THE TOWN DAILY
RESIDENT INTERVIEW · No. 6
June
Reporter
"Ask three people the same question and you'll get five answers. My job is to figure out which two are lying to themselves."
You'll rarely see June sitting down. She takes notes standing at Otto's counter, on Old Ben's dock, in the doorway of Kiko's shop while he pretends not to be watching her pen. She writes the whole town — which is a polite way of saying the whole town is a little afraid of her spelling their name wrong on purpose. She isn't cruel. She's just curious past the point most people find comfortable.
The Town Daily: Where do you get your best stories?
June: Otto's counter. He'll tell you he sells the seat 'for the view,' but the view is just people, and the people don't know Otto remembers everything. I buy one coffee, I nurse it for an hour, and by the time it's cold I know who's behind on rent and whose cow calved early. Then I go check it, because Otto's memory is perfect and his conclusions are garbage.
The Town Daily: You seem to write about Kiko a lot.
June: He carries a notebook called 'Vacancies.' A man who writes down everything the town doesn't have yet is going to do something about it eventually, and when he does, I intend to already have the story half-written. That's not a grudge. That's beat reporting. Ask him if he's fine and he'll say 'for now' — and 'for now' is a headline waiting to happen.
The Town Daily: Anyone you can't crack?
June: Fig. Twenty words a day and eighteen of them are 'measure twice.' I know he carves a fig leaf into the beam of every house he builds — I've felt them up there in the dark — but I've never printed it, and I never will. Some things aren't news. They're just a man being kind in a place he thinks nobody looks. I look. I don't tell.
The Town Daily: And Cori? She always brings you the outside headlines.
June: Cori's the only source who leaves. Every time she says 'this is the last trip,' I write it down with the date, and I've got a whole page of last trips now. One day I'll run them all in a column and title it 'She Came Back Again.' She'll pretend to be furious. She won't be. She likes this town more than the whole star-line she rode in on.
Resident file
- Temperament
- Quick, relentlessly curious, and constitutionally unable to leave a loose thread alone. She's warmer than her reputation — she just files the warmth off the record.
- Obsession
- The gap between what people say and what they do — and getting to it in print before the person gets to it themselves.
- Relationships
- Feeds off Otto's counter in a two-way trade of gossip; keeps a permanent eye on Kiko; takes outside headlines from Cori and quietly bets on her return; protects Fig's secret without ever being asked.
As seen in the Town Daily
- LOCAL GROCER SAYS HE'S 'FINE FOR NOW,' NEIGHBORS ADVISED TO LOCK DOORS
- PRICE WAR AT DAWN: BAKER AND GROCER BOTH CLAIM VICTORY, BOTH CUT PRICES AGAIN
- MERCHANT VOWS 'LAST TRIP' FOR SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR; THIS PAPER STOPS COUNTING
June will remember you
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