Caught Redhanded by Gayle Roper

told anybody but Curt and I knew he wouldn’t talk about my job offer, especially with the topic so tender and unresoloved between us.
    “If you’re going to argue about something with Curt, don’t do it in public,” Jolene said, pointing one of her lethal nails at me. “Astrid is the town crier.”
    In that moment, Pittsburgh’s siren call sang incredibly sweetly. A large city where no one knew my name. A large city where Curt and I could slug it out in one of the shops in the Strip and people would barely blink. Here in Amhearst I might as well be living in a glass house.
    I sniffed, sat down and activated my computer. “Mac, go edit something and leave me alone. Jo, go water your plants. They look dry. Edie, go write about some great Chester County house or some wonderful, quirky Chester County resident. If and when there’s anything any of you need to know, I’ll tell you.”
    I began typing furiously. Not that anything I was writing made sense. I might as well have been typing the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.
    The phone rang and I answered to find Tug Mercer on the line.
    “I’ve contacted several of the people that Good Hands helped and they’re looking forward to talking to you. In fact, if you’re free tomorrow afternoon, Bailey can go with you to introduce you.”
    No wonder Good Hands had accomplished so much if Tug was always this on top of things. “Tomorrow sounds fine. One-thirty?”
    When I hung up, I found I had also calmed down. I looked surreptitiously at my three coworkers, all carefully ignoring me. When Curt and I moved to Pittsburgh, I’d miss them. A lot. They had become good friends. No, they had become more, woven into the everyday fabric of my life in a way that made me feel cared for and appreciated, the threads of our lives woof and weft one to the other. Yes, I would miss them even if I wouldn’t miss Astrid.
    I sighed. Lord, let’s get this over with quickly, okay? Pittsburgh, okay?

TEN
    I left the newsroom just after 4:20 to walk to the old building down the street from The News for my interview with Tony Compton. As I exited, I smiled sweetly at everyone and said not a word. Jolene and Edie smiled sweetly back, something that was unnerving coming from the acerbic Jo. Mac just glowered.
    They cared that I would probably be moving. I walked with a spring in my step; I really was going to miss them. I was.
    I smelled the fumes in the old building before I noticed the clean look of the newly painted hallways. The building had always been clean and well kept, but brown walls a shade just this side of mud had made it depressing. Now it welcomed me.
    Halfway up the inner stairs to the offices of Grassley, Jordan and McGilpin, I met Mr. Weldon, the custodian, coming down, a ladder taller than he in his hands.
    He stopped and smiled at me. “Merry! What a wonderful delight.”
    I grinned at him. Mr. Weldon played in the bell choir at church with me and he loved it just as I did. I should say he played a bell. He and his wife shared high C and D.
    “I don’t trust myself to play two,” he always said. “Too hard what with flats and sharps and all. But one I can manage. And Mother wants me to be happy and play, so she takes the other.” And the Weldons would smile at each other. I got a kick out of their eccentricity and delight out of their affection for each other.
    Mrs. Weldon always reminded me of Barbara Bush, aging without self-consciousness, taking the wrinkles and gray hair as just a part of life. Mr. Weldon was a plump man of indeterminate years with graying hair that curled no matter how short he cut it.
    “I’d shave it all off,” he told me one night after bell practice, “but Mother likes to run her fingers through it.” He sighed, then grinned. “Ain’t life tough?”
    I’d laughed all the way home.
    Now I said, “The place looks very nice, Mr. Weldon. The bright beige makes the hallways look light and welcoming.”
    He looked at the freshly