Reunion (39 page)

“Blue—”

“… and see if we can broadcast from their villa—”

“Blue—”

“So that—”

“Damn it, Blue, would you shut up for second and listen to me?”

“No, come on. I’m pretty sure we can get away with reruns next week as long as we’re doing good promos for the special, daily. Peter will know how to work it. See whether any of the other celebrity moms who have adopted are willing to book last-minute.”

Marcy gave an exasperated sigh. “Blue, stop! Just… just
stop.
It’s too late, it’s too big to shut down.”

Blue’s hands were trembling. She tightened her free one into a fist and still it continued, her whole body beginning to shake. “You don’t know that for certain. Maybe there’s something else. A benefit concert. We could get Barbra, or Madonna.”

“Blue, it’s done. Yes, you’ll own up to it and we’ll keep doing damage control. But you aren’t going to be able to make this go away.”

Blue wrapped her arm around herself, gripped her shirt at the waist. Her mind raced on, trying to find another way to plug the dyke, trying … and failing.

It was no use. No matter what tactic they used, no matter how sincerely she wanted to help someone, somewhere, they would not out-spin the celebrity smear sites, the fundamentalist Christian groups, and all the Internet joy-riders who spread gossip as a sport. As huge as her viewership was, it didn’t begin to approach the combined viewership of celebrity news shows, late-night TV, and the Web. What point in even trying?

What point was there in any of it anymore? The pressures, the pace, the persona …

Marcy was saying, “Sit tight. I’m sending a car.”

“No car,” Blue said wearily, heading for the door.

When she appeared outside the gate, it was as though an invisible force field kept the crowd of reporters and photographers a uniform twelve feet away. Their distance was a favor, based solely on her having given them so little reason to harass her in the past.

What must they think of me now?

She said, “Where’s the woman who was here earlier? The reporter? Is she here?” Blue shaded her eyes and looked at the faces of the reporters, all of them holding tight to their umbrellas, while she stood in the rain with their photographers’ flashes lighting up the night around her.

“Ms. Reynolds, why did you give up your child?”

“Ms. Reynolds, where is the man who was with you earlier? Is it true that he’s Julian Forrester, your lover’s son?”

“Are you sleeping with both of them?”

“Who is the father of your baby?”

“What would you say to being called a hypocrite?”

“Why didn’t you have an abortion?”

She had her own questions. Where was Julian? Was he this very moment telling the Forresters what a fraud she was, making them regret having welcomed her back into their lives? How ludicrous to imagine she had any place with them,
any
of them …

The reporter from earlier came up to the front of the group. “Have you decided to make a statement?”

Blue said, “Who do you work for?”

“I freelance.”

“Ah. So you hoped to score big today. Imagined the bidders lining up.”

The reporter looked away. “I have to pay my rent.”

“How much did you spend on that last-minute air fare to get here?”

“Twelve hundred.”

“Wow. Just on the chance you might get to Blue Reynolds first. How much did the photos go for?”

The reporter shrugged defensively. “My split will cover my expenses.”

“That meager, huh? You and your photographer friend sold me out for … three grand.”

“I’m trying to build a career, just like you did.”

Blue nodded. “I know.” She raised her voice and said, “Everybody listen up: I’m going to make a statement. Are you ready?”

She waited, letting her silence build their anticipation, hearing the rain on their umbrellas like a drumroll, and then she said,
“The Blue Reynolds Show
is off the air. I’ve had enough. I quit.”

he reporters were still yelling out questions when Blue returned to the house, found her phone, and called her mother. She did it without thinking through what she would say, because if she thought too much, she might not call at all. A simple delivery of the facts was what was needed:
I had a child. I lived a lie. I was scared to tell you. I’m sorry.

Her mother’s generous reply: “I’m on my way.”

“No, Mom, not yet. I need some time to … to just be here, okay?”

“I love you. Call me any time.
Any time.”

“I will.”

She called Marcy next and told her what she’d done. “Call Peter, call my lawyer, and tell them no, I wasn’t kidding.”

Marcy said, “Can I do anything for you? Do you want me to come down?”

“I could use a towel, and a pillow.”

“I’m on it. Now I have to ask—because they’ll all be asking me: What are you planning to do? You know, next?”

Blue looked out the window; most of the crowd was gone. Off to upload their photos, to write and file their stories. “It’s going to be a firestorm.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not cutting you loose, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about me. Do you have a plan for you?”

“No,” she said, walking to the sliding door and looking out into the rainy garden. “But I’m hoping to find one here.”

After hanging up, Blue listened to the rainfall for a little while, soothed by the sound, the smell. What did she want to do next? What sort of options did she have? Who was she now, besides the former host of
TBRS?
Who did she want to be?

There was no rolling thunder of approval, no sign from the universe that she’d done the right thing in quitting. Only the sensation of a bit less weight now on her shoulders, and the far-off barking of a tree frog, and the steady patter of rain on the leaves.

A few minutes later, there was a banging on the gate, a voice calling out, “Delivery!” Blue went outside, permitted a pair of men to bring to her porch a cot, linens, and four bags of supplies. “I’ll take it from here,” she said.

When she had locked up the house and made her bed, she lay down in the dark, thinking about what would be happening at news stations and on websites while she was here in this empty house, disconnected,
unplugged from all of that. The rumors. The lies. The analysis and speculation.

The media would be telling her story in every sensational way they could construct, the way she had always let them do. When that story had been both impressive and favorable, she’d been content to stand on the sidelines, calling out the plays only once in a while. She had, in so many ways, let the media shape who she was, let it determine who she would become. It had created her reality.

And now here she was.

She sat up, then she got up and found her phone, to call Marcy and get the phone number of the editor-in-chief at
Time.
She may have walked away from
TBRS
but she was still of the media; it was time she created a reality of her own.

ulian avoided most opportunities for firsthand media exposure in the days afterward—as Blue was apparently doing, given that there’d been no official word from her since Friday. He kept away from the TV, the phone, and the Internet and within the confines of the house or yard. A few stubborn reporters remained camped out near the driveway even after they’d been told there would be no comment from him, or Daniel or Lynn.

Still, he couldn’t avoid his grandparents’ ongoing discussions. From them he knew that much was made of the pictures of him and Blue together. A lot more was made of that photo of her seven months pregnant. Depending where you looked, Blue was being portrayed as a cradle-robbing incestuous slut, a liar, a hypocrite, a coward, a baby-selling criminal, and a church-shunning sinner who deserved what she was getting after trying to buy her way to the son she hadn’t bothered to keep. Daniel read the headlines aloud whenever he came across one:
Daytime’s Angel Falls from Grace. Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up Like Kucharski. Take Two: One Man Is Too Few for Blue.

Julian’s father was the Jilted Lover and he, Julian, was the Traitorous Son.

“What a load of horseshit,” his father said, on speakerphone Tuesday evening. “I keep telling them that it’s all out of context. Why is it that now, when I have something to say, nobody wants to hear it?”

Lynn said, “And why isn’t Blue out there defending herself? She’s
shut herself in, no word to anyone.” All they knew was that supplies and furniture had been delivered to her house. She wouldn’t starve.

“‘The Jilted Lover,’” his father snorted. Julian, knowing his own label had nearly fit, kept silent.

“Aren’t we the notorious group now?” Daniel said, but kindly.

Julian was pruning the climbing oleander from the side-yard fence Friday afternoon when the mail was delivered. Before bringing it in, he finished his work and got the wheelbarrow and rake, stopping outside the shed to observe a Red-bellied Woodpecker that hung from the feeder he’d built and mounted at the edge of the backyard. The design was simple; essentially a box, with a lid that was also an overhang and a base that was also a tray. He’d covered the tray with crosshatched wire to keep the squirrels out, and added a suet cage to the side, to attract woodpeckers like this one and the Red-headed and the Downy. There were Mangrove Cuckoos in the vicinity, too; he’d heard the guttural chuckle-like call several times in the past few days. He’d managed to lure a few to his feeders in years past with the fruity suet the Red-bellied was enjoying just now, and hoped he would again. It was an elusive bird; not flashy but handsome, one of the few Keys birds he hadn’t managed to photograph yet. Getting its picture was his singular goal; a man needed something to occupy him, after all.

Scrounging up the materials to build the feeder had occupied him all day Monday. Tuesday morning was taken up with the construction itself, and Tuesday afternoon, he’d dug out the lawn mower manual and spent the remainder of the day tuning up the machine. Wednesday he’d cleaned the pool. Yesterday he and Lynn painted the two main-house bedrooms, each a different powdery pastel. In the evenings, after dinner, he’d talked some about his experience in Iraq. He gave snapshot accounts but held back most of his thoughts, said nothing at all about the email. Generously, his grandparents held back the question they were surely wondering about him,
What next?
He had options; Alec and Noor were off to China and said there was work, too, for him; four editors had pitched him assignments—and only one of them had been audacious
enough to make the assignment Blue. He knew people everywhere, yet wanted nothing more than to just stay put right here on this four-by-two spit of sand and rock and coral.

After he finished raking up the oleander clippings, he went to the mailbox. Amongst the letters and ads was
Time
magazine, on which there was a compelling photo and the headline,
“Harmony, Blue?”

He opened to the article and read it on the spot.

“Maybe safe, but not completely accurate,” he said.

“Julian,” Lynn called to him, “I’m off to Publix. What do you need?”

“I need a life,” he sighed, well out of earshot. “Lemons,” he called back. He read on.

It looked as if she would pass the baton to an up-and-comer from a network affiliate in Miami. For now, they’d run canned shows for the last two weeks of the season, and that would truly be the end of
The Blue Reynolds Show.

Rest in peace.