Talk (40 page)

After dinner, as the dessert wagons were being rolled out, Langley got up to make a toast. First it was to the safe return of Jessica and the people who had found her--Hepplewhite, Kunsa, Cole, Rafferty, Waring, Cochran, Mitchell and gang--and then to the making of the documentary, "The Kidnapping of Jessica Wright," which had earned DBS their first number-one rating.

"This is the part I hate to get to," Langley said then. He paused for a long time, looking down at his note card, blowing air out of his cheeks. He looked up sadly to the group.

"How do you say goodbye to someone who, it feels, gave birth to us? This is not to say, Jessica," he added quickly, "that you're our mama, but I think there are some who might say that you are some kind of mother."

The group burst into laughter.

"Seriously, I don't even know what to say. I was talking to my wife last night, and I said, what do I say? What can I say? And she said, just tell them how you feel. Well..." He took off his glasses and dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. He put the glasses back on.

"I

feel heartbroken. I feel like we're all wondering,. "How are we ever going to go on without that crazed woman in Studio B?"

"

A little laughter, but people had also started to tear up.

"If Alexandra is the shaping intellectual force of DBS, certainly Jessica is the heart" -His voice broke and, annoyed, he scratched his head and tried again. But stopped, took a breath and said, "There's no way we can ever thank you, Jessica. You've given us careers, you've given us a network, you've given us a pain in the neck, a pain in the ass" -Laughter.

"And now a very bad pain in our hearts. Anyway, kiddo, we got you something. All of us. We took up a collection and then Cassy yelled at me that four dollars wasn't enough" -Laughter.

"So we had to kick in a little from the emergency fund. And so, Jessica, from your friends and family here at DBS, I give you this present with our deepest gratitude, our love, and our best wishes--forever and ever."

The side doors of the ballroom opened and a group of employees rolled in a brand-new Mercedes convertible coupe. There were excited oohs and aahs, and when Jessica stood up to speak, everyone vaulted to their feet and the entire room went into thunderous applause that lasted almost five minutes.

By the time people stopped clapping, Jessica was completely in tears.

She kept blinking, trying to dab her eyes; Cleo ran up to do some repairs, and when the room finally grew silent, Jessica smiled.

"Wow," she said softly.

Laughter.

Jessica shook her head.

"Where do I begin? I guess by saying that when I arrived at DBS, that very first day, I was drunk. I was drunk because I was a drunk"

"You still got great ratings," Langley quipped, making people laugh.

"Yes, well," Jessica said, "at a price. A high price. But now it's seven years later, I'm seven years sober, and I owe a great deal of everything good and wonderful in my life to you people at West End.

You were kind to me, supportive, protective-And a lot of you were good role models. And what a life I've had these past seven years! You gave me a hit TV show, hundreds of new friends and family and the best kind of life possible. And then, as if that were not enough, you gave me my future husband, as well. "

Cheers and applause.

"Yep. Me and playboy Rafferty are getting married. And you're all going to be invited to the wedding!"

Cheers and applause.

"The only thing is," she continued, "it may be kind of boring--because Dirk Lawson will not be handling the security."

Winces and oohs and laughter.

"Anyway, tonight we're blessed to have some very special guests here, FBI Agents Norman Kunsa and Debbie Cole, and Detectives Jefferson Hepplewhite and Richard O'Neal of the NYPD. I owe them my life. Um, this time, anyway. I've always owed my life to a great extent to Alexandra Eyes and Cassy and all those guys, but these outside people really went all out to find me and to help me put away the bad guys--something that really has helped me in getting closure on this whole ordeal.

"Um" -she stopped to think, looking at the back wall of the room, then, "It's interesting how love works and I wanted to tell you a little bit about it. Um, as most of you and the rest of the whole wide world knows, I've had a fairly horrible love life"

Laughter.

"I mean, it wasn't--I didn't, you know, sleep with animals or anything. I mean, animal animals--there were some guys that" -She cut herself off, clearing the air with her hand.

"Let's just move on, shall we?"

Laughter.

"Anyway, I really never expected that I would ever fall in love. One of the great joys has been to realize, year by year, how emotionally shut down I've been. Not the hysterical emotions being shut down--I think we all know I still have more than my share of hysteria to offer" -Laughter.

A wince.

"Remember when I smashed my office window with the phone?"

Laughter.

"Anyway, now that I am perfect" -Laughter.

"I realize that not only had I not ever fallen in love before, but that I had no idea that loving someone could be so simple. I always thought falling in love meant euphoria followed by depression and anger and conniving, and lots and lots and lots of tricking and trapping" Laughter.

"--followed by guilt and remorse, and then passion turning quickly into loathing and hatred." She shrugged.

"So falling in love was not something I particularly felt I was missing in sobriety."

Laughter.

"I'm not going to go into details, but after seven and a half years of us saying, " Hi, how are you? " in the halls of DBS, I fell in love with Will Rafferty. Of course, he fell in love with me, too, basically because I hit him in the head with a golf ball at the affiliates convention and he hasn't been the same since."

Laughter.

"What's been most interesting to me these past weeks, with the ordeal of my being stalked and kidnapped, was that Agents Kunsa and Cole, and Detectives Hepplewhite and O'Neal seem to belong to the same school of love that I used to. In that when something or someone seems too good to be true, then they must be too good to be true. And since they could see how devoted Will was to me, and how very much he loved me, they naturally assumed, then, that Will had to be a murdering, stalking psycho--which says what about me I'm not exactly sure."

Gales and gales of laughter, whoops and whistles.

"And so, I wish to thank them in particular, because, you see, they've done all the tricking and trapping and conniving with Will for me-So I don't ever have to do that. I can just marry him and love him with all my heart."

Everyone vaulted to their feet again, clapping and cheering. Jessica made Will stand up and wave at everyone. He remained next to her, holding her hand, blushing to the roots of his hair.

"Thank you, thank you everybody," Jessica said.

"And just think of what we can name our children! Cole, Hepplewhite and Kunsa!" She stooped over, as if addressing a small child.

"That's right, Kunsa sweetheart, you were named after the nice man who wanted to put Daddy in the electric chair."

Everybody laughed.

"Anyway," Jessica said, straightening up, waiting until the noise died down.

"I've got to tell you, I've been in tears over my departure from DBS ever since I made the decision. It is just about the hardest thing I've ever done. And yet it seems to be what I need to do." She gestured to the car.

"You guys got me the car, the benefits department said we could keep our pensions vested in DBS, Langley threw this big dinner, on and on Everybody been really wonderful and extremely generous.

Particularly emotionally, for letting us go in the first place.

"And so," she continued solemnly, "I want to finish by thanking you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything--my life, my career, my husband, my happiness. And I want to tell you how much I love you all, how much I respect you and how terribly I will miss you." She turned to look at Alexandra and Cassy and the rest of the gang.

"You guys are the best friends I have in the entire world. You're my family."

Everyone was in tears.

Jessica turned around, and with a very sad face concluded with, "The only problem is, I'm not leaving. I've got too many things left to do in this job, too much to say."

At first no one reacted. And then Alicia said, "Are you dissing us?"

"Yes, I'm dissing you. Miss Jive Talk!" Jessica taunted, waving her finger and then her fanny at her head writer. And then she grabbed the mike and belted, "THAT'S RIGHT GUYS, I'M NOT LEEEEEAVIiniIIIING!"

"What? What?" Cassy said, stunned, looking around.

"So take the car back, Langley, and roll out some dough for a new set.

"The Jessica Wright Show' goes on!"

People were cheering and dancing around their tables. They had jobs again, they had a network.

In the chaos that ensued, Alexandra went up to put her arm around Jessica, whispering, "You are in big trouble, my friend. You really had us going."

"I thought I was going," Jessica said.

"But I can't. There's just too much left I want to do on the air."

"Did you know about this?" Alexandra asked Will.

"Well, let's put it this way," he said, "I'm telling you now that I think we need to get to West End so you can break this news on the air yourself."

"Oh--right. You're right!" Alexandra turned to Jessica.

"Well" -She shrugged and kissed her on the cheek.

"Welcome back."

"Come on, hustle," Will directed the anchorwoman. He kissed Jessica.

"Bye, darling, see you at home."

Alexandra leaned over the head table to tell Cassy, "Well, I guess I'm staying."

Cassy smiled and turned to Langley.

"Well, I guess I'm staying, too."

She stood up.

"And I'm going to go offer Wendy and Slim those security jobs we talked about."

Langley leaned forward to look at Jackson.

"So, Jack, I guess I'm not leaving, either." He looked at his wife.

"Sorry, Belinda."

"It's all right, darling'," she assured him.

"I don't think I was really up to home schooling and giving up Bergdorf's anyway."

"Somehow I had a feeling none of you would really leave," Jackson said to himself, sipping his wine, smiling at the scene in front of them.

People had surged around Jessica, and she was laughing and hugging people and accepting congratulations.

And, of course, Jessica was talking.

Always talking.

Making the world just a little bit better.