get it, Carl. I do.” She paused a moment, chewing on the nail of her index finger. Nail-biting was her worst habit, Ana admitted, evidence of the stress in her life. In a constant quest for perfection, order and control, she had nibbled her nails down to nubs. Not even pepper-laced polish had helped.
“But the county has the money now,” she said. “They’ll fix the problem.”
“In houses and apartments.”
“I’m sure they’ve already taken care of school buildings.”
“Is that the only place kids spend time?”
She lifted her head, feeling her news antennae start to tingle. “How about day cares?”
“Small, non-home-based day cares are slipping through the cracks.”
“Churches?”
“Basement Sunday school rooms. Vacation Bible School areas.”
She thought for a moment, tapping her lower lip. “Restaurants?”
“Mostly taken care of.”
“What about after-school clubs? We had several in Brownsville. Kids of all ages showed up. If their parents couldn’t afford day care, some little ones spent the whole day there. They had basketball courts and crafts programs, that kind of thing.”
“Now you’re with me.” Carl nodded. “I’d like three or four articles, maybe a sidebar or two. And put some heart into it, Ana.”
Wrong body part, Ana thought. She had made a name for herself with her nose.
Ana Burns could sniff news a mile away. Since coming to St. Louis five months before, she had left several strong story ideas on Carl’s desk. No doubt they were still there—lost in the clutter. Instead of letting Ana follow her nose, the editor had assigned a bunch of boring, fluff pieces and then buried them in the Metro section.
She didn’t want her work to show up in Section B. She was a page-one woman. P-I, that’s where her byline belonged. The other reporters kidded her about this quest for perfection—as had her colleagues at the Brownsville Herald. She was used to scoffers, and she paid no attention to them.
Carl leaned across stacks of files and unopened mail to hand her a sheet of paper. “Here are the names of some places to get you going. Start with Haven—it’s a recreation center not far from here. Our publisher’s on the board of directors, so they’ll cooperate.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Unflattering publicity. The Health Department is on their backs. Family Services, too, I imagine. Most of these small operations survive on a shoestring budget and can’t afford to fix the paint problem.”
Anticipating endless treks from one tedious interview to another, Ana shook her head. This was so far from her vision of big-city journalism she could scream. Instead of reporting breaking news, investigating political shenanigans and digging into the affairs of the city’s high and mighty, she had been reduced to covering issues a new journalist would cut her teeth on.
“Carl, can’t you give this story to one of the interns?” she asked. “Let me write something with meat on it. I heard the mayor is—”
“I’m giving the project to you, Ana. You’ve got two weeks.”
“An entire series in two weeks? But I’ve got assignments on my desk already.”
“This is life in the fast lane, Ana. You’re not in your sleepy little Texas border town anymore. Everyone on the city staff has to pull their own weight.”
“I want the fast lane,” she said hotly. “That’s why I left Brownsville. I crave excitement and challenge. But a story on lead paint doesn’t cut it.”
“Ana, if you’re unwilling to complete your assignment, I’ve got ten reporters lined up waiting to take your job.”
Carl turned away and began punching numbers into his phone. Shutting the door of his office, Ana gripped the list in her hand and tried to make herself breathe. Her sandals felt as if they’d been lined with lead as she made her way back to her desk.
Lose her job? Impossible. She would have no choice but to go home. Back to Brownsville and the house where she’d grown up. Back to her parents, whose phone calls and e-mails still were filled with grief. Their pain became her guilt, and it lay squarely on her own shoulders.
Sinking into her chair, she slid open her desk drawer and lifted out a small, porcelain-framed photograph of two little girls smiling from between their striking mother and their tall, strong father. That day at the beach had seemed so perfect. Ana and her younger sister had played in the sand, digging moats and building castles while their parents lounged beside them on red-and-yellow-striped towels.
Bending closer, she gazed into the face of the child she had been. How old? Maybe ten. An expression of calm, of outward confidence, of self-assurance on the girl’s face in the photo belied the haunted terror mirrored in the brown pools of her eyes. Ana’s sister was smiling for the camera, but she, too, had been filled with anxiety at that very moment. How frightened the two little girls had been during that year and the years that followed, how filled with confusion and despair. Helplessness filled both children even as loving arms surrounded them.
Her heart clenching, Ana slid the frame back into the drawer and set a file folder on top of it. She could not go home. Ever. Brownsville and all that had happened there was in the past. And she would do everything in her power to keep it there.
Two weeks—that was all the time she had. Two weeks to write the lead paint series, while keeping pace with the regular flow of daily assignments that landed on her desk. Fortunately, the short pieces could be handled on the phone. Determined to start on the new project without delay, she opened her purse and checked her supplies. Two notebooks, five pens, a small tape recorder, cassette tape. Cinnamon breath mints. Lipstick exactly three shades darker than her lips. Spare contact lenses and wetting solution. Cell phone. A can of pepper spray.
Feeling better, she snapped the bag shut and surveyed her desk. The assignments file lay in her top drawer. Her in-box held three letters, which she opened, skimmed and tossed into the wastebasket. Her out-box was empty, of course.
Ana always had liked order, structure, neat borders. At the University of Texas at Brownsville, she had turned in term papers early. She tried to do the same with her articles. In grade school, she kept a container of antibacterial wipes in her backpack so she could clean the top of her small desk. That habit had traveled all the way to St. Louis with her, and she never set foot out of the Post-Dispatch building at the end of each day without first giving her desk a good scrubbing. Clean, neat, orderly. As perfect as she could make it. Yes, that was her life.
Ana knew her first stop should be “the morgue”—the newspaper’s archives—which no doubt had a thick file on lead-based paint. But she wanted to get started with her interviews. She settled for e-mailing the newspaper’s librarian to request copies of pertinent articles.
Standing, she shouldered her purse and pushed her chair under the desk. Two sites on Carl’s contact list had addresses in the inner city. Following her editor’s suggestion, she would start at the recreation center and move on to the day care.
Avoiding
