The Last Good Night (7 page)

“Come on,” I said. “English starts in five minutes.”

We left the diner and found Jay leaning up against a stoop three feet away, his enormous foot in complicated sneakers propped up on the railing, waiting for us.

 

W
HEN
I
GOT
to my office, I turned on the computer, looked at it briefly, and then began to go through the stack of mail on my desk, mostly a barrage of speaking requests for various civic groups and charities that had already passed initial network standards. I flipped through them quickly, separating them into two piles, those to be discarded and the few I would consider. As soon as I put one in the “discard” pile, though, I had second thoughts and moved it to the “to be considered” pile. They were all worthy, after all, the Women in Media Network, the Girl Scouts, the Central Park Conservancy, the Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation. How do you say no? Of course, if I said yes to each, I'd have no time to do the news and then they wouldn't want me anyway. I turned the television on to CNN, muted the sound, and continued shifting envelopes back and forth between the two piles.

I only saw its edges at first, colorful, crenellated. I wasn't even thinking as I pulled it out.

I froze.

It was a small old-fashioned postcard, with a picture of a yellow U-shaped motel, the courtyard filled with royal palms, the water in the distance. The sky was a lurid blue. I turned it over to read the legend but I already knew the motel's name. The Breezeway Inn. Flagerty, Florida.

There was no handwriting on it, no note.

But in the space where an address should have been, there was a meticulous black ink line drawing of a coffin.

I shut my eyes and sat very still, my heart pounding.

And then, shaking, I rose and went out to the reception area. “How did this get in with my mail?” I asked Carla.

“What?”

“This postcard.”

“I suppose the way mail usually gets here. With a stamp and a prayer.” Carla's simple gold jewelry, her flowery perfume, and her soft-spoken voice make her sometimes edgy remarks all the more surprising.

“Well, there's no stamp on this. And there's no address.”

Carla shrugged. “I don't know anything about it.”

“Did you see anyone go into my office?”

“No.” She bent down to answer a ringing phone.

I clutched the card as I stared out at the newsroom. Everything was as it should be, everyone was busy with their wires and their computers and their sheets of copy.

I went back to my office and locked the door.

 

I
LOOKED AT
the postcard one more time, staring at the motel, and at the coffin on the back, before I crammed it deep inside my purse. Then I phoned the studio's head of security, Hank Baldwin. It's his job to protect us from the numerous fans, be
sotted, beleaguered, lonely, mad, who occasionally seek us out. “Congratulations on the overnight ratings,” he said.

“Thanks.” I was only somewhat surprised that even he studied the overnights. I asked about his wife and then I got down to business. “Hank, no one can get into the studio without proper ID, can they?”

“Of course not. Why?”

“No reason. Just checking.”

“You worried about that guy McGuirre again?”

“I don't know. Not really.”

“He's got two more months before he comes up for parole. Getting some headshrinking, I hear,” Baldwin said. “They'll let us know when he gets out.”

“Okay.”

I heard the rustling of papers, a deep breath. “Look, has anything happened?” he asked. “Is there anything I should know about, anything you want to tell me? Confidentially, of course.”

I paused, stumbled. “No, nothing like that.”

Hank sighed with disappointment. “Well, no one who's not authorized can get into the building, Laura, but if you're nervous I'll put the guards on extra alert.”

“Thanks.”

What both of us knew but did not mention was that people did slip through, the zealots, the lovelorn, the possessed. They had disrupted live broadcasts with political demands, they had cornered another anchorwoman in her office, holding her hostage for two hours, they had followed a talk-show host to his home in Connecticut and broken all his windows, slashed his tires, jammed his locks. There are a whole litany of deaths that fame has caused. Those of us within its domain only mention them in whispers, if at all.

Baldwin reassured me that under no circumstances would anyone give out my home phone number or address, and then he added, “I'll check on McGuirre.”

I thanked him again and hung up.

There was no way that Sean McGuirre could have known about the Breezeway Inn.

Or what happened there.

 

I
WENT BACK
to the computer, back to the news, went back to doing my job.

What else could I do?

Still, I felt it, the card in my bag, like a scab.

Berkman had a new idea of spending the last five minutes each evening on a single topic under the headline “Nightly Notes.” The pieces would be filed by bureau reporters as well as Quinn and me. Jerry told me to make a list of ten possible topics. “Exposés are always good,” he said. “Think government waste. Or anything to do with radiation. Money, that too. Always money. Especially when it's being squeezed from little old ladies.” Though I'd always prided myself on my ability to generate story ideas, I'd only come up with three viable possibilities so far. I wondered how many Quinn had. Whatever it was, he wasn't talking. I stared at my list for a few minutes, adding nothing, and then, distracted, I called Dora to check on Sophie.

“She's fine, our little girlie is fine, thank the Lord,” Dora said. “Sleeping like the innocent she is.”

Dora thanked the Lord so repeatedly and for such prosaic events, a good bowel movement, a well-attended bottle, that everyday occurrences took on a miraculous and ominous air. She was, as David said, a woman after my own heart.

I hung up, checked the progress of the evening's broadcast on the computer, and then, at four-thirty, I went to makeup.

Perry was perched on the counter alongside her brushes, her small rounded figure tightly encased in a black knit dress, as she
talked on the telephone. She put down the receiver as soon as I walked in.

“That sounded bad,” I said, settling into one of the clammy vinyl chairs. “Billy?”

“Worse. The
National Enquirer
.”

“What did they want, makeup tips from the stars?”

“They're not
Vogue
. They don't pay big bucks for my ideas on mascara,” Perry said. “Half the hair and makeup people at the studios are on the tabloid payrolls. They're great sources. You wouldn't believe the stuff we hear.”

“You're kidding me.”

Perry laughed. “I didn't figure you to be the naïve type.” She glanced over me at her own reflection in the mirror, fingered a red strand of hair from her forehead, and then went back to applying my foundation.

“What were they asking?”

“We didn't get that far. They know I don't dish.”

I nodded.

“So how is Billy, anyway?”

Perry laughed and rolled her eyes. “Italian men, they're the best. Impossible, but the best. All that Mediterranean blood makes them wild in bed and all that Catholic guilt has them crawling for forgiveness.”

I laughed. “You sound like you've given this a lot of thought.”

Quinn, walking by, peered in, frowned at the sound of our laughter, and walked away.

Perry stuck her head outside the door to make sure he was gone, then turned back to me and held up her forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “This big,” she said.

I laughed. “How do you know that? Don't tell me you…?”

“I told you, we hear everything,” she said. “Maybe that's why his wife's leaving him,” she added as she put the finishing touches on my face. “Poor Quinn. He's losing the woman he wants, and getting the woman he doesn't.”

“Who's that?”

She looked at me and smiled. “You, of course.”

 

A
N HOUR LATER,
I sat in my studio chair beneath the hot lights while the clocks clicked by the final three minutes, now two, now one.

Quinn came in with forty-three seconds to spare. He clipped on his mike, pulled down his jacket, whistled one refrain of the Beatles, and stared out into the camera.

It was a slow news night. The lead story was about the upcoming anniversary of the U.N. After that, there were pieces on a train derailment in New Mexico and the last hurricane of the season threatening the coast of Texas.

Quinn and I alternated stories, passing the ball back and forth, the perfect team, the perfect husband and wife, which was what we were subconsciously supposed to mimic.

The lights pierced the skin of my face, heating it, sharpening it.

There was no external time, there was no postcard, no coffin, there was only this.

During the first commercial break, Quinn stood up, cracked all his knuckles, rolled his neck, and then sat back in his chair. He leaned over to write a note on my pad. We were both miked and it was the only way for us to communicate without everyone in the control room and the studio hearing what we said. I waited until he was done scribbling before I leaned down to read it.

“Don't trust Perry,” he had written.

I took his pad, annoyed. “The politics here are worse than the Kremlin,” I wrote back.

He shrugged. “Nice item in the
Post,
” he said out loud.

I heard snickering in the dark studio.

Susan whispered in our ears, “Nine seconds to camera four.”

We both smiled serenely as the red light signaled that we were back on the air.

 

W
HEN
I
GOT
back to my office, I unlocked the safe where I had crammed my pocketbook, and pulled the postcard out.

I looked at the Breezeway Inn one last time.

I looked at the carefully rendered coffin.

And then I ripped it in half, and ripped it again.

I ripped and ripped it until the pieces were no longer recognizable as anything but shreds of color, tatters of confetti, and then I ripped it more.

But nothing could rip it from my brain.

A
LEXANDRA
H
ARRISON, THE
journalist from
Vanity Fair,
arrived at nine-thirty the next morning with a photographer in tow.

She wore a short fitted black suit and flat scuffed penny loafers. There was a milky stain on her left lapel that didn't look entirely new. Her deep red hair was expensively streaked but it needed to be washed. It was hard to reconcile her disheveled appearance with her prose, known for the sharpness of her observations, the way she captured a telling nervous tic, a verbal gaffe. I always used to wonder why people agreed to be interviewed by her, if it was because their egos were so big they thought they could outsmart her, or if it was an unquenchable desire for fame at any cost. Whatever it was, the same quotients had helped me as a reporter for years—people's need to talk, the universal desire to be understood—so it was hypocritical of me to criticize her now, even if I didn't like the whole idea.

“Do you want some tea or coffee?” I asked as she made herself at home on the couch. Her tape recorder fell out of her
large Prada bag and crashed to the ground at her feet. She flushed, embarrassed, as she reached down to pick it up. “No, I'm fine thanks.”

“Are you sure that thing will work now?” I asked, suddenly worried for her even as I was aware that it could all be premeditated, the milky stain, the clumsiness, anything to get her subjects to relax. She tested the tape recorder once and then got out her notebook. A few feet away, Mark, the photographer, was busy setting up lights and umbrellas. He had a vague foreign accent and a chestnut ponytail. I wondered if they were sleeping together. When Mark tripped over a plastic ladybug pull-toy on the floor, Alexandra jumped almost imperceptibly.

I sat down on the chair facing her.

“Nice house,” she said. “How long have you lived here?”

“Just a year. You won't print our address?”

“Of course not.”

I noticed the tape was going, though I hadn't seen her turn it on.

“Your publicist warned me that I only have forty minutes for this initial meeting so we might as well get started.” She didn't glance once at the notebook on her lap as she began. “How does it feel to be the only woman co-anchor on the network evening news?”

“Well, I hope we get to the point where women at the anchor desk are not such an uncommon sight,” I responded. “The only relevant issue should be talent not gender.”

She nodded politely at the predictability of my answer. “How do you respond to criticism that you were not the most qualified contender?”

“There are an incredible number of talented reporters at all of the networks now. I think I was very lucky. But I'd also like to set the record straight about the impression that I don't have the journalistic background. I've been a reporter for over twelve years. I didn't get here by winning a beauty contest.”

“Though you have to admit your looks haven't exactly hurt your career.”

I smiled without answering and the questions continued: How do you get along with Quinn Hartley? How do you balance motherhood and career? Each time I spoke, Alexandra leaned forward, smiling, nodding, hoping for more. It was her job to throw me off, mine not to be thrown off.

“Let's talk about your past,” she said. “You grew up in Florida? Your parents must be very proud of you.”

“Actually, they're both dead.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry.” She feigned surprise, but if she'd read any of the previous articles about me, she must have known that.

“Before you came to New York to do the local news you were in Providence?”

“And Burlington, and Pittsburgh. And St. Louis. It's easier to get your credentials in smaller markets first.” I remembered suddenly what it was like when I arrived at each new city, each new station, holding back, watching, learning the politics and the style, changing myself accordingly, adjusting my hair, clothing, vocal intonations, delivery, until it seemed as if I had been born there. I remembered the loneliness. But it wasn't something I was going to describe to a stranger with a microphone.

I saw her glance down surreptitiously to make sure her tape recorder was still going before she looked back to me. “Were you always interested in the news?” she asked. “What role do you think celebrity plays in television journalism? What are the plans for
In Step
?” She continued on, her eyes never wavering from my face. I tried to stay as still as possible, not to betray any discomfort or nervousness, not to betray anything at all.

I only eased when I heard the front door open and Dora come in with Sophie from a trip to the supermarket. “Excuse me,” I said, and went to greet them. Sophie was so bundled up she looked like the Michelin tire guy. Dora is a firm believer in the benefits of fresh air and takes Sophie out on the most inclement
of days, but she hedges her bets by insisting on overdressing her. When I picked Sophie up and rubbed her upturned nose with mine, her arms and legs remained immobile, sticking straight out.

“I guess we're done for now,” Alexandra said when I returned to the living room. I noticed that she had been writing in her pad while I was gone. “I'll turn you over to Mark.”

She sat in the corner, watching intently while I posed on the couch, holding my chin slightly up and to the left, my eyes wide, as I'd learned worked best over the years. I had refused the magazine's offer of a hair and makeup team, as well as their suggestions about clothing. Though a glamorous and provocative layout may sell copies for them, it would do nothing to help me be taken seriously as a journalist.

“How about one with Sophie?” Alexandra asked. It made me nervous how easily she used my daughter's name, as if she knew her.

“No,” I answered quickly. David and I had agreed that there should be no pictures of Sophie in newspapers or magazines. It was unfair at best, dangerous at worst.

“Why don't I just take a few for you,” Mark asked in his mellifluous accent, “and send you the best ones as a gift?”

And I have to admit I agreed. Who doesn't want a record of her child's beauty?

I balanced Sophie on my lap, bending my head to hers, smiling genuinely for the first time as I fingered the downy soft tip of her ear. Her weight and her heat were an anchor to me as Mark continued to snap away.

When they were done, I walked them to the door and we shook hands.

Alexandra smiled. “We're off to a good start. Of course, I'd like to ask you follow-up questions after I gather some background information. You know how it is.”

Unfortunately, I did.

“Oh, by the way,” Alexandra said as she turned to leave. “I hear you're interviewing the secretary of state.”

I tried not to register my surprise. No one had told me that. “Yes.”

“Be careful. Don't let his stiff upper-class act fool you. He may know his way around a treaty, and frankly even that's a matter of opinion, but he's nothing but an old lecher at heart. He still thinks grabbing anything in a skirt is his droit du seigneur. I'd sit as far away as possible.”

I thanked her for her advice and closed the door behind her.

 

A
S SOON AS
I got to the office, Carla raised one eyebrow to note my lateness.

“I had an interview to do. Susan set it up,” I said.

Carla smiled slightly. “You don't have to explain yourself to me.”

I nodded, embarrassed. “Old habit,” I said.

She looked at me impassively. “Berkman's waiting for you in his office.”

“What's it about?”

“The day he tells me what anything is about is the day I get stock options in the company. Quinn is already in there.”

“All right. Thanks.”

Berkman's office was at the far end of the studio. It was an austere affair, with a stiff leather couch against one wall, a mahogany desk, three chairs, and some highly polished chrome accessories. The single surprising note was a large Brice Marden painting that looked like a chalkboard hanging on the wall behind the desk. I'd heard rumors that Berkman had a substantial contemporary art collection in his townhouse on the Upper East Side but I'd never been invited to see it. It was hard to imagine him, so serious and so gray, haunting the galleries and the
artists' studios, but it was said that he did, preferring that to letting an agent do all the legwork for him. Whether it was vanity or passion, I didn't know.

Quinn was slouched in his chair, looking glum, when I walked in.

“Hello, Laura,” Berkman said. “Have a seat. I've just been talking to Quinn.”

I sat down beside him and waited.

Berkman leaned forward and the monogrammed cuffs of his shirt peeked out of his suit jacket. There were no how-are-you's or chat about the weather. There never was with him. “Your on-air chemistry is not exactly rivaling Tracy and Hepburn's,” he said bluntly.

Quinn was staring down at his glossy black wing tips. I was beginning to see why.

“The viewers aren't fools, you know,” Berkman continued. “It's a mistake to think they don't sense what's going on between you two. I'm not saying you have to be kissy-kissy, but the cold war you two have engaged in is going to affect ratings. It certainly has to improve by the time we launch
In Step
.”

“Didn't Malcolm X say you can't legislate love?” Quinn asked.

I frowned. I'd buy a lot of things, but not Quinn Hartley as an expert on Black Power.

“I'm not talking about love,” Berkman said. “But last time I checked, we'd negotiated détente in three-quarters of the world. I'd like the same in this office.”

“Speaking of
In Step,
” I said. “Alexandra Harrison came to interview me today.”

Berkman raised one eyebrow. “Yes. Susan told me she set that up. How did it go?”

“Fine. But before she left, she gave me advice on interviewing the secretary. I wasn't aware that you'd made a decision about that.”

“Weren't you?”

“No. How did she know before I did?”

“Good reporting on her part, I'd say.” Berkman looked down and muttered to himself. “I'd love to get her on television. Anyway, as I was saying, I've made dinner reservations for the two of you tonight after the show.”

We both groaned.

“At Orbilé. Eight o'clock. Back room. I've been bribing the headwaiter for years so don't even think about not showing up.”

 

O
RBILÉ WAS HOUSED
in an elegant white brick building on Fifty-seventh Street known for its celebrity occupants and its double-height windows. The restaurant itself had gone through a vogue in the eighties when it was the setting for a number of Warhol-attended parties of aging socialites, English brewing heiresses, and disturbingly good-looking artists, which was doubtlessly when it had become a favorite of Berkman's. Most of the others had moved on by now to whatever was in fashion this year, mostly dark living room-inspired dining rooms that gave even the most democratic of partiers the satisfyingly patrician feeling of being in a private club. Orbilé remained what it had been before the peacocks had come and gone, a bland gray-carpeted affair frequented by people on expense accounts.

We were shown to a table in the rear.

Quinn ordered a scotch on the rocks and I ordered a glass of white wine. We both looked around the room, avoiding each other's eyes.

A few feet away, I recognized a curly-headed minor rock star from a duo that had been popular in the seventies. He was attached from the waist up to a young girl with infinite lengths of blond hair that made no attempt to appear natural. Her thin arms, wrapped in a low-cut flesh-toned leotard, were draped
about his neck and engaged in tiny flicks of constant motion. Their lips were grazing, locking, withdrawing, grazing again. Their half-closed eyes were focused only on each other.

Quinn watched them for a minute too. “You know what the real joke is?” he asked.

“What?”

“They're married.” He shook his head in wonderment. “When was the last time you kissed your husband like that?”

We both turned to look at them once more.

“Actually, the real joke is that he doesn't have any money. Only she doesn't know it yet,” Quinn said.

“How do you know that?”

“My wife, my soon to be ex-wife, was hired to do their apartment. His checks bounced, and his credit cards have all been canceled.” He sighed. “Who knows, maybe she does know. Maybe she loves him anyway. What do you think, Laura? Would you venture money on that one?”

“I'd like to think love is at least a possibility,” I said.

“Wouldn't we all.”

“Are you as cynical as you appear or is it just an act?”

“I'm not sure myself anymore,” he said, almost laughing but not quite. “I'm not even sure it matters.”

The tabloids had been tracking the ups and downs of Quinn's divorce for months. His wife, an interior decorator renowned for her daring combinations of sisal and swag, had walked out on him, taking their three children with her. I'd read that he'd just bought a second apartment in the same building as hers, as well as a second home in the Hamptons a few blocks from the old one to remain close to the children.

“You have three kids, right?” I asked.

“Is this the ‘getting to know you' part of the evening?”

I frowned.

“Yes,” Quinn said. “I have three kids. All girls. Funny, huh?”

“Why is that funny?”

He shrugged, unable to explain the joke to me.

“Let me ask you something,” he said, resting both elbows firmly on the table and leaning forward.

“All right.”

“Why do you want this job?”

“I wasn't aware I was still auditioning. I thought I already had it.”

“Answer the question.”

“Okay.” I smiled. “Because it's there?”