Gone to Green Read Online Free PDF Page A

cry.
     
     
     

     
     
     
    I pulled out of my garage at 10:45 a.m. on New Year's Eve, my car loaded down with everything I hadn’t entrusted to the movers. My belongings had been put into a big load with two other families’ precious things, to be dropped off at some undetermined time. I hoped I would see my stuff again and that my green pottery collection wouldn’t be unloaded at the Smith family home in Peoria. I also hoped I wasn’t making the worst mistake of my life.
     
    An odd, fast-motion account of my adult life unwound in my mind as I drove out of Dayton. I wondered yet again what Ed had been thinking when he wrote my name in his will on the same line as the The Green News-Item.
     
    Pulling into Green in the middle of the next afternoon, with the official newspaper meeting fast approaching, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
     
    “The quaint lakeside town I had pictured does not exist,” I said to Marti, during an SOS call from the car. “Obviously, whoever did the Chamber's Web site is a master at good lighting and interesting angles and hyperbole.”
     
    “Maybe you can hire them for the paper,” she said, trying to sound supportive. I could hear the sounds of a football game in the background and remembered she had invited a few of our friends over.
     
    “The outskirts of town look like an ad for fast-food franchises and stores where everything costs a dollar. It's horrible. What have I done? I want to go home.”
     
    “Lois Barker, you’ll be fine. You always are. Now, pull yourself together. Call me back later when you know more. I’m having a terrible time hearing you.”
     
    Desperate to find a real neighborhood, I turned down a small side street with potholes big enough to suck up my car. Several overturned garbage cans spilled out a week's worth of trash on the sidewalks, and candy wrappers and soft drink cans littered the front yards of the small, shabby houses.
     
    I had imagined driving into a sweet town with children dressed in colorful sweaters riding their bikes. Instead, junk cars rusted in front yards, and upholstered furniture decorated more than one porch. The area looked like something out of a Third-World country. Only a few houses were halfway neat and adorned with old tires, cut and painted white to make flowerbeds.
     
    People stared at me, and I stared back. I resisted the urge to roll down my window and explain that I was the new owner of the paper. My urgent need to get out of that place surpassed the desire to interact.
     
    After a couple of wrong turns, I did a stealth drive-by of the newspaper building. It had a sort of noble, forlorn look, with one battered pickup parked in the lot. I squinted and saw that it had “News-Item, No. 1” painted on it.
     
    Downtown was deserted except for a teen-age girl who lounged on a bench outside the paper, smoking a cigarette. The small surge of pride I had felt at surveying my domain was sullied by worries about how to deal with stray people who hung around the loading dock.
     
    The area near the paper included a barbershop with a sign that read “Jesus Saves”; a Ford dealership, proudly proclaiming itself the smallest in the South; an antique mall, advertising booths for rent; and a small local department store. I already knew the store and car dealership were important in my life. Iris Jo had told me over the phone that they were among the biggest advertisers in the paper, and both were owned by one of the richest families in town.
     
    Right on the dot of four o’clock, I knocked on the front door of my inheritance for someone to let me in. A trim woman, about my age and dressed in blue jeans and a fleece pullover, opened the door.
     
    “Lois?” she asked in a soft southern voice. “Welcome. I’m Iris Jo. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you in person. Follow me, please.” I was momentarily astonished. The way she spoke on the phone, I had expected a woman in her sixties.
     
    She led me into a