The Newsmakers (32 page)

Erica feels a wave of foreboding. “Is it something to do with me?”

“I'm afraid it is, yes.” Claire gives Erica a look of pitying sympathy. Then she takes a deep breath and exhales with a sigh. “I got hold of the court records of your divorce.”

Erica feels all the blood drain from her head, she's afraid she'll faint—she grabs a sofa arm to steady herself.

“Are you all right, Erica?”

Erica sits stock-still—and then a welcome wave of anger sweeps over her. “No, no, I'm
not
all right. Those records were sealed. What you did is illegal and immoral and . . . wrong, just wrong.” She'd like to slap that pitying look right off Claire's face.

“Oh, Erica, can anything really be kept hidden in this day and age? Besides, this isn't about you, or me, it's about protecting the man I'm falling in love with. Imagine if one of your
enemies
had gotten hold of it. They could torpedo your whole show.” She takes a sip of coffee. “I wouldn't worry about it
too
much. Of course Nylan is upset, I've never seen him so angry. But I'm sure he'll calm down. I just wanted to give you fair warning. . . . You look a little flushed, sweetheart.”

“Do I? Let me use the ladies' room.”

As Erica crosses the lobby, she wills herself to walk tall when what she really wants to do is lie down on the plush carpet and curl into a fetal position. She sees the bar across the lobby and takes three steps toward it. No! Not with Claire here, the Queen Bee of the Mean Girls
. . .
“
You look a little flushed, sweetheart.
” The woman has the ethics of a gutter rat.

A dying gutter rat oozing blood as it crawls across her desk.

Erica makes it to the ladies' room. She looks at herself in the mirror—her eyes look hollow and haunted. The past has crawled out of its hole like a snake and is wrapping itself around her neck. She won't give in, she can't give in—she silently says the Serenity Prayer but finds no serenity. She wets a paper towel with cold water and holds it to her temples, takes measured breaths. She has to get out of here, she has to think, and she has to deal with Greg, who'll be arriving at her apartment in about ninety minutes.

Erica crosses the lobby to Claire, willing herself to stay composed. Claire is checking messages on her iPhone and looks up innocently.

“I've got to run,” Erica says.

“I'm so glad we did this,” Claire says with a warm smile. “Sisterhood is powerful.”

“I don't have a sister.”

CHAPTER 74

AS ERICA MAKES HER WAY
down Fifty-Seventh Street, people are staring at her and she hates her fame—it's intrusive, assaultive, a trap. Has she stepped into a trap? Her secret-in-a-box has just sprung open and a leering clown has popped out—she's shocked, scared, humiliated. And angry—at herself. She paid a heavy price for her transgressions, but the records were sealed and she felt that the slate had been wiped clean. She believes in redemption, and every step she took in getting to GNN brought her closer to it. How could she have been so naive as to think the records would never come to light? Or be dragged into the light by someone like Claire Wilcox. Imagine if the tabloids and gossip sites get ahold of it?

She passes a liquor store. She needs a bottle of wine. For Greg, of course. She ducks inside. It's a lovely liquor store with wood accents and soft jazz playing, filled with bottles of expensive vodka and gin and exotic whiskies and fine wines from all over the world. Erica feels herself relax; she walks down an aisle, reaches the vodkas, and stops in front of the display of Belvedere. She loves the image on the frosted bottle—a palace reached through mysterious, beckoning branches.
Belvedere.
Her friend. She runs her fingers down a bottle. She was
famous for her Belvedere and tonic. First pour the vodka into the chilled glass—two fingers' worth—then squeeze in a whole lime, yes, a whole lime, and then add the tonic—those lovely effervescent bubbles—and finally two lime wedges. It was an elixir more than a cocktail, stimulating, invigorating, it heightened all of her senses, made her so witty and carefree—
la-di-da!

“May I help you?” a young male clerk asks.

“Oh . . . I'm looking for a nice bottle of wine to go with a mushroom omelet.”

“I would suggest a white, perhaps a Sauvignon Blanc. What's your price range?”

“Price range?” Erica remembers she's rich, she's rich and famous, she's a star. “No budget. I want the best. It's for a dear friend. I don't drink. I mean it's not some sort of
rule
or
edict
. I just don't. Not that I
can't
or
won't
. I just don't. Today. Tonight.”

The clerk's brow furrows. “We have a really superior Sauvignon Blanc for eighty-five dollars.”

“I'll take a bottle.” As the clerk goes to retrieve the wine, Erica calls after him, “Make it two.”

CHAPTER 75

GREG WILL BE HERE ANY
minute.

After getting the wine, Erica picked up flowers. A beautiful bunch of white and blue hydrangeas. Then she grabbed a dozen red tulips—so simple and elegant—and then a stunning mixed bouquet. She spent two hundred dollars, good for her. But now—as she moves the three vases from one table to another—she worries that the flowers are too much, that they come off as a desperate attempt to impress. She grabs the tulips and rushes into the bathroom and puts them on the counter. No, too fancy for a bathroom. She goes into her bedroom and puts them on her dresser. That's better. Isn't it? Should she light a scented candle in here? Candlelight is romantic, but is it cutesy, presumptuous, jumping the gun? Is romance even still a possibility?

And what about music? She grabs her iPhone and goes to Spotify—something for the soundtrack of the evening. Nothing too hip or jangly. Classical? No, too fusty. What about Michael Bublé or Celine Dion? Too Vegas-y?

Erica is desperately trying to ignore the elephant in her head: how to deal with Claire's news about her court records. Does she tell Greg?
What will he think of her when he finds out? Does he know already? And what about her plan to bring him in on her investigations?

Erica stands still and sucks air, closes her eyes and wills herself to calm down. Tony Bennett! He's timeless. She puts on Bennett and moves the hydrangeas to the side table in the entryway. She goes to the galley kitchen. The small red potatoes are already roasting in the oven. Are they done? If they are, will they dry out? She pours olive oil into a frying pan and starts to sauté the mushrooms. She should have done this earlier. She doesn't want Greg to arrive and find her sautéing mushrooms. But what
should
she be doing when he arrives? Not watching TV, not just sitting around.

Before she has time to decide, the intercom sounds.

“Greg Underwood is here,” comes the doorman's voice.

“Send him up.”

Erica checks herself in the entryway mirror, smoothes out her little black dress. Is it too short? Is it wrong for what might turn into a very serious evening? The doorbell rings.

Greg stands there looking exhausted and stubbly, his black mop even more unruly than usual. Clearly he's come straight from work. They look at each other for a moment—there's no kiss, no touching—and Erica can't read his look. It leaves her more unsettled. She has to take things one step at a time, not get ahead of herself, not get desperate.
Don't get desperate.

“Welcome,” she says.

Greg hands her a bouquet of lilies.

“They're beautiful. Thank you.” The place is starting to look like a mortuary.

They walk into the living room. “This is nice,” he says politely.

“It's fine for now.” Does Greg seem oddly subdued—or is that her imagination? “How about a glass of wine?”

“I could use one.”

Erica goes into the kitchen, sticks the flowers in a vase, and opens a bottle of the eighty-five-dollar wine. She holds the bottle under her nose
and inhales the dry, fruity bouquet. She'd love a glass, just one . . . but that's out of the question . . . with Greg here. She pours him a glass and brings it to him—he's sitting on one of two facing sofas. He takes a sip. “This is fantastic wine.” He definitely seems serious, almost preoccupied.

Erica sits on the opposite sofa. “So I thought the rehearsal went well,” she says, brushing at a nonexistent spot on the sofa.

“Yes, it did. We're moving in the right direction.”

“Things seem to be coming together,” Erica says, feeling inane.

Greg looks so uncomfortable, even morose. He takes a long swallow of wine and looks like a man steeling himself for an unpleasant task. “Erica, there's something I need to talk to you about. I'm afraid it's serious.”

“Is it my court records?”

“You know?”

“Claire told me.”

“Nylan gave them to me to read,” Greg says.

“Who else knows?”

“Just Nylan, Claire, and Fred Wilmot.”

“And you, of course.”

“Nylan felt I need to know because it could impact our show. I reassured him that you were sober now and there was no chance of another incident.”

No chance?

“Did he accept that?”

“He wishes you had told him.”

“What Claire did is despicable.”

“I'm not convinced she actually unearthed them. I think Nylan may have fed them to her.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To exert his power and control. Knock you down a peg. But, listen, how the records were obtained is secondary at this point. We have to deal with what's in them.”

Erica stands up abruptly and starts to pace. “What's in them is
that I drove drunk with my Jenny in the car.” Just saying the words makes her nauseated. Erica hates self-pity, but for a moment it washes over her.

It all happened that fateful day she was fired from WBZ. Dirk had moved out of their lovely house—the house Erica's salary paid for—and taken Jenny with him, to some crummy rental, basically kidnapped her, really. Yes she started drinking early, yes she drank all day, yes she got angry, yes she went to Dirk's crummy rental to confront him and found Jenny with a babysitter, yes she snuck Jenny out of the house and into her car—but she put her in the backseat and fastened her seat belt—yes they drove to some crummy motel on Route 9 and Jenny was crying and Erica left her alone in the room and went to go get some ice cream—
oh all right, she went to find a liquor store
—and yes she slammed into a pickup truck.

But she paid a terrible price—losing custody of Jenny. And then, after the records were sealed, she pretended they didn't exist, would never come to light. So now another price must be paid. Erica faces the bitter irony that she, who is so committed to finding the truth, may be undone by her own sin of omission.

Erica is still pacing, feels like she could jump out of her skin. How is she ever going to get through the rest of this night? “I made a big mistake,” she says.

“We all make mistakes, Erica.”

The smell of something burning wafts into the room.

“Oh no, the mushrooms!” Erica cries, racing into the kitchen. She's glad to be away from Greg for a moment, from his sympathy and scrutiny, from the awful truth of her transgression, her self-inflicted wound. She turns off the burner, but the mushrooms are cinders. She opens the oven, the potatoes are dark and shriveled. Dinner is ruined. Just like her career, and maybe her life—she'll never get custody of Jenny if this becomes public. It's all crumbling. She's lost in a labyrinth with no idea which way to turn, which path to take—she needs to turn off her racing mind. She picks up the bottle of wine, opens the
refrigerator door, and steps behind it. Hidden, she raises the bottle and takes a gulp.

Greg appears in the kitchen archway. “How's it going in here?”

Erica furtively shelves the wine and closes the refrigerator. “How do you feel about Thai takeout?”

“A woman after my own heart.” Greg goes to Erica and places his hands on her shoulders. She flinches. “This is rough for you, I know, but we can get through it.”

Why is he being so nice? Why isn't he angry and disappointed? Like she is. Erica pulls takeout menus from a drawer, grateful that she has something to occupy her hands.

“Pad Thai?”

Greg nods, she calls and orders.

They return to the living room and sit on opposite couches. “I think we have to look at it from Nylan's perspective,” Greg says. “He has a lot invested in you—financially, yes, but beyond that you're the global face of GNN. There's a lot riding on you. He has compelling reasons to keep it between the four of us.”

Between the four of
us
? So is Greg one of
them
now—Nylan, Wilmot, Claire and . . . Greg
?
One of a group of people she can't trust. Who have the power to destroy her. Has she misjudged him? Is his ultimate allegiance to Nylan and his own career?

The thought chills Erica to the bone and beyond. She can't look Greg in the eye, he'll see her suspicion—or is it paranoia? She stands up, she needs to move, she walks over to the mixed bouquet and fusses with it.

Greg is sitting forward on the couch with his elbows on his knees, his palms clasped together—sympathetic, analytical, practical. But is it a front, a performance? He has all the answers at his fingertips, as if they were rehearsed.

“But what about Claire? Isn't she gunning for me?” Erica asks.

“Yes, but she just fired her best shot. And the real prize she's after is Nylan.”

“So snaring him is even more important to her than ruining me?”

“Let's hope.”

Greg gives her a meaningful look, and another thought occurs to Erica.