Five years later -- Same beat, different reporter

[Maria Graziano]

"Mama!"

Adie Graziano-Bojangles' voice rose immediately after the ringtone on Maria's cell phone began to pulse with a thumping beat. Both the child and the call demanded her already divided attention. Maria pretended not to hear Adie even though she was quite sure even their new neighbors three flights down would be able to hear her screeching. Her phone was buried in her purse and her purse had to be buried under the stack of boxes. Her lips twisted into a frown as she pushed aside their unpacked belongings, searching for the bag.

"Mama!"

Ignoring her was only causing her yelling to get louder. She found her purse and dove a hand into the depths of it, blindly searching for the dreaded object. "What, Adie?"

"Don't answer the phone! I want to shake my booty to the music!"

Maria's dark eyes cut up to Adie with a slight frown to catch sight of the four year old shaking her rear end to the beat of the ringtone. She shook her head as she pulled the phone from the black hole that is any mother's purse. "That's it. I'm limiting your time with your Uncle Tone."

Adie giggled at her mother's threat. She knew it to be false by the vast number of times Maria had used it and failed to follow through.

Gary. Or so the contact list on her phone had matched to the incoming number. Gary Stinwich, a sports reporter for the RhyDin Morning News, was a close friend which, considering her attitude towards the media in general, was a bit of a mini-miracle. Her dark eyes followed Adie as she skipped off towards her new room lugging a box of her toys behind her.

She pressed the send button and pulled the phone up to her ear. "Hey, Gary."

There was no hello or return greeting of any sort. Gary immediately dug right into the purpose of his call. Typically she would appreciate his bluntness but today she merely found it disconcerting. "So did you hear?"

Those were four words in the English language which when coupled together she absolutely despised. Whatever followed was often tawdry and was rarely anything that she actually wanted to hear. Her fingers tightened around the phone to the point her knuckles began to pale. "What do you know that you want to tell me?"

"Tical responded to Anubis's challenge for his barony by challenging for Anubis's opal."

Even though the news was expected, a foreboding chill crept up her spine, sending goosebumps prickling down the lengths of her arms. There was excitement in Gary's tone. She wanted to hate him for it but how could she? To Gary, it was a face off between two of dueling's top athletes. Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion when she found it again. "Really?"

"Yeah," Gary responded across the line. "Just wanted to call to see if you could do me the favor of a quote for my article."

A couple cleansing breaths were needed before she could collect her thoughts enough to find that character she played to the media buried beneath a layer of painful memories. "All I gotta say is the Crew knows how to bring drama to a challenge."

It wasn't great. She knew he was looking for something more outrageous but her mind was slow to respond to the request. Despite the lacking attitude, he gave the comment a laugh and mentioned something about grabbing lunch together the next week before she was able to semi-politely get him off the phone.

"Mama!"

"Not now, Adie!" Her phone slid out of her hand and thumped on the top of a box of shoes. How many years had it been now? Just over five? Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the whole thing was a series of unusual coincidences. Maybe Tical had absolutely nothing to do with that man's death and the destruction of the Ripe Red Current newspaper.

"Mama!"

Not now. Not now. Not now.

((A follow up to It's the kind of misery that tabloid reporters live for that's been five years in the making!))