Adam's Daughter (26 page)

“Is that more of your poetry?”

“It’s from
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac. Didn’t you read the copy I gave you?”

“No.”

“God, Stephen, sometimes you are so —-”

“What? Dull, boring?” He smiled. “One of us has to be.”

“You’re not dull,” she said. “But you are too serious sometimes. You need to loosen up and not think so much.”

“Like you?”
  

She sat up suddenly and grabbed a book. “I’m going to read you something,” she said. “It’s a poem called
‘Marriage.’ Maybe you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

She open
ed the book and began to read. “‘Should I get married? Should I be good? Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and Faustus hood? Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteries, tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries and she going just so far and I understanding why not getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel.’”

She set the book down
. “Isn’t that great?”

“Is that another one of those beatnik things?” he asked. “You’ve been hanging around that dump down on Columbus again, haven’t you?”

“City Lights isn’t a dump, it’s a bookstore,” she said. “And this is a great poem by a great artist.”

Stephen grabbed the book and stared at the picture on the back of a tousled-haired young man. “You like it because you think
he’s cute,” he said. “Well, maybe I do think too much. But sometimes you don’t think at all.”

She smiled. “Know what
I think right now? I think you’re afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of doing what you really feel like doing.”

Stephen stared at her. She was sitting with her legs folded under her, hands on her hips. The sun filtered through the trees, dappling her skin and red hair with light. He leaned over suddenly and kissed her. Her lips were soft and yielding, and after a second, she returned his kiss. Then she slowly pulled away and smiled.

“See, it’s beautiful not to think,” she said.

He laughed to cover his nervousness. “You are a brat.”

She stood up, gathering her books. “Yeah, that’s what Daddy tells me. And speaking of Daddy, we’re having lunch together and I’m late. Will you drop me off?”

As they drove toward downtown, Stephen found himself stealing glances at Kellen. She was wearing sunglasses, her hair streaming behind her in the wind. Her bohemian dress was only her latest fashion affectation. Usually, she wore something old and bizarre, gleaned from her excursions to thrift stores. One day it was a Victorian petticoat, the next day a man’s bowler hat. But at least this outfit seemed to suit her somehow. It made her look older, a little enigmatic, which was, he knew, precisely the effect she wanted.

He had known her all her life yet now he felt off balance with her. He was not inexperienced with girls; he had slept with several at college. But he had been unprepared for the way her kiss had stirred him.

He let her off at Union Square and she blew him a kiss. He drove slowly away, watching her in his rearview mirror
until she disappeared into the Times building.

Kellen took the elevator to the top floor, greeted Adam’s secretary Adele with a smile and swept into his office. Adam was on the phone and motioned for her to sit down. Kellen sank into an armchair and half listened to his conversation.

“I told you last week how I felt about that guy, Ted.”

Kellen recognized the tone in Adam’s voice. It was deliberate and subtly patronizing. It was how he sounded when he was sick of dealing with a dull-witted person or someone who had made the mistake of testing his patience.

A door near Adam’s desk opened and Ian came in with a folder in his hand. He stared at Kellen’s black leotard, tights, and skirt.

“Nice outfit,” he said. “Who died?”

She ignored him.

“You’d think with the allowance you get you’d dress like a lady instead of running around like one of those pseudo-intellectual creeps,” Ian said.

“What would you know about intellect?” Kellen s
aid. “Those country club twits you hang around with have the collective I.Q. of a box of rocks.”

Adam hung up the phone before Ian could reply. “Goddamn that Whittaker,” he said. “I’ve had it with him.”

“He’s senile. I told you that when you bought the paper,” Ian said. “What’s he done now?”

“Remember that columnist I told him to fire? Well, he didn’t do it. Now I’ve got the Portland mayor threatening a libel suit over something he wrote about his goddamn wife
.”

Kellen watched Adam. She had heard stories about Whittaker before. He was the eighty-five-year-old executive editor of Adam’s Portland newspaper, the last of his family to remain on the newspaper after Adam bought it. She had met him when he came to dinner. He had told her with great pride of how the Whittaker family had founded and run the paper for four generations until financial problems forced him to sell it to Adam. Adam had kept the old man on as a figurehead to preserve the paper’s community image.

“He’s got to go,” Adam said. “I’ll go up there next week and take care of it myself.”

“You’re firing him?” Kellen
said.

Adam and Ian stared at her. “Kellen, honey,” Adam said, “you don’t understand.”

“But he’s a nice man,” she said. “And he’s so old, Daddy. It seems so hard. Couldn’t you just —-”

“It is hard,” Ian interrupted. “It’s business.”

“Let’s forget it,” Adam said, wanting to stave off another fight between the two. He opened the folder Ian had brought in.

“What’s this?”

“The latest circulation figures from San Mateo County,” Ian said. “You aren’t going to like them. We picked up some in Daly City and Pacifica but we’re making no progress anywhere else. The farther south down the peninsula you go, the worse the figures get.” Ian paused. “Father, I really think it’s a mistake to try to expand the
Times
’ circulation right now. It’s getting expensive. And besides, those people down there just don’t want a San Francisco import.”

Adam glanced down the rows of figures. They were discouraging, but he knew the market was there. He knew that people were moving away from the city and that communities were springing up like patches of fungus down the peninsula. Just south of San Francisco, endless blocks of identical homes built five feet apart were being sold for $6,000 apiece. Beyond that, farmlands were being subdivided into whole communities, the orchards paved over to make way for shopping malls and parking lots.
It was a huge untapped market.

“It’s not a mistake,” Adam said. “We can get those people. That guy you hired as circulation manager just isn’t cutting it.”

Ian hid his irritation. “We’ve tried. But they read those shitty little weeklies or nothing at all. We can’t get them to buy the
Times
.”

“Why don’t you give it away?” Kellen said.

Ian sighed in derision. Adam chuckled.

“No, listen,” she
said. “I’ve used this shampoo for years. Then one day I got this free sample in the mail of some stuff I never heard of. Well, I tried it and it’s great. I switched shampoos. You could do the same with the paper. Give it away for a while until they’re hooked on it then they’ll buy it.”

Ian laughed. But Adam looked thoughtful. “You know, that’s something we’ve never tried,” he said. “Sampling
.”

“You’ve got to be kidding
,” Ian said. “Give the
Times
away? We’re talking about tens of thousands of papers. We’ll lose our shirt.”

“Maybe Kellen’s right
,” Adam said. “Once people get hooked on the
Times,
they’ll subscribe. Reading a newspaper is a habit more than anything. Let’s do it.” He stood up and stretched. “Ready for lunch, Kellen?”

She jumped to her feet. “You taking me to the club?”

“Not dressed like that. You’ll have to settle for corned beef at Breen’s. Just let me go wash off the newsprint.”

After
Adam went into an adjoining bathroom, Ian turned to Kellen.

“You think you’re hot shit, don’t you,” he said. “Making me look like a fuck-up in front of Father.”

“You don’t need any help from me, Ian,” Kellen said. She picked up her bag. “You know, everyone around here knows you take three-hour lunches and one of these days Daddy’s going to figure out just what a screw-off you really are.”

Before Ian could reply, Adam returned. “Ian, try to get some cost estimates on sampling together this afternoon.
Come on, Lil’bit, let’s go.”

At Breen’s, Kellen sat across from Adam, eating her sandwich, waiting for the right moment to bring up the subject she wanted to talk about. She had been waiting all week for time alone with her father and now she waited some more until their small talk turned back to the newspaper.

“That was quite an idea you had back there,” Adam said to her. He chuckled and took a drink of his beer.

“I have lots of ideas,” Kellen said.

“I know. You always did.”

“I mean it, Daddy. I have ideas about the newspaper.”

“Oh, like what?”

She knew he was just humoring her but she pressed on. “Well, for instance, the
Times
is so dull.” She smiled at the look on Adam’s face. “Sorry, Daddy, but it’s true. It’s so fat and gray and serious.”

Adam smiled indulgently. “And what would make it un-dull?”

“You could get a gossip columnist.”

“We get Winchell from the syndicate.”

“No, I mean San Francisco gossip,” Kellen said, “Like that guy Sandy Francisco writes in the
Journal
.”

“Kellen, that’s trash
. You don’t read that junk, do you?”

“Of course, Daddy. All my friends do
, everyone does. People love to read dirt, especially about people they know. And that Sandy guy doesn’t know half of what’s going on because he never gets invited to the best parties.”

“Well, I’ll think about it. In the meantime, finish up. I have to get back.”

Kellen pushed her sandwich aside. “Daddy, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” she said.

“Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

“I want to come work on the
Times
."

Adam was reaching for his wallet
and he paused to look at her before he tossed some money on the table. “Don’t be silly, Kellen.”

“I’ll be eighteen next month. That’s old enough to go to work.”

“You don’t need to work.”

“But I want to, Daddy.” Kellen leaned forward. “I’ve been taking journalism courses in school. I want to lea
rn how the business really works.”

“No, Kellen. You’re going to college.”

“How about just for the summer?” she asked. “Stephen worked at the
Times
during summers.”

“That was different.”

“But why? Why can’t I do the same?”

Adam sighed. “Kellen, it’s a hard business. You have this notion that it’s fun, but it’s a dirty very unglamorous business. I don’t want my daughter working for a newspaper.”

“But Ian can?” Kellen asked, her voice rising. “Why is it all right for him to get his hands dirty, but I can’t?”

“Ian is going to run the business someday. He has to lea
rn it.”

“Why can’t I lea
rn it, too?”

“Kellen, stop it
. I don’t want to hear any more about it,” Adam said. Then he sighed and stood up. “Come on, I have to get back.”

She rose slowly and picked up her bag. She could feel her face burning in embarrassment and wouldn’t look at Adam. He took her shoulders.

“Kellen, listen to me,” he said. “I love you. Your happiness is very important to me. Trust me, you wouldn’t like it. You’re made for other things. Better things.”

She looked at him, keeping her tears in check. He kissed her forehead.

“Now where to you want to go? I’ll drop you off.”