Let Me Whisper in Your Ear (11 page)

“And what, my dear, are you going to do about it?” Joel purred sarcastically, defiantly.

Kitzi knew she was cornered. What
was
she going to do about it? Was she finally ready to divorce him? No, not yet. Not until she got all her ducks in a row.

“Well, I'm sure as hell not going to her damn party!”

“Suit yourself.” Joel shrugged. He had calmly walked off to take a shower and dress, leaving Kitzi to stew alone.

It was time to make an appointment with a lawyer.

Kitzi pulled the tie closer at the waist of her peach silk lounging robe, walked over to the built-in mahogany bar and poured herself another vodka on ice. Happy New Year.

She hated herself for what she was going to do next. She crossed the expansive living room, over the antique Persian carpet, past the sumptuously upholstered sofas and the Regency chairs, beneath the Baccarat chandelier, heading for the terrace. A gust of biting winter wind smacked against her as she opened the French doors, whipping her thin dressing gown around her legs. Tufts of old, crusted snow dotted the terracotta tile that floored the terrace, her silk-covered mules stepping carelessly through them. Her ringed, manicured hands gripped the nozzle of the frozen telescope.

She did not have to aim it. It was already trained on Gwyneth's apartment across the park.

29

“D
ID YOU SEE
his expression when he spotted you? I've heard the phrase ‘the color drained from his face' many times … this is the first time I've actually seen it happen. He was ashen.”

Laura and Francheska huddled together in the powder room, ignoring the polite knocks on the door as other guests waited outside. Francheska calmly brushed lipstick within the lines of her full lips as Laura continued agitatedly.

“You knew he was going to be here, didn't you, Fran?” Laura asked, talking to her friend's reflection in the mirror.

Francheska nodded, her mane of dark hair shining in the powder room's strong light. She wore a form-fitting bronze strapless gown, the bodice trimmed with natural brown mink. She was dressed to command attention.

“Len did mention he was coming. You, if anyone, know how he is, Laura. He loves dropping names and trying to impress me with whom he knows and what he's doing.”

“Why didn't you
tell
me?”

“Because, if I had, you would have freaked out and been worried that there was going to be a scene. You would have been too nervous to bring me as your guest. When you asked me to come to this party, I wrestled with the question of ‘should I' or ‘shouldn't I' tell you that Len and his wife were on the guest list. But I really wanted to come and I didn't want to run the risk of you taking back the invitation.”

“Oh, Fran, don't do anything like this to me again. Okay? I don't like that kind of surprise.”

“Relax, Laura. This is going to be fun.”

Another knock on the door signaled they really had to go back to the festivities and Laura gave a last tug at her wispy bangs, making sure they covered her scar.

“What are you going to do now?” whispered Laura as the pair walked back toward the living room.

Francheska giggled. “Maybe I should go up to the Costellos and start a conversation. I've never met ‘the Mrs.,' though I've heard so much about her.”

Laura laughed despite herself. “You wouldn't dare.”

“I'm thinking about it.”

“Well, if you do that, I'll pull the good doctor aside and thank him for all the inside dope he's unknowingly provided on who was going to die next. Though he doesn't know it, he's really helped my career.”

30

R
ICKY
P
OTENZA DID
not feel the cold as he paced up and down the Central Park West block outside Gwyneth Gilpatric's apartment building. He was not sure if he was going to be able to get past the doorman, but he had a plan.

He'd been waiting for this night for a long time—thirty years, really. Actually planning the specifics over the last year since reading in the hospital last January about Gwyneth's annual New Year's Eve party. He remembered it very clearly. Sitting with the other chain-smokers at Rockland Psychiatric Center, flipping the pages of
People
magazine. Reading about the schmaltzy party
KEY News
star Gwyneth Gilpatric threw each year for the rich and famous. Haunted by the smiling image of the woman who stared back at him from the glossy pages. Gwyneth Gilpatric, the woman who had changed his life forever.

Of course, he had been seeing her on television for years. There had been lots of time to watch television at the mental hospitals. And when he was home in between hospitalizations, television was his main pastime. He made it a point to watch
Hourglass
every week.

It galled Ricky to hear his mother rave about Gwyneth. She thought Gwyneth Gilpatric was so wonderful, a Jersey girl made good. “Gwyneth grew up in neighboring Fort Lee, you know,” his mother repeatedly told him. If she only knew.

Ricky listened silently to his mother's enthusiastic admiration, listened silently and fumed. It wasn't fair. Gwyneth, a national figure, feted and awarded, while poor Tommy lay rotting in the mud.

But now they had found Tommy. He saw it on TV, though his mother had been quick to snap off the set. She didn't want him to relive all that, she said. Didn't she know that he had been reliving it all again and again, day after day, for the last three decades? Reliving it in his head, but never bringing himself to talk about it.

Everyone had tried to get him to talk. His worried parents, the suspicious police, and, over the years, the concerned doctors. They thought he was traumatized simply by the disappearance of his best friend. If they knew that Ricky had been part of his best friend Tommy's death they would not have treated him so well.

By the time the Cruzes realized that their son was missing the morning after Tommy was killed at Palisades Park, Ricky was home safe in his own bed, pretending to be asleep. He feigned ignorance when his mother broke the news to him that Tommy was missing, swore that he hadn't seen his buddy since they parted company at dinnertime the night before. But as his parents and the police continued to question him over the days that followed, Ricky began to shut down. Silence was his defense.

We all have a breaking point. That's what the doctor told Ricky's parents. Ricky has met his breaking point. You must not push him.

So they had not pushed. They'd followed the doctor's orders, gently trying to get the increasingly brooding, introverted Ricky interested in things again. They encouraged him to go out and play with the other kids, to get involved in sports or clubs at school. They tried to get him to audition for the school plays, hoping to find something that would bring him outside himself. Nothing worked.

Adolescence and the hormonal changes that went with it made things worse. Ricky grew more angry and violent. The acting out grew more angry and violent as well. One day after school, he climbed on the roof of the Potenzas' three-story brick home and hurled the family's cat to the ground below. That night he took his father's razor blades to his wrists.

There followed the first of a lifetime's worth of stays in various mental institutions.

At first the Potenzas had tried the private hospitals, thinking that money could cure their son. Ricky, heavily sedated, would seem better for a while, but the psychiatrists all agreed that medication alone would never cure him. The young man refused to open up in talk-therapy sessions. Until he did, Ricky was not going to get well.

The years passed and the hospital debts grew. The Potenzas sold their house in Cliffside Park and moved to a small bungalow over the state line in Rockland County, New York. There Mr. Potenza died. Three days after the funeral, Ricky was picked up by the police as he tried to jump into Lake Tappan.

The police brought him straightaway to the nearby Rockland Psychiatric Center, a state-run facility. With little money and exhausted, Ricky's mother had no choice but to leave him there. As time went on, she resigned herself to the fact that it made no difference where he was. Her son was not going to get well.

So it went, a pattern developing. Ricky would stay at Rockland for months at a time. Then the staff would say he was well enough to come home. Another crisis sent him back. And on and on.

Now he was on another of his home furloughs.

His mother tried to make a normal life for them, tried to make Ricky appear as if he were normal. She did not want him to look like some sort of seedy, scary-looking crazy person. She made dental appointments, took long walks with him for exercise, made sure he got frequent haircuts. For Christmas, she saved from her modest secretary's salary and bought him a camel hair overcoat, wanting her son to look the part of a handsome, well-dressed forty-two-year-old man.

Now on Central Park West, no one looked askance at Ricky Potenza. He looked like he belonged there.

Ricky watched as a half dozen men and women approached, and prayed that they would turn into the doorway of Gwyneth's building. As they did, he fell inconspicuously behind them. One of the men told the uniformed doorman his name, said they were going to the Gilpatric party, and the doorman nodded.

“Go right up, sir.”

They all went up in the elevator together.

Gwyneth had gone on and thrived. It wasn't fair.

31

O
VER THE PARTY
din, Joel Malcolm was explaining the concept of Casper's Ghostland to his amused
Hourglass
producer Matthew Voigt.

“And this is supposed to be a secret death pool?” asked Matthew.

Joel grinned defiantly. “Yeah, it's done anonymously, on the Internet. We all get a monthly bulletin that's sent to our e-mail address, letting us know whose name we're holding for the month. And if nobody in the pool dies over the next thirty days, we all ante up and Casper assigns us a new name. I've had Bryant Gumbel over at CBS three different times during the last two years. He's still going strong, damn it!”

“And it's
how
much a month?”

“A thousand bucks. But think how much you can win! The pot is really growing.”

“Too rich for my blood.” Matthew laughed. “Besides, they wouldn't let me in anyway—I'm not high enough on the media totem pole.”

Joel shrugged and looked over Matthew's shoulder, his keen eyes scanning the party. “There she is. The blonde in the dark blue dress.” He elbowed Matthew. “That's Laura Walsh, the one I told you about.”

Matthew Voigt caught sight of Laura as she stood across Gwyneth's opulent living room. “Whoa. This is going to be a pleasure.”

“Hold on,” warned Joel. “This is work, remember?”

“Who says work can't be fun?” answered Matthew as he took off in Laura's direction.

He followed her over to the bar and listened as she ordered a Cosmopolitan. As Laura took a sip of the pale pink cocktail, he introduced himself.

“I'm Matthew Voigt. I hear you're coming to work with us.”

Laura looked up quizzically at the dark-haired man, her interest aroused. She had seen him around the Broadcast Center, noticed him in the cafeteria. He was tall, lean and reasonably good-looking. Intense brown eyes sparkled intelligently beneath his dark eyebrows. As she assessed Matthew's sharp nose and angular jaw, Laura was momentarily reminded of a hawk, the bird of prey with the curved beak that loved to hunt.

She was intrigued, but wary. Focusing now on what he was saying, her interest was piqued by the phrase “working with
us.
”

“You know,” he insisted, “at
Hourglass.
”

“Well, you must know something that I don't know.” Laura laughed.

Matthew looked surprised. “Oh, I thought it was a done deal.”

“Maybe in other people's minds, but not in mine. I haven't heard anything from the boss.”

“That's odd. Joel was just telling me all about you.”

“Well, that certainly puts me at a disadvantage, because I know nothing about you.” Laura took another drink from her stemmed glass.

Matthew looked disappointed. “I had hoped my reputation would have preceded me.”

“Sorry.”

He laughed and shrugged. “That's probably better. At least you haven't heard anything bad about me. I've been a producer at
Hourglass
for a few years now, since Joel brought me over from ABC. One of the many
Hourglass
producers, but we all like to think we are integral to the show's success.”

“I'm sure you must be. I'm sorry I didn't know who you were.”

“No problem. I'm just a legend in my own mind.” He turned to the bartender. “Glenlivet, rocks,” he ordered.

Laura wanted to know more. “Do you mind my asking what exactly Joel told you?”

“What's it worth to you?”

She ignored him and waited.

“Okay. I can see being obnoxious is not going to work.”
God, she had pretty eyes.
They were an amazing shade of blue. Almost the color of the clear sky on a Midwest summer's day. The color of the July sky atop Lake Michigan, the sky he stared up at as a teenager while he lay on the shoreline and fantasized about what he wanted to do with his life. He was an electrician's son from Waukegan, Illinois, who dreamed of living in New York City and working at one of the television networks. Well his dream had come true, but it wasn't always what he'd thought it would be, and increasingly it wasn't enough.

Laura's words pulled him from his brief reflection.

“You're a smart man, Matthew. I'd expect nothing less from an
Hourglass
producer, seeing as I hope to be one.”

Matthew's white teeth flashed as he smiled appreciatively. “Seriously, now, Joel spoke highly of you and mentioned this project you've brought to us. The Palisades Amusement Park story? It sounds like it has all the makings of a great segment.”