Alexandra Waring (26 page)

“Um,” he said, averting his eyes, “I think Alexandra would welcome your opinion about what you think. About the, uh, newscast, you know.”

Jessica nodded and turned back to the box. “I’ll try my best,” she said. “It’s just that I’m supposed to be madly in love and he may want me to leave early.” She frowned to herself, thinking how hard and cynical that had sounded instead of provocative.

“But maybe,” he said, “you’ll do what you would like to do and we’ll see you later.”

Victory!
It had been exactly the right thing to say to him.

The next business at hand wasn’t nearly as exciting. She had to try and act like a sane person so she wouldn’t scare away the poor thing Denny wanted to hire as her secretary. Actually, Alicia Washington, a young black woman who was just graduating from NYU, appeared to be quite energetic and with it. Jessica only thought of her as a poor thing because she knew from experience that her secretaries usually left her employ crying and sobbing about how guilty they felt about leaving her, but how they were physically ill and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And, to be truthful, even though it could be a rather emotionally demanding job, Jessica would still make them feel as guilty as possible for abandoning her in her hour of need.

(“But, Jessie,” Denny would sigh, “
every
hour is your hour of need, that’s what the problem is. You can’t make them feel responsible for the fate of your entire life, which you always do.” “Well then, get a marine or something, someone who can take it!” she had once snapped at him. And Denny had, only the former Air Force administrative assistant did more than give Jessica her preparation materials one night and when the next day he reminded her of their passionate rendezvous in one of the studio storage lockers after the Group K post production party [which Jessica had been quite sure she must have dreamed, because not even in blackout, she had thought, could she have ever, ever… oh, God, with him who was nicknamed Bucky because he could eat an apple through a venetian blind?], Jessica herself had suggested he find another job, which she subsequently found for him herself.)

But, actually, even if Alicia Washington temporarily lost her looks, health and confidence on this job like the rest of them, then she would no doubt also make out like a bandit down the road like the rest of them too. Jessica was still sending her nine former secretaries checks at Christmas (guilt money? perhaps), and every other day, it seemed, she was helping them get some great new job. She rarely saw any of them again, however, not after she saw how radiantly happy and healthy they all looked after leaving her.

In any event, Alicia seemed very fast and strong in spirit and Jessica tried not to get her hopes up. But who knew? Maybe Denny was right—maybe kids who grew up in New York City were made of tougher emotional stuff than elsewhere.

Jessica took Alicia into a meeting with her to discuss the booking of guests with her brand-new bookers. These new bookers (hired away from other talk shows taped in town) told her that, for her first show, Jessica could choose from topic discussions on Sexless Marriages, Sex Addicts, Porn Addicts or Spouses Who Are Secretly Transsexuals, to which Jessica responded by suggesting they combine all four and call it “Fucked Out of Their Minds.” (Alicia laughed—good sign.)

And then Jessica asked if they couldn’t
please
do something a little more upbeat, maybe something about healthy sex for a change, something that would make a lot of people remember that first night that “The Jessica Wright Show” went national because afterward they had made love for the first time, or they conceived their child, or because that was the night they had had the best sex ever. (“What do you think?” Jessica asked Alicia. “I think it would be fun to get aroused,” Alicia said without batting an eye, stunning the bookers and making Denny’s and Jessica’s faces light up. This kid was a natural.) And so they closed the meeting with the bookers promising to try and find some people somewhere who had healthy sex lives.

Then Jessica took Alicia with her downstairs to the studio workshop where they were working on a set for her, a living room (although, as Jessica explained, the only people who had living rooms like this tended to be Colorforms and talk show hosts), and Jessica watched Alicia carefully, her hopes rising higher and higher. Alicia was enthralled by everything; her eyes were growing bright, her shyness was dissolving in curiosity; and her questions were smart, fun. Oh, how wonderful it would be to have someone she could have some fun with! (How tired Jessica was of seeing that look of fear her secretaries always got by the second week.)

And it was a
great
job for the right person—Jessica told Alicia, meaning it—great experience, a real leg up to meet people in the industry, to figure out what Alicia wanted to do. And being her secretary did not really have much to do with secretarial tasks. The task was more like organizing Jessica’s life, a task—Jessica admitted, sighing that was so horrendous that she herself absolutely refused to be stuck with it.

Saints be praised, Alicia burst out laughing.

Saints be glorified forever and ever and ever, Alicia Washington actually took the job. And so Jessica took her out that afternoon for a celebratory lunch.

17
Gordon and Jessica Watch the Rehearsal

What was with him, anyway? Anybody could see that Jessica Wright was trouble.

And not only had he let her openly flirt with him, but he had invited her up to watch the news rehearsal in his office.

Gordon sighed, looking at his watch. “Three forty-six,” he said.

Betty got up from the couch and padded across his office in her stocking feet to get the remote control from on top of the television set. She turned on the set and changed stations. “Maybe she got lost,” she said.

Now why he had invited Jessica was beyond him. Rather, he knew why he had invited her and wondered at how foolish he was to do anything but stay as far away from her as possible. He had learned his lesson the hard way with women like her, hadn’t he? A number of times? And though Jessica Wright was not an actress, all the signs of the hazards of the profession were there. And while she might look easy and be easy and feel great for a night, the price tag afterward, he bet, would be something else—whether it was an answering machine full of progressively more hysterical calls, or out of the blue, months later, the sudden ringing of his doorbell at four in the morning and then the banging on the door with the cry, “Let me in! I know you’re in there!”

It wasn’t that he thought Jessica Wright might be some kind of lunatic. She wasn’t. Gordon was sure of that because Alexandra said Jessica was a very bright, quick and talented person, and Alexandra tended to be more critical than kind about women her age. But just the fact that he instantly felt a silent sexual rapport with Jessica, that he felt a silent rapport
period
with her, hinted to him that Jessica Wright was one of “those”—those women who could inspire the illusion of instant intimacy, of making him feel as though he had known her for years. And
that’s
when his alarm bells should go off, that’s when it should be booming over the loudspeakers in his head, “Chameleon loose! Chameleon loose! What you see has nothing to do with what you’ll get,
REMEMBER, REMEMBER, REMEMBER.
”

Of course, it was Jessica Wright’s job to make people instantly like her, to feel comfortable with her. And she was very highly paid for her ability to seduce people into a trusting rapport within minutes on camera. But it was not supposed to be real and lasting, the rapport, it was supposed to be temporary, a bridge to get viewers across the abyss of the television medium to something that felt like personal, firsthand experience. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with being talented this way, just as there was absolutely nothing wrong with being a talented actress—so long as women like her stopped performing in their own lives!

Gordon could spot the syndrome right away, and within moments of meeting her he had known that Jessica Wright was one of those women who could not willfully turn it off. She had come on to him as methodically as she would come on to any audience from which she was seeking approval. She had even changed scripts, hadn’t she? Changed her whole performance when her material wasn’t going over right with him? When he did not give her the response she wanted?

(He hoped for her sake that she was still aware that she was performing, because the fate of women who crossed that line of distinction tended not to be good. Death, insanity or hospitalization seemed to be the way it went for them, at least in Hollywood.)

Oh, yeah, Jessica the talk show hostess, the performer—and she’d be fabulous in bed no doubt. But then, after she seduced him into thinking he was seducing her into a little onetime fling, a onetime unrestrained great fuck, after she
got
something on him, no doubt the terrorist in her would come out, demanding that he stay with her or sentencing him to be stalked. Wasn’t that always how it had gone down before with her type?

Oh, this was stupid. He was
engaged
, for chrissakes. Why was he even thinking about this?

Gordon knew why he was thinking about this.

Ever since Alexandra had said she’d marry him, he seemed to see nothing but possible sex partners. The same thing had happened the instant Julie had said she’d marry him.
I can never have sex with another woman
, was his first thought waking up the next morning. And, actually, feeling the sexual attraction to Jessica did not really alarm him—it was when he felt a sexual attraction to someone like
Betty
, kooky Betty, his assistant, that he was alarmed, because not only was it not rational, but it came from another angle entirely.

Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with Alexandra?
was the killer question, the one that flitted in and out, though he supposed that as time passed it would go away. He wrote it off as nerves, as being scared of the marriage not working. But then, sometimes, it was a simple thought like, how was he supposed to fulfill Alexandra’s expectation of complete fidelity, when he could be away for weeks or months on end and she had no way or intention of leaving New York to see him? Wouldn’t he have to have someone like a Betty to—
Stop it
! he commanded himself.
After seven years of wanting to marry Alexandra, ten days after she finally says yes—now, all of a sudden, you’re not sure if you want her?

Well, it didn’t help that Alexandra had been acting pretty strange herself since she said yes. Or could it be mere coincidence that, after ten years of a good mood, as soon as she was engaged to him she started to develop a melancholy personality? Well, not melancholy exactly. But she wasn’t herself, that was sure. And he supposed it was what she said it was, that she wasn’t sleeping very well and the pressure at work was getting a little tough. But then he’d think,
Oh, great, if she’s like this now, imagine what’s she going to be like if her ratings fall, or if…
And what
would
she be like five years from now, anyway, even under the best of circumstances? Still at the studio no doubt any studio, any newsroom, anywhere USA but not with him because he’d probably be working on location somewhere
…

S
top it! What is your problem, Strenn? You’re in love with Alexandra, and she’s in love with you, case closed. You’ll work it out.

Gordon got up from behind his desk and walked over to what he and Betty had set up as a viewing area. They had pulled the couch out from the wall and swung it out across the office to face the TV and swung the coffee table out in front it as well. And then, on either side of the couch, he had pulled up a chair so that, no matter where Jessica chose to sit, he could distance himself.

Jessica had called from a restaurant about an hour ago to say she would be coming to watch the rehearsal but wanted to know where there was a deli or something so she could pick up some snacks. Gordon told her that Alexandra had invited them all to come down and have a drink and something to eat with the crew in Studio B after the rehearsal, but Jessica insisted she could not watch TV without eating something (which seemed pretty strange, considering she was supposedly eating lunch when she called).

“I gave her directions how to get back,” he said to Betty. “It’s only a couple of blocks—how could she be lost?”

“Oh, one suspects she would get lost a lot faster than she would read directions,” Betty said, taking a moment to look at “General Hospital” on Channel 7 before going on to the color-bar test pattern on Channel 10, the closed-circuit station within West End. She came back to the couch, sat down and put the remote control down on the table.

Jessica, at that moment, appeared in the doorway carrying a large white shopping bag. Her hair, from the wind outside, was all over creation, and her face was bright, flushed, her eyes shining. “Well, hi,” she said with a definite Southwestern flair, coming in. She pulled out a large bag of popcorn and placed it on the coffee table, followed by a six-pack of Amstel Lite beer. Then she looked over her shoulder, toward the doorway, and waved for the older man standing there to come in.

Older, as in around seventy, or at least clearly past the usual retirement age—white-haired, slight, impeccably groomed and dressed in a red plaid jacket and dapper green bow tie. However old he was, he appeared to be something of a dandy.

“This is Mr. Graham,” Jessica said, crumpling up the shopping bag and making a heck of a racket. “We just met downstairs. He says he works for Alexandra.”

“Hello, Mr. Graham,” Gordon said, walking over to shake hands and hoping he did not look as baffled as he felt. “I’m Gordon Strenn.”

“How do you do?” Mr. Graham said, enunciating every syllable.

Gordon looked at Betty, who was just sitting there, openly staring at the older guy. “And this is Betty Cannondale, Mr. Graham. Betty works with me—we’re in the miniseries group.”

“How do you do?” Mr. Graham said, turning to offer Betty a slight bow.

“Great, thanks,” Betty said, not looking or sounding very convinced about this.

“How do you do, Betty-Cannondale-who-works-in-the-miniseries group?” Jessica said, tossing the popcorn bag at her—which she caught. “May I interest you in a beer?”

“Can’t audition for a year,” Betty said, getting up, “so why not? I’ll get some glasses.”

Gordon was standing there, sort of smiling at Mr. Graham, who was standing there, sort of smiling at him.

“I must say, Gordon,” Jessica said, kicking off her shoes and gesturing to the empty couch and chairs, “when you throw a party, you sure go all out. Hey, Mr. Graham,” she added, “why don’t you sit down here on the couch? Get a good seat before all of Gordon’s friends here squeeze us out into the hall?”

“Thank you,” Mr. Graham said, walking over.

Jessica gave Gordon a slight smile and then went about pouring beers.

Mr. Graham lowered himself down into the couch. Once settled, he looked up to see Betty standing there, smiling at him, and Gordon standing there, smiling at him, and then Jessica too, glass in hand, standing there, smiling at him. “I hope I’m not intruding,” Mr. Graham said. “I would not like to intrude.”

“Oh, no,” Gordon said quickly.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Graham,” Jessica said, holding out a glass of beer to him, “the test of any party is whether or not there’s anybody there who’s more interesting than yourself—and I suspect you may well be the most interesting person here.”

“Thank you, Miss Wright,” Mr. Graham said. “It’s very kind of you to say so.”

“Not at all,” Jessica said, pouring more beer. “So tell us, Mr. Graham, what exactly is it that you do for Alexandra?”

“I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss it at the present time,” Mr. Graham said.

“I knew he would be interesting,” Jessica murmured, handing a glass of beer to Betty and then turning back to Mr. Graham. “Why not?”

Mr. Graham touched at his bow tie. “My work with Miss Waring is a privately contracted arrangement and at the present time is of a confidential nature.”

“Oh,” Betty said, eyes wide, turning to look at Gordon as she sat down on the couch, “just like you, Gordon.”

“Here, Flash Gordon,” Jessica said, nudging him with her elbow and handing him a glass. Then she smiled at him again, saying under her breath, “Flash Gordon and Alexandra Eyes—I bet you two are a pair to watch.”

She had been drinking, Gordon realized. He could smell it. Vodka, maybe. That was why her face was so flushed. But still, there was something intoxicating in the air around Jessica not connected with booze that was making Gordon flush a little too.
God
, he thought, taking the beer and moving away from her,
I’ve gotta be careful around this one
. He was definitely getting the feeling that Jessica would be delighted if only he’d excuse them both and take her to the conference room for a quickie. He was definitely getting the feeling that it would be very fast and very good. He was definitely getting the feeling that he had to concentrate on something else fast because there was nothing he liked more than a quickie during the workday, which he had not had in over a year because Alexandra was never accessible that way. Crazy actresses, bosomy talk show hostesses and inaccessible anchorwomen—Gordon thought maybe he should be in another line of work. Gordon thought maybe he better get married sooner. Or maybe he should just fuck Jessica while he had the chance and was still single.
(Maybe you could stop looking at her, for starters, he thought.)

“Is this ginger ale?” Mr. Graham said, holding his glass up to the light.

“It’s light beer, Mr. Graham,” Jessica said, sitting in one of the chairs.

“Beer!” Mr. Graham exclaimed with a mild intake of breath. “Why, I’m afraid I must refuse,” he said, quickly handing it to Betty. “When the Devonshire was bombed before my eyes, I swore I would never drink beer again if only I got safely through the war.”

“Which war?” Jessica said.

“Two,” he said. “I was in the foreign press corps in London. Ed and the others—”

“Ed?” Jessica said.

“Murrow, Mr. Edward R. Murrow,” Mr. Graham said. “He was in radio, you know. He worked out of Broadcasting House, used to be a regular at the Devonshire pub before—” He pointed to the TV. “Excuse me, but I believe Miss Waring’s newscast is about to begin.”