Thief of Words (21 page)
Fred shook his head as if to clear a blurry image. “Plagiarist? You? What’re you talking about, Annie?”
So she told him, the whole story, the chapters of her past that no one in her present knew but Laura and her mother: how she beat out the Cliffies and Princeton grads for her job at the
Charlotte Commercial-Appeal,
her meteoric rise to golden girl, her life with Andrew Binder, and that morning when her editor had called her “the aces.”
“I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d have a column ready in a half hour,” Annie said. “But I didn’t have the guts to tell him. And maybe even more than that, I didn’t want anyone else to be ‘the aces.’ I’d kept an idea file, filled with clips from other papers. Something to springboard me into my own story. After he left, I panicked and reached for that file. I found the most obscure column in it, something from a paper in Indiana about the lunacy of high-density public housing.
“Scattered-site housing was a big deal then. Some townhouses for poor people were being built in southeast Charlotte, and all the rich white people who lived nearby were furious and putting pressure on the city council. So I took that man’s column—Jim Morrill, I’ll never forget his name—and put my name on top. I changed a few words here and there, but it was his column, not mine.”
Annie stopped and Fred sat there, his head bowed, his face resting in his cupped hands.
“Annie the plagiarist, that’s me. When I sent that story to the Metro editor, I knew my life would change one way or the other. Till this day I ask myself if I hadn’t been caught, could I have learned to live with that lie? And here’s the most repulsive part— yeah, probably so.”
Fred raised his head from his hands. “This isn’t the Annie Hollerman I know.”
“Maybe not,” said Annie, “but this is the Annie Hollerman I’ve been running away from my whole life. Deceit came easy to me. It’s how we negotiated our way through trouble. I’m not saying this to excuse what I did, there’s no excuse for that. It’s merely an explanation.
“In my family, it was always easier to lie than to face unpleasant realities—like maybe I wasn’t ‘the aces,’ after all. It starts with little lies, like telling the librarian you’ve already returned that overdue book when you’ve really lost it. Or ‘helpful lies,’ like my grandmother lying to my grandfather about how bad his cancer was. Or my mother telling me my father was away on business, when he was really starting a new family in another state. Harmless lies—as if that’s possible. You don’t mean any harm, but soon lying becomes second nature.
“It seemed harmless when I told the editor at my college paper that I’d worked at my high school newspaper. The truth was, I’d worked for my junior high school paper. No big deal. Just another harmless lie. But then one day, you find yourself in a panic and you slide into a lie and it’s no longer harmless.”
Fred thought about Annie’s words for a moment, then he said, “That was a long time ago, Annie. People change. I’ve known you for twelve years and I’ve never seen that side of you.”
“But I can never erase it,” Annie said. “It’ll always be with me, even if I have changed. And now this reporter’s doing that story, it’s all going to come out again. Jack DePaul hates people like me; he’s spent thirty years in the business. Truth is in his blood. If he doesn’t already know about me, he’ll know soon enough.”
“You’re running from a ghost, Annie. If Jack is any kind of man, he’ll know the truth: that people change and that he’d be a fool to let you go for something that happened twenty years ago. But you know, you have to call him right away. He has to hear this from you, not from one of his reporters. Call him now, Annie.”
“I can’t. He’s at a conference in New York. He won’t be back till later tonight. I’ll call him then. I promise.”
A
fter Friday’s conference sessions, Jack and his boss, Steve Proctor, had gone to dinner at a new fusion place in SoHo with the managing editor of the
Orlando Sentinel,
a sports guy from the
Kansas City Star
and two features types from the
L.A. Times.
They’d bitched about reporters, bitched about the pernicious effect of profit margins, bitched about the decline of newspaper readers. All in all, an enjoyable evening.
On returning to the Plaza around nine, they’d met a handful of other attendees, also back from dinner, and the whole contingent decided to head to the Oak Room for drinks and more rounds of bitching. But Jack begged off; it was e-mail time with Annie.
Up in his room, he took off his shoes and socks and propped up the pillows against the bed’s headboard. He put the laptop across his legs and signed on. He was about to check his e-mail when there was a light knock at the door. He frowned, wondering if he should answer it. It was Proctor, he was sure, trying to get him to join the crowd at the bar. There was another knock; he put the laptop aside and got up to answer it.
“Hello, Jack.” She stood in the doorway, her dark hair pulled up, a thin gold chain around her slender neck. She wore black jeans and a white shirt—a man’s white shirt. The sleeves were rolled up partway and the top two buttons were undone.
“Kathleen.”
“Can I come in?”
Jack remained at the doorway. “What are you doing here?” He stared at her without expression. Kathleen looked away.
“Well, you didn’t come to my room,” she said softly, “so I thought I’d come to yours.”
“Why would I want to go to your room?” Jack asked. He kept his voice as even as he could. The calmer he was, the deeper the words would cut.
“Don’t do this, Jack, please,” Kathleen said. “I just want to talk. After all that we’ve meant to each other, you have to talk to me.”
What had they meant to each other? After nearly four years, Jack still didn’t know and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He’d kept his distance at the conference. Their paths had crossed, of course. They’d even talked politely between the “Jump-Starting the Staff ” and the “How I Stopped Hating the Budget and Learned to Live within My Means” seminars. But the urgency for her, the exciting deception, the yearning for the nights, had all been replaced with a mild numbness. His heart had stayed calm; his body had been quiescent. Was he surprised that she had come to his door? Probably not. But he hadn’t wanted it and he hadn’t waited for the knock.
Jack noticed that she was wearing the dangly coral-and-jade earrings he’d bought for one of her birthdays. She’d kept them in the box for a few months and then told her husband she’d bought them at the Baltimore Craft Fair. The white shirt, the coral-and-jade earrings—Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or bury his face in his hands.
He moved aside. “Okay. Let’s talk.” Kathleen stepped past him. The room had only one king-size bed. Kathleen hesitated a moment and then climbed up on it and sat with her back against the pillows, her arms around her legs like a little girl. Jack went over to a desk by the window, pulled out the chair, and turned it toward her.
“Do you have to be so far away?” she said. “Why don’t you sit over here?”
“I can hear you fine from here,” Jack said.
“Don’t be cruel. Come sit on the bed. Please. I promise I won’t touch you.”
Jack moved to the bed and lay on his side at the foot, facing her. “I don’t think we have much to talk about,” he said.
“We have everything to talk about,” said Kathleen.
For a half hour, Kathleen pleaded her case. She didn’t move much, she kept her arms around her legs, her chin on her knees, but her voice quavered with emotion. She said many things that he had been hungry to hear for a long time. He felt some guilt that they affected him so little. But on the other hand, he’d heard many of them before: I love you. You said you loved me. You said I was your destiny. I miss you. I miss your touch and your words. I think about you every day. I’ve never felt this way about my husband. For years I thought I needed you both, now I’m not sure. I can’t get you out of my mind. Give me another chance. You complete me. I need you. I want you.
Jack contributed only a few “ums” and “uh-huhs” to this long confession. Finally Kathleen unwrapped herself and came over to him at the end of the bed. “Please say something, Jack,” she said, on her knees, looking down at him. “I know you still feel something for me.”
Jack studied her face. Some curls of hair had gotten loose and hung at her neck. She was swallowing hard and holding back tears.
“Does this mean you’re leaving your husband?” “Do you want me to?” she asked.
O
h, sorry, I must have the wrong room,” Annie said and was about to hang up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” said the female voice at the other end of the line.
“Jack DePaul. The operator must’ve rung the wrong number,” Annie said.
“This is Jack DePaul’s room,” said the woman.
There was a pause. Then Annie said, “May I speak to Jack?” “He can’t come to the phone right now; he’s in the shower. Who’s calling?”
“Annie Hollerman. Who’s this?”
“Kathleen Faulkner. Jack told me about you. You’re the book agent in Washington, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, you’re the one he’s been writing all those e-mails to. He told me about that. He used to write me every day, too. He’s quite good with words, isn’t he? Did he write you about the moonchild in the apricot orchards? Were you his snake slayer, too?”
“I …” Annie couldn’t catch her breath. It felt like her lungs had collapsed and sealed shut tighter than a vacuum-packed bag. The phone fell from her hands and clattered to the floor. She could hear the faint voice of Kathleen Faulkner saying, “Hello? Hello?”
Annie sunk into a nearby chair and put her head between her legs.
H
i, this is Annie, I’m out of town, leave a message after the beep.”
It was 10
A.M.
on Saturday morning and Annie was lying in bed, listening to Jack’s voice.
“Out of town? I guess you haven’t changed your message since North Carolina. I can’t wait to see you tonight. Don’t go to too much trouble for dinner, I don’t think we’ll spend a lot of time eating. Sorry about last night’s missing e-mail. I went out with the gang and after my fourth margarita I could barely walk, let alone type. I owe you one.”
Click.
Annie watched the phone light start to blink and didn’t move. She didn’t move for the next hour, despite the growing pressure in her bladder. She just lay there, examining the patterns of light on the ceiling, hearing Kathleen’s voice, and thinking about Jack.
She should’ve known he was too good to be true with his romantic e-mails and his heartfelt assurances. She’d been out of the game too long. It had been more than fifteen years since she’d tangled with the lies of men on the prowl. And she was clearly out of her league with someone as smooth as Jack.
He was good—she had to give him that. Rewriting her past, calling her his angel, introducing her to his son. She felt sorry for Matthew.
The phone rang again.
“Hi, this is Annie, I’m out of town, leave a message.”
“Annie? What do you mean you’re out of town? You didn’t tell me you were going anywhere. Is everything okay? I’m going to call Laura to find out where you —”
Finally, Annie moved. She reached out her arm and picked up the phone.
“Ma, I’m here. Don’t call Laura.”
“You sound dead, are you okay?”
“It depends what you mean by okay,” Annie said, and then told her mother about Kathleen and Jack.
“Christ almighty,” said Joan Hollerman Silver. “First the Gonef, then the Cardboard Box, now the Romeo. You’ve got worse luck than I do with men. But listen, sweetie, it’s better you should know now what he is. And this way, you don’t have to worry anymore about telling him what happened in Charlotte.”
“Right,” Annie said bitterly. Then she told her mother about the
Star-News
reporter who wanted her to spill her guts for the betterment of mankind.
“I’ve always said reporters make us lawyers look like saints,” said her mother. “Anyway, it’s out now and that’s not the worst thing in the world. Now you can really start fresh. I know the perfect place. Meet me in Atlantic City next Friday. I’m going on one of those junkets. We can share a room; it’ll be like old times. You and me on the Boardwalk. We’ll eat saltwater taffy till our teeth hurt. Come on, Annie, he’s not worthy of you.”
J
ack called four more times on Saturday and four times again on Sunday. The message was always, “Hi, this is Annie, I’m out of town …” The only thing that changed was his concern. At first he wondered if Annie had suddenly gone away on business (was the She-Devil on the rampage somewhere?), then he worried that something had happened to Annie’s mother, then he moved on to an entire encyclopedia of disaster scenarios, including kidnapping and serial killers.
When he walked into the newsroom Monday morning his first items of business were clear: call Annie at work, find out if Laura Goodbread had heard anything, get coffee. But before he could implement anything but the coffee part of the checklist, Arthur Steinberg appeared at his desk.
“You wanted to talk about the plagiarism story this morning, remember?” he said.
“What? Oh, yeah. Could we do it later, Arthur?” Jack was about to add, “I’ve got important things to do,” but realized how callous that might sound. He looked at Steinberg’s hangdog expression and the latest ugly tie drooping down over his wrinkled shirt. “You’re right, Arthur,” he said. “Let’s talk now.”
Steinberg started down his list of plagiarists, explaining in Arthurian detail who had talked and who hadn’t and why. When he came to the final name, he said, “I saved this one for last because I think she knows you.”
“You’re kidding,” said Jack. “What’s her name?”
“Hollerman.”
“What?” said Jack. Steinberg might as well have told him Elvis was dishing out string beans in the cafeteria downstairs. “Hollerman? Annie Hollerman?”
“Yeah. See? I told you. When I interviewed her Friday she asked me if I knew you.”
