Janitorial services had shut off the hall light again. Just another reminder of how important the “Living Today” section was. At the end of the dark hall, she saw the newsroom’s light glowing under the door that segregated the departments. Even at this distance, she could hear the wire services and fax machines buzzing. On the other side of that door, a half-dozen reporters and editors guzzled coffee and churned out last-minute articles and revisions. Just on the other side of that door, news was being made while she fussed over apple pie.

She whipped open a file folder and flipped through the notes and recipes. Over a hundred ways to slice, dice, puree and bake apples, and she couldn’t care less. Perhaps her clever wit had run dry, used up on last week’s hot little tomato dishes and a dozen ways to sneak fresh vegetables into your family’s diet. She knew her journalism degree was rusty, thanks to Bruce’s pigheadedness and his insistence that he wear the pants in the family. Too bad the asshole couldn’t keep his pants on.

She slammed the folder shut and tossed it across her desk, watching it slide off and scatter clippings all over the cracked linoleum floor. How long would she remain bitter? No, the real question was, how long would it hurt? Why did it still have to hurt like hell? After all, it had been over a year.

She shoved away from the computer terminal and raked her fingers through her thick mass of blond hair. It needed to be trimmed, and she tried to remember how much time she had before the roots would start darkening. The dye job was a new touch, a divorce present to herself. The initial results had been rewarding. Turning heads was a new experience. If only she could remember to schedule the hairstylist like everything else in her life.

She ignored the building’s no smoking rule and slapped a cigarette out of the pack she kept in her handbag. Quickly, she lit it and sucked in, waiting for the nicotine to calm her.