Talk (4 page)

This was the part she dreaded. She did not want to find out that Jessica's stalker was someone working right here at West End.

If you must know," Jessica said, arriving the following day at her office with Cassy on her heels, " I'm more than a little annoyed that no one will do anything about that creep outside my apartment, but you'll shut down the whole complex and shake my audience down over the only polite stalker I've ever had. "

"Jessica! This stalker has infiltrated security!"

"Careful," Jessica said, throwing her head in the direction of the hall, "you're blocking the view of my bodyguard. We mustn't have that.

Good morning, Bea. "

"Messages on your desk, Jessica, coffee on the way," her secretary said, standing up.

"Hello, Ms. Cochran."

"Hi" -- Cassy stopped for a moment, vaguely taken back. Then she recovered.

"You've done something to your hair."

"Do you like it?" Bea asked, smiling, touching it.

"Sure," Cassy said helplessly, following Jessica into her office.

"Hi, Alexandra Eyes," Jessica hailed the anchorwoman sitting on her couch.

When Jessica had first arrived at DBS, she had not even met the star anchorwoman for the news division before deciding to hate her. All Jessica had heard was how great Alexandra was, how smart Alexandra was, how beautiful Alexandra was, how lucky DBS was to get her (as if she were chopped liver). The only problem was, after Jessica had gotten to know Alexandra, she found out that it was all true Alexandra was smart and beautiful, and not only were they lucky to have her, Jessica was quickly ineffably grateful that Alexandra wanted to be her friend.

And thus the talk-show host and the anchorwoman had ended up becoming inseparable friends, and Jessica called her "Alexandra Eyes" a reference to the anchorwoman's trademark, a set of positively mesmerizing blue-gray eyes instead of "Queen of the Daisy Chain," which was how she had originally perceived her.

Whenever Cassy had a problem dealing with either Jessica or Alexandra, she would inevitably ask the other for assistance. Jessica assumed that this morning was no exception. She'd bet her bottom dollar that Cassy had coerced Alexandra into talking to her about the stalker.

"Hi, Jess," Alexandra said from behind a newspaper.

"I was just reading an item in Liz Smith.

"Everyone who's anyone is clamoring to be invited to the party of the year to be given next month by mega-movie star Georgiana Hamilton-Ayres and DBS anchorwoman Alexandra Waring. It's being held in honor of their pal Jessica Wright and the publication of her autobiography. Yours truly is invited of course!"

" Cassy closed the office door in the face of Jessica's bodyguard and came in, whispering, " Jessica, what in Sam Hill's with your secretary's hair? "

"Cleo did it," Jessica said, dropping her big leather satchel on the floor by her desk with a thud.

"She says it's hero-worship."

Cassy and Alexandra exchanged looks--which Jessica caught.

"Leave the kid alone. She's quick, and great on the phone." She picked up the pile of messages on her desk, started to scan them and then paused, looking up.

"Not that you aren't two of my favorite people in the whole wide world, but what do you want? I've got a ton of reading to do before today's show." She reached for the telephone and started punching in numbers while waiting for their answer. Neither woman would take offense, Jessica knew; it was just how one had to proceed in TV in order to get everything done.

"It's about your stalker," Alexandra began.

"I've got a bodyguard with me twenty-four hours a day, what more do you want?" Jessica demanded. Into the phone, "Hi, is Kate there, please? It's Jessica Wright returning her phone call."

"Dirk thinks" -- Cassy began.

"Dirk is a jerk, Cassy," Jessica said.

"I'm sorry, but he is, and this macho power trip he's on with me has got to stop. I've got his bodyguard" -She spoke into the phone, her voice immediately softening.

"Hi."

Cassy looked at Alexandra and rolled her eyes.

"Dirk is a little heavy-handed," Alexandra said.

Jessica was smiling now, listening into the phone. And then she said, "Really? It is?" To Alexandra, "Could you go out and tell Bea to stand by the fax machine? There's a fax coming in from Kate."

Alexandra did as she asked.

"We'll need to make this fast, Kate," Jessica said into the phone, "because the big boss is sitting here." There was silence for a moment while Jessica listened, then suddenly, she looked surprised. To Cassy, "I'm talking " "And I'll be talking to her again later today."

"It's coming through," Alexandra reported, returning to her spot on the couch.

"Okay, it's coming through," Jessica said into the phone.

"Thanks a lot. I'll call you later." Jessica jumped out of her chair.

"It's a review from some magazine that all the booksellers and librarians read before the book comes out." As Jessica reached the door, Bea was on the way in with the fax. Jessica quickly took it from her, walking back slowly as she read, then stopping altogether, allowing Alexandra a chance to jump up and read over her shoulder.

TALK by Jessica Wright Bennett, Fitzallen & Coe 232pp. $22 The autobiography of the TV talk-show host makes for terrific reading.

Born a child of privilege in suburban New Jersey, Wright was known for her brains, wit, charm and physical attractiveness even as an adolescent. However, hers is a tale of gifts gone awry, a young life turned to sex and excess, of harrowing adventures and narrow escapes, including a marriage to a violent drug dealer. Ultimately it's the story of an immensely talented young woman whose accidental discovery on a public-access TV show in Tucson set her on the road to overcoming first her drug addiction and then later her alcoholism, and blossoming into the most beloved talk-show host since Oprah. At turns saucy, sassy, intelligent, and hilarious (much like Wright herself), this memoir is surprisingly moving. An introduction by Wright's friend and fellow DBS

star, anchorwoman Alexandra Waring, is a bonus. Fans will eat this up.

(June) 250,000 first printing. $200,000 ad promo Author Tour. 1st Serial to McCall's; Featured Selection Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club, TV Rights to Strenn Productions.

"Wow, Jessica," Alexandra said, patting her back.

"This is unbelievable. This is wonderful!"

"Of course you'd think it's wonderful," Jessica said modestly.

"You only rewrote every sentence in the book for me."

"I did not," Alexandra said.

"Yes, you did, Alexandra Eyes, but who cares? They like it!" Jessica waltzed around her office and then she stopped to strike a mockingly seductive pose.

"Please note the physical attractiveness for which I have always been famous."

All three laughed. While it was true that Jessica had become a beautiful woman, it was equally true that until very recently no one could convince her of that fact. Since coming to DBS she had always compared herself to Alexandra, the dark-haired "intelligent beauty" of the airwaves, who had always used those blue-gray eyes the way a master carpenter wielded a hammer. And then there was Cassy, the most classically beautiful of the three--with blue eyes and long blond hair, streaked now with ash gray, still wound around up on the back of her head in a style reminiscent of the seventies--who had run away from her looks all her life and so had insisted on the production side of the industry. Even now that she was closing in fast on fifty, while she might not stop people dead in their tracks the way she used to, Cassy still turned heads wherever she went.

People around West End had nicknamed the women "Charlie's Angels."

(Jessica was always quick to insist that no matter what anybody thought, she was the smart one. ) "Come here, sweetie, and sit down," Cassy said to Jessica, pointing to the couch.

"We need to talk about this stalker business."

"How many network presidents call the help 'sweetie," I wonder," Jessica remarked to Alexandra, sitting down.

"May it be duly recorded in the notes that 'sweetie' is now seated."

"Okay, first, we need a list of who you think your stalker might be."

"How would I know?" Jessica said.

"I don't know anyone named Leopold."

"I told Cassy to put the Doc on the list," Alexandra said.

Jessica hesitated.

Matthew, aka the Doc, had been Jessica's one almost- significant relationship since she had stopped drinking. He had been a doctor, divorced, with two kids living nearby in Manhattan, and while Jessica thought her prayers had been answered, her friend Alexandra had been (a pain in the neck and) less enthusiastic about him. As it turned out, about ten months later, Jessica finally had to admit that she could not ignore that her boyfriend was self-medicating with highly addictive drugs and that his mood changes were unbearable. And no matter how many times the Doc told her differently Jessica knew dam well that a shot of Demerol was not like a shot of penicillin and Valium was not in the least like Prozac.

It had been the Doc's lack of interest in his children that had gotten to her most, though. It had now been two years since Jessica had broken up with the Doc, but she still saw his children occasionally.

Even his ex-wife had come to like her and vice versa. It was through the ex-wife, in fact, that Jessica had recently learned the Doc had crashed into a rehab upstate, an institution especially set up for doctors so they wouldn't lose their license to practice. The Doc had not gone for the usual twenty-eight days, but for three months, and Jessica knew there was a good chance he might be truly clean for the first time in years.

And it had, admittedly, crossed her mind at one point that the Doc might have something to do with these letters. That he might still hold a grudge and wanted to scare her.

"Okay, put the Doc down," Jessica finally said.

"I'll give you his ex-wife's number. She can tell you where he is these days."

"Good," Cassy said.

"Who else?"

"I gave her the name of that guy in the Nerd Brigade," Alexandra said.

The Nerd Brigade was the generic term for the electronic research and development staff under Dr. Irwin Kessler in another part of the complex.

"Oh, come on, Alexandra, no way he's a stalker. Leave him alone. Just putting his name on that list is going to hurt his career."

"No, no." Cassy was shaking her head.

"Absolutely not. This is completely confidential."

"Yeah, right," Jessica said skeptically.

"If it's in a file somewhere..."

"Jessica, get it through your head," Cassy said sharply.

"Whoever this is, is playing a very serious game. And if it's one of our people, then he is a person we do not want here."

Alexandra withdrew a folded sheet of paper from her blazer pocket.

"Cassy." She handed her the paper.

"This is a list of the people around here who I know are smitten with Jessica."

"Let me see that," Jessica said, snatching the paper out of Cassy's hands.

"What is this? You've got Will on this list!" She looked at Alexandra.

"What are you, nuts? You write down your own friend and producer as a possible stalker!"

"This is not a" -Alexandra started to protest.

"The woman in the cafeteria!" Jessica nearly yelled, looking back at the list.

"You mean that fat lady who's always yakking at me over the desserts?"

"Jessica," Alexandra admonished. (Cassy was laugh ^g-) "Well, this is weird! Will? The lady at the dessert wagon? You've got my cue-card holder on here! And look--your news intern, your graphic designer, your sound man What the hell are you doing wrong over there, Alexandra, if your whole staff's obsessed with me?"

They were laughing, all of them now.

"Jessica, this is not a list of people I think are your stalker," Alexandra said, laughing still, trying again.

"It's a list of people at West End I know that--well, admire you" More laughter.

"And who I can personally vouch for," the anchorwoman finished.

"The purpose of this list precisely is to avoid having Dirk harass them."

"Oh, brother. Dirk the Jerk," Jessica groaned.

"I tell you, he'll wreck your life with paranoia if you listen to him. I mean, did it ever occur to you, Cassy, that he'd never get a raise unless he periodically sounds the alarm around here?" She handed the list back to Cassy.

"What about it, Jessica?" Cassy persisted.

"Is there anybody here at West End we should check out?"

After a moment, Jessica nodded.

"Actually, there are a couple of names you should add to that--what shall we call it?--smitten-but-not-psycho list?"

At this they all broke up again, they couldn't help it. But once they pulled themselves together and Cassy got her pen out, Jessica started to list the workers at West End she knew liked her, but who she also knew should not be harassed.

"Jeff, Brad and Steve in the Nerd Brigade-"

"Good," Cassy said, writing.

"Langley," Jessica continued.

Cassy didn't flinch. Although now--after a great deal of work--Langley and his wife, the former Belinda Darenbrook, were happily married, with twin four-year- olds, his admiration of Jessica was no secret around West End. Years ago, it had almost resulted in something. Of course, that had been back in Jessica's drinking days, too.

"Um, not really anybody else, I don't think," Jessica said.

"But I have to admit, I do have a couple of guys around here that maybe Dirk should check out. Discreetly."

"Who?" Cassy said, ready to write.

"The new guy who delivers our cleaning downstairs. He is just a friggin' creep."

"Oh, him," Alexandra said, nodding.

"He is kind of..."

"Really?" Cassy asked.

"They've always been so good about their delivery people in the past."

"That gal got pregnant and quit. We loved her," Jessica said.

"And then there's that strange guy who's been working outside you know, doing the cleanup in the square? He never did anything weird to me, not directly, but I sure don't like the way he watches me or those kids from the day-care center."