Grand Avenue (19 page)

It took Susan a few minutes to regain her composure, and another minute until she felt sure enough of her feet to stand up. Exactly fifteen minutes after Peter Bassett’s phone call, Susan stood outside the glass wall of his office.

He was on the phone, but he motioned her inside with a wave of his free hand. “Close the door,” he whispered, hand over the receiver. “Have a seat. I’ll just be a minute.”

Susan closed the door, pulled out the blue, straight-backed chair across from his desk, lowered herself slowly into it, tried not to eavesdrop on his conversation.

“On the contrary,” he was saying. “This is the school’s responsibility. If I take this on, if I tell Kelly
she can’t go out on the weekend if she continues to skip classes, then I’m only giving myself more problems at home, and I’m doing nothing to solve the problem at school. It’s up to you to impose a consequence. Consequences mean nothing if they’re arbitrarily imposed from outside. You know that as well as I do.” He rolled his eyes impatiently, turned a brass-framed photograph of three attractive adolescents toward Susan.

Susan examined the picture: two smiling teenage boys on either side of a scowling teenage girl. So what else is new? she thought, liking Peter Bassett more already because he was obviously going through the same kind of problems she was, even if he was about to fire her.

“What am I suggesting?” Peter Bassett asked. “I’m suggesting you do your job. Next time my daughter skips a class, give her a detention. If she skips the detention, then suspend her. That’s the way things work in the real world.”

Susan closed her eyes. She’d skipped the morning meeting. She was about to be suspended. Permanently.

“Sorry about that,” Peter Bassett apologized, hanging up the phone. He pointed at the photograph. “Kelly’s fifteen and a major pain in the butt. Her brothers are also pains in the butt, but at least they’re not skipping school. So, how are you?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“We missed you at the meeting this morning.”

“Yes, I’m very sorry about that. I was giving a talk to my daughter’s class about my job. It’s career day, or whatever they call it. Anyway, Sarah knew about it.
She’d given it the go-ahead,” Susan said, referring to the woman Peter Bassett had replaced.

“Hope you got in a few plugs for the magazine.” Peter Bassett’s piercing gray eyes had an engaging twinkle that Susan found almost unbearably appealing.

“Every chance I got,” Susan said.

“Good. We need all the help we can get.”

“Yes, sir,” she said when she could think of nothing else to say.

“Oh, God, please don’t call me sir.
Peter
will do just fine.” He rose from his chair, walked around to her side of the desk, perched on the edge, long, skinny legs dangling toward the floor. “What do you think is wrong with the magazine?” he asked, catching Susan completely off guard.

“What do I think is wrong?”

“I’m interested in your opinion.”

“Why?” Susan couldn’t help but ask.

“Because I asked everyone else at this morning’s meeting, and I didn’t get any satisfactory answers. And I was especially looking forward to hearing what you had, to say because I think you’re smart, and the articles you work on are consistently the best articles we print.”

“Thank you,” Susan said, straightening up in her seat, realizing she wasn’t going to be fired after all.

“So, what’s
Victoria’s
problem? Why do you think sales are down?”

Susan took a deep breath. Could she really tell him what she thought was wrong with the magazine? “I think our focus is wrong,” she heard herself say. “It’s like we’re trying to be
Cosmopolitan
, but why should
women want to read us when they can buy the real thing? Also,” she continued, growing bolder as his smile widened, “there are already too many women’s magazines out there going after the same market, and we’re at a disadvantage to begin with because we’re operating out of Cincinnati and not New York or Los Angeles.”

“And the solution?”

Was he playing with her? Susan wondered, distracted by the intensity of his gaze. “I think we should stop trying to compete with the big guys on their turf and start carving out our own niche,” she began, gradually warming to her subject. “This is a local magazine. We should concentrate on what interests the women of Cincinnati. Forget about profiling visiting B-list celebrities and start creating some celebrities of our own. Stop doing fashion spreads with skinny New York models wearing clothes no one in this city would be caught dead in, and start doing stories about real women with real problems, and let those stories be more than one thousand words in length. Why are we so afraid of a little depth?

“I think we should start publishing fiction,” she continued, not pausing long enough to let him interrupt. “If we’re going to copy anyone, let it be
The New Yorker
. We could publish one original short story a month, maybe even run a short-story contest.

“It’s almost the nineties. Today’s women are interested in more than just fashion and horoscopes. We want to know about issues and politics and how the decisions being made in Washington today are going to impact on our lives in Cincinnati tomorrow. We have
to stop appealing to the lowest common denominator and start setting our sights higher. We have to stop following the leader and start leading our own parade. Toot our own horn. Let the others copy us.” Susan stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m a complete lunatic.”

Peter Bassett laughed out loud. “On the contrary, I admire your passion. I’m not sure I agree with everything you said, some of it’s not very practical, but I’d like to give it some thought. Perhaps we could toss over some of these ideas with the others at tomorrow’s meeting.”

“That would be great.… Oh, no. No, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Is there a problem?”

“My mother has to go to the hospital for a biopsy tomorrow morning. I said I’d take her.” Susan braced herself for an onslaught of recriminations: We’re running a business here, Susan. How are we going to implement some of these big ideas if you continue to place your personal life ahead of your job? The reason sales are down, the
only
reason sales are down and this magazine is in trouble, is because of people like you, people who talk a good game, but are too damn busy visiting their daughters’ schools and taking their mothers to the doctor to attend important meetings. This is the real world, Susan. Which is it going to be? Your family or your career?

“Of course,” Peter Bassett said instead.

What? “What?”

He shrugged. “No big deal. We can discuss your ideas another time. The magazine isn’t about to change
its focus overnight, and the important thing right now is your mother. She needs your support.”

“Thank you,” Susan whispered. She wondered if she looked as shocked as she felt.

“Don’t mention it.” Peter pushed himself away from his desk, his athletic body swaying into the space between them. He approached her chair, lay a soft hand on Susan’s shoulder, his fingers warm through her thin sweater. “It’ll be all right. Think positively.”

“I will,” Susan said, and held her breath.

“Please give your mother my regards.” Peter Bassett removed his hand from her shoulder, gave her a sad but reassuring smile, then returned to his seat behind his desk.

Susan stood up, swiveled toward the door, stopped, turned back, about to thank him again. For being so understanding, so patient, so wise. When was the last time anyone had listened to her with such active interest? But Peter Bassett was already busy typing something into his computer. Susan’s eyes floated to the picture on his desk of his three children, noticing for the first time another photograph, this one of an attractive woman slightly younger than herself, short, dark hair framing an engaging smile. Mrs. Bassett, no doubt, Susan surmised, thinking she looked very much like her two sons and not at all like her difficult daughter.

You’re a lucky woman, Mrs. Bassett, Susan told the picture with her eyes. I hope you appreciate what you have. Then she opened the door and left the office.

T
racey, look at this, sweetie. This outfit would look great on you. What do you think?”

Tracey closed the book she was reading, crossed the floor of the doctor’s spacious waiting room, and sat down beside her mother, glancing at the latest issue of
Victoria
in Barbara’s hand. “I don’t think it would suit me,” she said of the striped-blue-and-white jersey and skinny navy pants the young blonde was modeling for the camera.

“Why not?”

“Well, look at her, Mom.” Tracey nodded toward the young model cavorting on the page. “She has no thighs. In case you hadn’t noticed, I do.”

“That’s just baby fat,” Barbara assured her, although she wasn’t entirely convinced. In the last year, Tracey’s body had undergone radical change. With the advent of her period, Tracey had morphed from a skinny adolescent into what might kindly be described as a young woman of substance. Not that Tracey was fat, or even
overweight. Just that she’d filled out in all the wrong spots, wide where she should be narrow, flat where she should be full, something she’d undoubtedly inherited from Ron’s side of the family, Barbara decided bitterly. “You’ll lose that soon enough. All you have to do is cut out the junk food. Start eating right. Come with me to the gym one afternoon. You know what we could do?” she continued almost in the same breath, although Tracey had already returned her attention to her book. “I could make an appointment with a nutritionist, and we could go together. Because I think I could stand to lose a few pounds myself, and I think that would be a great idea. What do you think?”

Tracey looked at her mother with blank eyes. “Sure.”

“Good. Because I think that’s a great idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.” Barbara looked guiltily into her lap. She’d been thinking of little else for weeks now, wondering just how she could approach the subject without hurting her daughter’s feelings. And she’d done it. Accomplished her objective without ruffling Tracey’s feathers. She stared at her daughter’s profile. She’s such a pretty girl, Barbara thought. It would be a shame to have her miss out on things just because she’d gotten a little careless, because she didn’t pay enough attention to her appearance. And appearances were important, no matter what people tried to tell you these days. If you looked like you didn’t give a damn about yourself, well, then, nobody else would give a damn either.

Barbara reached over, stroked her daughter’s cheek. Tracey smiled without looking up from her book. What
was she reading anyway? “What are you reading?”

Tracey flipped the book over, showed her mother the cover.

Barbara took the book from Tracey’s hand, turned to the opening chapter, read the first few lines. “Sounds pretty good,” she said, about to hand the book back when she saw the signature scrawled along the inside of the cover.
Pam Azinger
looped across the top of the page in bold red ink. Like blood, Barbara thought, dropping the book back into Tracey’s lap.
My
blood.

“She thought I’d like it,” Tracey muttered, laying the book down on the chair beside her. “But it’s pretty silly. I won’t read it.” Her voice drifted to a halt.

“Nonsense. If you like it …”

Tracey shook her head. “No. I don’t. It’s not very good.”

Barbara took a deep breath. “How is Pam making out with the new baby?” She cleared her throat, practically scraped the words out of her mouth.

“Not so great. He cries all the time.”

“That’s too bad.” Barbara smiled. Thank you, God, she thought. “What’s his name again? I keep forgetting.”

“Brandon. Brandon Tyrone.”

Stupid name. No wonder she could never remember it.

“He’s a cute baby. He just cries all the time.” Tracey looked straight ahead, eyes focused on nothing in particular.

Had she always had that little bump on her nose? Barbara wondered. Maybe while they were here, she’d have the doctor take a look at it. “Excuse me,” Barbara said from her chair, banishing thoughts of baby
Brandon Tyrone Azinger from her mind. “How much longer do you think we’ll have to wait?”

“Just a few more minutes,” the receptionist said from behind a glassed-in partition, staring in Barbara’s general direction, as if she were looking through a dense fog.

Sure. Why not? What were a few more minutes? She had nothing better to do with her time anyway. She didn’t have to rush home to tend to a colicky newborn. She didn’t have to prepare formulas or change diapers. She didn’t have to get dinner on the table for her hardworking husband. No, she had nothing pressing, nothing urgent that required her attention. So what better way to while away a humid summer afternoon than by sitting in the plushly appointed waiting room of Cincinnati’s most respected cosmetic surgeon? Time wasn’t important. Wasn’t that why she was here? To do away with time.

The doctor could get more comfortable chairs at least, Barbara thought, flicking an errant thread from the deep purple velvet of her seat. They’d been re-covered in the two years since her last visit. Barbara glanced at the peach-colored walls, trying to remember what color they’d been at the time of her last consultation. Obviously nothing in Dr. Steeves’s life was allowed to show any signs of age.

The office door opened and a woman with a large blue chiffon scarf obscuring most of her face stepped into the waiting area. She conferred quietly with the receptionist, then walked from the room without so much as a glance in Barbara’s direction. Nobody sees me anymore, Barbara thought, feeling strangely slighted. It’s like I don’t exist.

“Mrs. Azinger,” the receptionist said, looking just past her, “you can go in now.”

“I shouldn’t be too long,” Barbara told Tracey, who was staring at a lithograph of flowers on the opposite wall. The girl nodded without looking at her mother. As if I don’t exist, Barbara thought again.

“Barbara,” Dr. Steeves greeted her, extending his hand. “Good to see you again.”

“Nice to see you,” she agreed, although she couldn’t help but notice that Norman Steeves was looking a little tired underneath his clear blue eyes. And he’d put on a few pounds since her last visit, a slight jowl pushing against the salt-and-pepper of his beard.