Sweet Love (23 page)

“Owen’s office in ten minutes. We’ve reached a decision about you and your cobbler nuisance.”

Covering the mouthpiece, I try to explain that I’m working on a hot story, but Arnie puts up his hands. “Don’t give me that. You knew this was coming. Ten minutes.”

When I get back on, Detective Sinesky says, “Who was that?”

“My boss. The general manager wants to see me about the cobbler brouhaha. I’m in a heap of trouble.”

Sinesky chuckles to himself. “They haven’t a clue that you brought us one step closer to solving the most heinous murder of last year, do they?”

Peaches are serious business, I tell him. They are not to be entered into a cobbler lightly.

When I get to Owen’s office, Arnie and Owen are there along with a gray-suited man with dark circles under his eyes and the morbid pallor of the chronic insomniac. Of all the days to have a mammogram, I couldn’t have chosen worse. No deodorant or antiperspirant allowed, and my arm-pits are getting soaked in nervous sweat.

“Julie, this is Tom Wrye,” Owen says. “Our counsel.”

Whose
counsel? Certainly not mine as well.

I shake Tom’s hand and he slips me a business card with CHAIM AND WRYE in raised gold lettering.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He gives me a
wry
smile. “Most people say hold the mayo. I get it all the time.”

“Okay, knock off the monkey business.” Owen smoothes back his hair and hitches up his pants. “You and I like to joke around, but now we got Tom here and he charges $350 an hour. That’s no laughing matter.”

Arnie says, “Then you won’t mind if I cut to the chase. Julie, we’re putting you on unpaid leave for a week, commonly referred to as a ‘temporary suspension.’ I’ve laid this out in a press release Dolores is faxing to the morning zoo radio stations so they’ll stop calling us wusses. Now‚ let’s go back to work.”

A week of leave? Yippeee. Could not have come at a better time, aside from the money. That sucks. But, forgetting about that for the moment, this means I have a week off smack in the middle of summer. For once, kismet’s on my side.

Tom asks him to hold on. “Julie, I’m just curious. What was your intention, bringing over that cobbler?”

“She wanted to—” Arnie cuts in, but Owen stops him. “Tell him, Julie. It’s okay.”

I frown and go on. “I brought that cobbler over because Ray Schmuler, Rhonda Michak’s boyfriend, called me at home to complain about Valerie badgering Rhonda and airing unfounded rumors that she murdered her own daughter. Speaking of which—”

“Did you at any moment extend any promises to Mr. Schmuler?” Tom asks.

Folding my arms tightly to hide potential underarm stains, I try to remember if I said something out of line. “I don’t think so. Which brings me to—”

“And were you on your shift at that moment?”

Arnie, who’s been swinging an imaginary golf club, stops midair. “Does that matter?”

“I’m playing devil’s advocate,” Tom explains patiently. “Now that I’ve had a chance to depose her informally and having recently reviewed the station bylaws, I’m not sure she deserves a suspension. If Julie was off her shift, then she was on her own time. To suspend her for acting out her own goodwill would, for example, require us to suspend all the reporters who go to church.”

Arnie says, “We have reporters who go to church?”

“No, I wasn’t working,” I say. “I was on my own time.”

Tom goes, “Hmph. I don’t know, gentlemen. This is a gray area.”

“Well, that’s lousy,” Owen says, hitching up his pants. “I’d hoped to put an end to this today by sticking her in the public stocks.”

“Yeah,” says Arnie. “Public stocks. Now‚ how are we ever gonna get our credibility back?”

“I know,” I say. “I just got off the phone with Detective Sinesky, who said—”

Tom interrupts. “You could broadcast a roundtable discussion, a thoughtful examination of the fine lines journalists must be careful not to cross.”

“Interesting,” Owen says. “Dull as dishwater, but interesting. Would it lower our insurance rates?”

“Possibly,” Tom says.

I can’t take it anymore. “Listen to me,” I practically yell. “You’re paying Tom $350 an hour to come up with roundtable discussions, but I’ve got big, big news.”

“Well, stop beating around the bush,” Arnie says. “Spit it out.”

“Am I still suspended?”

The three men exchange questioning glances, mentally passing off the question like a hot potato. Finally, Arnie asks, “This news of yours. How big is it?”

“Big enough to shut up the fat traps on morning radio.”

Owen waves his hand. “Then this suspension is hereby foreshortened.”

“And erased from my personnel file,” I remind him.

Owen agrees.

“Next she’s going to ask for a pay raise,” Arnie says.

“Not a bad idea.” I look to Owen. “How about it?”

“How about you tell us what this big news is first?”

From my tablet, I remove the drawing Max made earlier that morning. “This is a sketch of the man who abducted Amy from the Somerville Library. It was drawn by a homeless man named Max who saw the whole thing and I’ve faxed it over to Detective Sinesky. They’ve interviewed him and will be bringing in the suspect for questioning. My guess is there’ll be an arrest just in time for the six-thirty news and Sinesky has promised to give us first dibs in gratitude for my contribution.”

Peering at the drawing, Arnie says, “Why does he look familiar?”

“Because he’s been all over the Amy Michak case, handing out flyers and serving as spokesman for the family. We’ve had him on our broadcasts every time we do an Amy update.”

Shocked, Owen says, “This is the mother’s boyfriend.”

Arnie lets out a bunch of swears.

“You mean the boyfriend who called you at home?” Tom asks.

“That’s the guy.” And saying this reminds me of how many sessions I sat with Rhonda and Ray, Ray always with a comforting hand on Rhonda’s thigh, the loyal escort guiding her through the mass of reporters and putting himself on the public pedestal. “The cops brought him in for questioning on numerous occasions. But he had an airtight alibi.”

“Which was?” Arnie asks.

“Rhonda. She claimed Ray was outside in the parking lot of the Brown Derby waiting to pick her up from work during the window of time police figure Amy was supposedly abducted.”

“Which means Valerie wasn’t so off the mark,” Arnie rushes to note.

“Wasn’t so on the mark, either. Sinesky firmly believes Rhonda’s an innocent party who had no idea what her boyfriend was up to. The library is a block from the Brown Derby. It’s possible Ray . . .” This part I’m not prepared for, and I find it hard to continue.

Of all the men, it’s Tom the lawyer who gives me a reassuring pat on the back. “We get the picture. Ray did what he did, strangled Amy out of panic, and stashed the body. Came back later that night and took her remains to Walden Pond.”

“Right.” That unfortunate, terrified girl.

“So what the hell are you doing here flapping your gums at us?” Arnie yells. “You should be out there getting this story.”

“You were the one who relegated Julie to the basement,” Owen reminds him. “And then you made me suspend her. You’re an awful, cruel man with no regard for my employees.”

“Forget it. Forget it.” Arnie’s waving madly and hopping about like a chimpanzee in a briar patch. “This is big. We’ve got to get a crew down to the cop station. You, too, Mueller.”

“Don’t want to tip off the competition,” I warn him. “And I’m sorry, but my exclusive will have to wait. I found a lump in my left breast two days ago and I’ve got to get a mammogram in an hour.”

Arnie stops gesticulating and Owen’s jaw drops.

“But as soon as I’m done, I’ll be right on top of it, no matter the test results.” I cross my heart. “Promise.”

On that note, I walk out of Owen’s office, glad to be away from the morbid subject of Amy’s murder and the prospect of confronting Rhonda with the truth.

You know it’s time to rethink your career when a mammogram comes as a welcome relief.

Chapter Eighteen

— CORIOLANUS, ACT III, SCENE 1

Suddenly, I’m a comedienne. A bad comedienne at that. Think Joan Rivers at the Berkshires dinner theater.

“When was the date of your most recent mammogram?” the nurse asks me when I check in to the Mt. Olive Breast Care Center.

“April twenty-second of this year.”

“That’s impressive,” she says, writing it down. “Most women can’t recall.”

“How could I not? It was the last time I took off my shirt for a man.” I can’t help it. It’s a nervous reaction.

“Okay,” she says, handing me a clipboard. “Go down the hall to the right. The waiting room is the third door. Take off your top and bra and put them in an empty locker. Slip into the johnny so it ties in the front. A technician will be right with you. Did you wear antiperspirant today?”

I’m about to make another tasteless crack when I catch myself. “No. I didn’t.”

My nerves don’t truly give out, though, until I’m waiting in the changing room with the other women. It’s very bizarre how nervous I am. Why? Here I’ve had so many mammograms over the years it’s a wonder my boobs don’t glow in the dark, and yet I can’t concentrate on this
Time
magazine. Why are my palms sweating and my heart racing? Why am I being such a baby?

Mt. Olive has done everything possible to provide a soothing atmosphere, but not even the peach walls or framed prints of flowers and waterfalls can ease my fears. The odds are (though I’ve read disputes on this statistic) that one in eight women will get breast cancer. Here we are, exactly eight in this room.

Which one of us will be the odd one out?

I’m sure I’m not alone in playing this morbid roulette. Maybe the woman calmly knitting next to me is also mentally running through the odds, though you’d never know it the way yarn flies over her needles, even and measured, her lips set in a bucolic smile.

Then again we women are trained to fake serenity, aren’t we? Nine months of pregnancy and hours of backbreaking labor, annual Pap smears and blood tests, not to mention impatient husbands, angry bosses, and vomiting children have conditioned us to keep going, to keep smiling no matter what.

We stare at the
Prevention
magazine and the wrinkled
Newsweek
like we’re at Jiffy Lube waiting for our twenty-point oil change, instead of in a hospital waiting to find out if our breasts have turned on us like buxom secret agents conspiring with the enemy. The telltale difference is that rarely does Jiffy Lube require a pink-flowered johnny that opens in the front.

After what seems like forever, the door flies open and a young woman with a sharp chin and even sharper eyes gazes around the room. “Julie Mueller?”

I’m never called right away. I think—not good.

Her name is Sondra and she tells me that she does fifty-three mammograms a day at Mt. Olive’s Breast Care Center. It’s all digital now, though the machines themselves aren’t any softer. I try to ask her a bunch of questions about her job and training and whether she dreams boobs, but she cuts me off. I know I’m number forty-six and she’s got seven more before she can call it quits.

Mammograms never hurt as much as people claim. Pinch, maybe, but not hurt. Honestly, there were guys I dated in high school—this one quarterback in particular—who really knew how to mash a breast. I tell her that and she steps behind a Plexiglas wall and reminds me to hold my breath.

“So he really mashed your breast, huh?” she asks, remolding my left boob and pushing me into a new contortion. “This is the breast with the lump, right?”

I swallow. “Right.”

“I’ll pay extra attention to this one.”

“Oh, joy.”

“Don’t worry. Eighty-five percent of lumps are benign.”

Down from ninety so soon?

She lowers the plate so that I can’t possibly breathe and retreats to the booth. We repeat this with the other breast until both are sore and throbbing. It takes forever. Much longer than I remember. At last I’m asked to change and wait in a different room where the radiologist will meet me if necessary.

It’s a small place at the end of the hall with the door open so I can see everyone coming and going. I have one plastic chair and a chart about breasts and various forms of irregularities with which to entertain myself. There’s a box of bright purple Latex gloves and a white curtain.

There’s also a ready box of tissues.

I’ve been here before, I think, swinging my legs, trying to be grateful that the days of waiting for a phone call from the radiologist are over. We’ve really come far thanks to those pink ribbons and road races. This is the result: an entire hospital wing devoted to breast issues and a more sensitive medical community that realizes women need to know, fast.

Has it always taken this long? In the past, the radiologist—often a balding man with a bow tie—comes down the hall immediately, asks a few perfunctory questions about family history, and advises me to keep up the annual screening. It’s such a relief. As if MasterCard called up and told me to forget about my $5,000 balance.

But this . . . this is too long.

I debate calling Liza, a ridiculous idea since she’s in Italy. I even think of calling my ex-husband‚ Donald‚ since he’s a doctor. The truth is, there’s only one person I need right now. And she and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms.

“Mrs. Mueller?”

That’s right. How did he guess?

I look up. A short, somewhat handsome man with wavy brown hair is smiling at me, maintaining perfect eye contact.

“
Ms
. Mueller,” I say. “Are you . . . ?”

He sticks out his hand. “Dr. Horton. I’m with the center.”

It’s then that I notice Sondra is standing next to him and that the door is closed. This is not what we did in April. The door has never been closed. I lean over to open it‚ but Sondra steps forward and I realize Dr. Horton didn’t identify himself. He’s not just any radiologist.