Face Time (16 page)

“Yup.” I say, not letting on that my heart is so full I can barely talk. “Like me.”

I take a few steps through the water, then as we amble slowly back to our blanket, decide to go for it. “Penny, honey. You know, you could call me Charlie, if you like.”

She purses her lips, kicking the water as she walks. “Yeah, that’s what Dad told me, too.” She stops and turns to me, the water now tickling her ankles. She looks like she’s going to cry. What just happened?

“I don’t want two moms,” she says. Her voice quavers. Her mouth is frowning so deeply it must be wrenched from the depths of her little soul. “I don’t.”

I crouch down to her height, keeping her hand and taking the other. She looks at me, dejected little face, hair still dripping, soggy T-shirt drooping off one thin shoulder. “Penny Gelston,” I say. “You only have one mom. You’ll always only have one mom.”

Penny blinks, silent. A droplet, maybe a tear, traces down her cheek.

“Everyone has just one mom,” I continue. “And she’ll always be special, no matter what.” I swallow, holding back my own tears a bit. I guess the watery incident with Penny was more frightening than I had admitted. Or maybe it’s something else. “You know, my own mom is getting married this summer. My dad died a while ago. There’ll be someone new in my life, too. But I’ll always love my real dad. That doesn’t change.”

“So,” Penny begins, slowly, as if I’ve given her another kind of lifeline. “We could be like friends? But my mom is still my only mom?”

“Of course,” I say. “Exactly right.” I stand up, and we begin to walk together, back to our place on the sand. A familiar figure carrying a brown paper bag comes into view across the beach and waves to us as he comes nearer. “Here’s the secret.” I lean down, and whisper in her ear, “A heart always has room for more love.”

The
moment I step across the threshold of the news director’s office, every shred of remaining weekend warmth and contentment gets sucked away into a black hole of apprehension. It all seemed so promising—Josh, loving, attentive, and breathtakingly male. Penny, beginning to open up. Even Mom. We spent Sunday together, and even though she’s still sometimes woozy with painkillers, we actually had a real conversation. Tonight, I’m going back for dinner. If I live. Because now, Kevin O’Bannon’s chrome and glass domain might as well be a crime scene in progress. With me as the victim.

Kevin, barricaded behind yellow-stickied stacks of
Broadcasting Magazine
and black-boxed résumé tapes, motions me to come in. He flips two fingers in a gesture that I’m supposed to translate as “and close the door.” Susannah’s skulking on the couch, punctuating the tension by tapping an expensive-looking pen on her ever-present folder.

The back of my neck goes clammy. My hands can’t find a place to go. Kevin’s sitting. Susannah’s sitting. I’m standing. They ain’t planning to give me a raise. Or tell me I’ve been nominated for another Emmy.

“Charlie,” Kevin says. His voice is full of foreboding. “May I play something for you? And you see what you think of it. It’s a voice mail message. I saved it for you to hear.”

Like I have a choice. “Of course,” I say. “Franklin and I tried to call you over the weekend, but—”

“I got your messages, too.” he says. Kevin swivels to his telephone, and punches on the speaker.

“This is Oscar…” I hear. In those four syllables, my already shaky Dorinda story begins to wobble like a dying top. Ortega’s terse words continue to spit through the phone.

“Your Charlie McNally,” his voice booms, “has lost her objectivity. She’s clearly in league with those ultraliberal misguided do-gooders, all of them, soft on crime. And you’re allowing it to happen. Perhaps even encouraging this conspiracy to derail my candidacy for governor.”

Ortega’s basso is so profundo, the tiny speaker actually shudders, struggling to transmit Darth Vader through a plastic box on Kevin’s desk. If voice mail could breathe fire, this one is doing it.

“I won’t have it, O’Bannon. You pull that woman and her sidekick off this so-called story,” the disembodied voice demands. “Or your next message will be from the FCC.”

His slam of the receiver must have rocked the Richter scale. Kevin looks at Susannah and she points her pen at him. He looks at me.

“How on God’s green earth,” Kevin begins. His voice is softer than usual, and he sounds like he’s straining to stay under control. He clamps his lips together, making a thin white line across his reddening face.

“F. C. Freaking C?” His voice rises with each letter, and he stands, palms on his desk, and shooting lasers. “You told us this was a sure thing,” he says. “You told us there was no problem.”

I frantically search for equilibrium. I never, ever, told them it was a sure thing. Quite the contrary. How many times did I warn Susannah? I look at the queen of lies, sitting in smug silence on Kevin’s couch. She heard the message from Oz, then threw me under the bus. But wailing “I did not” is not going to save me. Or the story.

Using every ounce of phony confidence I can muster, I take a seat in one of Kevin’s fake leather guest chairs. “Do you love it?” I ask, deciding on my tactics. “I mean, do you
love
it?”

Susannah looks baffled, hearing her own favorite saying tossed back at her.
Take that, consultant girl.
Her forehead doesn’t even twitch as she tries to frown. I decide to think about that later.

“Seems to me that Oz doth protest too much,” I say. “You think if he wasn’t nervous about the outcome, he’d call you like that? I mean, for someone to call a major market news director, essentially threaten him? Only one reason for that.” I hold up a finger. “Big fear. And that means there’s a big story. Correct?”

This started out as a gambit to take their minds off the specter of the FCC. But as I warm to my theory, I realize I’m right. Why would Oz care so much, if he didn’t think we were sniffing around something he was trying to keep quiet?

Kevin leans back in this chair, crosses one ankle over a knee. He swivels, just a few degrees each way, just enough to register there’s some thought process occurring, then turns to Susannah, silently questioning. Continuing the pantomime, she shrugs.

“See?” I persist. “It makes our story bigger. I’m certain of it. Just let Franklin and me keep going. And there’s more.” I quickly sketch out my theory about Gaylen.

“So your move, obviously, is either to ignore that phone call—” I cock my head toward the phone “—or to call him back and say we’re still in a research phase. Say we always get both sides of the story, we’re eager to do an interview with him when the time comes, and we’ll stand behind whatever we put on the air.” I pause, gauging whether Kevin and Susannah realize the logic of this. Am I the only one in the room thinking about journalism?

Kevin nods. “First amendment. Freedom of the press. Justice.” He rubs his chin, probably trying to channel Edward R. Murrow.

What would Ed do? I send Kevin messages via ESP, and cross my fingers under my suit jacket.

“Two weeks,” Kevin says. He shoots his silver cuff-linked wrists, his engraved initials glistening in the pin-spotted track lights. “You’re on the air in two weeks.”

“G
AYLEN
’
S DISAPPEARED
, according to everyone I talked to.” Franklin’s flipping through his spiral notebook as we regroup in our office. He’s just back from this morning’s round of interviews up north. I’ve filled him in on the news director’s ultimatum and both of us are feeling the pressure to produce.

“Question one,” says Franklin. “Was CC her father? Here’s a quote from Myra Matzenbrenner—‘That’s what we all thought.’ And when I asked whether she had any idea where Gaylen went, she said, ‘The girl changed her name and left town.’ That’s the Swampscott scuttlebutt, anyway. As Myra put it, ‘You wouldn’t want to be seen on the streets every day as the girl whose mother killed her father.’” Franklin lifts an eyebrow as he reads from the page. “Then Myra goes, ‘If he
was
her father.’”

He flips his notebook closed. “She says CC died when Gaylen was about ten. Apparently Dorinda got a phone call from the Navy or whatever, informing her. So that meant CC was out of their lives for good, father or not.”

“But she doesn’t know where Gaylen is now, bottom line,” I say.

“Right,” Franklin answers.

I think back. “Wonder if Poppy Morency knows,” I say, slowly. “Wonder who gets the money if the house sells.”

“Wonder if Tek knows, or Oz,” Franklin says. “They have ‘ways’ of finding people, right? Gaylen was there the night of the murder, obviously. You’d think they might keep track of her.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that now, call Oz and ask.” I put on an ingenue face, and perform my fantasy question to the attorney general. “We’re thinking you all put the wrong person in prison? And, oh by the way, do you guys know where Gaylen is hanging out these days?” I give Franklin a thumbs-up. “That’ll do it. The A.G. will be delighted to help us on this story. Maybe even send Tek over to consult.”

“You know, it’s Tek I’ve been thinking about,” Franklin says. “Did you ever get that witness list he was supposed to send? And that day in the archives—”

My phone rings. I should let it go to voice mail so we can plan the rest of our day, but I can’t resist a ringing phone.

“McNally, News,” I say, yanking a stubborn snarl out of my irritatingly twisted phone cord. Then, suddenly the tangle doesn’t matter.

“Hi, Will,” I say. The sound of his voice makes me sit up straight. My future may depend on this phone call. I look at Franklin, and silently mouth the name,
Will.

Franklin holds up both hands, showing me crossed fingers.

Then, as Will begins to list details of what’s necessary to visit MCI-Framingham women’s prison, I grab a pencil and scrawl out the news.

It only takes one word.

YES.

“S
O
D
ORINDA
K
EELER
S
WEENEY
said yes,” I say, closing the door to Mom’s room behind me. “Suddenly the world is a happier place.” Holding a mammoth bunch of starkly white tulips in one arm, I lean over and give Mom a quick kiss on her still-bandaged forehead. “How are you, Moms? Didn’t they say you should be feeling better by now?” I peel away the slick brown paper from around the flowers and scout for a vase.

“Our family heals slowly,” Mom says. “And Dr. Garth is annoyed with me for walking too much. Apparently that’s aggravated my tummy incision, or some such. It’s not closing up quite properly.” She pushes a button on the console beside her bed and a humming motor sits her up little higher. She winces at the motion, a flash of pain crossing her face.

I see her eyelids flutter and I take a step to help, but she waves me away.

“I’m fine, dear. I just keep taking my pills. And I just keep thinking it’ll be worth it, when Ethan and I are sunning our newlywed selves in the Islands, and I’m happy in a bathing suit for the first time in thirty years.” She pauses, considering. “Twenty years. And there’s a vase in the bathroom.”

I arrange the waxy white tulips, their graceful stems and pointed green leaves, in a tall crystal vase as Mom prattles through the latest on her wedding plans. Peonies, Pachelbel, shrimp, choosing someone to officiate. I’m still focused on my Dorinda news. For a day that began inauspiciously in Kevin’s office, things are looking up in Charlie world.

“…and of course, your dress,” Mom is saying. She points to a pile of glossy magazines on one of the nightstands. “And don’t you think I’m right about the leopard-striped leggings and the marabou feather mules?”

“Huh?” I answer. I’ve been faking my half of the conversation with “mmm-hmm” while I think about my Dorinda interview.

“You’re not listening to me, Charlotte dear,” Mom says. She points an accusing finger, trailing her heart monitor wires like some gothic jewelry, but I can see a twinkle in her eye. “Are you thinking about your story? You’re just like your father. I could always tell, back then, when he was off in his own world, wishing he was pounding on that old typewriter of his. Or interviewing some ne’er do well.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say. A wave of affection—and memories—suddenly and surprisingly makes my eyes a little misty. I see Dad’s face, his black-framed glasses perched on his head, pencil tucked behind his ear. I thought it was “dorky” at the time. None of the other kid’s fathers wore a pencil. Now I often put one in just the same place, and think of him whenever I use it. I wish he knew that.

“Do you miss him?” I ask.

“Of course, I do, dear.” Mom reaches out a hand, as if I’m the one who needs to be comforted. “Your dad will always be part of me. Close to me. When he died, I was…well, I tried to be strong for you and Nora. Being someone’s mother, that’s a full-time job. It doesn’t stop for disaster. Or when your children grow up.” She smoothes the pink-and-white checked quilt that covers her, almost up to her chin. “You girls, you helped me through it. There were times when I—” She stops. “How did we get on this subject?”

Fine. I’m selfish and self-centered and should be thinking about my mother, but all I can think about is Dorinda. Plus, whenever I’m researching a story, I always turn to experts for advice and information. Maybe I’ve got one in this very room.

“Well, Mom,” I say, “you’re right. I was thinking about my story. Remember I told you Dorinda Sweeney agreed to do an interview? And you and I talked about how far a mother might go to…well, I’m just trying to decide how to ask her if she’s sacrificing her freedom for her daughter. It just seems so unlikely. That someone would do that. Doesn’t it?”

“Ah, Charlotte.” Mom elevates her bed a little higher. Even with her bruised eyes and bandaged head, she manages to look almost regal. “You know I’m proud of you, don’t you? That I realize what a success you are, in your career. All those Emmys. You know that, don’t you? “

I’m not sure where she’s going with this. Although her praise is reassuring to hear, I know Mom well enough to predict there’s a “but” coming up.

“But…” Mom doesn’t disappoint me. “With all your flashy and fast-track life, I’m still not sure if you understand human nature. Or maybe it’s because you’ve never had a child of your own.”

Don’t go there, I silently plead. Do
not
go there. The joy drains from the day, as I sit, silent, wondering yet again why every conversation with her winds up about me and my failings. I look at my feet, wishing I could look at my watch.

“You think I don’t still worry about you?” she asks. “You think I don’t look in the mirror and get surprised, every time, at who’s looking back?”

I look up, puzzled not only by her words, but by a tone of voice I’ve never heard from her before.

“When I think of you,” she continues, shaking her head carefully, “I can still see you as a child. I still see me as a young mother. I heard your first word, I smelled that sweet baby shampoo in your hair. The first book you ever heard, I read it to you. We listened to music. Practiced the alphabet. You’re still that little girl to me, and it almost makes me cry every time I see you, all grown-up and on your own. I would have done anything for you. Still would. That’s my job.”

I pull a tuft of pink tissues from a pearl-inlaid lacquered box on her dresser. The white tulips seem a little hazy, I realize, as I dab my eyes. Then I see Mom needs a tissue, too. She takes the one I offer with a smile of thanks, but then waves it at me instead of using it.

“You think I’m criticizing you,” she says. “I know you do, and I wish—I wish you wouldn’t. Majoring in Shakespeare. Husband. Children.” She smiles, tucking the tissue under a cuff of her periwinkle satin bed jacket. “Plastic surgery. Those are all your decisions. I only want you to be happy. Like your Dorinda. She wants her daughter to be free. She’s doing her job.”