Free Private affairs : a novel by Judith Michael Page A

small print—each time cutting off a piece of themselves, Elizabeth thought—until it was all done: Lovell Printing sold, their house mortgaged; money borrowed from the bank. The only thing untouched was Zachary's house and land at Nuevo; at the last minute, Matt hadn't been able to bring himself to sell them. Then they signed the last documents, wrote a terrifyingly large check—and the Santa Fe Chieftain was theirs.
    That night they took the family to see it. With Spencer and Lydia, and Holly and Peter behind them, Matt turned the key in the front door of the Chieftain building. But then, while the others went ahead, he and Elizabeth held back, gazing at the dark building that hulked unusually large in the light of the street lamp. Elizabeth shivered slightly in the cool October

    Private Affairs 57
    air, and Matt took her hand. "Forward," he murmured, and they followed the others inside.
    A newspaper office is never really silent; even when empty it echoes with the day's frenetic activity: people rummaging through papers, photographs, and books, piling them on desks and the floor, tacking cartoons and notes helter-skelter on walls and partitions, leaving cold coffee in the bottom of Styrofoam cups, typing stories for new editions to join yellowing old ones piled haphazardly in corners and under desks.
    As Holly and Peter dashed ahead with Spencer and Lydia following, their footsteps rang on the hard floor, but Elizabeth and Matt heard instead the familiar echoes that made them feel they'd gone back in time: to the university, and the daily campus newspaper; to the Los Angeles Times where they'd had summer jobs as intern reporters; to the years when they grabbed every chance to be together—in the classroom, in parks and city streets, in bed—falling in love, planning their future.
    "And it's here," Elizabeth whispered in the large room. She gestured toward a glass-walled corner office. "Yours," she said, her voice shaking with the enormity of what they had done. "It's yours, Matt. Publisher and editor-in-chief. Try it out."
    Still holding hands, they walked into the office and Matt twirled the high-backed leather chair at the desk. From there he could see the entire newsroom crammed with file cabinets and desks, those in the center for four reporters, two photographers, and two secretaries; others along one wall, separated by low partitions, for the managing editor, features editor, and advertising and circulation managers.
    "Our empire," Matt mused.
    "We snap our fingers," Elizabeth said whimsically, "and a staff leaps to obey."
    "Creating hordes of new readers. ..."
    "Luring advertisers. . . ."
    "Moving mountains at our command. ..."
    "Or at least moving the furniture," Elizabeth said as their laughter filled the small office. "Matt, I feel like a little girl with my first real toy."
    He kissed the tip of her nose. "I keep wanting to giggle. Except that that's for kids."
    "I like feeling like a kid once in a while."
    He grinned. "Your father thinks we should be worrying."
    They smiled at each other. "I love you," Elizabeth said.
    "Now that is the best part of all. How many publishers and features editors are crazy about each other? Which reminds me. We're running this show together, but I have all this grandeur"—he looked at the

    cramped space and shabby furniture—"and all you have is one of those cubicles out there. We'll build you a real office, next to this one."
    Elizabeth shook her head. "I should be with the others. They expect it, and we don't want to make them more suspicious of new owners than they probably are." She took a deep breath. "Matt—I'm beginning to believe it."
    He grinned again. "So am I. Elizabeth, my love, this is ours and it's going to be all right."
    They put their arms around each other, excited, scared, eager, exhila-rated. "Free," Matt murmured, his lips against Elizabeth's hair. "Beginning again: my own way, my own dream." He caught himself as he felt the surprised tensing of