Alexandra Waring (9 page)

But it didn’t.

He flew down to Washington and made love to her that very night. And as he did, she said, over and over again, “This is it. This is what I need—I need you, Gordon,” and he was so very, very glad she said it, because that night he knew how much he needed her, too.

“All-Light-and-Love on five,” Betty said over the intercom.

“
Princess
All-Light-and-Love to you,” Gordon said. “One day and you’re overly familiar already.” Gordon pushed a button. “Hi.”

“How does someone find Langley?” Alexandra asked him. There was a horrendous banging noise in the background and so she had to shout.

Gordon stood up, turned toward his window and shouted, “Did you try his office?”

“His secretary said he was on his way down half an hour ago.”

“Where are you?” The banging noise on her end was getting louder.

“In what I hope’s going to be the newsroom—if we can get any work done around here,” she shouted. “Where the heck could he have disappeared to? If you can believe it, until we get an executive producer, there isn’t anyone who can sign for anything except Langley.”

“Sign for what?” Gordon shouted.

“Wire service machines. They won’t hook them up until someone signs the authorization sheet.”

“You can sign it,” Gordon shouted.

“What?” she said, And then she laughed. “Oh, that’s right—I can, can’t I? But do I want to?” she added a second later. “Oh! Never mind, here comes Langley now. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alexandra—”

“What?” she shouted. Now there was a sawing noise too.

“I’ll go with you tonight,” he shouted.

“To look at the apartment? Really?”

“Yep. And guess what else?”

“What?”

“I love you. Maybe even enough to stay at the Plaza.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line and then a laugh. “You’re not shouting this through the halls, are you?”

Gordon turned around. Sure enough, there was Betty, leaning against the doorway, arms folded, and standing next to her was Jackson.

“I see,” Jackson said. And then he looked at Gordon and smiled. “Better tell your mama you’re going to England, boy,” he said. “And better tell her that you’re leaving tonight.”

4
Langley Peterson

Langley Peterson wondered if Gordon had any idea that it was because of his girlfriend, Alexandra, that he was being sent to England tonight. Probably not.

“And so,” Langley concluded, learning forward on his desk to wrap up the briefing, “you tell Hargrave’s people anything and everything you’re going to need over there. I want you to take your secretary with you, because I’m going to want itemized notes on the meetings. So take Betty and then send her back to me with the notes no later than Friday afternoon. “

Gordon nodded once.

“She’s smart,” Langley added, adjusting his glasses. “I think she should be doing more than teaching Adele how to bowl.”

Gordon smiled, nodding again.

“So that’s it. When you shake hands with the Brits, we’re on our way,” he finished.

“Sounds good,” Gordon said.

It should sound good, Langley knew, because it was good. With the Writers Guild strike looking as though it might last through the summer, they had been trying to figure out a way to keep their schedule on
Love Across the Atlantic
, and moving the whole production out of the United States seemed to be the answer. And so, since almost half of the exteriors had been planned to be shot on location in England anyway, Jackson had called on his friend Lord Gregory Hargrave, and Hargrave had extended an invitation to DBS to consolidate production on the miniseries at his studios in London.

The part Langley neglected to tell Gordon, however, was that Lord Hargrave was now a silent partner in the miniseries. So silent, in fact, that no one—
especially
the board of directors of Darenbrook Communications—knew about it. Because, if the board found out, then they would figure out that, after they had voted down Jackson’s motion to double the budget of DBS News and launch it a year early in order to sign Alexandra, Jackson had
not
proceeded to fund it out of his own pocket as he said he would but had, in fact, “borrowed” the money from the miniseries-money that was now being made up by Lord Hargrave in the form of studio facilities, crews and accommodations.

Because, if the board found
that
out, then it would only be a matter of time before they also found out that the reason Jackson was not funding the first year of DBS News himself was because he had recently paid a bank consortium some sixty million dollars to make good on his brother Beau’s stock market option losses in the October crash. And if the board found
that
out, then they would also find out that Beau had used
Field Day
, the Darenbrook magazine of which he was publisher, as illegal collateral on his margin accounts.

And if the board found
that
out, not only could they vote Beau off the board but they could send him to jail, particularly since company bylaws dictated that, in such a case, Beau’s interest in Darenbrook Communications would then revert back to the company for nothing, and his voting stock would be divided among the remaining members of the board.

Sigh. It was never boring working for the Darenbrook family.

But Langley hated dealing this way with Gordon Strenn. Gordon was a very straightforward, diligent kind of guy and had upgraded the
Love Across the Atlantic
project from an A rating to AAA by, among other things, his coup of signing Vanessa Winslow in the lead. He deserved to know the score. But Langley knew he wouldn’t and shouldn’t tell Gordon anything because, if something were to go wrong and the board caught on, then Gordon would be best left out of it. Some of the Darenbrooks could be pretty nasty.

Although each board member had an equal financial interest in the company, they did not share equal voting stock. Big El, who controlled twenty-five percent of it, would, thankfully, almost always vote to reinvest a percentage of the profits back into the company for research and development, though he was apt to disagree with Jackson on how to divide it among divisions. He was, for example, the one to put the brakes on DBS News, refusing to allocate any more funds to broadcasting or to alter the financial timetable already agreed upon.

Cordelia, who ran the Mendolyn Street house in Hilleanderville where her father still lived, usually cast her eight and a quarter voting shares the same way Big El did. (Or Big El cast his vote in the same way Cordelia did, nobody was quite sure anymore.)

Little El and the twins, Norbert and Noreen—who held eight and a quarter shares each—voted for anything that put cash in their pockets and voted to sell anything that didn’t.

The two remaining members of the board, Beau and Belinda, represented Jackson’s power base. As the three flesh-and-blood children of Alice May Darenbrook, each had inherited a third of Alice May’s voting shares, boosting their holdings past that of their half siblings to twelve percent. Jackson also enjoyed an extra five percent as chairman. And so, with seventeen percent of his own holdings and the twenty-four percent of ever loyal Beau’s and Belinda’s, Jackson had forty-one percent of the vote at his disposal.

However, these days, Beau and Belinda constantly ran the risk of being voted off the board, Beau with his gambling and Belinda with her…

Belinda. The beautiful, fair-haired Darenbrook baby, now thirty-seven, whose increasing episodes of insane behavior had the twins and Little El cheering her on to flip out completely. Because, if their baby sister could be proved incapable of managing her own affairs, then company bylaws dictated that Belinda’s voting shares had to revert back to the board for redistribution.

And so one could say there was a delicate balance of power within Darenbrook Communications.

Since Langley was always the president of whatever new company they launched until it got on its feet, he was quite accustomed to playing “funny money” within the corporation with Jackson to properly finance projects that had been underfunded by the board. However, launching DBS News a year early with money rerouted from the miniseries—well, this made him very nervous. Although next year they would have the board-approved funds for DBS News to rechannel through the miniseries to repay Lord Hargrave, even if DBS News achieved all of its goals, since Jackson had already doubled the News budget, they’d still have the second half of the first-year DBS News costs to somehow make up.

Sitting here, in his office, Langley decided that he should absolutely keep Gordon Strenn clear of this mess. Langley’s intercom buzzed then, startling him. “Excuse me,” he said to Gordon, picking up the phone. “Yes?”

“A Jim Malbern calling from Group K Productions in Tucson,” Adele said. “He says it’s very important.”

“I’ll take it,” Langley said, pushing a button. “Hello, Jim, what can I do for you?”

“You can send Jessica back here, that’s what you can do,” he said.

Jim Malbern was evidently referring to Jessica Wright, the young talk show hostess whose contract they had recently bought out from Group K Productions for DBS.

“I don’t have her to send,” Langley said. “She isn’t expected until April first.”

Pause and then, “She isn’t there?”

“Adele,” Langley called. She appeared at the door. “Have we seen or heard from Jessica Wright?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“No,” Langley said into the phone.

“Oh,” Malbern said. “Sorry for yelling—bye.”

Click.

Blinking rapidly, Langley hung up the phone.

“The Terror of Tucson,” Gordon said, citing Jessica Wright’s nickname as stated on a recent DBS press release.

“The hints grow stronger, yes,” Langley murmured, standing up. He checked his watch. “You better get going.”

“Right,” Gordon said, jumping up.

Langley came around his desk and, putting a hand on Gordon’s shoulder, walked him to the door. “You have a child overseas, don’t you?” he asked.

Gordon laughed. “I didn’t find him in a magazine ad.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind,” Gordon said, stopping at the door and turning around. “But, yes—I have a son,” he added, nodding. “Christopher. He lives in Paris. With his mother.”

“So you’ll be able to see more of him this year,” Langley said.

“Plan to,” Gordon said, smiling. Then he gave Langley the thumbs-up sign. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Great,” Langley said.

When Gordon turned the corner, Langley sighed slightly, dug his hands into his pockets and leaned against the doorway. He couldn’t help wondering what Gordon would think if he knew the extraordinary lengths to which Jackson had gone to bring Alexandra to DBS. He wondered, too, if Gordon would notice that what Jackson had opted for as the best solution to the writers’ strike was the one that put the most miles between Gordon and Alexandra, and for the longest period of time.

In the beginning, months before Alexandra had been shot, Langley had been all for hiring her and moving DBS News up a year. He approved of Jackson’s committing DBS to a crash schedule of preparations on the strength of a handshake, and he enthusiastically began negotiations with Alexandra’s agent, John Mohrbacher. Although Alexandra was so young and, at this point, still but a mere reporter (who had trouble getting on the air at that), the outside consultants Langley had employed had come back to him with audience reaction scores to Alexandra that were, they said, truly remarkable.

Furthermore, aside from the jealousies that came with the profession, Alexandra’s reputation among her colleagues was excellent. The consensus was that she was fiercely bright, fast, reliable and fair. She was known as an extremely hard worker and an excellent writer. In fact the only real criticism they heard about her was that sometimes she operated out of a sense of entitlement so strong that employees who didn’t even work in her department were often found to be working on something for her. And happily so. To Jackson and Langley, this drawback in a reporter sounded like a terrific plus in an anchor.

Mohrbacher told Langley that Alexandra had turned down five hundred and fifty thousand a year as a local anchor for WWKK to join The Network as a correspondent for two hundred thousand. The credential and national exposure had been worth it to her, Mohrbacher explained, but he wanted Langley to keep in mind that she could command six-fifty, easy, if she went back into major-market local news.

They came to a preliminary agreement that Alexandra’s salary would be five hundred thousand the first year, escalating to a million in three, plus bonuses tied to gross revenues for DBS News. Fine. But then they got into the extent of Alexandra’s power within DBS News and the pleasant road of negotiation took a turn down what Langley later saw as Nightmare Alley. Mohrbacher made the most extraordinary demands—”She needs approval over the executive in charge of the news division”—and Langley said forget it and then Mohrbacher said, okay, forget it, and then Jackson started yelling that he wanted the contract settled and so then Mohrbacher started in again on Alexandra’s demands and Langley stood his ground…

When by December they had not even reached a tentative agreement on the issues Mohrbacher claimed Alexandra would never back down on, Jackson flew down to Washington to straighten it out with her himself. And by the time he returned to West End, Langley had been near apoplexy.

“Now what’s the matter?” Jackson had said, looking through his mail. “We wanted it settled. It’s settled.”

Langley was so angry, for a moment he couldn’t speak. He took off his glasses, wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve and put his glasses back on. “That girl does not have a good effect on you,” he finally managed to say.

“Alexandra’s a pleasure to deal with,” Jackson said. “She’s a professional.”

“I’ll say,” Langley said.

Jackson looked up from his mail.

“Yesterday her salary was five hundred thousand,” Langley said, “today it’s over a million.” He tossed a sheaf of papers on Jackson’s desk.

Jackson frowned. “What’s that?”

“Mohrbacher faxed them to me,” Langley said. “They’re what he claims are her notes from your meeting.” He paused to collect himself, but his voice started to climb anyway. “They’re the thirty-eight contract clause revisions she says you approved.”

“Well, Alexandra is a complicated kind of gal,” Jackson said diplomatically.

“You’re handing a thirty-year-old nobody the news division!” Langley cried, slamming his hands down on Jackson’s desk. “Hire and fire approvals, co-copyright ownership on specials—and then there’s this lunacy about her own syndication arm overseas—”

“I want her to be happy here,” Jackson said. “If it doesn’t work for her, it’s not going to work for us.”

“Happy? Happy!” Langley fell backward into a chair, holding his head in hands. “We’re ruined, we’re ruined before we even start,” he moaned.

Jackson reached down next to his chair and came up with a tin of Cheddar cheese popcorn. “You worry too much,” he said, prying off the lid. “No faith—no faith at all, Lang, that’s your problem.”

Langley dropped his hands and stared at him for a long moment. And then he said, quietly, “She’s miserable at The Network, everybody knows that. She doesn’t want local news—she wants us, Jack. We can make her, no one else will and she knows it. All we have to do is wait and she’ll back down.” He sat forward in his chair. “Listen to me, Jack. There’s no reason to give Alexandra Waring all this. None.”