Alexandra Waring (10 page)

Jackson, chewing, looked at him. “No reason,” he had finally said, swallowing, “except that I said I’d give it to her.” Pause. “So give it to her.”

Langley walked across his office to reach the connecting door to Jackson’s office. They had had side-by-side offices for seventeen years, first in Richmond and now here at West End. They were on the second floor of Darenbrook I, looking straight out over the square, west, toward the river. It was dark outside now and, below, the old-fashioned lamps were on, casting a gentle light over the square. The waters of the Hudson were black, beautiful, reflecting the lights of New Jersey from across the way.

Langley knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again and stuck his head in. “Sorry, Mr. Peterson,” Claire said. She was one of Jackson’s three assistants and was poking her head around the door leading to the outer office. “He’s left for the day.”

Langley looked at his watch. It was only five-fifty. When he was in town, Jack usually hung around as long as he did, until seven-thirty or so. “Where’d he go?”

“Do you know where he went?” Claire asked someone in the room behind her. Mumble, mumble. She turned back to Langley. “Randy says he thinks he went apartment hunting with Ms. Waring.”

“Thanks,” Langley said, closing the door. He turned around and jammed his hands into his pockets, jingling change, thinking. And then he said, “Adele!”

She appeared at the door. Adele had been his secretary for twenty years and Langley had yet to determine how old she was. She might have been sixty, but then, with her energy and dexterity, she might have been fifty and prematurely gray. Or maybe she was seventy—who knew? When the issue came up in personnel several years ago, Jackson declared that the statute of limitations had run out—if Adele had gone fifteen years without telling Darenbrook Communications how old she was, then she never had to.

“Adele,” Langley said, “I want you to get Cassy Cochran on the phone. Use every number we have for her, but find her, please. It’s extremely important.”

Cassy Cochran. The one major source of agreement between himself and Alexandra Waring—that they absolutely had to hire her away from WST to run DBS News. As the general manager credited for making WST the number one independent television station in America, no one had the clout with the indie—independent station—managers across the country that she did. And guess who desperately needed someone to recruit affiliate newsrooms? As one who had come up through the producing ranks of the newsroom, no one had more sympathies with the needs and temperaments of that group than she whom they called Mother Confessor. And guess who desperately needed a mother confessor for the news group? And as the executive responsible for budgets that both the station and its management could live with, few had ever been so well respected by both sides. And guess who desperately needed an executive who understood how to make a news operation compatible with the bottom line?

Alexandra was convinced they could get her. According to her, Cassy had been bored in her job for years, longed to be near the newsroom again and for the first time in years was in a position to risk a move.

Langley had been talking with Cassy for weeks now, at first stunned and then delighted as he realized that he liked and admired her as much as Alexandra did. But Cassy was taking a very long time with all this and didn’t seem much closer to taking the job or turning it down than she had been weeks ago.

“Zero in on her age,” had been Alexandra’s latest suggestion. “Tell her—” She had paused, thinking for a minute. Then she had slowly leaned forward, a smile starting to emerge. “Tell her,” she said, “that forty-three is the perfect age to revolutionize television.”

Then they had both laughed (because Langley was forty-three too), and then they had both frowned—looking at, each other—as if they were sharing the same thought: that there was no way in hell the two of them were going to revolutionize anything until they got a Cassy or someone to act as a go-between for them. Langley didn’t know anything about TV news; Alexandra didn’t know anything about business at Darenbrook Communications; they didn’t know how the hell to deal with each other.

Adele located Cassy Cochran on her first try. She was in her office down the street at WST. “Mrs. Cochran on one!” Adele called.

Langley walked over to his desk and snatched up the phone. “Cassy,” he said.

“Langley,” she said, not missing a beat.

“This is what is called a pressure tactic,” he said.

“I see,” she said.

“Are you coming with us, yes or no?”

She laughed.

He smiled. He imagined exactly how she looked as she laughed. Cassy Cochran was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. It had come as somewhat of a shock to him when he first met her; he had never known a woman like her to make a career off camera. (“She was always frightened by what happened to women who traded on their looks, I think,” Alexandra had said.)

“Listen, Langley,” Cassy said, “you’re the one who’s been hiding Jackson Darenbrook from me—yes or no?”

He hesitated and then thought,
What the hell
. “Yes. Alexandra and I thought he might be a little—unconventional for your tastes.” And then he quickly added, “But now we want you to meet with him. Look, Cassy,” he said, raising one leg to sit on the edge of his desk, “truth is, if you don’t come to DBS, I’m going to have to drown Alexandra. She signed for a million dollars’ worth of equipment today and hired fourteen people who I haven’t the slightest idea what they do.”

She laughed, softly. “I know. She told me.”

“She did?” Langley said.

“I think her strategy is to make me do the job whether I take it or not,” Cassy said.

“Wait a minute,” Langley said, standing up. “Do you mean to tell me that you actually know something about these fourteen people?”

“I suggested nine of them,” Cassy said.

Someone was tapping Langley on the shoulder. He turned; it was Adele.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pointing to the blinking light on the phone. “But it’s about Mrs. Peterson—”

Langley’s stomach turned over. He recognized Adele’s expression. Something had happened again. Something bad.

“Cassy,” he said, “excuse me. Hold on and Adele will set up a time to meet with Jackson. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go—I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He pressed Hold. “Set up a meeting for Mrs. Cochran with Jack. See if you can do it for tomorrow.”

Adele retreated from the office and, after looking back at him once more, closed the door behind her.

Langley sighed, held the bridge of his nose for a second and then pushed the button down on the line. “This is Langley Peterson,” he said.

“Mr. Peterson, my name’s Robbie Jones and I work in the building of a friend of your wife’s, Mrs. Bell.”

“Yes;” Langley said, swallowing.

“Well, sir,” he said, “the Bells are away and um, well, your wife told me to call you—”

“Where is she? Is my wife there?” Langley said.

“She’s in a room off the lobby—um, the doorman is with her—”

“Where’s the chauffeur?” Langley said. “Isn’t the chauffeur with her?”

“No, Mr. Peterson. There didn’t seem to be anyone with your wife when she, um, arrived. And she’s kind of worked up, excited—you know.” He took a breath. “We didn’t think she should be on the streets—alone, I mean—and, um, she gave us your number.”

“You did the right thing,” Langley said quickly. “Where are you?”

“Nine eighty-six Fifth.”

“I’ll be right there. Tell her I’ll be right there. And—and thanks,” he said. He hung up the phone and sat there a moment. And then he called, “Adele!” He grabbed his briefcase and started stuffing papers into it. When Adele’s head popped in, he said, “Tell them to bring my car around—and fast.” He finished packing stuff in, closed the briefcase, slipped on his jacket and walked quickly out of his office.

He had to hurry. His wife was in trouble.

His wife, Belinda Darenbrook Peterson.

5
Cassy Cochran

“You’re supposed to feel frightened,” Cassy Cochran’s therapist said. “That’s how human beings feel when they consider changing jobs after fifteen years.”

“But I don’t know why,” Cassy said. “It’s not as if it were some kind of fly-by-night outfit. And this is what I’ve wanted—for
years
I’ve wanted to do something in news again.” She paused, staring down at the carpet for a moment, and then raised her eyes. “And I honestly think it can work—that
I
can make it work. Michael thinks so too—he thinks I’m crazy for hemming and hawing like this.”

“But Michael doesn’t know everything that is involved,” the therapist said quietly. “And Michael has always had you to fall back on—he’s always been able to depend on you at your job at WST. And right now it doesn’t seem wise for you to depend
…
” The therapist waved her hand, indicating that she need not remind Cassy of the uncertainty in that area of her life.

“If I take this job, I couldn’t depend on anything. I mean, my contract, but…” Cassy said quietly. “Well, no, that’s not true,” she reconsidered. “Actually, it all comes down to Alexandra, doesn’t it?” She paused, looking to the window, biting her lower lip slightly, thinking. “I find it so strange that the thought of working with her only gives me the most incredible sense of relief.” She looked at the doctor. “It makes me feel as though I have somewhere to go. Somewhere other than where I feel like I’ve been stuck for so long.” She pressed her forehead with one hand, closing her eyes. “I so hate feeling as though everyone is moving ahead in their life but me. I hate that feeling of being stuck, of being left behind.” She lowered her hand and opened her eyes. “Poor old Cassy,” she said with a sigh, “that’s what I hear in my head every time one of these bright young things comes and goes at ST.”

“But it’s not true,” the therapist said. “And you know that, don’t you?” She paused and then asked, “How do you think Alexandra views you?” She smiled. “Is hers a mission of mercy, do you suppose, to rescue you from being stuck?”

“She’s certainly not going to last long in this business if it is,” Cassy said, laughing. She shook her head and recrossed her legs, smiling still. “No, I see what you’re getting at. No, I don’t think she thinks of me as being stuck.” Her smile expanded. “At the moment she thinks I’m willfully withholding a valuable contribution to her career.”

The doctor nodded. “Not once, not once in all these weeks have you said anything about being scared you can’t do the job.”

Cassy shrugged. “That’s not one of my fears.”

The doctor smiled.

Cassy checked her watch. “I better get going.” She got up. “I really appreciate your making time to see me this morning.”

“I think it’s wonderful, Cassy,” the doctor said, standing up and walking her to the door. “Whatever you decide to do—I think it’s wonderful that you’re willing to contemplate making a change.”

“I guess,” she said.

“Good luck,” the doctor said.

“Thanks. I’ll let you know what happens.” Cassy closed the office door behind her, walked through the waiting room and out to the lobby. When her son, Henry, was still in private school in the city, Cassy used to come to this very same posh East 74th Street building for board meetings at the apartment of the longtime school board president, Beatrice Barenberg. Every time Cassy came and went to her therapist’s office, she’d wonder if today was the day she’d run into Beatrice. (“Oh, my dear,” she imagined Beatrice saying, “simply marvelous idea, getting your head examined. Should have done it years ago.”)

Cassy walked over to Madison Avenue and looked for a cab.

After seeing a therapist for eighteen months, she couldn’t help wondering what her life might have been like had she gone sooner. After years and years of feeling so terribly alone with her problems with Michael, the difference that being able to talk —honestly, for a change—to another person was incredible to Cassy. It was as though the walls of a prison had fallen, one by one, until there were only horizons of choice—which at times actually seemed more terrifying to Cassy than the days she had been so used to, the days when she had felt as though she had no choice at all.

The most painful part of the process so far had been the awareness that the problems in her marriage were not all Michael’s. In fact, more and more Cassy saw that whatever had been “wrong” with Michael’s drinking, his flagrant infidelity, there had been something “wrong” in her that responded to what was wrong in him—denial of how bad his drinking was, denial of his affairs, her inability to leave the marriage—that had enabled the horrendous situation to continue for years.

Well, Michael had not had a drink in a year and half and his infidelity was no longer flagrant—he only had one girlfriend now, out on the West Coast. And while Cassy had faced up to the girlfriend’s existence over a year ago, she still couldn’t bring herself to end the marriage. After twenty-two years—ten of which had been an absolute nightmare—now that Michael was healthier than he had ever been in his life,
now
she was supposed to give up on them? After all the time she had put in? After throwing away her thirties, she should start over again at forty-three?

Oh, they had had their moments, of course. Like the day Henry had been accepted at Yale, where Henry had been dying to go but where they had worried he would not get in. But Henry had been accepted and had run off with his girlfriend to celebrate, leaving his parents home alone, smiling at each other, marveling over the fact that they—despite all their problems—had produced this wonderful young man who Yale thought was pretty wonderful too. Yale University. Henry. Their baby. And that night the two of them had dragged out home movies they had not looked at in at least ten years and set up the old screen in the living room and sat on the couch, roaring with laughter, watching themselves with baby Henry in Chicago. Oh, remember? The skating rink? Remember those little double runners? And look at you! And there’s Joe from the newsroom, remember him? Oh, and what’s—her—name. And there’s—

That night was one of the few times it had worked sexually between them.

But that was almost a year ago
, she thought, flagging down a cab.
Of course he has to have a girlfriend—who can have sex three times a year?
The cab pulled over to the side and, as Cassy opened the door, she noticed a man in a suit standing behind her, smiling. Apparently he had been trying to get a cab too. He held the door for her as she got in.
If you only knew
, she thought,
I’d have sex with you in a second before I’d sleep with my husband these days
. “Thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure,” he said with a slight bow, closing the door.

Maybe you do know
, she thought, giving the man a brief parting smile. “West End Avenue and 67th Street, please,” she told the driver. “It’s that new complex—”

“West End,” the driver said. “It’s called West End.”

“Right,” Cassy said.

They turned west and headed into Central Park.

The driver looked at Cassy in the rear-view mirror. “They’re not gonna let us through the gate unless they know who you are, ya know.”

Cassy smiled. “You mean to tell me you don’t know who I am?”

The driver frowned, glancing furiously back and forth between the road and the mirror. “You a game show hostess or something?” he finally said. “I mean, did ya used to be?”

Ooo—ouch. I asked for that one
, she thought, wincing. “No,” she said. “I was just pulling your leg.” She took a breath and let it out slowly, looking at the trees, wishing that she could see buds on them. But no, it was still winter. “Actually, I’m going on a job interview.”

“Huh,” the driver said. Into the rear-view mirror, “Whaddaya do?”

“I’m in television,” she said.

“But not game shows,” the driver said.

“Right,” Cassy said.

“So what kinda TV?”

She hesitated and then thought,
Why not? See how it feels after all these years
. “News. I’m in television news.”

“Oh, yeah?” the driver said. “I shoulda known. That was the next thing I was gonna ask ya—what city you’re from. Ya like being an anchorwoman?” he asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

She smiled, broadly. “No, I’m on the production side. Off camera.”

“Huh,” the driver said. “Maybe you oughta look into being an anchorwoman. You look the part. That Alexandra Waring’s doin’ all right for herself. She’s at West End, ya know.”

“So I’ve heard,” Cassy said.

“Yeah, well, I had her in the cab once—back when she was workin’ at, uh…”

“WWKK,” Cassy said.

“Yeah. She used to do the news there. So I picked her up once, it was like five in the morning and she was goin’ to work.” He frowned, shaking his head. “She had newspapers all over the back of the cab—I mean, like I said to her, ‘So what are you doin’ back there? Wrapping fish or somethin’?’ “

Cassy laughed. “What did she say?”

“So she said she was readin’ the papers. And I said, ‘You hafta read six papers at the same time?’ And she sorta laughed—and then she put ‘em all away and talked to me. She was real nice. I liked her and so I started watchin’ her. She grew up on a farm, ya know. She’s not a New Yorker or nothin’. So where are you from?”

“Iowa, originally.”

“Man, ain’t nobody round here who’s from New York anymore, ya know? Closest we get to a New Yorker these days is Yoko Ono. She lives over there, ya know,” he said as they came out of Central Park.

They continued across town to West End Avenue and turned south. As they neared 67th Street, the driver put on his signal.

The entrance to West End wasn’t very impressive. In fact it was extraordinarily plain. There was one lane going in and one lane coming out, and a large, square concrete guardhouse in the middle. Lowered across each lane was an orange and white striped gate. There wasn’t even a sign to indicate what this Checkpoint Charlie was for—which, Cassy thought a second later, for security reasons, was probably just as well.

“So what’s your name?” the driver said. “I’ll announce you with style, whaddaya say?” She told him and he rolled down his window to talk to the guard. “Catherine Cochran is expected,” he said, winking to Cassy in the mirror.

“Oh, Mrs. Cochran?” the guard said immediately, bending to look in through the cabby’s window.

“Yes?” she said.

“They want you to come in downstairs.” To the cab driver, he pointed, “Follow the driveway, and when you get just past the apartment building, on your right will be a ramp. Turn down that ramp and it will take you down around to the back entrance of the studio. I’ll call ahead and there’ll be someone there to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Cassy said.

“Sounds like they want somethin’ from ya pretty bad,” the driver said, driving on after the gate rose. “The last fare I took here hadda walk in.”

They drove along, rising higher and higher, turned sharply to the right behind an enormous apartment building, and then right there was the ramp the guard had told them about. They turned onto it and snaked around, easing downward, and then straightened out underneath the upper driveway, leading them into a large carport.

A security guard waved them on to what appeared to be the entrance. When the cab stopped, another guard was right there to open Cassy’s door. “Mrs. Cochran,” he said, standing there.

“Yes—hello,” she said. “Let me just pay for the cab.” She fumbled in her purse, found a ten. She handed it over the seat to the driver and was about to say, “Take seven-fifty out of that,” but then drew her hand back, saying, “Thanks for the nice ride. It’s just what I needed.”

“Thanks,” the cabby said. He turned around to get a better look at her. “Just remember, they want somethin’ bad from ya, so play it cagey—that’s my advice.”

“Thanks,” she said, getting out.

The double glass doors leading into the building slid open and a young man with curly brown hair came dashing out. He was in blue jeans and a tweed jacket. “Cassy?” he asked, holding out his hand. “Hi, remember me? I’m Will Rafferty, Alexandra’s field producer.”

“Of course I do, Will, how are you?” Cassy said, shaking his hand. “And you’re not her field producer anymore. You’re the affiliates producer for the DBS television network.”

“Yeah, right, that’s what they tell me,” he said. “I’ve only been here an hour and so I’m not used to my new exalted status. So anyway,” he continued, with a little shake of his head, “I’m supposed to take you up to Darenbrook’s office—” He looked over his shoulder. “Only I’m not sure I know where it is.” He looked back at Cassy. “The real reason I’m here is that Alexandra told me to ask you who would be the better affiliate in New Orleans, KRQ or KLV? We have to make up our minds today and she wants your opinion.”

Cassy laughed to herself, shaking her head. “I’d take KLV,” she said, turning as the doors opened again behind Will.

“Cassy, hello,” Langley Peterson said, walking out.

Cassy’s cab driver honked twice and they all looked. He was waving bye-bye. Cassy gave him a wave back and he pulled away. When Cassy turned back to Langley, Alexandra was now coming out the doors.