The Summer of Good Intentions (3 page)

On the horizon, white fleecy clouds hung in a sky that was colored a perfect robin's-egg blue. The bright sun danced on the water. Above her, gulls dipped and soared, calling out to one another. Maggie inhaled the salty air and dug her toes deeper into the sand. She was searching for the right word to describe the shimmering world before her. Then it came to her:
hallowed
. This was hallowed ground, the place that gave her the most peace, her own private retreat.

Each summer, she resolved to toss out her to-do lists, lengthy spools that ran through her mind like ticker tape most days of the year. After years of self-recrimination, she'd resigned herself to the fact that she liked things to be just so.
Type A,
Mac called her.
But in a way that I love,
he reassured. But was it really so bad? So what if there were individual cubbies for the kids in the mudroom? So what if the kitchen in Windsor had a whiteboard with the children's activities detailed in color-coded marker? And her linen shelves were methodically labeled:
GIRLS' SHEETS, LUKE'S SHEETS, M&D SHEETS, PILLOWCASES, EXTRA BLANKETS ?

She kept things organized. She kept the family running. They needed her.

But on the Cape, there was no need for such charts. Because everything was already as it was supposed to be.
Que sera, sera
. And if anything
were
amiss, if Arthur, for instance,
was
acting a little odd, well, it would be righted at Pilgrim Lane. That was what the summer house was for. Standing on the beach, she was also struck with the realization that
this
was the place (
the summer house, of course! 
) to tell Mac what she'd been dreaming about the last few months, an idea she desperately hoped he'd be open to. Time would tell.

Slowly she lifted her right leg up, toe pointing toward her knee, and swept her arms above her head. Her Tree Pose. She pressed her fingertips together and inhaled, willing her body to remain balanced on one foot.
Yes,
she thought. She could feel some of the tension slipping away, feel her heart opening to the possibilities of summer.

Until, that is, Lexie shouted from the deck, “Mom! Sophie took my towel!” Followed by a wail, which Maggie was quite certain came from Sophie.

Virgie watched Thomas pace back and forth across Larry's office, his gestures growing more animated by the minute. It wasn't hard. Larry had raised the blinds that divided the glass window of his office from their cubicles. When they were on the outside, looking in, the journalists joked it was because Larry wanted to keep an eye on them. But when someone else was on the inside with Larry, looking out, it was a different story. A closed door with the boss meant a colleague was getting fired, being promoted, or being handed a coveted story. Whatever it was, it rarely meant good news for those outside the fishbowl.

Virgie was playing Candy Crush on her computer, pairing colored jelly beans while she snuck looks. She had a pretty good idea of what was happening. Thomas had been itching for a big story for months and had stumbled upon the same one she had: Liz Crandle, a prominent Seattle attorney, was accusing a partner at her firm of sexual harassment. Allegedly, the partner had offered more compliments on her breasts than her legal briefs. The story probably meant a gazillion dollars in a settlement since it was evident the firm was eager for the whole mess to disappear. But Virgie had an “in” and Larry knew it. She and Liz bought their morning coffee at the same shop down on the pier. They'd exchanged hellos a few times, even commiserated over bad hair days together. Virgie was pretty sure she could scoop an exclusive before the other local stations got wind of it.

She shook the tingles out of her hands. Lately, all the caffeine she'd been drinking was giving her the shakes. She knew she had to quit, but her job demanded constant focus. If she ever wanted to get promoted to anchor desk, she couldn't afford to miss a beat. It felt like ages since she'd had a good night's sleep; insomnia had become her new bed partner. Of course, some of that sleep deprivation was due to Jackson, and she felt herself flush at the thought.
Jackson, Jackson, Jackson
. She wanted to write his name in big, loopy letters on her notebook as she had done with her high school boyfriends. She and Jackson had been dating for only three weeks, but Virgie couldn't stop thinking about him. It was almost refreshing to be dating in her thirties; there was no need to play it coy. No wondering whether the object of her affection would call.
No games, no secrets,
they'd told each other on their third date. And Virgie had thought,
Finally, someone who gets me
.

As if Jackson had felt his ears burning, her cell phone chimed with a text.
Dinner tonite?

She picked it up off her desk. “Yes!” She began to text back immediately, before downgrading the exclamation point to a period. Then:
Where?

A minute later, his reply:
Romeo's? Seven?

She smiled. Romeo's was a cozy little Italian place perched on a corner with a view of Elliott Bay. Chic without being pretentious. She texted back:
Perfect. See you then.
She and Jackson had dined there once before, when Virgie pronounced the scallops and fettuccini worth dying over. That and the enormous decanters of wine that sat on each table easily made it her new favorite place.

She checked her watch. Already 3:30 and she was still waiting for Larry to tell her the story was hers. What was taking him so long to break the news to Thomas? She wanted to get a four-mile run in before dinner. She looked up at Larry's office.
Any minute now
. Thomas stood at the door, his hand resting on the handle. A moment later, he exited and cast a glance her way before hurrying toward his cubicle. If Virgie had read the vibes right, the story was all hers.

Larry stood in the doorway of his office. “Virgie, can I talk to you for a minute?” She tried her best to act surprised. A few colleagues smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. Larry was a smart guy. He knew better than to hand a sexual harassment story to a male reporter. It should be a woman—someone who would be sympathetic, someone whom Liz Crandle would want to spill her heart out to. Heck, Virgie even knew what kind of coffee she liked. Actually, it was tea. Chai tea, extra foam. Virgie was already considering where the interview should take place. Liz's home? Or maybe she should suggest a more neutral setting. Perhaps the coffee shop.

She shot Larry an assured smile and breezed into his office. She was glad she was wearing her red Jimmy Choo pumps since now they would be forever linked to the day she'd caught her big break.

Larry shut the door behind her and gestured to a chair across from his desk. “Have a seat.” He cleared his throat and shuffled the papers on his desk.

“What's up?” She aimed to sound cavalier.

“Listen, I know you're keen on the Liz Crandle story—” he began.

“That's right,” she interrupted. “We get coffee at the same place. I'm sure I could get an exclusive with her before KCB swoops in.” KCB-TV was their archrival. KCB's newscasters were sharp, slick reporters, and they'd been beating up her station in the ratings for the past five years.

“I'm sure you could.” Larry hesitated. “But it turns out that Thomas's brother-in-law is running buddies with Miss Crandle. He's already made the case to Liz as to why she should talk to Thomas.”

Virgie felt a tickle in her throat and coughed. “You're joking, right?”

Larry shook his head. “I'm afraid not. I'm sorry. I wanted to give this one to you, but Thomas is having none of it. He refuses to step aside.”

A flush of anger flickered up her neck. She could feel red splotches blooming on her skin. “You don't really think Liz is going to confide everything to a
guy
about this story, do you? That's just bad judgment.”

“You're probably right. But she seems to have made up her mind. I have to at least give Thomas a shot.”

Virgie stood up, clasping her notebook tightly. She didn't want to turn around and face her colleagues, who were undoubtedly watching
her
through the glass now.

“This was my story, Larry, and you know it.” She frowned when her voice cracked.

“I'm sorry.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I'll make it up to you. You'll get the next big one.”

“Right.” She couldn't help herself, the sarcasm cutting through the air, even though they both knew that Larry could fire her on the spot.

“Virgie,” she heard him begin, but she couldn't stay in his office a moment longer for fear she might say something she'd regret. She marched back to her desk, her skin burning. She jammed her notebook and cell into her gym bag, shut down her computer, and told her assistant that she was heading home to review notes for a story. It was a lie, but no one would miss her today; it wasn't as if she had an anchor spot on the six o'clock news after all. She was only in charge of her show,
Verbatim with V,
which ran twice a week. It was mostly fluff, but it got her face time on the air.

The elevator pinged down twelve floors, Virgie cursing under her breath. To be honest, she didn't care that much for the Crandle story, but it smacked of high ratings, the kind that got producers' attention. She knew if she did the story right, it would be a feather in her broadcasting cap.
Well, screw you, Larry,
she thought. She winged through the revolving door into the bright, sunny day. If her boss was too big an idiot to see what a bad call this was, then the station didn't deserve her. She fantasized about who else she might work for in the Seattle area. Maybe Channel 7? PBS? Surely, they didn't play favorites like this. But something else was bothering her.

She couldn't tamp down the feeling that Larry had passed her over for another reason. Maybe he was afraid that the story would hit too close to home. More than once, he'd tried to convince Virgie to go out with him; more than once, she'd declined. Maybe he worried talking to Liz would get her thinking about her own workplace environment. Of course, that was preposterous. Virgie knew Larry was harmless in the way that most overweight, balding, forty-something men were. Virgie wasn't threatened by her boss in the least.

Only in the sense that he held the keys to her career.

As she walked along Twelfth Avenue, she realized that the day had settled into a beautiful warm afternoon. Bright red begonias blossomed in storefront window boxes, and a mild breeze floated off the water. When she first moved here, seven years ago, she'd worried about the rain. She thought maybe she was one of those people who needed sunshine to be happy. And while it was true that Seattle had more gray than sunny days, the summers had turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. She'd quickly fallen in love with the place and its clean streets, its environmentally conscious people, its tie to the San Juan Islands.

Her phone chimed in her bag, and when she retrieved it she saw Jackson's text:
Can't wait
.
Ah, Jackson,
she thought.
Sometimes you just make the world a better place.

At the club, she changed into her workout clothes and headed for the treadmill. It felt good to let her mind wander as she ran. If she wasn't going to be Seattle's most successful news journalist, she reasoned, at least she could be its fittest. She still had her figure from college, tall and lean. She drank an ungodly number of green toxic-looking shakes for breakfast; she used more skin creams than should be allowed; she whitened her teeth every few years; she got Botox injections like the best of them. After all, thirty-five could be said to be past your prime if you were a woman in the news industry. On television. Not the same for gray-haired wise men like Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite. But Virgie wanted to be the next Barbara Walters, the next big thing.

Too bad she got thwarted at every big break.

Gradually, her breath found its way into an easy rhythm. She thought ahead to a few days from now and felt a stab of giddiness.
Just her and her sisters at the summer house!
And their families, of course. She'd get to play with her nieces and nephews, get tipsy with Maggie and Jess, beat Mac and Tim at cards, soak up the sun. She hadn't invited Jackson. It felt premature. And, yet, a part of her was disappointed that he wasn't coming. If he joined her, Virgie wouldn't be the odd girl out for once, the single sister. Maggie and Jess had always shared the impenetrable, maddening bond of twins. Plus, they were eight years older than Virgie. And now that they both had their own families, the gap between their lives and Virgie's single life seemed even bigger, deeper. A chasm.

Would they like Jackson?

Probably, though they wouldn't take him seriously.
Just another one of Virgie's guys,
they'd think. Virgie imagined them shooting judgmental glances at each other across the dinner table. Everyone knew Virgie was married to her career. Even as a little girl, she'd loved playing newscaster, reporting her school's daily news at the dinner table. Maybe one day she would want a family, but not now, and certainly not like Maggie and Jess had done it. Maggie and Mac had gotten married soon after college, and once the kids arrived, Maggie's life had revolved solely around them.