Wilderness Tips (18 page)

She got the job. The paper threw a farewell party for her, in the newsroom. It was June; they served gin and tonic in paper cups.

“A toast to Susie, who never blew her cool!”

“Or me either, worse luck!”

“Hey honeysuckle, where’s your pal Vedge?”

“He couldn’t come.”

“His wife wouldn’t let him. Get it? Haha.”

“Shut up, you foul-mouthed twit. Susie’s high society now.”

In their own way they were sorry to see her go. Susanna was touched.

When the party was over and Susanna was heading for the door, Bill overtook her. “So old Vedge got you off the paper, eh?”

“What do you mean?” Susanna said. “This is a great job!”

“Not the point,” said Bill. “You were getting too good. You were cramping his style.”

“That’s ungenerous,” said Susanna.

“Maybe I’m a jaded old hack,” said Bill. “But watch your back. You’re getting too big.”

“For my britches?” said Susanna lightly.

“Nope,” said Bill. “For his
idea
of your britches.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Give ‘em hell,” he said.

On the radio show Susanna was a natural. Everybody said so. Some called her brash, others unaffected, but all agreed that her prime asset was that she was not awed by power. She wasn’t afraid to ask anybody anything, even if they were royalty, which they sometimes were. The interview would go along in a friendly, familiar groove while the visiting dignitary, the politician or scientist or expert or movie star, would settle down, and then would come Susanna’s whammy – some backhanded question, such as who did their laundry or whether they thought rapists should be castrated – and the thing would break wide open. There were a couple of near-catastrophes and one walk-out, until Susanna learned to modify her impetuous delivery.

She quickly gathered a wide audience. People listened to her
because she asked the questions they would never have the nerve or innocence to ask themselves. Also there was the shock value: anything at all might come out of her mouth. Some people found her too nosy, inconsiderate even, but they listened anyway. And the more successful her program became, the more the really important people wanted to be on it. There was a line-up.

Percy Marrow did a column on her, entitled “Oh Susanna.” He said she was democracy in action.

She saw less of him now, naturally. There were few occasions for lunch, although she still kept in touch with him by phone. He was helpful with leads for the program. “Hi, what’s the gossip?” she would say. He always had some little thing for her.

She would listen, jotting notes; but also she just liked the sound of his voice. It was reassuring; it made her feel valuable. Behind it she could sense the unseen chorus of her dead uncles, watching her from the darkness, presiding over her, approving of everything she did.

After a decade, when people were already calling her a national institution, Susanna made the transition to television. She liked it even better.

The radio show had been casual. The technicians had made faces at her through the glass or put plastic dog turds into her coffee: they’d liked trying to crack her up on air. There was none of that in television, and no old sweatshirts either. It was make-up and dress-up, and no funny business. Her face was good. Luckily she was not too beautiful; extreme beauty put people off. Instead she looked healthy, vitaminized. Trustworthy.

The television show was an early prime-time round-up; it was called “Moving Along.” She found the glaring lights and the tension exhilarating, and though she paced nervously before every take,
once the countdown started she was in full control. She attempted to keep the offhand tone of the radio show, and by and large she succeeded. There was less room for each subject, of course: people would spend more time listening than they would looking. Her friends said her nose twitched just before she went in for the killer question. She watched the tapes: they were right. But there wasn’t a lot to be done about that, and it didn’t seem to matter.

Meanwhile she had finally married. She invited her mother to the wedding, but got a vague answer. Soon after that her mother was no longer there. Susanna did not think of it as a death, but as a fading away, like a pattern on washed cloth. It was the continuation of something that had been happening all her life anyway.

Susanna’s new husband was a corporation president with the improbable name of Emmett. Susanna was not sure what his company did; it seemed mostly to buy other companies. He was fifteen years older than she was and had three children already, so she did not feel under pressure to have any more. She was a good stepmother to the children; Emmett said she was like an older sister to them. Her artier friends found Emmett hard going, a boring old stuffed shirt in fact, and wondered why she had done a thing like that when she could have had her pick. But it was no secret to Susanna. Emmett was solid. He was reliable, he was always there, he knew things she didn’t know, and he adored her.

Susanna and Emmett bought a large house in Rosedale and Susanna had it done; the walls were painted to complement Emmett’s extensive collection of Impressionist paintings. Some days, having coffee with Emmett on the terrace overlooking the beautifully kept garden, Susanna could hardly believe she’d grown up in that other house, the white frame oblong box with the porch swing and the tattered marigolds and her mother’s lingerie in scented piles on the floor. Between the two houses was an enormous gap, almost like a memory lapse. The white frame house was on the other side, fading;
like a mirage, like her mother. The uncles, however, were still vivid and clear.

Susanna and Emmett threw dinner parties, at which Emmett said little. They invited all kinds of people. Emmett enjoyed displaying the artistic bright lights to his business friends, and Susanna liked to get an overview for the show.

Percy Marrow and his wife were asked to some of the larger parties, at first; but this was not a success. The wife acted aggrieved, and although Susanna took him by the arm and steered him around as if he were a celebrity, Percy sulked.

“I miss our lunches,” she said to him. But he ducked his head and did not answer. As she left him to greet a different guest, she caught him looking at her sideways: a curious, assessing look; or perhaps fearful, or annoyed. Unfathomable. Susanna was hurt. What had happened to their old mutual helpfulness and ease?

Once he called her. She hadn’t seen him or talked to him for a while, although she still occasionally read his pieces in the paper. He was beginning to repeat himself. Getting older, she thought. It was bound to happen.

“Susanna. I thought maybe we might entice you back to the paper, to do a special piece. A sort of guest feature. We’d pay well, of course.”

Susanna had no intention of writing anything for a newspaper, ever again. She remembered it as drudgery. But she thought it would be courteous to show some interest. “Oh Percy, how nice of you to think of me. What about?”

“Well, I thought it could be about the women’s movement.”

“Oh, not the dreaded women’s movement! I mean, I know it’s worthy, but hasn’t it been done to death? We did a whole series two years ago.”

“This would be a different angle.” There was a pause; she imagined him polishing his glasses. “It would be – now that the women’s
movement has accomplished its goals, isn’t it time to talk about men, and the ways they’ve been hurt by it?”

“Percy,” she said carefully, “where do you get the idea that the women’s movement has accomplished its goals?”

Another pause. “Well, there are a lot of successful women around.”

“Such as for instance?”

“Such as you.”

“Oh Vedge – oh Percy, I couldn’t.” Now I’ve torn it, she thought. I’ve called him
Vedge
. “I’ve done the cross-country surveys, I’ve done the personal-interest interviews. How about the wage differential? How about the rape statistics? How about all those single mothers on welfare? They’re the fastest-growing group below the poverty line! I don’t think
that
was a goal, do you? If I did a piece like that I’d get stoned to death!” She was babbling a little, covering up, afraid she’d hurt his feelings.

“It wasn’t my idea,” he said coldly. “I was told to ask you.” She suspected he was lying.

The next time she saw him was years later. It was his own farewell party at the paper.

Bill called her about it. “Old Vedge is leaving,” he said. “We thought you’d like to come.”

“Really? He can’t be retiring. He isn’t old enough. What happened?”

“Let’s just say it was mutual,” said Bill, who was now the managing editor.

“I think that’s sad,” said Susanna.

“Don’t worry about old Vedge,” said Bill. “He’s pretty chipper. He’s already got other plans.”

Susanna took a taxi to the party. Emmett was out of town, so she went alone. She wore her fur coat, because it was December; it was a dark ranch mink, a present from Emmett. When she was standing on the sidewalk paying the taxi, somebody spat on the coat. She made a note not to wear it in public, only to private parties, where there were driveways.

The newspaper was still in the same building, but inside everything was different. Smooth veneer was in. The newsroom had been entirely redone. There was no more mess and boisterousness, no noisy clatter of typewriters. It was all computers now, with their green luminous underwater screens, silent as sharks. If there were dirty jokes, they were going on in whispers. Nobody smoked any more; or not visibly.

Bill, entirely grey-haired now, was the only person she knew. It turned out she did know others, but they had been so transformed by age, and by the addition and subtraction of facial hair, that she failed to recognize them.

Percy himself was cheerful. He was better-looking as an older man than he’d been as a younger one. It was as if his shape had been a loose garment he’d had to grow into, and now it fitted. He was wearing a waistcoat and a watch chain; his glasses were perched on the end of his nose; he looked like Ben Franklin. Susanna felt a rush of affection for him.

“Ah,” he said, “the star,” and took her hands and showed her off. When that was over Susanna spoke with him privately.

“Aren’t you sorry to be leaving?” she said. “After all those years?”

“Not at all,” he said. “It was time. There are other things I want to do.” He had a little secretive smile.

“What will you do first?” she asked him gently. She was worried for him. How would he make any money?

“I’m writing my memoirs,” he said. “I’ve already got a publisher. They’re giving me a nice-sized advance.”

“Oh,” she said dubiously, “that sounds fascinating.”

“Actually it is,” he said. “It’s not so much about me; it’s about the people I’ve met. Quite a few interesting people, in my day.” A pause. “You’re in it.”

“I am? Why?”

“Don’t be coy,” he said. “You’re an important lady. You’ve cut quite a swath.” Another pause. “I think you’ll like it.” He gave her a sunny but watchful smile, a plump middle-aged schoolboy with a surprise tucked away in his pocket.

“How sweet of you to include me,” she said. It would be like the “Oh Susanna” piece he’d done about the radio show, no doubt. About her verve and her nerve. She squeezed his arm, and kissed him goodbye on the cheek.

When Percy’s book came out half a year later, it was Bill who phoned her about it. “It’s called
Stellar Heights,”
he said. “All about the famous creeps he has known and whether their knickers smell. You’re not going to like it.”

“Why?” she said, not believing him. He’d always disliked Percy.

“Hatchet job, I’d say,” said Bill. “Not just a mention. Twenty pages of you. Didn’t know the old man had so much bad blood in him.”

“Oh well,” she said, catching her breath, trying to laugh it off. “Who’s going to read it?”

“The paper’s done an excerpt,” he said. “The stuff about you. Almost the whole bit.”

“Why me?” she said. The decision must have been his.

“Stands to reason,” he said. “You’re the most prominent person in there, at least for the locals, and he knocks the stuffing out of you.”

“You shit!”

“Grow up, Susanna. You know the business. It sells copies. But I thought I should warn you.”

“Thanks a heap,” she said. She slammed down the phone and went out for a paper. There was a large picture of her, a smaller one of Percy, and a big black header:
DRAGON LADY REVEALED
. She took it back to her office and closed the door, and told the switchboard she was in a meeting.

It was all there – their first encounter, their friendship, almost every conversation they’d ever had. Percy had total recall, of a kind. But it was all skewed. How she’d jumped him at the water cooler as a raw girl from the sticks, practically drooling with ambition. How he’d discovered her single-handed, and nursed her along through the initial fumblings and stumblings. How greener pastures had beckoned; how she never called her old newspaper buddies any more. How her path was strewn with the bodies she’d stepped on, going up. A small-town girl with a heart of nails. As for her effortless friendliness, her enthusiastic, puppyish charm, her face of a healthy kindergarten teacher that photographed so well, it was all done with lights and mirrors, and calculation. There was even a hint – though he didn’t come right out and say it – that she’d married Emmett for the money.