The Rhinebeck Bee was a small-scale newspaper established in 1930 during a time when money was tight and prohibition laws were even tighter. This fact, however, didn’t stop the paper from churning out a couple of issues a month, a determination that kept it thriving eighty years later.
A brown-haired receptionist with paper-white skin and a starched shirt buttoned down so low anyone passing by could easily assess what a Wonderbra could do for an A cup, twisted a pen around her straight, shoulder-length hair. She didn’t notice Addison come in. She didn’t notice Addison approach the desk. She only noticed a giant of a boy with a camera slung around his neck that stood at her desk making ill-humored remarks. Addison cleared her throat but to no avail. The giggles were too loud.
“Oh, Kirk, you’re so funny,” the girl said. “You have to stop distracting me. I have to get back to work.”
“Doing what, Shelby? I haven’t seen you do anything since I got here.”
“That’s because you keep pestering me,” she said, lightly poking his leg with a pen.
“Just say the word, and I’ll stop.”
“What if I don’t want you to?”
He flashed a devilish grin her direction and walked away.
“Excuse me,” Addison said.
Shelby looked up. She wasn’t smiling now. “Yeah?”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“No, why?”
“You are the receptionist, right?”
Shelby grabbed the coffee cup sitting next to her, slurped some of it down, and combed a hand through her hair like she was afraid one of the strands might be out of place. When the ritual was complete, she said, “Uh…yeah?”
“Who do I talk to about looking through some old newspapers?”
“What for?”
Addison clenched her hands into fists. This was the exact type of person she’d left Los Angeles to get away from. “Why do you need to know? Papers are public information, are they not?”
Shelby forced a smile. “Like, how old?”
Before Addison could answer, Giant Camera Boy leaned his head out of his office, looked her way, and smiled. Shelby craned her neck and turned as if a third eye in the back of her head made her magically aware of his presence.
“Look, you two can get a hotel later, but right now, I need some information.”
Shelby’s head snapped back into place. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m married,” the girl said, flashing a sparkly, yellow diamond on her ring finger.
“Then maybe you should start acting like it.”
Shelby appeared too dumbfounded to respond. Tired of the girls’ foolish games, Addison marched past her into the first office on the left. A man in a striped suit wearing a Tweety Bird tie eyeballed her and said, “If you need something, the receptionist is out front.” He then attempted to wave Addison out of his office. In response, she sat down across from him, letting him know she’d gone that route already and she wasn’t going to do it again. He listened to her request while watching the seconds tick by on the wall clock. When she finished, he hastily said it was true—they did keep back issues of every paper they’d ever published, but they were on a deadline at the moment. He wouldn’t be able to let her back there, maybe for hours. Her best bet and her fastest one, he explained, was to visit the library in the city.