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“There’s nothing to it but to do it now,” I muttered as I searched for the business card from Miss Overstreet.
I found it in my wallet, even though I didn’t remember putting it there. I must have done that late enough at night that I didn’t remember, but it was a force of habit. The number of business cards I got handed to me daily was almost scary. Later today, I’d have to clean out my wallet to be sure I could accept more. It would be pretty embarrassing to tell someone, “Sorry, there’s no use handing me your card because my wallet’s full, and I’ll lose it if I put it anywhere else.”
I dialed the number on the card and pressed the call button.
As I held the ringing phone to my ear, part of me wished she wouldn’t pick up, and part of me wanted to speak with her immediately. I supposed fate was in charge of this conversation, as much as I hated to admit it. Then again, reporters were busy people. It was more than likely I’d get her voicemail.
“Grace Overstreet speaking.”
I jumped when her voice called me out of my own thoughts. “Miss Overstreet, it’s Mr. Delaney,” I said. “I’ve come to a decision. Does your offer of a doubled payment still stand?”
I decided that it would be best to make it appear as if I was not giving her some privilege because I thought she was pretty. If word got around that I was changing my rates based on how attractive I found my clients, I could pretty much say goodbye to my business for sure.
“If that’s what you need to convince you to take me to Corinth, I’m more than happy to pay double your price,” Miss Overstreet confirmed. “Does this mean you’ll take me?”
“Yes, it does, but I’m charging double because of how busy my books are,” I said. “I don’t get many people that book within the week. I have an opening next week, and I can take you to Corinth. In addition, I can bring you back, but you’ll only have a couple of days to get your photos.”
“I don’t need that long, but it’ll be nice to see the rest of the town,” Miss Overstreet said. “Where do I need to meet you with my luggage? How much luggage is included in my ticket?”
I bit back another laugh and answered her questions with all the grace I could muster at the moment. She certainly must not have flown a lot to realize that booking through me was different from booking through a commercial airline. She was almost overjoyed to realize that as long as her bags fit and she could handle them, she was allowed to bring two bags of any size. I gave her the dimensions of half the size of the cargo hold so that she could be sure she would be able to fit them. The other half was for my luggage since I would be staying on this trip too.
It was at that moment I realized that I’d never actually told Miss Overstreet exactly how long we’d be staying in Corinth. I slapped my forehead with my palm. It wasn’t like me to get so distracted by a woman that I forgot the most basic details of a flight plan. I think I mentioned we’d be there a few days? I needed to focus and stay professional.
Chapter four
Grace
After getting the confirmation from Mr. Delaney that he would be taking me to Corinth, Oregon, I couldn’t hold in my excitement. I let out a soft squeal, trying to keep it in check since I had taken the call at my desk at the offices of the paper. Everything was lining up exactly as I had hoped, though I had been researching the best places to rent a car in Portland if I couldn’t get a private flight out to Corinth with Mr. Delaney.
Now that I had the plans made, I took a moment to calm myself. As excited as I was, this was something that my boss would have to be told immediately. He was the one who was setting up the column and the one who had told me that this was my only chance to get off the musical events coverage.
I knocked on his door.
“Come in!”
I was somewhat surprised at the immediate answer. Usually, Mr. White took a few minutes to respond because he was so wrapped up in the day-to-day things that made the paper run: making sure payroll had the right information, making sure the paper’s mockup looked good, making sure the site ran well, and generally taking care of the paper’s reputation. He took on far too much responsibility, in my opinion, but there was not enough money in the budget to allow him to hire additional assistants to handle more of the work that didn’t fit with the job description of a reporter.
We hardly had enough reporters for this column to work if I was going to be off collecting photos for days at a time, but I wanted to show that it could work.
“What can I do for you, Grace?” Mr. White looked at me expectantly.
“I have arranged travel to Corinth, Oregon,” I replied. “I’ve booked a private flight, so I’ll only be gone a few days.”
“Isn’t a private flight expensive?” Mr. White raised an eyebrow. “Miss Overstreet, we are hemorrhaging money on subscriptions being canceled because we’re not covering the right news. I need you to be sure that this price is going to be worth it.”
“It’s going to be much less than flying commercial, renting a car, and driving to Corinth,” I replied. “However, because of the rush on the trip and the preparations, he has had to charge a rush fee which brings it to double his normal fee.”
I shared the full details with him, but I was right. The ticket itself, even with the rush fee, was still less than a commercial flight plus the car and gas needed to make it to the coast. Since there were no direct flights to Oregon on commercial airlines, a ticket from Tulsa would have run me about five hundred dollars once I added the bags and everything. Add the car and the hotel stay for the night, and the trip could have easily been almost a thousand if I wasn’t careful.
“How dare you book with double fees,” Mr. White looked at me with an insidious glimmer in his eyes. “We need you to be careful with the fees. I could have sworn I told you that we were not going to cover anything over five hundred dollars, whether that went to your car or your flight, you could choose.”
“Well, this leaves me with less out of pocket than flying commercial,” I replied. “This includes the bags, and the only additional fee is because of the tight turnaround for his planning. He has to work harder to plan this trip, and I believe that’s a fair reason to charge extra. He plans to take me next week.”
Mr. White shook his head.
“So long as you can get the photos by the end of the month, even by email,” he said. That gave me a little less than a week after my arrival in Corinth. That should be plenty of time.
Mr. White was still speaking, “But for the next column, I want you to pick something closer. There are a bunch of sights in Kansas. Why didn’t you pick one of those?”
