Alexandra Waring (15 page)

…
Let me see a close-up of what their footprints would look like

…
Tell me how many songs there are that have the word ‘moon’ in them
…
Show me the music for ‘Moon River’
…
List for me all the different recordings of ‘Moon River’
…
Play me ‘Moon River’ as sung by Andy Williams and show me the astronauts landing on the moon in 1969 at the same time.”

While other companies were concentrating on the institutional uses of such technology, Langley wanted to pursue the commercial outlet, envisioning the day they could offer an Interactive Media special over commercial television. While Dr. Kessler had no doubts that such a program would be possible within five years, the endeavor was enormously expensive and Jackson had made it clear to Langley that, if he wanted to pursue this avenue, then he had to
build
the avenue, starting with a profitable commercial television network.

Only Jack hadn’t told him he was going to make such a mess out of the whole operation! Jack hadn’t told him he was going to make some changes in Langley’s very methodical five-year plan for DBS—changes like moving up the news division a year and doubling its budget, pushing sports back eight months, robbing the miniseries blind, hiring a talk show hostess who was lost or dead in Mexico somewhere, canceling the game show and putting the whole soap opera idea on ice
…
Oh, yes, one could say that Jackson had made a few changes that had altered the stability of Langley’s venture a bit.

And now that Langley had told Cassy no, he would not approve the funds for Alexandra to hire three field correspondents, he realized that Alexandra could do it anyway. Because Alexandra’s contract guaranteed that for any “additional” news programming she did—meaning anything that hadn’t been set in the budget—a percentage of the gross ad revenues from that additional programming automatically became discretionary production funds for her to allocate as she wished. And since Alexandra’s contract said she went on the air in September, that meant all her newscasts for June, July and August fell into that classification of “additional” news programming and, hence, Ms. Waring did indeed have “extra” money in her production budget to spend as she wished.

Ho hum, just another lovely day at Darenbrook Communications.

Langley sat up. “I know, I know,” he said to Cassy, holding a hand up. “Thank you for reminding me about Alexandra’s contract.” He let his hand fall on his desk with a thump. “So why bother asking me? She’ll do whatever she wants anyway.”

“
We
are asking you,” Cassy said, sounding a trifle annoyed, “because we are all working on the same side, Langley. And not only that—we all work for you.”

Langley shrugged, not feeling like getting into an argument with Cassy about whether Alexandra really worked for or with anybody.

“Langley,” Cassy said, waiting for him to look at her. “I know you well enough to know that something’s wrong.” She paused, frowning slightly and touching at her earring. She lowered her hand to her lap and sighed. “I don’t know what could be wrong with the financing of this network already, but I’m trusting that you’ll tell me if there is something seriously wrong, so that I can have a fighting chance to do something about it on my end—for my group, for our people.”

He wasn’t sure what to say.

She looked at him for a long moment and then sighed again. “Look,” she said, standing up, “I can get Alexandra to back down on this one. I’m going to suggest she hang on to those discretionary funds for a while, until we’re more sure of the direction we’ll be moving in this year. But, Langley—listen to me—I can’t say I’ll be able to do this again. I’ve got enough of my own stuff to work out with Alexandra on the format of the newscast, and I just can’t waste my influence with her by trying to screen I-don’t-know-what from you.”

Langley got up too. “We’re a bit short on cash, that’s all. And I need you to stick to your budget as best you can for the time being.” He paused. “That’s it. That’s all.” He walked around his desk, taking her eyes with him. Glancing at her, “What?”

Still she only looked at him.

“What?” he repeated.

Cassy looked first one way and then the other, then back at Langley, drawing a hand up to her hip. “Langley, who do you think you’re talking to? I’ve seen your budget for DBS. I’ve seen the production allocations on that budget—” She threw her arms out then. “How in Sam Hill could you be short on cash? You’ve got more padding in that budget than the Flight Deck in Bellevue.”

“Forget I said anything, Cassy,” he said, taking her arm. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your office. I’ve got to—”

She wasn’t going anywhere. “Forget you said anything?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Cassy, look,” he said, sticking one hand in his pants pocket and gesturing with the other. “You know better than this. You know this is a private corporation, and that the numbers you see are not always
…
Well, you know. We have many different parts of the company to balance out, and sometimes our cash flow slows in one area when it’s in the best interest of our tax situation to do so.”

She looked as though she believed him, but then said, “Wait a minute,” held a hand up and took a step back from him. “I just want to know one thing—can you or can you not meet the expenses of the DBS News budget that you and I worked out together—staff, salaries, equipment, transmission costs—everything as we set it down?”

“Yes, of course I can,” Langley said.

“You swear?” she said.

He held up his hand and smiled. “I swear.”

She lowered her hand. “And if we need just a little more money, here and there, money I know we can make up by the end of the year? Is that going to be impossible?”

“Not impossible,” he said, reaching for her arm. “Come on, I’ve got to see Gordon. He’s been trying to see me all day.”

Langley walked over to Darenbrook III with Cassy, dropped her off on the second floor and took the stairs up to the third. He turned into the hallway just in time to see Gordon’s secretary standing in front of several onlookers, winding up to hurl the bocce ball.

“Very graceful, Miss Cannondale,” Langley said.

Betty looked back over her shoulder, offered a weak smile, and then, slowly, straightened up, dropped the ball, hung her head and sighed. “Red-handed,” she said.

Langley looked at the small crowd. They were various members of the production team who had come in from L.A. and would be moving on to London. “Hi,” Langley said. “Everybody settling in okay?”

They murmured yesses, nervously disbanding.

“Gordon in his office?” he asked Betty.

“He’s on the phone, but just go on in. He really wants to see you.”

Gordon was not on the phone. He was standing in front of the glass—feet apart, hands in suit pockets—staring down at the square. Langley knocked on the door and he whirled around. “Langley, hi,” he said, walking around his desk. “Have a seat.”

As Langley pulled up one of the two leather chairs on this side of the desk, Gordon went over and closed the door.

“Sorry it took me so long—it’s been one of those days,” Langley said.

“You didn’t have to come over,” Gordon said, taking the other chair near Langley, “but I’m glad you did.”

“Me too. I don’t see enough of you.” Langley always said that to Gordon these days—as if it could make up for how Jackson had utterly cut him dead. “So what can I do for you?”

“Uh, it’s personal this time, actually,” Gordon said.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Gordon said, drawing an ankle up to rest on the knee of his other leg. “I, uh—I wanted to talk to you about Alexandra.” His eyes met Langley’s as he said her name.

“Yes,” Langley said, ready for anything—he hoped.

“What I wanted to ask you—” Gordon started. And then he stopped. “No, wait.” He brought his leg down and leaned forward in his chair. “I was hoping for a straight answer from you.” He looked away for a moment and then back at Langley again. “Confidentially, off the record.”

Langley smiled and nodded for him to continue.

Gordon hesitated for a moment and then said, “What’s going to happen around here if Alexandra and I get married?”

“Oh,” Langley said, surprised. “Gosh, that’s great.”

“Well, wait a minute,” Gordon cautioned him, “it’s not written in stone. As a matter of fact, it’s not really written anywhere yet. But it’s definitely in the wind,” he added, smiling.

“Good,” Langley said.

“Yeah, right, you say good, but what about Jackson? What’s going to happen with him?”

“Nothing—that I know of,” Langley said.

“It’s not going to hurt Alexandra’s career here then,” Gordon said seriously, straightening up. “It won’t affect the company’s support of her.”

“Wouldn’t matter if she married the man on the moon,” Langley said. “Not with her contract guarantees.”

“I meant about Jackson,” Gordon said.

Langley shifted in his seat. “You haven’t been reading some papers that we all know would be better off left unread, have you?”

Gordon shrugged, running a hand through his hair.

“Gordon—” Langley shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.

“That’s what Cassy said.”

“So you’ve talked to her about it.”

Gordon nodded. “She’s all for it—well, she always has been. And now with Alexandra being the anchor for DBS—well, Cassy’s too polite to say it, but even I know maybe it’s not such a hot idea for Alexandra and me to be openly living together. She’d prefer, I think, that, if we’re thinking of getting married, we go ahead and do it.”

“This came up, you know,” Langley said, “in our negotiations with Alexandra. We told her that she was of course free to do whatever she wanted in her personal life—but that we didn’t want her to publicly acknowledge that she was living with you. See, it’s Jack’s older sister we worry about, Cordelia—”

“The religious one.”

“Well,” Langley said, chuckling to himself, “in a manner of speaking—but Cordelia is very sensitive to issues like this.” He sighed. “And Cordelia does carry a great deal of weight with the board and could cause a lot a trouble if she thought the symbol of DBS News was, well, living in sin, as she would say.”

“Yeah, right,” Gordon said, thinking. “Um,” he said a moment later, looking up, “so as far as you’re concerned—about our getting married
…
”

“You’ve got my wholehearted approval,” Langley told him. “When are you thinking of?”

“I’m not sure,” Gordon said. “This winter, spring maybe.”

Langley nodded, started to say something, but hesitated.

“I knew it,” Gordon said.

“What?”

“That you’d ask me to keep it quiet for a while,” Gordon said. “Around Jackson—right?”

“Uh,” Langley said, “right. If you don’t mind.” This was no time to get Jack furious at DBS News.

“That was Cassy’s advice too,” Gordon said. “And I’m going to take it. Okay,” he added, slapping the arms of his chair and standing up, “time for phase two.”

“Which is?” Langley said, standing up also.

“Asking her to marry me,” Gordon said, adding, with a smile and a wink, “for the thirty-ninth time.”

This last comment of Gordon’s disturbed Langley a bit, and as he walked back to Darenbrook I he hoped that Gordon had good reason to believe that after thirty-nine times Alexandra would now say yes. Worrying about Jackson was one thing, but Langley had no desire to worry about Alexandra angling to become the new Mrs. Darenbrook.

“Mrs. Peterson called,” Adele said as he came back into his office. “She’s at the house in Palm Beach.”

“Thanks,” Langley said, thinking,
Thank God she’s back on an even keel.
Whenever Belinda was feeling very well, she usually liked to go to one of their houses—in Palm Beach, Aspen or just out in Greenwich—and call Langley four or five times a day to tell him some little thing that she had just done or witnessed. But when Belinda was not feeling very well, she headed back to Manhattan, to their apartment, where she rarely called Langley, but where other people usually did—to tell him that Belinda had “gone off.”

There was no other way really to describe it. Belinda, who, at thirty-seven, to all appearances was quite normal, could suddenly “go off.” Sometimes it came out as rage, and she would start verbally abusing people, throwing things, threatening to hurt herself; and other times she seemed merely disoriented, drunk almost (though Belinda did not drink), and wandered around—like she had recently, stumbling into the Bells’ building—as though she were some kind of street person.

And then there were these manic episodes, when she wouldn’t sleep, would chatter her head off, and then suddenly she’d go into this incredible drive to—what felt like her desire to—fuck Langley to death. More, more, it wasn’t enough—it was a kind of frantic and fierce grabbing and grappling, desperate and harsh and not at all loving like the old Belinda had been,
his
old Belinda, the highly passionate Belinda of the early years of their marriage.

And then, just as suddenly, Belinda would feel fine again and flee Manhattan, and call Langley, sounding happy and relaxed.

Belinda had been tested for manic depression so many times that every time someone suggested it to Langley he could cite them chapter and verse why, in as thorough medicalese as they cared to hear, Belinda’s problem was not manic depression. She had a borderline personality which she was working on in therapy; she had creative tendencies that caused periods of high motivation and periods of depression; Belinda had suffered enormous emotional damage as a child which was only now coming to the surface—these were the things Langley had been told, over and over. Belinda was not crazy, the doctors insisted.

Try telling that to her brothers and sisters though, who had watched Belinda suddenly “go off” during a board meeting in the living room of the Petersons’ Fifth Avenue apartment not long ago.

“I—simply—must—do—this!” Belinda had panted, yanking on a pair of fourteen-foot drapes until the rods came crashing down on top of Cordelia and Beau. And then she ran down the back hall, tearing off her clothes, screaming at the top of her lungs that Langley had to make love to her then and there or she was divorcing him because everybody knew she only married him to get out of that horrible school Cordelia put her in anyway and if he didn’t come right now she would just jump out the window
…