Star Time (73 page)

Greg returned his full attention to Barnett.

"You're the only director on your side with a substantial stake in the company, about thirteen percent. The others are friends of yours, advisers. But in the end a company is run by the shareholders who elect the directors. Ours have seen FBS's prospects brighten this last year and the value of their stock rise. I'd need only ten percent more of them for a majority. You'd need—what?—thirty-seven percent more. Which of us do you think would win?"

The question carried its own answer and floated above the table like an advertising blimp.

Barnett's rage could not contain itself. "You turned my daughter against me."

"No, she came to me on her own with the offer. And she knew it would give me control. The problem is I won't accept her terms, what she wants in exchange. So, Barnett, you still
have
her vote—if you really want it. What should concern you, though, is that she was right to side with me—for your sake as well as for the company's."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Stop fooling yourself. You had a very bad heart attack a year ago. You're lucky to be alive. Now that you're feeling better, don't delude yourself that it's still the Nineties and FBS is still on top of the ratings and you're still young and healthy. Reviving this company is going to take long, endless, rough-and-tumble days. You're too sick. It will kill you."

Silence had seized the throat of every listener in the room, but Greg's eyes never left Barnett's. "And your ideas are too old. Everything has changed.
And keeps changing every day.
This is a new industry in a new century.
Cable.
The Internet.
Satellites.
Video on demand.
Social media.
Interactive technology."

"Are you asking me to throw in the towel," Barnett exclaimed, "just go out to pasture?"

"I'm asking you—for your own sake and FBS's—not to try to reclaim the power that can destroy everything you built."

What surprised the listeners most, they later said, was that Greg's voice conveyed, not the resolute anger they expected, but respect and sympathy.

"You built this company from an idea only you believed in or understood. You envisioned its greatness before it was a network or owned a single television station or even a camera to put in one. But it's no longer your private empire. It belongs to thousands of shareholders and employees, to hundreds of affiliates and their employees, to millions of viewers. I can't take back what happened between Chris
Paskins
and me—and wouldn't if I could. And I can't keep people from saying outrageous things about us. But don't destroy what you created because you're angry at me or because you miss the power."

Abel Hastings joined in the plea. "Barnett, you've always done what's best for the company."

Greg's voice softened. "Which of us do you want protecting your investment—your grandchild's inheritance?
You or me?
Vote to retain me, Barnett, and you will walk away with honor and dignity and the
knowledge that I will devote my entire being to growing a company that will assure your place in history."

Greg sat back and allowed his gaze to take in the others around the table. "I think it's time we voted on renewing my contract."

All eyes turned toward Barnett. Suddenly, he looked old, spent. No one spoke. It did not seem proper to speak before he did. When he finally did speak, his voice was weak.

"I move we renew your contract as CEO."

The vote was unanimous.

For only an instant Greg experienced the elation of absolute consummation. Against all expectations he had triumphed. Power was his once more.
And the promise of enormous wealth.
And the boyhood dream he had clutched to his heart like a talisman.

At that moment he noticed the reproach and defeat in Barnett's eyes. Would that someday be he?

Tom Blake spoke up. "You know I've been on your side from the beginning, Greg, so don't take this the wrong way. Now might be a good time for you and Chris to take a few weeks off and give that outburst in the newsroom last night and, yes, the scandal of breaking up two marriages time die down a little. God knows you probably need some time to yourselves right now."

Greg was astonished. "She's the hottest news talent in America right now.
That 'outburst will kick her ratings through the roof."
After a moment's silence he said.
"Around Christmas maybe."

"What about the piece on that toxic dump that's burning in Nevada?" Chris asked a
newswriter
distractedly. He had just handed her a rewrite of an intro for the evening's script.

"I already told you, Chris. We haven't seen the piece yet."

"We were told it was definitely ready to screen."

"They said by three it would be ready, Chris. I told you that."

"Sorry, my concentration's somewhere else today."

She was standing behind the anchor desk, too nervous to sit. She had no idea what was happening upstairs in the boardroom, but she was worried. She knew how badly the dismissal would hit Greg; he hadn't held out much hope for his survival.

She noticed someone signaling her and looked up. It was Hugo. He was pointing across the room.

Chris shifted her gaze. Greg was leaning casually against the far wall. An immense smile stretched across his face.

She raced around the desks and chairs on her way to him and leaped into his arms.

"You won, right? You won!"

He barely got out the confirming "Yes" before she covered his mouth with kisses.

"I knew you'd figure out some way to do it. I knew you'd win. I'll bet you wiped the floor with them."

"Everyone in the newsroom had stopped to watch and was smiling.

"I think we need a little privacy," he said.

He put an arm around her and led her back to her office, quickly recounting what had happened. They sat down on her sofa.

"So, in a strange way," he concluded, "what Diane offered helped me to realize Barnett could be beaten."

"And caused virtue to triumph over evil."

"Something
like
that," Greg said, chuckling. "The threat that his daughter might vote against him, the coming of a new generation . . . they frightened him, I think."

Chris was exuberant. "Congratulations on becoming a daddy. A new child, that's exciting.
For me, too."

"Chris, I want to marry you as soon as our divorces come through."

"Is this a proposal? You're sure?"

"The minute our divorces are final."

She sighed happily. "I can't wait."

"Let's get away for a few weeks at Christmas and both our schedules ease up. We need time alone. You're running on overload and sound tight as a drum. I've just gone through a pretty rough few months."

"Sounds heavenly."

"Maybe some warm island somewhere.
Just a bathing suit and sunscreen.
Give us time to recharge our batteries, to get used to living together again. A couple of the directors thought so, too."

"What's this about the directors?"

"For a different reason: to let things settle down."

Steam rose into the blueness of her eyes as if from heat vents on an ocean floor. "Right after we exposed those memos from the secretary of Defense, you told me I had to take advantage of being cleared and rebuild my stature with the audience. Now, you're talking about my taking time off."

"That's what some of the Board said, not me."

"Being off the air after getting attacked on that missile-base story was like being buried alive. I'm lucky to have made it back on. Now is not the time for me to leave."

"A vacation.
We both need it."

"And you forgot about the Christmas special at the White House we were planning, and I might be doing New Year's Eve." She began to pace the room. "The real reason the board wants me off the air is to show America that the lovebirds aren't getting off scot-free, that we're being
punished for our illicit pleasure. So, just like always, they want the victim to be the woman. Pin the old scarlet letter on my chest. Make me pay.
No way!"

A thought struck her. "And just who did you intend to have sub for me while we were away—
Hedy
Anderson?"

"Probably."

Chris had a new reason for her fury. "You are not going to let her squeeze those fat hips of hers into my anchor chair."

"You're letting your anger get the better of you."

"My thinking was never clearer. The crisis is over for you now. You've won. You're safe. You've got your contract. So, you want to reward yourself with a vacation next month and take me there for company."

"Judging by how wrought up you are, I think you need a vacation a lot more than I do."

"What you really think is, 'I want a normal life and don't like going away alone.' Losing a few viewers isn't as important as when you were fighting to hold on to your job and every tenth of a rating point
was
precious to you and you were demanding we fire people I needed to put out a top news broadcast."

"Let's drop it."

Chris was too worked up to stop. "You married Diane for the luxury and the advancement—"

"Don't start that again. I paid for that ten times over."

"Now, miraculously, you have everything you wanted, and the glamorous anchorwoman is just supposed to fit herself into it, as if I were some appendage of yours with no career of my own—except, of course, when you get worried about ratings."

"Chris, stop this. Maybe I didn't think your schedule through, but I just wanted us to go off somewhere alone together. It's awful when you're not with me. That's why I went through all this."

"But not awful enough for you to compromise an inch for me and my career if yours might be affected."

Greg threw up his hands. "Is this what I want with my life, to be married to the same woman I butt heads with at work and at home?"

Chris suddenly sat down. She was silent for a moment. Then her voice grew reflective. "Ten years have passed and the argument hasn't changed, just the details."

"It hasn't, has it?"

"This could be our little apartment in L.A. and that damned consultants' report."

"Or your piece on great Beverly Hills toilets."

"Or making me do one nincompoop starlet interview too many."

"It won't end. We're both locked into FBS. We'll be butting heads forever."

"And we won't stop racing around the world, making appointments to meet in airports, neither one able to compromise for the other."

His voice, like hers, had become quiet, almost sad. "Neither of us seems willing to concede an inch. It's as if we were still dating and not ready to build a life together. What happens when you want children of your own? When we're ready to add to our family?"

"I think we're scared," she said.

"Of what?"

"That we have what we always thought we wanted—and it might not measure up to the dream."

He smiled ruefully. "They say eternal punishment is getting too much of what you always wanted."

"I love you, Greg, I'm sure of that."

"I love you, too, you know that."

Now they were both silent. Greg spoke first.

"Chris, this marriage thing has probably put too much pressure on us. No need to think about it yet. It will be months before those divorces come through."

Chris, too, was relieved to back off. "And we both have so many other things to worry about. Building an audience really is a giant priority for me right now. I'll have to work hard at it."

"And FBS is only a small way toward where I want to take it." He paused. "And very soon I want go out to see my mother. Spend a little time getting to know her again."

"And you've got a child on the way. We both do. That's going to be another call on our emotions to get used to."

Greg eyed Chris anxiously. "Are you saying you don't want to try making a go of living together again? That you want to split up?"

"Oh, no!"
She threw her arms around him and kissed him. Then she stared at him before saying gently, "But we have to be realistic. Loving each other might not be enough."

"Damn it! It wasn't supposed to be like this . . . unsure, unsettled. Just before the final credits, we're all supposed to smile and hug each other and feel reassured because everything turned out right."

"Until the next episode," she reminded him.

He pulled her against him. "I just always thought that when all the turmoil ended we'd live happily ever after."

"And you're sure we won't?"

"It seems to me that we just get more wishes."

"And we'll have to compromise and give up a lot and work our tails off to make
those
come true."