Chapter One

Halfway through my brother’s wedding, I snuck out for a job interview. My older brother covered for me. My sister-in-law issued threats. We were there and back before I had time to breathe.

I needed a job, and this was my only lead so far.

The Hudson Star Observer was a small-town newspaper in Wisconsin. My dad, happy to come along—mostly to make sure I didn’t end up back home for the summer—seemed more invested in the process than I was.

When we arrived at the newspaper office, it was a giant brick building just off Main Street. The brick had been painted white, but it must have been a while ago—the paint was peeling, and strips of it littered the sidewalk. The building was old.

My dad strolled down Main Street to find a cup of coffee, and I stepped inside. The smell was familiar but hard to place—like a wet dog, stale money, and too much industrial cleaner trying to hide something worse.

“C’mon in,” I heard from the front office.

The editor, Doug, was sitting in his office, facing the street. Behind him, books and what looked like financial documents were stacked in chaotic piles. When he stood up to meet me, I immediately noticed that he was tall, slightly overweight, and his eyes were looking in different directions. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me or at the printer sitting on top of the credenza.

I suddenly realized I was bobbing my head up and down, tilting slightly to the left and then to the right, trying to anticipate where he was actually looking.

“Hello,” he said awkwardly.

What I heard him say was: I’m an awkward nerd who likes numbers more than words, and I’m not sure why I’m here on a Saturday interviewing you when my wife wants me to take her golfing…

“Have a seat,” he said.

He briefly told me about the job, the hours, and the responsibilities, then asked if I had any samples of my work.

Earnestly, I pulled out my “clips” from my time at the college newspaper. “Here’s a compelling story,” I began, “about how students were stealing red plastic cups from the cafeteria and the college’s plan to get them back.”

One of his eyes seemed to say, Are you f*ing kidding me?

I pressed on. “Here’s a story I wrote about campus security guards getting their golf carts stolen by drunk football players. Some students are facing serious charges…”

The eye that had been looking at me rolled in the opposite direction, but the eye that had been locked on the printer suddenly snapped back around. Now he was looking at me cross-eyed.

“We also hosted a political summit with George Shultz,” I stammered, still distracted by his shifting gaze. In my distress, I blurted, “Not to be confused with Charles Shultz, the Peanuts guy… And, um,” still floundering, “we had the eyes of the world on us.”

Doug’s expression didn’t change, but one of his eyes twitched, like it was debating whether to acknowledge my slip. I swallowed, suddenly aware of how warm the office felt. If he noticed, he didn’t let on.

Fail. No way I’m getting the job now.

I tried to regain my composure. Doug smiled, gave me a couple of pleasantries about the office and the people, then sent me on my way. I tried to take it all in as he escorted me to the front door.

“This might have been an interesting place to work,” I thought, resigned to the notion that it would never happen.

Before leaving, I asked to use the restroom. Doug pointed me down the hall. The door was heavy, dented metal, like it had seen better days.

I pushed it open.

Immediately, I regretted it.

The smell hit first—mildew, urine, and something that had been dead for so long it had soaked into the 1970s brown wood-paneled walls. And then I saw the floor. Carpet. Actual carpet. The sink, crusted with grime, looked like it had been given up on decades ago. The stall door hung at a defeated angle, and next to the toilet—where normal workplaces might keep spare rolls of paper towels—was a towering stack of Playboy, Penthouse, and OUI magazines.

I blinked. What the hell?

My bladder gave up entirely, shriveling like a punctured water balloon.

Instead, I carefully washed my hands in a sink that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since Nixon’s first term. That’s when I saw it—a giant container of cheap hand lotion wedged between the toilet and the wall.

I bolted.

After the interview, I drove back to the wedding, replaying everything in my head.

The red plastic cup story? Ridiculous.

The eyes of the world comment? Even worse.

No way I was getting that job.

That night, I danced at my brother’s wedding like I had nothing to worry about. And for a few days, I let myself believe it. But by the next weekend, as finals wrapped up and I said my goodbyes to campus life, I felt something tighten in my chest. The kind of feeling you get when you know a chapter is closing, and you’re not sure if you’re ready for what comes next. There was an inevitability to it all.

A few days later, the job offer came. I expected excitement. Maybe joy. Instead, I felt relief—like I’d escaped something worse, only to step into something unknown. Ready or not, it was happening.

That sense of relief lasted about a day. Then panic set in. I needed to graduate. Find an apartment. Buy furniture. Figure out how to be an adult.

Little did I know what I was in for. And apparently, neither did my brothers.

Before I even started my job, they started calling me “Jimmy Olson” in reference to the cub reporter from the Superman franchise. It was meant as a dig, but it was probably more accurate than I cared to admit.

There was much to do. I was to start at the job on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. That meant finding a place to live, furniture, plates, cups, a coffee maker—all things I didn’t own and could barely afford.

The only apartment I could find was in North Hudson, a town famous for two things: its late-summer Pepper Festival and its impressively high rate of crack use.

I moved in on a humid afternoon, hauling a mattress and a few boxes around some incredibly tight angles. My parents helped, making sure my fridge had enough food to last a week and that my car wouldn’t break down before my first day.

When they left, I stood in the doorway, staring at the small, empty space. The silence pressed in.

No roommates. No dorm noise. No campus life humming in the background.

Just me.

I took a deep breath, trying to shake the feeling off. Tomorrow, I’d figure everything out. Tonight, I just needed to get through the first night in a town where I knew no one.

I needed to figure out the best way to get to my job. I drove down by the newspaper office from my apartment several times to make sure I knew where I was going.

The night before my job began, I walked the quiet streets of North Hudson. The air smelled of fresh-cut grass and cigarettes. Porch lights flickered. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. It was the start of summer, and I felt both excited and terrified. Could I really do this? I wasn’t sure.

But? I was about to find out.

Doug greeted me on my first day and took me around to introduce the others.

There were a cast of characters at this small-town newspaper.

Bob was the other full-time reporter, obsessed with getting his byline on the front page. Late 30s, bowl haircut, a family photo on his desk—his wife and two kids smiling up at him. He struck me as the kind of guy who loved his kids but rarely saw them.

He was friendly in the way that middle managers pretend to be—just enough to make you comfortable before reminding you who’s been here longer. My desk sat directly in front of his, meaning he could see everything I did.

I could already feel the weight of his gaze on my work.

Kay Johnson was the social editor. She was in her mid-70s and spent her days writing and rewriting wedding, birth, and anniversary announcements. She was “particular,” she said, but she seemed more like a perfectionist. One thing she hated? Writing obituaries. She convinced Doug to pass them off to me.

“You’ll love writing obituaries,” she said. “There’s a very, very specific way to write them that will make you feel like you are truly honoring the dead.” She said we needed to set up 30-40 hours of time for her to train me. I had a hint of what it might feel like to be dead.

There were others. Nancy and Carol, the copy editors. It was their job to layout the pages of the newspaper. I meant for a hectic day on Tuesday when all the type needed to be keylined and in place. It was a stressful job.

Sheri was the typesetter. They called themselves the party crew. They invited me to Bucks, the bar across the street from the newspaper. They were there every Friday from 5 p.m. “’til Sheri can’t stand up anymore.”

Doug rolled one of his eyes. He clearly didn’t like the staff fraternizing after hours.

Afterwards he said, “Do what you want, but it would be my recommendation that you stay away from those girls.” The fact that he used the word ‘girls’ made me cringe a bit and somehow made me like those women even more.

There were others. Katie, the intern from the University of Madison. She would be an extra set of hands this summer, Doug said. Peggy was the person I was “replacing” as she had told Doug she didn’t want to work full time anymore. It seemed like hiring me was a way to save money. Someone fresh out of school was cheaper than hiring an experienced reporter.

“You get what you pay for,” my dad was fond of saying. I smiled to myself.

And then, there was Willis.

Editor Emeritus. Keeper of sixty plus years’ worth of town history.

His office was on the third floor, tucked away from the rest of us. He was barely five feet tall, dressed in strange, tailored suits that Sheri said he picked up on his “business trips” to Thailand.

The first time I met him, he barely looked at me. His fingers, thick and cold, wrapped around mine, lingering just long enough to make me wonder if I was imagining it.

“Welcome,” he said, his voice soft but deliberate.

I expected something more sinister—low and gravelly, like an Austin Powers villain. Instead, his voice was gentle, almost careful, as if he had learned to measure his words before speaking. It threw me off.

He let go, and I resisted the urge to wipe my palm against my jeans. There was something about his grip—cold, but not just in temperature. Something that lingered.

I watched him shuffle back to his office, moving slowly, like he was listening more than watching. The hallway light flickered as he passed, and for a moment, it almost looked like his shadow hesitated.

A ghost drifting through the building in cheap, ill-fitting suits.

I wouldn’t realize until later that ghosts wander, carrying secrets—ones that are difficult to piece together.Now he was looking at me cross-eyed.