Alexandra Waring (35 page)

“They of course neglected to mention that Mr. Graham is forty-one years older than I am,” Alexandra said, coming around the bench to sit down. “A bit of a stretch, this romance, don’t you think? Even for them?”

“I think it’s disgusting,” Langley said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alexandra said, “I think Mr. Graham’s rather handsome myself.”

“I meant invading your privacy like that,” Langley said, leaning forward to look past Cassy at her. “It’s disgusting. Bribing your doorman. How’s a person to live?”

“Very carefully, evidently,” Alexandra said, turning to watch Jackson, voice no longer sounding quite so cheerful.

Cassy turned to look at her for a moment. And then she reached down to take Alexandra’s hand and give it a squeeze. “You okay?”

“I think so,” Alexandra said, turning to meet her eyes.

She looked tired, Cassy thought. And she had lost some weight. Not much, but enough to make her cheekbones even more pronounced. Great for the camera but not so great, Cassy thought, for real life. Cassy let go of her hand and touched Alexandra’s cheek. “We have to get you to eat. We’ve taken care of the newscast, but I feel like we’ve forgotten to take care of you.”

“It’s sleep,” Alexandra said. “Though I slept very well last night. Ever notice that? How, when you don’t sleep, you look better than when you finally do?”

Langley leaned forward again. “We have to do something about your doorman,” he said. “No one should have to live that way.”

Alexandra looked surprised; and then she smiled at Langley with what Cassy knew was genuine fondness. (Would miracles never cease? These two got along now?) “Thank you, Langley,” Alexandra said.

Langley looked embarrassed and sat back against the bench.

They all sat back to watch Jackson, then, trying to plant the begonia tubers on his hands and knees while the children, giggling, crawled all over him, yanking at his hat and pulling on his sweat shirt.

After a bit Cassy smiled and said, “You know, I really do love it here.” She took Alexandra’s hand again and squeezed it. “And I love working with you. With both of you,” she said, turning to look at Langley. “All of you,” she added, releasing Alexandra’s hand and returning her eyes to Jackson. “Whatever happens, this has been one of the most wonderful things to ever happen to me—to wake me up in this life.”

There, that was as close as she could come to explaining how she felt right now. How her heart felt full and happy, but ached too, longing to bring this moment, this little patch of sunlight, back to 162 Riverside Drive to make it home again. She wanted Langley to come home with her and live in Henry’s room and be awkward and adolescent and wonderful and lovable; she wanted Alexandra to glide from room to room, trailing yards of silk, ministering to Cassy’s every emotional need; and most of all, right now, what Cassy wanted
…

What Cassy wanted was to bury her face in Jiminy Cricket again and feel the strength of Jackson’s arms around her.

“I feel the same way,” Langley murmured, startling her.

Cassy looked at him; his eyes were fixed straight ahead on Jackson.

“Oh, no,” Alexandra said suddenly, making Cassy turn to look at her. Alexandra leaned over and whispered, “How upset do you suppose Jackson would be if I told him he’s planting the begonias upside down?”

“Oh, no,” Cassy said, starting to laugh, bringing up a hand to cover her mouth.

“Oh, yes,” Alexandra said.

“Oh, she’s right,” Cassy said, to Langley, laughing, sliding down in the bench.

“Well, you better go tell him, Alexandra,” Langley said, laughing too, “or he’ll be standing at his window every day, depressed, wondering why they didn’t come up.”

“Okay,” Alexandra said, standing up, smoothing her dress and then walking over to the flower bed.

And so Cassy and Langley sat on the bench in the sunshine of the square, watching as Alexandra pushed up her sleeves, hiked up her dress, and got down on her hands and knees to show Jackson, Miss Thomas and the children how to plant begonias, “so they don’t come up in China.”

It was one of the loveliest mornings Cassy could remember.

25
The Unveiling
Part I: Jackson

It was late afternoon on Monday, Memorial Day, and the West End Broadcasting Center was open for business. Downstairs, on Sub Level 2, the newsroom, the satellite room and the editing bays were in organized chaos as DBS News employees hustled, nervous, toward the deadline for their first newscast. In engineering, Dr. Kessler had the Nerd Brigade scurrying around in drill teams, while in the control room next door technicians were running equipment tests. All kinds of people were running the halls, evidently all doing very urgent things. Only Clancy Stevens, wheeling a cart loaded with flowers—some tagged for Jessica’s dressing room and others for Alexandra’s, and three more big bouquets simply marked DBS News—seemed to be relaxed, enjoying himself.

In the studio the partition between Studios A and B had been pulled back, and the audience seating risers for “The Jessica Wright Show” had been rolled forward and were, at the moment, being bolted into the floor, thus completing Jessica’s set. The twenty-foot metal fire doors that sealed off the studio equipment rooms from Studio A were open, and a camera crane was being slowly rolled out; nearby, the fire doors to set storage and the carpentry shop were also open, through which Jessica’s “living room” furniture was being carried out. Microphones were being plugged into the floor of Jessica’s set; the lighting director was showing his staff the floor plan; a bit of set carpeting was being nailed down; the books in the shelves were being straightened; and Bozzy Gould was dashing around, supervising all of this, Denny and Cassy stood talking on the corner of the set. Across the studio, the DBS News sets sat idle, vacant.

Upstairs, in the cafeteria, the two hundred special ticket holders for “The Jessica Wright Show”—bused in from the pickup point in midtown Manhattan—were enjoying a lavish buffet luncheon, courtesy of the DBS Television Network. It was a very lively, nice crowd, with a lot of out-of—towners mixed in, and it was a hungry crowd, too, because after two hours of eating they were
still
eating, still walking over to the buffet with the same bright eyes and smiles they had had on their first trip.

Jackson Darenbrook himself, tall and tan, had been standing at the cafeteria doors to greet them as they came in. The visitors—eyeing Jackson’s expensive pale gray suit, his pale blue shirt with a white collar (“Now what would you think, Bets, if
I
wore a shirt like that?” a man whispered to his wife, who said, “I’d think you’d be the same damn fool you’ve always been, Rudy”), his red and gray striped tie, the twinkle in his eye, the flash of his smile and the confidence in his stance—had been thrilled by Mr. Darenbrook’s presence but had also felt shy. And so, after filing past Jackson, they had spread out into a kind of lost—sheep formation inside, with everybody milling around, not sure whether to sit or stand, not even really sure anymore if they were supposed to be in this room at all. It had obviously been set up for some sort of special inner circle, but were they it? Or did Mr. Darenbrook think they were somebody else?

But Jackson had made his way around the room, shaking hands, patting backs, urging people to sit down and eat, and soon they had, and soon most everybody had relaxed and started talking to him like he was anybody else. (“Hey, how ya doing? I’m in from Jersey,” a guy said, shaking Jackson’s hand. “So like this is great. I was lookin’ for the M-10 and like I got on this bus and I knew—fast, ya know? ‘cuz of the seats and stuff?—that this bus weren’t like no M-10 I ever got on before. But like I figured, what the hell? and so like I’m here, just hanging out. And so what’s the story on this Jessica chick? What, is she a dancer or something? She’s got some kindavah show?”)

One lady bodily dragged Jackson over to her table. Her name was Mrs. Judy Filanderbin and she was from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. (“It was the only way we could get Ralph Edwards to come to our annual fiesta,” Mrs. Filanderbin said, explaining how it had come to pass that the fair town of Hot Springs had renamed itself after a radio game show in 1950. Mrs. Filanderbin thought there was a possibility that the town might rename itself Jessica Wright, New Mexico, if only DBS played its cards right.)

With Mrs. Filanderbin was her very good friend, Mrs. Dertsy Baker, also of Truth or Consequences. Jackson sat down with the ladies for a while and Mrs. Filanderbin explained how she was Jessica Wright’s greatest fan and how—after she had written Jessica a long, long letter once, listing all of her favorite moments on the show over the years—Jessica had called her up and invited her to Tucson to be on the show.

It had been a very tough show to do, Mrs. Filanderbin said, because Jessica had also had on two people who absolutely hated her show, and so Mrs. Filanderbin and another man who was a fan of Jessica’s had to sit there and try and
talk
to these horrible people for an hour. Well, according to Mrs. Filanderbin, they did little more than scream and yell at each other, stop to run a clip from an old show, and then start yelling and screaming at each other again. And then they took phone calls and a fight broke out in the studio audience and my, oh, my—but what fun it had all been! And it had been said, Mrs. Filanderbin confided, that the ratings had been particularly high that night
…
Not that Mrs. Filanderbin thought that her being on that show—that show for which the ratings had been so unusually high—had made that much of a difference. “But isn’t Jessica just the most wonderful gal?” she asked Jackson.

“Yes, she is,” Jackson said, accepting the taste of cheesecake that was offered to him by Mrs. Dertsy Baker (whose husband, Mrs. Filanderbin then proceeded to tell him, while Dertsy went up to get more cheesecake, had run off with a teaching assistant from the University of Guadalajara, where he had been sent to take an accelerated Spanish class for reasons of business—sent there, no less, by Mrs. Filanderbin’s very own husband, who had not, she assured Jackson, “intended to send him for reasons of
funny
business! Shhh—she’s coming back”).

And then Mrs. Filanderbin told him about how she had sent a homemade coconut cake to Jessica three weeks ago, with a note saying how she hoped Jessica was well and happy way up here in New York City. Well, the next thing she knew, Jessica’s nice secretary called to say that Jessica was homesick for the Southwest and wanted Mrs. Filanderbin and a friend to fly up to New York for the weekend, as her guests, and be in the audience of her first show! For free! And so they did! And here they were! Staying at the Sheraton Centre and everything!

Jackson smiled, his eyes drifting to the door.

He liked Mrs. Filanderbin and Mrs. Baker very much, and he liked the other people who had come today to be in Jessica’s studio audience too. He was very excited about DBS going on the air today, and he felt very proud as well. But his mind was still not on what was going on around him.

His mind was on Cassy Cochran.

He had spent most of his time since Friday thinking about Cassy Cochran. And it unnerved him, the suddenness with which this feeling had hit him after whatever it was had happened between them Friday morning in his office. And whatever it was that had passed between them, he knew she had felt it too, because he had seen it in her eyes. Only for a moment, but he was sure he had seen it.

And he hadn’t been able to shake it. This feeling. This feeling that had started Friday morning, when he let go of her in his office and looked into her eyes, and when he had felt almost ill for second, so strong had the feeling kicked in—the surge of adrenalin, the tightness in his chest, the inexplicable thought in his head that had said,
I’m in love with you
.

The thought, at least, had quickly disappeared, but the feeling—this weird, edgy, alternating sense of elation and despair—had remained with him, rising and falling according to how much he thought about her.

He had fled West End before lunch on Friday, wanting very badly to see her again but feeling vaguely panicked about what new path of emotional self-destruction he might have started on this time. Or worse, that he was starting down an old familiar one. And so he had flown down to Bermuda Friday, to get some exercise and sun, and to get rid of this feeling by thinking it through.

But it hadn’t worked. All he seemed to be able to do was wonder how he could have ever fought with Cassy about anything. And he honestly couldn’t remember what it was about her that had made him so dislike her in the beginning. And when he thought about how she had looked in his office Friday morning, remembered her eyes, he wondered how he had ever even talked to her before—why he hadn’t just fallen, sick with longing, into a chair, staring at how beautiful she was, knowing he could never have her because she not only was married, but because he represented everything he knew she detested.

But she did not detest him. No, not at all. That’s what he had seen in her eyes Friday morning, and as soon as he had seen that something had lurched into gear—or out of gear, who knew?—and all he could think about was that she was separated and that she did not detest him. And ever since Friday, every time he had consciously tried to visualize her in his mind—while playing golf, while swimming in the Atlantic, while jogging, eating dinner, lying in his bed—he had felt as though some undefinable weight was settling onto his heart, was trying to labor his breath, cloud his vision.

Sitting here, in the cafeteria, with all the noise around him, Jackson was feeling like that now. He wanted to see Cassy very badly—and yet he did not want to see her. Because he was scared to see her. Because he was scared of her.
Not another obsession. Not again—not at work, not anywhere
.

And then—a thought.

Could he take it if it was something other than an obsession?

And then there she was, coming in through the cafeteria doorway with Denny.

Cassy. Laughing. In a pale white/gray suit, almost the color of his own, with high heels matching exactly. Her hair was, as usual, swept up; there was an iris pinned to her lapel.

She was smiling now, looking around the room. And then her eyes found him. She was looking at him, smiling at him.

But Jackson looked away, to Denny, scarcely able to do even that. He couldn’t look at Cassy. He couldn’t. It was hurting him too much and he didn’t know why.