Adam's Daughter Part 37

Last night, she had brought up the idea of going back to work full-time. Stephen had sidestepped the issue, but he knew it would soon come to a head now that Ben had started kindergarten.

The truth was he didn't want Kellen to resume a full-time schedule. And it was not really because of the children. He wanted her to stay home because it had made things easier for him at the Times. It was as simple, and as selfish, as that.

His marriage had elicited predictable ribbing from cohorts and employees, jokes about marrying the boss's daughter. But beneath the kidding, he sensed people thought his marriage was just a grab for money and more power. Even his most faithful employees looked at him differently after his marriage, as if they thought that as long as Kellen was upstairs in the executive suite, he was just her puppet.

He stared at the Times lying across his lap and thought of the circulation report that Kellen had gone to the office to retrieve.

He hadn't been truthful with her when he said it was unimportant. He knew that once she read it she would be upset with him. More important, it could be the thing to galvanize her resolve to go back to work.

The report contained the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, and the news was not good. Figures showed that the Times' circulation had dipped to 450,000, a loss of 2,000 subscribers in the last year. That brought the net loss over the last five years to 12,000. Now, the Times' circulation was about even with the rival Journal's. But the most telling figure was that the Journal now had an edge of 15,000 over the Times in the city of San Francisco itself.

When these latest ABC figures were made public, everyone -- including advertisers -- would know that although the Times had the biggest circulation in the Bay area, it was no longer the dominant newspaper in San Francisco itself.

The Times was still superior editorially. But the Journal's publisher, Howard Capen's son Edward, was getting more aggressive. Last month, he had lured two of Stephen's best reporters away with promises of higher salaries.

And now Howard Capen had a new target -- Clark Able.

Clark had told Capen he wasn't interested. But Stephen wondered if even Clark's loyalty might be tested if the Times' city circulation kept shrinking. Clark's column was the newspaper's most popular feature, and Stephen knew Clark's defection could mean a loss of countless readers.

Stephen carefully folded the newspaper and set it aside. He should have told Kellen the truth about the report before she left. But he hadn't wanted to face her reaction at that moment. He hadn't had enough time to come to grips with his feeling of defeat. He felt like he had betrayed her trust.

And Adam's.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX.

Her desk was as neat as she had left it last week. Kellen tossed her coat aside, sat down and sifted through the papers Adele had left for her. There was nothing that really needed her attention. Some pressroom efficiency reports. A memo about a new marketing campaign. An invitation to speak on a panel from the American a.s.sociation of Newspaper Publishers.

She picked the invitation up with a wry smile. She received many such invitations. The groups, consisting mostly of men, tended to see Kellen Bryant Hillman as a curiosity more than anything.

She turned to her telephone messages but only one caught her eye: Tyler had returned her call, finally agreeing to meet her for dinner Monday night.

She had not seen him for months. Part of it was natural, she knew. Tyler was eighteen now, with his own apartment on Russian Hill and his own life. But she missed him and the house on Divisadero seemed different without him.

Ian had also moved out, right after Kellen and Stephen married. Not long after that, he had married a young woman named Clarisse Cross from Philadelphia and they had a young son.

Kellen had been surprised by Ian's sudden marriage and embrace of fatherhood. But Stephen said he thought it had all come at Lilith's prodding. There was no way she would stand back and watch the children of Stephen Hillman inherit the Bryant fortune. Ian had a duty to produce proper heirs -- and fast.

Kellen glanced at the photograph on her desk of Sara and Ben. It was strange how often she, too, thought of the newspapers in exactly those terms now -- as a legacy for Sara and Ben. The newspapers were, indeed, something precious that had been entrusted to her. Someday she, in turn, would teach Ben and Sara how to take care of the gift.

She leaned back in her chair, thinking of Stephen. Why was he fighting her need to go back to work fulltime? Was he just being protective of his turf? But she had always been careful not to usurp his authority.

Her eyes fell now on the photograph of Stephen, and she picked up the frame, thinking now about their marriage.

During the past seven years, she had come to love him, a simple matter of extending the affection she had always felt for him into her role as wife.

In an occasional dark moment, she wondered if her marriage had not been a sort of Faustian bargain. Stephen had offered his love and protection for her and Sara, and she had reciprocated with respectful deference to his ambitions at the newspaper, giving up many of her own.

But what else had she given up?

She set the photograph down carefully on the edge of the desk.

Pa.s.sion, perhaps...the kind that lit a marriage from within, the kind that she suspected her own mother and father had.

Pa.s.sion. She had felt that only once, with Garrett. She closed her eyes, allowing herself the indulgence of thinking about him. Usually, she kept his memory locked away, safely compartmentalized so as not to mix with other orderly emotions of her daily life. But sometimes she let it out.

Sometimes, she thought of him in anger. Sometimes, the thoughts were vivid s.e.xual memories. But most often, she thought of him with just bittersweet curiosity.

What he was doing at a particular moment? Who he was with? What did he looked like now?

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly ten, and she had to stop daydreaming and deal with the ABC circulation report. She found it in a drawer, flipped open to the first page, and began to read.

After a half hour, she set the report down on the desk, stunned. Why hadn't Stephen told her about the circulation losses in the city?

Maybe, she thought, I should ask myself why I didn't see this coming.

She rose, stuffed the report under her arm, and grabbed her coat.

When she got home she noticed a light on in the study and went to the door. Stephen was sitting at the desk, reading. It was an odd sight; he usually conceded the study as Kellen's territory. He looked up.

"You're home," he said. "I've been waiting."

His eyes focused on the report in her hand. "Did you read it?" he asked.

"Yes." She came in, slipping off her coat. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He rose and went to a window, staring out. It was a while before he turned back to her. "I didn't want you to worry," he said.

"Worry? But you knew I'd eventually read it."

He said nothing.

"Stephen, what's wrong?" she said. "Are you afraid I'll come on too strong at the meeting Monday? You know I'm always careful about --"

"Yes, I know," he said, without looking back at her.

The slight edge to his voice surprised her. She stared at his back. "What's going on here?" she asked softly. "Talk to me, Stephen. This isn't like you. Or us. We've always been able to talk things out before."

"Well, we've never had quite this problem before," he said.

Finally, he turned and faced her. "I thought the circulation problem would stabilize. But it hasn't. It's only gotten worse." He shook his head. "And I'll be d.a.m.ned if I know how to fix it."

He went back to the desk and began to turn the pages of the newspaper slowly. "I've been sitting in here for the last two hours waiting for you to get back," he said. "I started looking through some of these old copies of the Times you keep around, the ones from when your father was alive. I got to comparing them with the Times as it is now."

He didn't look up at her as he continued to turn the pages. "Funny how you can get so close to something you can't really see it. On first glance, the Times looks as healthy as ever. But then you begin to notice some differences. I remember it being a bulky thing. But it's smaller now."

She came over to the desk and looked down at the two newspapers. In her entire life, she had never once heard Stephen sound so negative.

"There are some problems, Stephen, but it's as good now as it ever was," she said. "Because of you, we've won two Pulitzers in the last five years and --"

"Prizes don't mean a d.a.m.n if people stop reading your paper," he said. "We've lost a lot of advertising, the news hole has shrunk, we're running fewer pages." He paused. "And it's only going to get worse."

He closed the newspapers and looked at her. "I guess that's why I didn't tell you about what was in the report. Until it came out, I thought I could turn things around. But I was fooling myself." His eyes held hers. "I just couldn't stand your being disappointed in me."

She stared at him. "Stephen, you shouldn't take this personally. It isn't your fault. It's just as much my --"

"How can I not take this personally?" he said. "Your father gave me this job because he trusted me. And you trusted me, too, Kellen. Call it a misguided sense of honor, or maybe just plain old-fas.h.i.+oned ego, but I took that responsibility seriously."

His face was lined with fatigue. She understood now why he had been working so hard during the past year and she was angry with herself for not shouldering more of the burden. Now, she knew with certainty, that she had to go back to work full-time. More than her own satisfaction was at stake. The Times needed her more than ever.

But she knew that right now she couldn't tell Stephen that. All her life, she had looked to him for strength and rea.s.surance, and suddenly she had to provide those things for him. If she told him now that she was going back to work, it would only confirm his feeling that she didn't trust him. She would have to tell him of her intent, but not at this moment, when he needed her faith.

"You didn't fail, Stephen," she said softly. "You're only one person and you can't shoulder all the blame. It'll work out. We'll keep looking for answers. We'll find a way."

She hesitated then put her arms around his neck. "It will work out, Stephen. You'll see."

Stephen's eyes were locked on hers. Finally, he kissed her, slowly at first, then with more intensity. His ardor surprised her; it had been so long since he kissed her that way and she felt herself responding. Slowly, a sense of renewed hope came over her.

Everything is going to work out, she thought.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN.

The vice presidents' meeting was into its fifth hour and the strain showed on everyone's faces.

Ian, who had showed up an hour late and taken his spot at the head of the long mahogany table, did nothing to hide his irritation. Kellen sat in her place at the other end of the table. Stephen sat along the table with the six other division heads. Before each person was a copy of the blue-bound circulation report.

"Look, we can sit up here all day, and these figures will not change," said the vice president of advertising, Dennis Dingman. "If circulation doesn't start coming around, we can look forward to a drop in revenue next fiscal year of at least twenty percent. And that is the bottom line."

Harry Beebe, the vice president of circulation who had been taking the brunt of the fire all afternoon, rose slowly. "Well, my bottom line went to sleep an hour ago," he said testily.

He went over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. "Anyone want any more?" he asked, looking around.

No one answered.

"I have to say something here." It was Fred Chase, the production vice president. "It all starts with your guys, Harry. We're getting a lot of cancellations because of late delivery. Maybe if you got the papers out to folks on time, we'd hang on to subscribers better."

"And maybe if you guys got the paper off the press on time, we could make our delivery schedule," Harry shot back.

"Look, don't blame us," Fred said. "We can't print the thing until editorial gives it to us. And they've been playing pretty loose with deadlines lately."

Kellen glanced at Stephen. "Fred, we're just trying to get the latest news in," she said evenly. "We can't push the deadlines up again just to allow for press downtime."

Ian rolled his eyes. "We're not going to hear that one again, are we? Next you'll start in again about getting computers, how we can solve all our composing room problems for the paltry fee of two million."

"It's two point five six million," added George Avare, the vice president of finance. "Money that we don't have. For a system no one's sure will replace good, old-fas.h.i.+oned Linotypes."

"Look," Stephen said. "We won't get anywhere pointing fingers. We have to solve this together. If we don't, we'll sit here and watch the Times die a slow death."

He looked at Kellen, knowing how the words would sting. But her face was a mask.

"I had some extra materials prepared for you," Stephen said, holding up another report.

There a few weary sighs.

"I hope you read it," Stephen went on, "because it summarizes what I think is the real problem." He paused. "We've been sitting here talking about how to fight the Journal. But the Journal isn't our real enemy. Our real problem is that things are changing. The Times is an afternoon paper and people just aren't buying afternoon papers like they used to."

Kellen listened as Stephen reiterated the contents of his report. She had read it this morning and for the first time she had understood why Stephen was so pessimistic.

The rival Journal was succeeding because it was riding a wave of altered reading habits. It had started after World War II when people's work patterns began to change, but the effect was too subtle then for anyone to really notice until it was too late. Industrial workers used to leave for work early and had no time to read a newspaper in the morning. So the afternoon newspaper of Adam Bryant's day suited their needs.

But now, the economy was dominated by service workers, who went to work later and had time for a paper with morning coffee. These workers came home later and when they wanted to hear the news, they switched on the TV.

"So what you're saying is that this is all just a national trend and there's no hope of making this newspaper as profitable as it used to be," Ian said.

"Yes, it's a national trend," Stephen said. "But I don't consider it hopeless."

Stephen began to explain some tactics but Ian thumbed through the report, pointedly ignoring him. Kellen wondered if he had come only to hara.s.s Stephen. Since his marriage, Ian had become little more than a visitor to the Times. She suspected it was because of Clarisse. She loved to travel and spend money, and she and Ian had done both extravagantly since their wedding.

Whenever Ian did show up at meetings it was only to complain about the flat revenues. In the past two months, he had been pressuring the vice presidents to find ways to cut back on expenses. Recently, he had convinced them to inst.i.tute a hiring freeze in the newsroom.

Stephen finished his summary. "I know this is not encouraging," he said. "But we can't just look for Band-Aid solutions to stop the circulation drain." He glanced discreetly at Ian. "Or to inflate revenues."

The room was silent. The animosity between Ian and Stephen had never been a secret and usually the other vice presidents just did their best to keep out of the way.

Ian lit a cigarette. "Well, Stephen. As usual, you've given us an eloquent presentation of the problem, but no solutions," he said.

Stephen leaned forward slightly. "That's right, Ian, I have no solutions. But I plan to keep looking for one."

He sat back in his chair and glanced at Kellen. "But I do have one idea that might help our delivery problem."

His words took Kellen by surprise. He had mentioned nothing to her about any plan. "It's something I've been thinking about all weekend since the report came out. I was going to wait until I had solid figures to back me up but maybe it's something we should talk about now." He paused. "We could build a satellite printing plant in the suburbs."

"What good would that do?" Ian asked.

"Most of our circulation is in the suburbs now," Stephen said. "And it's vital that we hold on to it. If the papers could be printed and distributed closer to their destinations, circulation there could be maintained. Of course, a new plant wouldn't stem the circulation drop in the city but it would buy time until we can solve the rest of the problem."

George Avare shook his head. "It would cost millions. You have any idea what real estate's doing these days outside the city? It's not cows living out there anymore."