Masked by Moonlight. Allie Pleiter
stared at her brother. They sat talking over breakfast in the family dining room. The sun had overpowered the morning fog, to produce a victorious wash of bright light. Unlike the estate’s massive formal dining hall, this was a warm and comfortable room. Georgia had seen to its welcoming palette of honey-colored wood, gold and tan wallpaper, with a few hints of green and burgundy in various accents. She loved that the petit point chair cushions were their late mother’s needlework. That the impressive gold candlesticks and clock on the fireplace mantel had been a favorite of their late father’s. Even though they were long gone, this dining room was one of the places she most felt her parents’ presence. Perhaps that’s why she had chosen to launch her extraordinary plan over breakfast here.
“That place has cost me thousands of dollars in your brand of philanthropy. They’ve got you hoodwinked,” her brother was saying.
Georgia gathered strength from the room around her and silently held her ground. Or, as she liked to think of it, she held ground for God.
Stuart finally looked up from his paper. “You’re not serious.”
“I am.” With one hand she instinctively gripped the cushioned arm of her chair, as if her mother’s needlework would support her cause.
“Peach, I can’t just run something like that in the Herald,” said her brother, who often called her Peach, especially when being difficult. “You know that.”
“You run whatever you please in that paper, Stuart. Facts or no facts.” Georgia knew she had him there. Stuart Waterhouse ran a highly successful but highly disreputable paper.
“Peach,” he moaned at her display of determination, “be reasonable. We’ve already had a Black Bandit Bart. People aren’t going to believe that some man with the same name as that stagecoach robber has suddenly sprung up to play the noble hero. They aren’t going to believe it at all. It’s fiction.”
Fiction. How funny of him to use such a term. She wondered what he called half of his paper’s contents, since Georgia knew the term “fact” hardly applied. Quite clearly, Stuart viewed fiction as something beyond his dealings, even though Georgia imagined half of San Francisco might think otherwise.
“I know very well what it is. And believe me, Stuart, if I had a set of good deeds for your reporters, I’d tell you. But, as you so often point out, this city seems steeped in bad news. And you gave Black Bandit Bart a lot of coverage, so why not a new Black Bandit?”
Stuart rolled his eyes. “Oh come now, Georgia, times aren’t as bad as all that.”
“Aren’t they? Have you visited Grace House? Seen what kind of people come there asking for help? Things are going from bad to worse lately. You know it. I worry that you thrive on it, for goodness’ sake.” She reached for the morning’s edition of the Herald, which lay on the table between them. The cool black-and-white newsprint stood out against the honey-toned wood that surrounded them.
Georgia unfolded the paper and held it up to her brother. “I don’t see a piece of good news in here, Stuart. Can you show me even one story?”
He evaded her challenge, as she knew he would. “I’m not going tit for tat with you on this.” He rose and walked to the window, slipping his hands inside the pockets of his crisp gray trousers. He was a fastidious dresser, her brother. He always looked sharp and strong, his meticulously tailored coat rarely unbuttoned. “Write all the stories you like, tell tales to your heart’s content,” he said, gazing out the window. “Just don’t ask me to run them in the Herald.”
The servants brought in breakfast, interrupting the exchange. The siblings ate in silence, he thinking he’d ended the conversation, she regrouping for another attempt.
When he’d finished the last of his eggs, Georgia slid the paper over to his side of the table once more. She would not back down. Not again. “We don’t have any good news, Stuart. We’re going to have to make our own. Fiction reminds people of what could be. Stories touch their hearts. This city isn’t suffering from a lack of facts. Folks already have more than enough facts to fill their heads. It’s suffering from a lack of heart. A lack of faith. Stories reach that part of us.”
Stuart’s expression told her she was speaking about things he neither understood nor valued. He ran his empire, and cared little for lingering over breakfast to discuss San Francisco’s moral failings.
He didn’t concern himself with the citizens’ hearts or souls.
Their wallets, however, commanded his full attention.
Georgia looked at the candlesticks, massive and ornate. Her father had brought them back from a trip because he’d felt they caught one’s eye. They were, in fact, the first thing anyone noticed when entering the room. She needed to catch her brother’s eye, then, and put this in terms he could appreciate. She altered the tone of her voice.
“If there’s one thing you know, Stuart, it’s how to give your readers what they want.” She handed him a small stack of handwritten pages. “Read this. Just read it once, that’s all I’m asking.” She sent up a prayer that he would do so. “See what those famous instincts of yours tell you about what people might think of this.”
Stuart reached for a piece of toast and glared at her.
She did her best to glare back. Lord, please let him read it. Only You can do this.
Slowly, Stuart’s hand moved toward the pages. She straightened her spine, trying to look as if she’d never leave the breakfast table until he granted her request. If the sun could conquer the fog this morning, she could stand up to Stuart.
He took hold of the pages while biting into his toast.
Georgia waited. Show him, Lord. Let him see it. See what I see.
She studied her brother’s face as he began to read. After a paragraph or two, Stuart stopped chewing. He let out a little humming sound as he turned the page.
“It’s fine work, but I…”
“You ought to have thought of this yourself, Stuart. You ought to have written it yourself. It would do you a world of good to pen something that might actually be categorized as…uplifting.”
Stuart dismissed the idea with a snort. “I haven’t any talent for this sort of thing.” He put down the toast, half-eaten, and emptied his coffee cup instead. “‘Uplifting’ doesn’t sell.”
Georgia tried out her newfound glare once more. “But you know this will sell. And don’t try to deny it—I see it on your face. Everyone needs a hero. And if they need one bad enough, he doesn’t even have to be real. That little boy at Grace House made up his own personal hero so he’d believe he had someone looking out for him. So he could believe that good might just conquer evil, after all. Hold up a little piece of good for once, Stuart. It won’t hurt you. And won’t cost you a dime.”
Her brother was right in one respect: he couldn’t have written it. There was nothing ideological about Stuart. He’d built a fortune on his keen grasp of the public’s insatiable hunger for news. His brand of news. Sharp, eye-catching, unabashedly partisan news. In all honesty, her brother’s outlandish character sold as many papers as his headlines. Stuart Waterhouse wasn’t exactly known for his respect of facts, but his opinions were the stuff of legend.
Well, she could be a legendary Waterhouse, too. And Georgia knew, just as God did, that the public’s appetite for something good was just as strong as its craving for slander.
“Run it, Stuart. One installment. As a favor to me.”
“Georgia, I’m not—”
“Please, Stuart. For me.”
A wry smile crept across his face, and she knew she had him. “Oh, very well, then, I’ll run it.”
Thank you, Father!
“On two conditions.”
Well, if she hadn’t