Kindle Notes & Highlights
The reception area of Expectations is elegant, with thick beige carpeting, light-colored wood furniture, a chintz sofa and wing chairs. On the wall are splendid covers of Expectations from yesteryear. There is a magnificent vase of irises and snapdragons.
Still on the phone (wearing a delicate headset), Verity waves hello to me from behind her desk and then shrugs, as much as to say, I don't know who these people are and why I have to talk to them? Doris shows me to a chair at a small conference table in the corner of the office. "Can I get you something to drink?" she whispers. "Coffee? Tea? Mineral water? Orange juice?"
I shake my head. "He wanted to know who I was sleeping with at Expectations."
"Thank you," I say. The check should say quit money on it, because I am afraid this is what it might take to get time to write this piece.
"I'm getting a leave." One way or another. "All right, that's it then," she says. "Except—" She rises and walks over to her desk and comes back with a business card and a thick manila folder secured with a rubber band. She gives me the card first. "This is my personal line here at the office, my number at home and my cell phone number. You may call me anytime."
As soon as I am clear of Manhattan and speeding along the Bruckner Expressway toward Interstate 95, I call my voice mail at the Herald-American to find out what's happening. Doug called and Joe Bix, the other reporter on the Kaegle's Pond Murder, wants to touch base. The last message is from my boss. "Call me as soon as you get this if not before."
"What the hell kind of reporter are you? You work for me. Get it?"
He looks back down the road behind us. And then back to me. "You're the reporter?" I nod. "For the Herald-American in Castleford."
Bingo. I smile. "Confidential sources." He studies me for a moment. "Yeah, we do," he says, sitting back in his chair. He props his elbow on the arm and rests the side of his face on his closed hand. "You know him, too."
I smile again. Mother wants to make sure I get all the inside information. Tony Meyers, Tony Meyers...
"Yes, hi," I say into my cell phone, "it's Sally Harrington of Expectations magazine. I believe Ms. Cochran is expecting my call."
Buddy nods. "Could be a brother." He makes a note. He asks Mother a few more questions and gets ready to leave. I know he is anxious to check through the box of my father's papers. Frankly, if I didn't have the Expectations piece looming, so would I.
“I’m trying to park my car behind the Herald-American—somebody's Lincoln is in my space at seven-thirty at night, thank you very much—when my cell phone rings and I find myself talking to, for the second time today, Cassy Cochran. "From what I hear in our newsroom," the network president says, "this may not be the best time for you to try to freelance a piece for Expectations."
I have to laugh out loud, and the sound echoes up and down the staircase. I've heard plenty of stories about what it takes to be on an annual retainer with Expectations. The faint hearted need not apply. And I must confess, I have been wondering how they will photograph me as a contributing writer. Will I look like I eat nails for breakfast, too? Before going to Kenneth's to get my hair done?
"Where the fuck have you been!" "Uh-oh," Cassy Cochran says. "Talk to you later." I fold up my phone and walk right past Al. "Why don't you come and have a seat?" I have half a mind to tell him how he has just distinguished himself within earshot of the president of DBS. I throw my stuff down in my cubicle and pull out my chair to sit.
"I'll be here," I say. I pick up the regular phone to call Verity at Expectations. Her office voice mail says she has left for the day. I try another number she gave me this morning and she picks up.
"I am not willing," she says matter-of-factly. "Either the story is ready in five weeks or there is no story."
"Well you can't fire her now," she says. "I can do what I like. It's my paper." "It's our paper," she says sweetly. "Besides, you'll never fire her—you're still sweet on the mother."
"Joe!" Al yells. Joe Bix's head pokes around the corner. "Do you know who the dead man is yet?" "Not yet." "Don't fire her," Martha advises him, walking away. "I'll be with the others in the conference room, Al."
"The important thing is that I do," I reply. "But the question is, Al, will you give me a five-week unpaid leave, effective tomorrow, in exchange for that information? I should explain that if you say no, then I will simply quit this god-awful job. If you say yes, however, then Joe gets the scoop and all my information now and access to me for the next five weeks. Joe does," I add, "not you."
"Okay, make that one-week paid leave and four weeks' unpaid. You heard me, Al. I need the time and you better agree, or the price is going up."
"Two weeks' paid leave—you owe it to me for all the vacation I never got last year, anyway. And three weeks' unpaid leave. I'll be back by Labor Day." I look at my watch. "You've got ten seconds before I start packing and go to the Courant." The Hartford Courant is our major competitor in the area.
His eyes light up, his mouth parts in a smile, his tail starts that special wide swing and he begins to dance. Yippee! We're going for a walk; you and me!
Still in Castleford after all these years, I think. No one asked me to come home when Mother got ill. But I knew how shaky Mother's finances were with Rob at school, and I frankly wasn't sure what her health benefits as a teacher would cover in terms of care at home. Mother had cancer, but not the horribly progressive kind; hers came in the form of a tumor attached to her lung—my mother had not smoked, ever—the kind of cancer that hundreds of thousands of people discover they must take on every year and, if discovered early, can be successfully treated. So Mother had surgery, followed by
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After two weeks of working at the Herald-American, Al took me to a local pub for a drink to discuss my staying on permanently. While we were there, Doug came in to meet a friend, and I sort of sat there in stunned silence. I had not seen him in nine years. I had no idea he was in the area. I thought he was still in Boston.
"Doug, this is Alfred Royce, the editor of the Herald-American. Al, this is Doug Wrentham, who grew up here in Castleford."
"Well, she's just coming out of it. She's really done amazingly well with surgery and chemo, and she actually just got a clean bill of health last week. We're going to go to Ireland for a week to celebrate."
"I was. I was working at Boulevard magazine. And then I came home when Mother got ill." I noticed his expression. "But Mother's terrific. Really. I think she's going to be one of those survivors who are going to be better than before."
I love him, I heard myself say in my head. I want him back.
His name is none of your business. "Um, Malcolm Cleary. They call him Mack."
I frown and Scotty pulls at the leash as much as to say, Let's get away from this dame, I don't like her. "It's so difficult to be alone at our age," Mrs. O'Hearn says. "I know you young people don't mind it, but it's really—Well, let's just say there are advantages to having a good marriage." She smiles. "And are you seeing anyone special? How old are you now, Sally?"
"Hello, Pete," I say, doing some stretches. I can't see Doug's face clearly in this light, but I can imagine his expression. Why does this guy keep coming to you?
I am cringing in anticipation of his answer—The Masons—but Pete fools me.
"Well, the strangest thing is, Cassy," I say, "is that nothing, I mean nothing this big has happened in this town for two and half years. And then the second I have this big chance to do a great piece for Expectations, all hell breaks loose and I can't seem to get rid of this story. It's following me!"
"Well, come in on Thursday to the office and let's see how it goes." Which means, I know, Let's see if we get on, if I trust you, or if I decide I'd really like to keep you as far away from my home as possible.
"Huh. Well, that is flattering. Okay, so who else do you want to talk to?"
I go outside and call Pete's name. No response. Scotty walks over to stand next to me. "Pete, come on, it's late and we're all tired. Come inside and take a hot shower. I'll give you some pajamas and I'll pull the bed out for you in the living room again." No response. "Doug and I will sleep in the bedroom, but Scotty will sleep in the living room with you. That way he can keep watch while you sleep." That way Scotty can keep tabs on you so Doug can sleep.
"I prefer the Grill Room," Verity says as a handsome man approaches. "Julian, darling, what a party last night!" Verity exclaims, doing that simultaneous kiss-and-restrain thing she does. "Julian, do you know Sally Harrington?" she asks, as if the maitre d' might know all Herald-American reporters from Castleford, Connecticut.
Bennett, Fitzallen & Coe, however, is still an awe-inspiring name in America, and thus, as an executive editor, Spencer holds an impressive and prestigious job. If nothing else, I gathered over lunch that he knows what and who the house is publishing these days, what and who they're bidding for, or what and who they are besmirching because they aren't publishing it or them.
Yeah-yeah-yeah, Mother, I've got a world to conquer, can we please move this along? As if Mother hears me, she says, "Enough about that, dear, how is it going? How is the room?"
"It's the Joseph Papp Theater." I burn a little because he's right. I just picked up the slang version from Spencer and Verity.
No, I think. I haven't done a damn thing all afternoon. "Yes," I say. "But Doug, won't you tell me why you're hiding Pete?"
"I gotta friend at Newsday. But Sally, I need you to talk to D'Amico again. Yesterday Crazy Pete was wanted for murder, today he's persona non grata, no one's talking, no one knows where he is. His father's packed up and left for his sister's house in Florida. Claims it's too dangerous."
Bingo. So they are looking into the possibility of an organized-crime hit on Meyers. "Maybe I will call you later," I say.
Oh, my, I think. Vampires, snakes, mad dogs; what kind of woman has secret fangs? I don't know what to say to any of this, so I smile slightly and sip my wine. Our dinner arrives and I comment on how good my spinach ravioli is.
I hesitate a moment and then say, "Well, I think you may be overly bright, overworked and were probably recently, well, overturned—shall we say?—by a person who's not very healthy." When he doesn't say anything but simply stares at me, I add, "And, you know, when you hang out a lot with somebody who's not well, after a while you start thinking like them, particularly if you think you're in love with them. You want to understand them. Gain their trust, their innermost thoughts. So later, when you come up for air and relate to the real world, you feel like you're not well in the head, either,
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"Was," he says. "Was in your life," I say, getting the message loud and clear. I am flattered. And nervous. And excited. He is smart, well educated, very successful, but vulnerable in ways I find refreshing. Doug's idea of vulnerability is asking me to give him a massage on his neck and shoulders—and nowhere else. "Anyway— Bill. You asked about Bill."
I nod. "I met Bill when I was working at Boulevard magazine. He was an aspiring actor—"
"Did you bring him to parties? I mean, did Boulevard have parties and stuff like we do?"
He pulls back to look at me. And brings his hands up to hold my face. He looks at me as if he is in pain. He kisses me again and holds my face again. "Who are you?" he whispers.
