Killer Riff (2 page)

I’d intended to follow him out of the office, but that pulled me up short. “Replacement shopping?”

Henry paused in the doorway. “Your column. We’re going to keep you too busy for you to stay with it.”

I was surprised by the sharpness of the sting as the news pierced my spinning brain. Of course I had to give up my column. That was a good thing. I’d been eager to move beyond dispensing advice to the distraught, obsessive, and lovelorn for a long time. Still, I found myself feeling possessive and even a little sad. I’d created “You Can Tell Me,” and it was odd to think of handing it over to some unknown party. Unless they’d already figured out that part. “Do you have someone in mind?”

Henry shook his head, gesturing to Eileen. She pursed her lips and turned to me. “I’m still absorbing this happy news, so I haven’t considered its repercussions.”

“I’d like to open it up to magazine staffers, if you think that’s feasible,” Henry suggested. “We should be doing more promoting from within.”

Eileen’s lips unpursed and curled into a smile. “Oh yes. Let’s make it a contest. Our own little
American Idol.
Post some letters and have people answer them. Best answer gets the job.”

Henry wasn’t going to let her get away with being sarcastic. He opened his arms in a grand gesture. “I love it. Great idea.”

Eileen’s nostrils flared. “You’re not serious. Can you imagine the dreck they’ll produce?” She wiggled her French-tipped fingers in the direction of the bull pen outside her office door, where most of the junior editorial staff sat. “Who could we even trust to screen the responses?”

“No one but you,” Henry replied. I wasn’t sure which was more entertaining, Eileen’s discomfort or Henry’s pleasure in it. This was a whole new take on Eileen’s position in the organization, and I found it fascinating.

“It’s Molly’s column,” she protested with the annoyance of a big sister who’s been asked to baby-sit on a Friday night.

“So you and Molly can screen them together, then the three of us will sit down and make the final selection. How’s that sound?”

“Great,” I said quickly.

Eileen smiled jaggedly “I look forward to it.”

“It’ll be a party,” Henry said with a smile and a wink as he walked out of the office.

I started to follow him, but Eileen had another idea. “Molly,” she said with a thick coating of ice.

I turned around and launched a preemptive attack. “Eileen, I really can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate this. I know we’ve had our differences, but I also know that you’re going to be very pleased by what I bring to the magazine from this new vantage point.”

Startled, Eileen took a moment before responding. “Isn’t that sweet. I just want to make sure we understand each other.”

“About?”

“About how this really changes nothing.”

“Except what I’m doing.”

“Yes, but you’re still doing it for me.”

She rose to walk around her desk and get closer to me. It wasn’t going to lead to a congratulatory hug, I knew that much. For a flickering moment, I had thought this promotion might encourage a better relationship with my boss because I’d be doing what I was supposed to be doing, not pushing to do something more. But I could tell by the way her petite shoulders squared as she advanced on me that this was only going to fan the flames. She’d been working hard to keep me in my place, wherever she perceived it to be, but now Henry had lifted me out of it. Was her new hobby going to become trying to trip me up so Henry would withdraw the promotion? It sounded paranoid, but working for Eileen for any extended period brings that out in people.

“I’m sure you’re going to do good work. And I simply won’t publish it if it isn’t,” she said as she stopped in front of me. “Just remember, The Publisher giveth, but the editor taketh away.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I assured her. I thought about hugging her just to see what she’d do but decided not to start off my new gig by pushing my luck. Besides, I was pretty sure her head would explode, and that wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone.

Eileen tilted her head to the side, like a cat deciding whether to play with a mouse or eat it. With an exasperated sigh, she said, “Write a sample question for your column and give it to me. I’ll write a memo to the staff about the process of being named your heir.”

“Thank you,” I said, backing toward the door.

Her lips twitched in the vicinity of a smile. “I had no idea you and Henry were so close.”

“We’re not,” I said, hoping that she wasn’t suggesting what I was sure she was suggesting.

“So this brilliant idea leapt into his head all by itself.”

“You’d have to ask him,” I said, certain she already had and hoping she’d been more graceful with him than she was being with me.

“Fine. Be coy, even though it doesn’t suit you.”

“Eileen,” I ventured, emboldened by the glorious news, “maybe he just thinks I’m a good writer.”

“Of course, how silly of me,” she oozed. “Merit.”

“Isn’t that how you got your job?” I asked.

I meant it as a point of perspective, but I could tell it struck a deep and dissonant chord. Eileen’s carefully plucked eyebrows knotted together, and she pointed to her office door. “Weren’t you leaving?”

I hustled out the door and into the office bull pen, wondering what key point of Eileen’s past I had tripped over as her door slammed behind me.

“That went well.”

Skyler Christopher was Eileen’s current assistant, a job that turns over so often, there should be a turnstile by the desk. A sloe-eyed brunette prone to tight sweaters and tighter skirts, she’d been a startling choice, given Eileen’s track record of selecting gay men and dowdy women to guard her office door. Then the grapevine reported that Skyler’s grandparents were pals of The Publisher. Eileen doesn’t like anyone sharing her spotlight, but she also doesn’t miss a chance to be political. Skyler struck me as too smart to last long in her current position, but she was fun to have around in the meantime.

“She’s very happy for me,” I said.

“I can tell. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“So who’s going to get your column?” She said it casually, her eyes never leaving her monitor, but I could hear the steely purpose under the question. Three weeks on the job and already looking for her next move. Who could blame her?

“Whoever writes the best response to a sample question. Unlock that inner Ann Landers and go for it,” I said, and her eyes swung up to meet mine for just a moment. We exchanged smiles, and I headed back to my desk to start spreading the news.

I was tempted to e-mail everyone so there wouldn’t be a question about who got called first. But that was quickly supplanted by the desire to call my boyfriend. And it wasn’t until my hand was actually on the phone that I remembered I couldn’t call my boyfriend because he wasn’t exactly my boyfriend anymore. Mainly because of stories like the one Henry had liked so much.

Kyle Edwards, the man about whom I continued to be absolutely nuts, is an NYPD homicide detective. As supportive and understanding as he tried to be, my attraction to dangerous stories had led to an impasse in our relationship. He’d decided we needed to take a break, and I certainly felt broken. Since the split began, we’d talked only a couple of times; in the last three weeks, we hadn’t talked at all, which I tried to ascribe to our individual schedules, even though I knew our individual stubbornness was really to blame.

So I went back to pre-Kyle mode and called my best friends to tell them. Tricia was with a client, but when I explained to her assistant that I had big news and Tricia should call me when she got a chance, her assistant put me on hold and Tricia picked up immediately.

“What big news?” she asked cheerily.

“It can wait. Take care of your client.”

“It can wait, but I can’t. Besides, they’re trying to decide on linen colors, and I may not be able to get back to you until sometime next week.” Tricia Vincent is an event planner, the key to her success being that you feel as if you’re getting great personal advice from that one friend whose own style and look you secretly covet, “I’m trying to convince them that gray napkins will look dirty, not elegant, and it may take awhile. Tell me.”

So I told her about my promotion and delighted in her gasp of pleasure. “
Yes!
Are you jumping up and down right this very minute?”

“Actually, no. Wrong shoes.”

“Fine, I’ll jump for you. And I’ll meet you for champagne at the place of your choosing at six p.m. Unless you and Cassady have another plan in mind.”

“I haven’t talked to her yet.”

“How flattering. I’m sure it was just my turn to get called first, but I’ll pretend it was a deliberate choice. Let me know what she says about six o’clock.” Tricia blew kisses into the phone and went back to her napkin dilemma.

It’s become something of a game over the years, this issue of who gets called first when something important happens or even when something inconsequential but emotionally resonant occurs. But underneath is the exquisitely comforting knowledge that the three of us have a bond that can withstand anything. So far.

As I reached for my phone to call Cassady it rang. Expecting it to be her being psychic, I snatched it up and said breezily, “Hello there.”

“Molly, it’s Ben Lipscomb, and everything’s okay.” Despite Ben’s quick reassurance, there was still time for my heart to stop for a moment as my mind raced through all the terrible reasons Kyle’s partner might call me out of the blue. Emergency rooms or worse headed the list, but I didn’t get much past them before his disclaimer sank in.

“Nice to hear your voice, Ben,” I said genuinely. Ben is a big man who’s intimidating and imposing in the field but gentle and charming at the core. I suddenly realized I missed him, not just because he was Kyle’s partner, but because he was a good guy and you can never have enough of them in your life. “What’s up?” I continued, trying not to sound breathless.

“I just wanted to call and check on you.”

“Really?”

“‘Cause that’s what people do when they care about other people. They call and they check on them.”

It was less a rebuke than an instruction, but I still winced. “I have called.”

“Not lately.”

“Who’s keeping track?”

“Who’s admitting to it or who’s pretending not to? Just because I’m the one calling to check in doesn’t mean I’m the only one thinking about you.”

I found myself grinning at the unmasking of Ben Lipscomb, decorated homicide detective, as Ben Lipscomb, old-fashioned matchmaker. “Ben, what are you up to?”

“Molly, when you do what I do for a living, you see way too many people whose lives go wrong because of bad decisions. So I try to make a point of getting the people around me to make good decisions while they can.”

I had a sudden vision of willowy blondes—Naomi Watts and Uma Thurman, to be exact—dressed in Badgley Mischka cocktail dresses with navel-baring necklines advancing on Kyle like panthers stalking prey. Was Ben trying to tell me someone else had entered the picture? “While they can?” I repeated as a request for clarification.

“Wasting time on pride is stupid, if I may be frank.”

I started to protest that pride wasn’t the issue here, but the words wouldn’t come out, probably because they weren’t true. Kyle and I hadn’t broken up solely because of pride, but it was a large part of the equation. In our painfully few recent conversations, all we’d done was acknowledge the impasse, not even beginning to see a way around or through it. The crux was, he worried about my getting hurt while writing about a crime, and I couldn’t see that as anything but a demand to choose between him and my job.

My job. What elegant timing. Getting back together with Kyle wasn’t going to be any easier since one of the first things I’d have to tell him would be that I was a full-fledged feature writer now, which would fan the flames under all his worries. However, thinking optimistically, it might be fine. Russell Elliott hadn’t been murdered, so there wasn’t going to be any danger involved in this assignment. Which would give me the opportunity to show Kyle I could juggle my job and his concerns. Let him get used to the idea that he didn’t have to fear for my safety and buy us time to get everything back on track.

The conversation was going to be a touchy one, but suddenly I couldn’t wait to have it. “Does he want me to call him?”

“Clearly he doesn’t know what he wants or I wouldn’t have to be looking after him like this.”

If he’d been in the room with me, I would’ve hugged Ben Lipscomb. “If I call him, will he call me back?”

“That’s my plan.”

“You’re a wonderful person, Ben.”

“Yeah, and aren’t many of us, so we have to stick up for each other.”

“I appreciate it.”

“You do know that this conversation never happened.”

“Even though I’m very glad it did.”

“Hope I see you soon, Molly.”

“Me too.”

I hung up and grinned at the phone. A promotion and an indication that Kyle would be open to getting back together. It was turning out to be a pretty darn spectacular day. But as I started to dial Kyle’s number, my excitement did a nice little tuck and roll and transformed into anxiety. What was I going to say? How was I going to start? Was it going to look as if I were calling today because of the new job? How many wrong ways could he take that? Confronting those questions made my stomach flip again, so I dialed Cassady instead.