She'd never come out so bluntly and, deep down, I felt my resentment pressing like the sharp edge of a coiled spring. Originally, getting into the newspaper game had been a sort of fluke. Majoring in physical ed at college, I often covered the various sports events for the campus paper. One day, a big-time scandal broke, involving gamblers and one of the teams, and I found myself in a perfect spot to do an exclusive for a city paper. My stuff was run verbatim under a by-line and afterward picked up by the wire services.
Later, with a trick knee keeping me out of the war, I managed to talk myself into a job with the newspaper that had run my expose. I was goaded by a feeling that I ought to be doing something bigger than teaching children how to play games.
From the very start, I discovered I had a peculiar talent. If I found myself anywhere near a skeleton in a closet, I could plainly hear its rattle. Before long, my reputation was firmly established.
Nan, whom I'd met at college, knew of my ambition to teach and began planning toward that end as soon as we married. She started what she called a quitting fund. This was to stake a move to a small town where her uncle was principal of the high school. He was supposed to help me get a foothold in the new career.
But then Tommy was born and there were bills to pay. After that there were other reasons, like car payments. By the end of the war, the teaching plans were no longer discussed, and Nan and I had drawn so far apart that even the bickering between us had ceased.
Finally, when Tommy was about ten, she suddenly let me have it.
It seems the kid was running around with a tough crowd. She wanted to get him away from the city. He needed the fresh air and the decent, normal home-life of a small town, she said. And she meant every word of it.
Luckily, Jones had come along right about then and offered me a job on his newspaper, back in the old home town. He had an idea he could drive the opposition paper out of business by featuring yellow journalism at the local level. That's where I came in. With my ability to make the news bleed, he figured he could cinch it. For that reason, he was willing to double my present salary. So I accepted.
Nan, of course, was furious, even though I pointed out the extra dough meant we could start planning again. She didn't calm down until I promised to quit the job after six months.