Alexandra Waring (32 page)

“I didn’t fall asleep during the rehearsal,” Jessica said, putting her dark glasses back on, “I just said I hoped narcolepsy wasn’t contagious. And I was, if I recall correctly, a bit tipsy at the time, and so I trust, Ms. Waring, that you have the good sense to forget the remark. But past that point,” she added, “I am flattered and honored, and will be delighted to do exactly as you, my esteemed benefactress, have bidden me to do.”

Alexandra was smiling at her but then, a moment later, her smile started to fade—and then faded altogether. “Jessica?” she said quietly, eyes falling to the desk.

Jessica looked at her for a moment. “Hey—what’s the matter?” she said, lowering her head toward the desk in an attempt to catch her eye. When Alexandra still didn’t look at her, Jessica reached for the book she had been reading when Alexandra arrived. “Here,” she joked, pushing it toward her, “you can borrow it. You don’t have to be embarrassed to ask.”

Alexandra shook her head, smiling. “No,” she said. Then she raised her eyes to look at Jessica, leaned forward to rest her arms on the desk and sighed. “I have something to say to you that is very, very difficult.” She paused. “Could you take off those glasses for a minute?”

Jessica complied, instantly wishing for them back. The intensity of Alexandra’s eyes was almost painful. It felt like she was trying to see inside her.

“I really like you, Jessica,” Alexandra said, eyes unwavering. “I think you’re extremely bright. And gifted. And it’s because I do like you, and because I do respect your work, that I feel I have to say this.”

Jessica wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She was feeling a little warm suddenly. Part of it was hangover; part of it was from this sudden, tingling fear running along her back. “What is it?” she said, sort of wanting to know, sort of wanting for Alexandra to go away, sort of wanting to maybe get sick. This couldn’t be good.

“I’ve been around—I’ve worked around people who drink a great deal before,” Alexandra said. “And I can’t get to know you, and to work with you—or work next door to you downstairs—and pretend I don’t see your drinking, and pretend I don’t worry about what it might do to you—what it might be doing to you now.”

Jessica could feel her face flushing hot, her back teeth clenching down.

“It’s none of my business, I know,” Alexandra said.

“No—it’s not,” Jessica said sharply, diverting her eyes. “It’s really not.”

“I know,” Alexandra said quietly. “That’s why I wish I didn’t like you so much. Or admire you.”

Jessica blinked several times, staring at a packing case. On one hand, she was furious, on another—perversely flattered. But then the overriding feeling became a longing to jump out the window, run to the river and hop a slow freighter to New Zealand to have some time to sort this out. But then on the other side of this overriding feeling was the bewilderment from wondering why she didn’t feel like killing Alexandra. And then while Jessica debated about whether or not she should explain to Alexandra just how far she had come, that drinking was
nothing
compared to what she
could
be doing, it felt like her head had detached itself and had floated outside to look back in at them through the window. That’s what it felt like, that as a third person she could see herself immobilized in this chair. She could see Alexandra looking at her. She could see the two of them frozen in this moment, in her office, in sunny New York City.

Alexandra stood up and waited, saying nothing.

Finally Jessica looked up at her. “So what the fuck am I supposed to say?” she asked her. “Thanks for making me feel like I have to avoid you for the rest of my life? That now I have to worry about you judging me—Miss Teetotaler from Kansas?” She looked down at her desk, scratching the surface of it with her thumbnail. Then she slapped the same hand down and looked up at her again. “Just what the hell do you want from me?”

Alexandra’s face flushed slightly. Then she leaned over, snatched a pencil out of the BUM STEER mug, muttering, “I want you to be careful,” and scribbled something on the pad. “Look,” she said, throwing the pencil down, ripping the paper off and thrusting it across the desk at Jessica. “Just take this and stick it somewhere so if you get into trouble you have someone besides the
National Enquirer
to call, okay?”

“I know where I’d like to stick it,” Jessica growled, snapping it out of her hand. “What is it?”

“My home phone number,” Alexandra said, turning and going for the door. “Lose it and I’ll kill you.” She whirled around, hand on the door. “Hate me?”

“Loathe you,” Jessica said, starting to put her sunglasses on but changing her mind. She threw them at Alexandra instead and missed by a mile.

Alexandra laughed.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve, Waring,” Jessica said.

“Yeah,” Alexandra said, smiling, “I know. See ya later.”

Jessica sat there a minute, thinking. And then she folded up Alexandra’s number and put it in her wallet.

23
Alexandra Tells Gordon She Doesn’t Like
to Disappoint Him

Gordon was starting to mind Jackson Darenbrook. A lot. It was bad enough that DBS News seemed to be draining every ounce of energy out of Alexandra (while they were dining with Gordon’s uncle she fell asleep, literally, in the banquette at La Coté Basque the other night), but now something had changed in her relationship with Jackson, too, and Gordon was not at all sure that it was unconnected to Alexandra’s state of mind lately.

Always, before, they had joked about Jackson’s flirtations with Alexandra. And, before, Gordon had felt free to vent his frustration about some financial irregularities in DBS that were forever messing up the production schedule for
Love Across the Atlantic
. Oh, yeah, he was allowed to joke about Jackson’s flirtations still, but Alexandra did not laugh anymore because Alexandra was suddenly taking Jackson Darenbrook very seriously. And when Gordon complained to her about Hargrave Studios’ interference on the miniseries, which Langley said he had to put up with for what reason no one would explain, Alexandra had, one morning, dropped her spoon in her bowl of cereal and said, “Then go and talk to Jackson about it,” to which he had said, “Why? So he can try to get rid of me again?” to which she said, “Oh, Gordon, just do your job. Ignore the personalities involved and just do it.”

Now who the hell could ignore a personality like Jackson Darenbrook? But Gordon had dropped the issue, like he always had to drop the issue lately, because Alexandra was so, so
funny
at home these days. She wasn’t sleeping well and her appetite was off, and she was very, very quiet. He knew it had to be connected to the pace she was keeping, the stress and pressure she was under, but he also couldn’t help but notice that it had started right around the time that Jackson announced he was giving Cassy “The Jessica Wright Show” to produce.

And that’s why Gordon wondered about what was going on between Alexandra and Jackson. Because it appeared to Gordon that Alexandra had lost considerable power within DBS of late (Cassy’s responsibilities
had
been reassigned against Alexandra’s wishes, after all), and so if Jackson had undermined Alexandra in the very capacity he had promised to support her in, what sense did it make that Alexandra now seemed to respect Jackson in a way she had not before?

It was impossible for anyone to spend any time around Alexandra and not notice how she attracted powerful people to her. And it wasn’t just power in the normal sense, but the power in any given situation. Whether it was a minister in a church, the head stewardess on an airplane or the chairman at The Network, whoever was in power and it was the strangest thing—as soon as they set their eyes on Alexandra, they made their way toward her, pulled her aside and started talking to her as if she were the one intelligent listener they had been waiting for all of their lives—the only person who could
really
understand them and their work.

Part of it came, no doubt, from years of Alexandra watching her parents politick, herself developing a presence that commanded instant attention and appeal; part of it came, no doubt, from the intuitive instinct of a good reporter who knew when to shut up and listen; a
lot
of it came, no doubt, from Alexandra not only being very good-looking but looking like a very
nice
person too; but most of it came, Gordon knew, from that place inside Alexandra that had always craved power of her own, and that had developed a sixth sense about how to attain some, instantly, by association.

But Alexandra’s concept of power was different from most people’s. Despite her contract with DBS, despite her arguments and struggles there, Gordon knew Alexandra had very little interest in running things. In fact she hated it. The power she was after had to do with the ability to not be controlled by others. Her struggle at DBS was just another mile on the road leading to a place where she could trust everybody to run everything so she could be left alone to concentrate on how best to represent the whole of their efforts. She really wasn’t the power-hungry tsarina that Langley seemed to think she was. She was—and always had been—just a very talented, very decent human being who longed to see what she could do outside the systems that had been developed by less talented, less decent human beings.

Even in her personal life, at least between the two of them, she had always been careful about maintaining a balance of power. Even when they lived together in California she had made Gordon sit down with her and figure out money so that they were contributing the same ratio of their incomes toward those expenses that had to do with their lives together. And they still did it! They both contributed the same ratio of their incomes to a “household” account that covered everything they shared, from trips to dinners to whatever. (Who else, Gordon wondered, who made almost a million and half dollars a year, knew, if asked, that his contribution to a pizza should be $6.45?)

Sexually, certainly, the balance of power, as such, had always enhanced their relationship. Because they both had such up-and-down work lives, with energy varying accordingly, the “upper hand,” so to speak, sort of naturally fluctuated between them. Some of the best times making love that Gordon could remember were those nights that practically all he had done was just lie there while Alexandra made love to him. And then other nights, the reverse had been true, when he did almost everything for her. And then, happily, there had been all those wonderful nights when each of them had felt like the aggressor.

And that was part of what was bothering him lately, too. It seemed like every day that Alexandra was at DBS their sex life grew less energetic, less inspired, less a source of revitalization—for her. And while he knew, intellectually, that it was because of the demands at DBS, of the constant stress and pressure she was under, he couldn’t help but wonder if Jackson Darenbrook had anything to do with it. Oh, he knew Alexandra wouldn’t have an affair with Jackson, not while she was with him (she was incapable of being with two people at the same time, he absolutely knew that). But when Gordon knew how important power at DBS was to Alexandra, and that Jackson had stripped her of some of it, how could he not suspect that their professional relationship had turned personal—because personal relationships were the only kind of relationships where power was not important to Alexandra?

Gordon knew there was nothing going on—but he kept feeling as though something
might
be going on, or was going to be going on if he didn’t watch it.

But today, this Tuesday before Memorial Day, things finally seemed to be breaking in his favor. Tomorrow he was taking the Concorde to Paris for Christopher’s birthday; then he was flying to London to work Thursday and Friday; taking the Concorde back to New York on Saturday; either flying or driving out to spend two nights with Constantine Moscowitz, the director of
Love Across the Atlantic
, and their hostess and star, actress Vanessa Winslow, at her home in Amagansett; and then on Memorial Day returning to New York for the unveiling of DBS. He hadn’t spent the night with Alexandra for the past four nights (because she hadn’t been feeling well, or so she said), and he had been depressed about her having to go to some benefit for the Museum of Broadcasting (with Jackson, no less) on his last night in town.

But then Alexandra called after lunch to say that Jackson was stuck in Vancouver, trying to find newsprint for the Darenbrook papers, and wanted to know if he would be her official escort. For the first time in weeks Alexandra sounded delighted and excited, and so Gordon was delighted and excited too. He went home to Gramercy Park, whistling, changed into black tie, and returned to West End with a car to pick her up.

She had showered and changed in her dressing room and, when Gordon arrived, was sitting in front of the mirror—looking absolutely smashing in a black dress—laughing with Cassy while Cleo, the West End makeup and hair lady, was touching up her hair.

“Oh my, look at you,” Cassy said when she saw him.

Alexandra smiled at him in the mirror. “You do look very handsome.”

“And you look beautiful,” he told her, leaning to kiss her.

“Ahck!” Cleo said, whacking the top of his head with her comb. “Plenty of time for that in the car. Let me at least get her hair looking like something before she leaves here.”

“Cleo!” Cassy said.

“It’s all right,” Alexandra said. “She’s doing me a personal favor as it is.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to hit the executives,” Cassy observed.

“You’d be surprised what you have to hit to keep your self-respect in this business,” Cleo said, making them laugh.

“Aren’t you going?” Gordon asked Cassy, knowing that, since she was sitting there in a skirt and blouse, with a clipboard and pen in her lap, her hair slipping down, and her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, she obviously was not.

“Oh,” Cassy said, taking off her glasses, “maybe next year.” She looked at Alexandra. “I’m not really anxious to see a whole lot of old friends right now. Too much to explain.” Her eyes came back up to him.

That’s right. Her husband. Gordon had forgotten. Still, he thought she would have wanted to go. Cassy was the kind of person who believed in things like the Museum of Broadcasting.

“She gave her tickets to Kyle,” Alexandra said, looking at him in the mirror. “So he’ll be at our table with his wife, Lucy. You’ll like her.”

“Great,” Gordon said, thinking how terrific it was to see Alexandra happy, so like herself.

“I tell you, Alexandra,” Cleo said, bending close to poke at a strand of hair with her comb, “you’re a piece of cake compared to Jessica Wright. She came in today looking like something out of an episode of
Combat
.”

“She did?” Alexandra said, wincing slightly.

“She looked like a million on the tape,” Cassy said.

“Well, I do very good work,” Cleo said, backing away to survey her progress.

“And you have a lot to work with,” Alexandra said. “Jessica’s very attractive.” Her eyes shifted to Gordon in the mirror. She smiled. “I know Gordon finds her very attractive. Don’t you?”

“Certain parts,” he said, grinning.

“I’m sure we don’t have any idea which,” Alexandra said, smile expanding.

Gordon glanced at Cassy and cleared his throat, sticking his hands in his pockets. “No, actually, I find all of Jessica very attractive.”

“Pretty houses last only as long as their foundations do,” Cleo told them, turning Alexandra’s head to the side.

“Oh, God,” Cassy said, slumping against the wall. “There goes mine.”

Cleo looked over at her. “Isn’t anything wrong with you,” she said.

“There sure isn’t,” Gordon said, meaning it. He had always found Cassy enormously attractive, and it wasn’t just her looks. There was something quite seductive about her that had to do with the hints, here and there, that she might be the kind of mild-mannered woman who’d have an absolutely torrid love life if only someone messed her up a little—took away her clipboard, at any rate. Took down that hair. It had crossed his mind more than once since he had met her that he wouldn’t mind finding out what she was like that way. He had even thought it was a shame she wasn’t just a bit younger, because she was the kind of woman he knew would be a good mother, but who still—well, just look at her—would be alluring for years. She reminded him a little of Julie, actually, except that Cassy was warm and receptive and caring. He wouldn’t have minded having Cassy as Christopher’s mother. Not at all. No, as a matter of fact, had Cassy been Christopher’s mother, Gordon would still be married to Christopher’s mother. Cassy was very much what he had hoped for in Julie.

Cassy was peering around the edge of the mirror at herself.

“If I’m all right, then why do I have these cracks in my foundation?”

“Those aren’t cracks,” Cleo said, glancing at her and then stepping back to survey Alexandra’s hair again, “that’s life. And let me tell you, I’ve been around and I haven’t seen many blondes who’ve weathered it as well as you have.”

“I haven’t seen many real blondes, period,” Gordon said, winking at Cassy.

“And let’s face it,” Alexandra said, looking at her, “you are one of the most beautiful women any of us has seen.”

“True,” Cleo said, fiddling now with the back of Alexandra’s hair. “In a way, it’s a shame you’re not out there in front of a camera, but in a way
…
” She paused, looking at Cassy. “But in a way it’s great that you’re not,” she said, returning her attention to Alexandra’s hair. “Nice to know someone with your kind of looks made it with her head, you know? Lotta very unhappy women out there. Seen a lot of them on their way down. Course,” she added, frowning a little, “that’s when they most need me. It’s hard, sometimes—to watch, I mean.” She stepped back to look at Alexandra’s hair in the mirror. She smiled at Alexandra, resting her hands on her shoulders. “That’s why it does my heart good to work on someone like you. This can be a nasty business to be in.”

Alexandra beamed. “Thank you,” she said.\