Page 96 of The Fine Art of Faking It
“Monthly Moon. Everything you ever wanted to know about your neighbors,” a voice crackled over the speaker.
“It’s Davis Gates. Let us in, Anthony,” Davis said.
“I’m sorry. Do you have an appointment? Mr. Berkowicz is very busy. Heisour editor-in-chief, you know. News is constantly breaking. You can’t expect to just walk in all willy-nilly and get some face time with him.”
Moon Beam pressed her face up against the intercom. “Hey, how do you walk willy-nilly?”
Davis gave her a helpful shove away from the speaker. “Anthony, I know this is you. Open the damn door. We have a scoop for you.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
A buzzer sounded, and Davis opened the door before Anthony had second thoughts. The newspaper office had fudge brown carpet and industrial gray walls that were papered with what looked like the front page of every issue ofThe Monthly Moon. Overflowing filing cabinets took up one whole wall with a bank of windows overlooking Main Street on another.
Anthony Berkowicz, esteemed editor-in-chief and son to town fixtures Rainbow and Gordon Berkowicz, was wearing pajama pants and eating ramen noodles with his slippered feet propped up on his desk. Empty bottles of Diet Sprite and YooHoo crowded the surface.
He wore gamer headphones slung around his skinny neck. Davis heard a crinkle and saw Eden stress eat the rest of her pack of candy.
“Do you live here?” Moon Beam asked, eyeing the six cartons of Chinese takeout in and around the trashcan.
“I’m a newspaper man. I live with the news. So, what’s the scoop?” Anthony demanded. “I start working on next month’s issue in three days so we need to move fast.”
“Good because you’re going to need the entire issue for the retraction I’m demanding,” Eden said through clenched teeth.
“Sexy news sells, sweetie pie.”
Someone was about to die.Davis decided it might as well be him and stepped between Anthony and Eden. “What did you just call my girlfriend?” he said, pretending to snarl.
Anthony’s feet hit the floor. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, sir… I mean, ma’am.”
“Look,” Davis began. “We’re here about the exposé you printed about us.”
“Oh, yeah,” Anthony grinned. “That was some of my finest work.”
“It was also five pages of lies,” Eden snapped.
Anthony shrugged his bony shoulders. “Listen, journalism is all about attracting advertisers. I can’t land Farm and Field or the bank with boring news.”
“Your mother is the bank president,” Eden pointed out.
Anthony’s gasp nearly knocked him out of his chair. “I’mshockedthat you’d insinuate my family would practice nepotism!”
Moon Beam, who had cigarettes to smoke, stepped in. “Look. Eden didn’t set the Gates’ yard on fire, dumbass. And she sure as hell didn’t burn down his kitchen.”
Anthony held up his hands. “Look, it’s not my job to investigate—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Davis grabbed a notebook off the top of a counter buckling under the weight of yellowed newspaper. He slapped it down in front of Anthony and fished a pen out from under a half-dozen candy bar wrappers. “Shut your mouth and open your ears. Moon Beam? Talk.”
“This isn’t how my process works,” Anthony whined. “First I need to formulate questions. Then I need to record the interview. Then I need to—”
Davis growled in Anthony’s face.
“Or, I could just try this way,” Anthony said, picking up the pen.
37
Feeling restless, Eden knocked on Davis’s door after they’d returned to the inn from setting the record straight withThe Monthly Moon. But his room was empty.
She tip-toed into the lobby and checked the security monitors. His car was still in the inn’s small lot. But Chewy was conspicuously missing from Eden’s couch, and she had a feeling the two were together. She drummed her fingers on the desk.
