Alexandra Waring (31 page)

Now that that was settled, Jackson plunged in with why he had come. He wanted to invite everybody up—the board and their families, the cousins, everybody—to New York for a weekend in July for a special tour of the DBS network facility at West End, and while Jackson would schedule fun things for the families to do around the city, the board would have a special meeting at West End, where Jackson and Langley would do a complete financial review of the network.

“I still want my audit,” Cordelia said, wiping her hands on her apron and picking up her cup of coffee off the counter. (Cordie was one of those women who, unless dining in the dining room, rarely ate sitting down.)

“If the presentation doesn’t answer all of your questions,” Jackson said, “I promise, I’ll make a motion for an audit myself.”

Cordelia swallowed some coffee, eyes on Jackson, and lowered her cup. “I don’t understand why you do this, Jackie Andy—how you can let Beau throw all your money away.”

“He didn’t throw it away—not on purpose. He’s got a problem, Cordie, he couldn’t help it.”

“And it’s not going to help things if you keep paying his debts!” Cordelia said, banging her cup down on the counter. “And I will not have Darenbrook Communications mixed up in it any longer. You know I love you, Brother, but I am warning you—if I find out you’ve been using the family company to pay Beau’s gambling debts, you are going to be in a lot of trouble. Now I mean it, Jackson Andrew Darenbrook,” she said, shaking her finger at him, “so don’t you go pretending you didn’t hear me.”

“I hear you, Cordie,” Jackson said.

Big El—who had been chewing on a muffin, staring at Jackson during all of this—stopped chewing and said, “I smell funny money, Cordie Lou.”

“I have from the beginning, Daddy, that’s why I wanted the audit,” Cordelia said, folding her arms and looking at Jackson. “July, you said?”

“July,” he said.

“July then,” Cordelia said, picking up her cup. “I will wait until July.”

Jackson went into town to spend the rest of the day at the
Parader
offices, and then, that night, took a drive out to the plant to watch the next morning’s edition come off the presses. He met the city editor for a late steak at Coach and Six, checked into the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton, tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

He kept thinking about Barbara.

About how much he missed her, about how much he needed her, still, and about how lost he felt in his life whenever he thought about her. And he thought about how he wished he did not think of her, but wondered who else he could think about when it seemed like he would never be able to fall in love again.

Obsessions, like the one with Alexandra, had their purpose.

Because thoughts of Barbara depressed him. And his family depressed him, his kids—what kids? Who was he kidding? How can one have kids if they didn’t want him?—depressed him, and he depressed himself. It was getting harder and harder to feel as though any of this was worth it—the business, the family—and the hope that maybe there would be something to look forward to seemed to grow fainter each year.

He could look forward to getting older. Alone. Sleeping with ditzy Miss Something-or-Others, playing big shot, trying to keep his messed up family together.

For crying out loud, you’d think one member of his family would be happy, be healthy! Did all of them have to be such losers at life, bumbling around, year after year, fighting and fussing and feuding for the lack of anything better to do, grasping for money and raising tormented kids who hated them but stuck around long enough to get some of their money so they could get away from them forever?

And what exactly was it that they had done that made them deserve so many tragedies in their family? Why them, why the Darenbrooks? Why did his brother have to be murdered, why did his mother have to be struck down by a car and his wife have to have her neck broken? Why did his kids have to avoid him, hate him; his siblings hate each other? Why did Belinda have to be losing her mind, the twins and Little El be so awful? Why did Daddy have to drink and Cordie have to stay with horrible Kitty and Beau have to gamble? And why did it have to go on forever?

Jackson got up, finally, and turned on the TV. Cable of course, CNN of course, this was Atlanta, wasn’t it? Sitting there, watching it, drinking two things of orange juice and one Clamato from the bar, Jackson wondered if maybe the answer lay in giving up and hoeing beets. Finally, around three, he started feeling sleepy (imagining all those acres of beets under the hot sun), and he tried bed again and this time it worked.

And then the phone rang. He sat bolt upright, his heart pounding.
Oh, no—Lydia? Kevin? Daddy? Cordie? Who? What’s happened?
He took a breath, turned on the light, and then snatched up the phone. Before he even got it to his ear, he heard a voice say, “Don’t be alarmed, everything’s okay.”

“Alexandra?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

Silence.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

He heard her sigh and then, her voice sounding funny, she said, “Nothing that can’t be fixed, thank God.”

He let out a breath and fell back against the pillows, relieved. “Where are you?”

“Jackson,” she said, “I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong about the format for the newscast. Cassy was right. Her format’s right and mine’s wrong. Even Jessica could see that mine was wrong. I think I’ve known it all along too, but I couldn’t—” Her voice broke.

Mrs. Cochran had once taken Jackson to task about Alexandra—one of many times—and it was funny, but what she had said this one particular time came back to him now. That Alexandra was so driven that she was often unaware of her own needs; that she was young and had gaps in her experience and was very slow to accept the notion of either; and that Alexandra had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility that they had to be very careful about.

According to Mrs. Cochran (Grand Controlleress of West End, whom Jackson, until now, had not paid very much attention to in the matter of Alexandra), they had to teach Alexandra how to swing the double-edged sword of her nature without cutting her own head off in the process. They needed to support and encourage Alexandra, but to tell her no when they had to and mean it. They had to remind her to think of herself as part of a group, never as an individual, in order to wrest away some of that overdeveloped sense of responsibility from her—the same kind that had eaten alive so many news people before her. And Mrs. Cochran had said (shouted, actually, as Jackson recalled) that they had to show Alexandra that it was okay for her to make a mistake once in a while, that she did not have to be perfect, but that she
did
have to accept herself as occasionally vulnerable and always mortal, always human.

And now that Jackson’s obsession with her was coming to a crumbling end, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t think of Alexandra as mortal and human now too.

“Good, you were wrong,” Jackson said. “I’m glad to hear it, because now everybody can relate to you as a human being. Everyone except you has made mistakes thus far, so now you can be part of the group again.”

Pause. “What?”

“Listen, Alexandra,” Jackson said, “it’s okay. Really. It’s okay. We haven’t gone on the air yet, we have time to change over—absolutely no damage has been done. And you know, kid—listen to me—that by rehearsing your format you’ve improved the other format by making everybody reassess every single element of the newscast again and again. You know that’s true.”

A sigh. “I suppose.” And then, “And, Jackson, this morning, when you told me about reassigning Cassy, I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought you were pulling your support from me. I thought maybe you were angry about Gordon or something—and I apologize. I really, truly apologize from the bottom of my heart. I’m so sorry for misjudging—for flying off the handle—” Her voice broke again and Jackson realized she was crying.

He sighed, thinking about how much pressure was on Alexandra. And then he sighed again, knowing that Mrs. Cochran had been right all along. His chasing Alexandra around had been an additional strain on her. What had Alexandra just said? That she had thought he had increased Mrs. Cochran’s responsibilities to punish Alexandra because of her relationship with Gordon Strenn? (What
was
their relationship these days? he wondered.) “Alexandra,” he said gently, “you don’t ever have to worry about my support of you. Ever. I swear, honey—please don’t cry.”

“I’m just so sorry for screaming at you, for misunderstanding everything,” she said. She sniffed. “And Langley wrote me the most wonderful note today, Jackson. You wouldn’t believe it. I didn’t. And then he came down here tonight to talk to me—and he explained that there were things that had to be worked out at DBS, that Cassy’s promotion was meant to help DBS News, and he asked me to trust him. And he said that the three of you—you and Cassy and Langley—were looking out for me—”

Her voice broke again.

He reached over to the night table to look at his watch. It was four-fifteen in the morning. No wonder she sounded the way she did. “Alexandra, where are you?”

“In one of the editing bays,” she said.

“You’re still at West End?” he said, sitting up.

“I’ve been looking at the rehearsal tapes,” she said. “Oh, God, Jackson—they’re awful. I don’t know how I could have—”

“Listen, Alexandra,” he said, interrupting her, “I don’t want you there at this time of night. Not alone.”

“The guard’s around somewhere,” she said, “don’t worry. And Tirge is on newsroom duty.”

“I want you to go home, Alexandra,” Jackson said. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“Honey, listen,” Jackson said, “I hired you because you are the kind of glue that makes people want to work together. And so I want you to go home and get some sleep, and then come back in tomorrow and work with your colleagues, as a
team
, Alexandra, and let everybody do their jobs too. You’ve been doing far too much. So tomorrow you just switch the format and get to work—and the sky’s the limit, kid. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” Alexandra said softly.

“Because the only question out of all this,” Jackson said, “is whether you and I are going to be able to stand Mrs. Cochran after we tell her that she was right.” He laughed.

“Cassy’s almost always right,” Alexandra sighed.

“So thank God
you
hired her, Ms. Waring,” Jackson said. “Because now I need her to solve a lot of problems for us—and
you
are not a problem, Alexandra. You’re the best thing going for us. I mean it.”

Alexandra paused and then said, “Thank you, Jackson.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Silence.

“Have you talked to Mrs. Cochran yet?” Jackson said.

“No,” she said.

“Call her,” Jackson said. “Call her now. You’ll feel a lot better. And so will she.”

“Yes,” she sighed, “I will. Okay.”

“And then you’ll go home?”

“Promise,” she said.

Pause. “And maybe you should call Gordon,” he said.

Silence.

“Well, you know,” Jackson added, “he’s your beau and all. And is the kinda night a beau can be kinda nice.”

Pause. And then Alexandra whispered, “Thank you, Jackson. Thank you.”

“Thanks for thinking enough of me to call me,” Jackson said. “So, good night, sweetie pie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jackson hung up the phone, no longer feeling depressed. In fact he felt pretty good. He had done the right thing. Said the right thing. For once. And that was a start, wasn’t it? In any direction but the same old one?

22
Jessica Has Two Visitors in Her Office

Oh,
maaan
, what had she done? If Langley Peterson ‘Just stopped in to say hello’ again, she was going to have a nervous breakdown.
God
, what was it with this guy? Ever since she had had lunch with him and Mr. Graham
…

Jessica stood there, rubbing her right temple, looking down at the piece of paper lying in her office chair.

Jessica,

I’ll stop in around eleven.

Langley

What was this, junior high school? What was he going to do, ask her to the sock hop?

She sighed, picked up the paper, crumpled it up and, dropping down into her chair, threw it in the trash. Oh,
God
, she thought, leaning forward to lie down on her desk,
just make me stop feeling so seasick.

One of the great disadvantages of being scared to death of cocaine was that, whenever Jessica went out to a “Y & T, S & S” Club (Young & Trendy, Scratch ‘n’ Sniff), she always drank too much. Now how drinking was supposed to help her stay away from cocaine when it only hastened and increased her trips to the ladies’ room where, of course, at least half of the cocaine in the club was being consumed, she didn’t know. But she did know she had not done any cocaine last night, nor any illegal drug, and hung over as she was this morning, was very grateful for that.

At least if the ship went down, it would go down legal.

Alicia came in (quietly, bless her) with a stack of backup materials, a few phone messages and a carton of chocolate milk, and set them down on the desk. Jessica sat up, ran her hands back through her hair once, wondering if she was more likely to die of thirst or to get sick if she tried to drink anything. Ugh, Her stomach. Her mouth, her head, her eyes. Dizzy. Oh, God.

She sank back down on the desk.

And she had a lot to do. Cassy wanted at least seven shows in the can before they started the regular daily tapings on Memorial Day. So Jessica’s bookers came up with those “timeless classic” panel discussion pieces that they said never dated and always rated: unfaithful spouses, rotten kids, satanic cults, prostitutes, homosexuals and overeating, and Jessica had rejected them all as too daytime. (Jessica thought her bookers were too daytime and called them shnookers.)

This afternoon, actually, she would be taping a show Alicia thought of: “So What Is Normal Sex, Anyway?” which should be fun. Buses were bringing in to West End the “mixed” audience Jessica requested on this show, picking up groups from three locations: Landmark Square in Stamford, Connecticut; the Ocean County Mall in Toms River, New Jersey; and one from the Lion’s Head bar in Greenwich Village. If nothing else,
they
—the audience—would be interesting.

“Jessica?” a male voice said.

Oh, no
, she thought,
it’s him
. Why had she ever had lunch with him? Why had she ever flirted with him? Why, oh, why had she been drinking that day when she knew how she got sometimes when she drank—and with the president of DBS? He who looked like Dennis the Menace’s father and was married to Jackie’s sister, for crying out loud?

Jessica sat up. “Hi ya, Mr. Mitchell,” she said, falling back in her chair.

“May I come in for a minute?” he asked her. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure,” she said, waving him into the seat, squinting. Her eyes were killing her and the late morning sun was streaming in through the glass wall behind her. She opened her desk drawer, took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. There, better.

“Um,” Langley said, staring at her.

“It’s either this or I have to draw the curtains,” she told him. “So what can I do for you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Langley said quickly. “As long as you’re comfortable. Um,” he said, “I just wondered how everything was going.”

This is what he had said, almost verbatim, every single workday since they had had lunch. “It’s great,” Jessica said, just as she had said, almost verbatim, every single workday since they had had lunch. “The production crew’s great, Cassy’s the best—Denny loves her, I love her, we all love her. She might even do something with those blockhead bookers. They have no imagination. Alicia’s come up with more good ideas than they have.”

“Then maybe Alicia should be a booker,” Langley said.

“Please,” Jessica said, holding her head in her hands, “let me have her for six months.” She dropped her hands. “I’ve never had anyone like her before. Denny thinks I should marry her.”

Langley laughed.

“Why is it the men with wives always laugh at that line?” she wondered out loud, partly to remind him that she knew he had a wife, but mostly because it was true. “I never met a working woman who didn’t need a wife. Somebody’s gotta keep the home fires burning and, God knows, it’s rarely you guys.” That reminded her of something. She made a note on her calendar to call her divorce lawyer. Note made, she dropped the pen and sat back in her chair, noticing how solemn he looked. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, eyes down.

Oh, great, now he was moping. Which was worse, anyway, married men who habitually screwed around, or the married men who dragged around with long faces and woebegone eyes, hoping for an affair without having to really have it somehow?

No, she decided, the worst was having the president of DBS who was the brother-in-law of the chairman who normally was as straitlaced as they come suddenly turn into a dopey adolescent every time they were alone. Even if she could be attracted to him (without several drinks), did he think
this
, moping, was going to turn her on?

“You have to remember,” she said, “I’m a woman in the middle of the longest divorce in the history of Arizona, or so it seems. So I’m a little grouchy on the subject of spouses.”

His eyes came back up. “I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me,” he said in a rush. And then he lunged to his feet, jammed his hands into his pockets and walked over to look at the pictures on her wall as if he hadn’t said anything.

Oh no,
she thought, sitting up to her desk again. ‘Thanks,” she said, “but could we wait a few weeks? I really need to get more settled with the show.”

He nodded, still looking at the pictures, as though he hadn’t said anything—as though Jessica was not even there, practically.

“Thank you, though,” Jessica added. “It would be fun.” There now, was that nice or what? He didn’t have to know that the few weeks she had in mind added up to about six hundred.

He turned to look at her. And then he smiled. “It might be fun, yeah. Yeah,” he repeated, nodding enthusiastically.

Oh, God, he looked so happy. What kind of life did this guy have, anyway?

He left and Jessica applied herself to the task of trying to finish reading the last of her backup material for today’s show. One of the few real rules Jessica had regarding the guests on her show was that she refused to have on anyone whose book did not personally interest her, or whose movie she did not want to see herself, or whose record she did not want to hear, and so on. To her, it was the only way to draw a line between a talk show and payola, i.e., we’ll give you ratings if you give this guy’s junk air play. And so she really did try to read all of her guests’ books and in this case her guest had written several. And this one, which was actually an anthology, Jessica had been saving for last. It was called
Pleasures; Women Write Erotica
, edited by Dr. Lonnie Barbach, and it would have been turning Jessica’s morning around (at least internally) for sure if the type hadn’t started jumping around on the page. And then Jessica heard someone laugh. She looked over at the door. It was Alexandra.

“Look at you,” she said, coming in, laughing still. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Shhh,” Jessica told her, pushing her dark glasses up higher on her nose, “I’m reading for my show, if you must know.”

“Must be some book if you have to read in disguise,” Alexandra said, reaching across the desk. “What is it?”

“Sex,” Jessica whispered loudly.

“I think I’ve heard of that,” Alexandra said, sitting down.

“Ha-ha,” Jessica said, putting the book down and reaching for the carton of chocolate milk. “Want some?”

“As a matter of fact, I would,” Alexandra said, sitting down, holding a hand just over her stomach. “I haven’t been right all morning.”

Jessica opened a desk drawer and found a Styrofoam cup. She poured some milk into it for Alexandra and then some into a mug (from Tucson, that said STUMBLE INN on it) for herself, pushed the Styrofoam cup toward Alexandra and said, “You don’t look so hot.”

“No, I know,” Alexandra said, taking a sip. She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them. “Thank you. I think this is just what I need.”

Jessica lifted her sunglasses to see her better. “Night out on the town?”

“Night with Hex and Kyle, remixing the opening,” she said.

To Jessica’s profound relief, the guys in DBS News had been working night and day to revamp the format of “DBS News America Tonight.” Not only had Alexandra loosened up and gone with Cassy’s ideas, she had suggested a number of “livelier” changes regarding music and graphics, which Jessica heard were great. Alexandra had even gone so far as to thank Jessica for telling her how much she hated the old format—an act which Jessica greatly appreciated, since it seemed to put them on an equal footing with each other. At least Jessica felt on an equal footing, and Alexandra treated her that way, both privately and publicly, and that meant a lot to Jessica.

Being around Alexandra Eyes had its drawbacks, though. Alexandra had made a habit of stopping into Jessica’s office for a few minutes each day (“to hide”), and while Jessica enjoyed her visits, hanging out with Miss Perfection tended to make her feel more than a little disorganized in comparison and, perhaps, a teeny tiny bit inadequate—like maybe like a total fucking mess at times. So it was sort of fun to see Alexandra looking a little bent out of shape for a change.

“Editing, were you?” Jessica said, dropping her sunglasses back down on her nose. “Silly me for thinking you might have gone out on the town. Perish the thought.”

Alexandra smiled, sipping her milk again. Lowering her cup, “Just how boring do you think I am, exactly?”

“Well, I would consider promoting you on milk cartons and vitamins,” Jessica admitted.

“That’s pretty boring,” Alexandra said.

“I don’t think you’re boring, Alexandra Eyes,” Jessica said in earnest, pushing her dark glasses up higher on her nose, “I think you’re terrifying. I think you probably believe in self-improvement.” She dropped her voice. “Come on, give me a good scare—tell me you believe in self-improvement. “

Alexandra’s smile expanded, eyes sparkling. “It’s the American way,” she said, starting to laugh.

“Arrrg,” Jessica said, bringing her legs up to sit cross-legged in her chair. (She was wearing a gray dress today and matching snakeskin cowgirl boots.) “I believe in urban renewal myself. One day they’ll just come in here and tear me down—what can I tell you?”

Alexandra could tell her, she said—all smiles—that they had sold the Richard Barnes interview as an hour-and-a-half piece to PBS. It was for a very nominal sum, and Alexandra started to explain why, but Jessica didn’t care and she instantly felt much, much, much better! In fact she jumped out of her chair and yelled, “Yaaaaa-hoo!” circling her chair twice, shaking her fists in the air. Alicia came flying in to see what was going on and Jessica asked her to please find Denny and then to call up everybody in the whole wide world and tell them that
she
—the girl excommunicated from Essex Fells Brownie Scout Pack 51—was going to be on public television.

“Whoo-hoooooooo,” Jessica said, now sitting in her chair—rather, spinning around in her chair.

Alexandra was laughing.

When Jessica came to a stop (whoa, this was not one of her better ideas, her head was going around still), she held her face in her hands for a second.

“You okay?” she heard Alexandra ask.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, raising her head, flicking her hair back over her shoulder.

Alexandra looked at her seriously for a moment and then started to smile, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but those sunglasses—”

“Anything for you,” Jessica said, taking them off and tossing them on the desk, “when you bring me news like that.”

“There’re strings attached, you know,” Alexandra said.

“Cut them,” Jessica suggested, taking another sip of milk.

Alexandra shook her head, smiling. Then she recrossed her legs and leaned forward. “You have to promise me you’ll watch a tape of the newscast this week and tell me what you think.”

Jessica put her mug down on the desk. “You want the Terror of Tucson to critique your newscast? My, oh, my, Alexandra Eyes, what would your adoring public say?”

“
‘If Jessica doesn’t like it, we won’t either’?” Alexandra said, prompting them both to laugh. “Listen,” she added, putting a fist down on Jessica’s desk. “I won’t go on the air with this format until I know for sure it won’t put you to sleep.”