Sweet Dreams, Irene Read Online Free PDF Page B

glee out of my voice. “You’ve obviously got a hot date or something. I’ll ask Lydia to put one of the more experienced general assignment people on it.”
    “No—please. I’ll go. I’m sorry—I’ll cancel my other plans. Thanks for giving this to me.”
    Maybe she would last a week, I thought. “No problem. Try to read up on the candidates before you get there.”
    “I’ve been reading all of your stories—I clip them out.”
    “What?”
    She looked sheepish. “Like I said, I admire you. I’ve clipped out all your stories since you came back to the paper. I used to read your columns when I was in high school and college. Then you left the paper. When you came back, I didn’t know how long you were going to stay, so I started clipping them. You know, starting with the ones you did on Mr. O’Connor.”
    I must confess I was flabbergasted. And embarrassed. And, yes—well, flattered. “Really?” I managed to choke out.
    “Really.” God, she looked so sincere, I wanted to believe her. But I thought about what was going on with Wrigley and fell back to earth.
    “Well, you still need to reread anything you’ve read about local politics—any story by anyone.”
    “Okay.”
    “Take this flyer. And let John know if you can’t make it for some reason—he may want to send someone else.” That was baloney, of course. This meeting was only one of a hundred, and whatever would be said tonight would be repeated at ten or twenty other meetings this week. The candidates were running around to every civic group they could get their hands on. Oh sure, they’d tailor tonight’s speeches along the more liberal side, to fit the coalition. Tomorrow, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting, they’d tailor to the more conservative side. If she was serious, seeing them in each camp would provide good experience.
    Before she left my desk, I told her about the VFW meeting and she noted the time and place. She thanked me again and I waved it off. I was going to be furious with myself if I started trusting all of her gratitude and flattery at face value. I reminded myself again that she had been crawling into Wrigley’s bed to get what she wanted. I shivered and went back to work on my pile of papers.
    Afternoon rolled around and I called Casa de Esperanza to make sure there wouldn’t be any problem meeting there with Sammy and Jacob. The woman who answered wavered a bit, even though I told her I wasn’t planning on writing anything about the shelter. She wasn’t moved to commitment by my saying I had once worked at the shelter, either. Finally, I dropped Mrs. Fremont’s name as a reference and doors opened—suddenly I was a welcomed guest. “Mrs. Fremont should be here any time now,” the woman said brightly. I thanked her and told her I would be there in about twenty minutes.
    I tidied up a few things, still feeling like it was unnatural for this desk to be so clean—O’Connor had always covered it in mountains of loose papers. As I made my way out to my car, I was concerned about going into this meeting without having spent at least a little time trying to get some background on witchcraft or on any previous news of local cults. Hadn’t I just given Stacee a big speech on being prepared?
    And all I knew about witches came from a little background on what went on in Salem three hundred years ago and a few episodes of Bewitched.
    “Eye of newt and toe of frog; Wool of bat and tongue of dog,” I mumbled, drawing a look of apprehension from a passer-by. I doubted the incantations from Macbeth were going to be of any help either.
    Oh well, I thought, climbing into my car, I’d just have to keep in mind that I was meeting with Sammy to confirm Jacob’s purpose for being at a certain gathering—a political story. Not a witchcraft story.
    I left the parking lot with those good intentions. By the end of the day, I would be wondering if I was on that famous road that is paved with good intentions.

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    I GOT TO C