce’s office?”

“They did, but I wasn’t sure they were going to.”

We went up the flight of stairs and into room 213.

Though the room had only been Bruce’s part-time office, it was filled with memorabilia, trinkets, books, notices, and all manner of signs of life. You could tell it was a room he had liked being in. I could have sworn it still smelled like his aftershave. The blinds were drawn, and the room was lit by the flickering overhead fluorescent bulbs, a nervous kind of light for a nervous meeting.

The walls were covered in maps of the Middle East, and old newspaper clippings. Some headlines were famous, and some were from his old paper, The Bulletin. Red took the desk chair while I scanned the walls.

“Who went to the hospital on Saturday?” I turned from the wall of clippings back to Red.

“Ramona Fountain.”

“Ramona’s not all that common a name.”

“I’m glad you remembered.”

“I’ve heard she’s the girl who quit Bruce’s discipleship group last year.”

“Yes.”

“She wanted to talk to me at the funeral, but I didn’t have a chance to do it. What happened to her?”

“Last year or when you were here visiting?” He heaved a sigh which reminded me a good deal of Bruce. I settled into a chair opposite him, ready for a long chat.

“Last year she decided the group wasn’t for her. Lots of reasons. They made sense to me.”

“How did Bruce and Vivian handle that?”

“Bruce always grieves when someone leaves. He takes it as a critique—took it as a critique—of his ability. Vivian was pretty hard on her. Gave her a lecture you wouldn’t want to hear. How this would be a black mark on her resume. Good organizations wouldn’t want to hire a quitter. Stuff like that. Ramona took it like a champ. I was impressed.”

“Was she a student here then, too?”

“Yup. She’s a junior here. She’s the kind of girl who likes a challenge.”

“But that one was too much.”

“It wasn’t too hard. Just insulting. I don’t know how any woman would want to stay in it. Britt should have left with the other two. Might have saved her sanity.”

“So, what happened to Ramona?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. The journalism students went to see her the next morning, but she was out cold.”

“Like in a coma?”

“The docs said no, but she was hard asleep. Not waking up for anything.”

“But what happened? How did she end up there?”

“She passed out. This is my first day taking over for Bruce, so I don’t know what’s been going on around here.

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