To Live and To Breathe (Could Be #2)

Chapter 2

Timothy's daily pilgrimage delivered him to the doorstep of The Thameton Pry. Squashed in between a milliner's and a shoe shop, the door was sunken into the street front like one suspicious eye squinting out at the world. He passed under the faded sign proclaiming the newspaper's establishment in 1882, and made his careful way up the dark staircase until he stepped through another door and found himself in a smoky office populated with lounging youths, tables of typewriters, and the benevolent spirit of tobacco himself, Jasper Lyman.

Somewhere between thirty-five and fifty—Timothy could never pin his age, because there were times that he seemed startlingly young, and others that told a different tale—the square-jawed editor reclined behind a heavy wooden desk with a cigar clutched between his teeth. It looked to Timothy as if he hadn't shaved in days, and the greasiness of his hair suggested that hadn't bathed in months. How such a man had weaseled his way into such a position Timothy didn't know, but he'd learned to tread quietly when in the man's presence. He had complete say over which articles were accepted, how much was paid for them, and whether the writers submitting to him could continue to do so. Timothy had seen some dismissed for incompetence. He felt continually on that knife's edge himself.

He made his way over to one of the tables and sat down, staring tiredly at the worn keys of the typewriter in front of him. This was the table he frequented the most because it was the only one that didn't force him to socialize in order to use it. Each of the small tables held two typewriters, and Timothy found it hard to think when one of the other reporters was sitting across from him, staring him out of countenance. He knew he made faces while writing, and didn't want that fact noised abroad.

Timothy had just finished thanking the Lord for this solitary table when motion caught his eye, the chair across from him screeched, and he found himself no longer alone. He frowned at the newcomer. What in Heaven's name made him pick that seat, when there were plenty of perfectly good ones left in the rest of the room?

To his further consternation, the stranger offered his hand across the table. "Samuel Paine," he said, grinning.

Timothy shook his hand out of common courtesy, and nodded. "Timothy Wright," he replied, at a loss of anything else to do. The stranger looked about his age or younger, and was of a stocky build with bristling brown hair, a good-natured face, and eyes that seemed accustomed to laughing. He wished that Lyman would begin the meeting, so he could be saved from conversation. He knew that Mr. Paine had been around for a while, but also that he struggled to submit articles that the editor found interesting enough to pay for.

"I'm glad to know your name," Mr. Paine went on, sitting back composedly. "I've been calling you 'Bean Pole' in my head for the last two weeks."

Timothy stared at him. He didn't know what bean poles were but he suspected it was a reference to his height, and he resented it. He couldn't help the fact that he was a walking lamp post. "I thank you for your attention to detail," he said, averting his gaze to the tabletop with a grimace.

"You always sit alone," Mr. Paine continued, and Timothy looked at him sharply. "So I thought to myself, 'He's the only one worth making an acquaintance of.'"

Timothy opened his mouth, then closed it again, bewildered by such a flattering insult.

"So what is it that makes you unsociable?" Mr. Paine asked, picking at a splinter on the tabletop. "Unrequited love?"

"Unre—what?" Timothy exclaimed so suddenly that he choked, and spent the next two minutes bent double coughing. He didn't know where Mr. Paine came from, but he could go back there. First he had insulted his height, then his antisocial inclinations, and finally accused him of harboring romantic secrets like some kind of moor-wandering rejected lover in a book. Timothy was not that interesting.

"It's all right, I know how you feel," Mr. Paine went on, and Timothy looked at him in disbelief as he finally caught his breath. "I thought I was in love until yesterday. She said that she was an appreciator of the sciences, and so I showed her this."

And then, to Timothy's horror, Mr. Paine produced an ear from his pocket. "Good—" he gasped, then searched for something to say that wouldn't shock his mother. "Good morning!"  He shoved his chair back as fast as it would go and struggled to his feet. He'd rather not share a table with Jack the Ripper.

"That's the same face she made when I showed it to her." Mr. Paine sounded puzzled. "But it isn't real—it's just a model. See?" With a flick of his thumb, the ear came apart in several anatomically correct layers.

"Good morning," Timothy repeated, a cold feeling stealing into the pit of his stomach.

"It's like the ones medical students at university use. I thought that since I'm going to be a doctor, I ought to study whatever I can."

Timothy closed his eyes and leaned on the table as the room tilted slightly. Breathe. After several thick breaths, he looked at the over-friendly sawbones across from him. "You want to be a doctor, and your name is Paine?" he croaked.

Mr. Paine squinted back at him just a moment too long. "I can't help it if my ancestors were dungeon-keepers."

"Mr. Paine—" Timothy began, trying not to sound as breathless as he felt.

"Sam."

Timothy closed his eyes as if he had a headache. "Sam—could you do me a favor?"

Samuel leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach complacently. "Of course."

"Never pull a piece of human anatomy out of your pocket ever again."

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Timothy's reliance on "good morning" to tell Sam to go away was inspired by the conversation between Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf at the start of The Hobbit.

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