Once More With Feeling (23 page)

"Why them?"

"She's got anchor potential if she ever
loses the lisp and the nervous blink. He's so close to Tito you
know you have to watch everything you say in front of him."

"Okay. Go on."

"Then there's the hoi polloi. Us." She waved
toward the newsroom. "We cover your ass. We make you look good.
You're smart enough to know which side your bread is buttered on,
and besides, you have a soft spot for us, because this is where you
started. And someday, when you lose your looks, you might just end
up back here."

"You wouldn't want to commit those lists to
paper, would you?"

"Not on your life. I don't trust you that
much." Kendra grinned and popped simultaneously. "Desmond wants you
in his office right away. Next floor, third door. Use the stairs
whenever you can. Casey sends his love, but he's in Baltimore
covering a private eye convention and won't be back until tomorrow.
Nan's going on today and tomorrow and Des wants you back on the air
by Wednesday. There's a story conference in Abram's office in an
hour. Des hired a new assistant for you, but I think she's about as
smart as grass and just as green. Don't think she'll make it past
the end of this week." Kendra paused. "Oh yeah, there's an armful
of new clothes for you to try on in your dressing room--"

"Dressing room?"

"One of your many perks. You hang out up
there when you need quiet or when you and Casey have time for a
little hanky panky."

"Do I put up a sign so you people will know
which it is?"

"Nope. We make bets." Kendra started for the
door. "I'll take you up to the dressing room when you're ready. I'd
draw you a diagram of the desks, but nobody respects anybody else's
space, so it wouldn't help. I'll make a list of names and try to
attach comments. But your best bet is to read badges for a
while."

"Kendra . . ."

She didn't pause. "Yeah?"

"Do I like what I do?"

"You were born for this."

"Good."

"Break a leg. Never mind, you already did
that. We can't afford another hospital stay, or we're all toast."
Kendra slammed the door behind her.

Gypsy stared at the spot where Kendra had
been. Words failed her, but not Perry.

"Whew!" Perry's eyes were dancing. "Sugar
cakes, I think we've landed on Mars."

The green's good," Perry said about four
hours later. "Trash the polka dots and the suit with the Joan
Crawford shoulder pads. Try on the yellow next."

"Are you sure about the polka dots?" Julie
of the blond pageboy asked. She was the assistant Kendra had
mentioned, a straight-out-of-Vassar debutante whose father had gone
to Yale with Des. Gypsy had already learned that she was arrogant,
lazy, and unhappy to be connected with such a lowbrow show. She was
just marking time at
The Whole Truth
until her med student
fiancé became a resident.

"Perry's right." Gypsy stripped off the
dress in question. "It looks like a bad case of the measles."

Julie arched one perfectly plucked brow. "I
think it lends some badly needed class."

"This isn't a Barbara Walters special."
After a morning when she'd expected everything to go wrong, Gypsy
was finally having fun. Even the worst moments had flown by. Half
an hour into the morning her nerves had settled into neutral. She
had survived her first story conference and meetings with Des and
three more of the show's producers. With Kendra and Perry's help
she'd navigated her way around the building and the business at
hand. She had missed Casey, but not Nan, who had been busy taping
the lead-ins for tonight's story, a job Gypsy would take over at
the end of the week. They were already running promos about her
return, vintage clips of a pre-accident Gypsy.

Trying on the new wardrobe was Halloween and
Christmas rolled into one, a chance to be someone else entirely,
with surprises to be unwrapped, one right after the other. Her
dressing room had been a particularly nice surprise. She had
expected it to be as austere as the rest of the studio, but instead
it was an oasis. Unlike her apartment, it was in moderately good
taste.

"Maybe this isn't Barbara Walters or Sixty
Minutes," Julie said, "but a little discretion and taste wouldn't
hurt."

Gypsy paused in the act of smoothing the
yellow skirt over her hips. Julie had already progressed beyond
irritating. Someday she would be a clone of the worst women
Elisabeth had been forced to make conversation with at important
dinner parties, an empty-headed socialite whose days revolved
around invitations to the best parties in the Hamptons and the
search for the perfect fat-free salad dressing.

Elisabeth would have said something tactful
and defused Julie's irritation. But Elisabeth wasn't in this room.
Gypsy Dugan was, well, Gypsy who didn't have time or inclination to
placate the rude and ignorant of the world.

"You know, Julie," she said with deceptive
calm, "I sense a certain unbecoming hostility toward the show. Or
is it just toward me?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"What have you been doing while I've been on
leave? You were hired as my assistant, but I wasn't here to
assist."

"I've been working with Nan."

"I see." Gypsy turned her back to Perry, who
slid the zipper into place, then she turned to the full-length
mirror again for an objective critique. She decided to see how the
color looked on camera before making a final judgment. "And what
did you do for Nan?"

"Whatever needed to be done."

"Okay. Then I think that's what you'll need
to do again."

Julie pouted. "I don't see how I can be any
help to you when you don't want my advice."

"I think you've misunderstood me. I think
you'll need to assist Nan from now on, not me."

"Nan already has an assistant."

"That's too bad. I can see that the two of
you would get on well. And the two of us will not." She presented
her back to Perry to be unzipped. "I think you should go find Nan
right now and plead your case, because it's the only case you
have."

"You're firing me?"

"Let's just say I'm rearranging your
schedule. You don't work for me anymore. The rest is up to
you."

"I'm not going to talk to Nan. I'm going to
talk to Desmond!"

"Make a few more suggestions about the
quality of the show, while you're at it. I'm sure he'll be
delighted to get your seasoned input."

Julie's debutante training had not yet
progressed to the proper way to close a door.

"You can be one righteous goddess, you know
that?" Perry said.

Gypsy was marveling over her newfound
assertiveness. "I thought I was fairly tasteful. I didn't scream or
pull hair."

"A little discretion and taste wouldn't
hurt," Perry said in a precise imitation of Julie.

"Oh, you're good. Who else can you do?"

"Let's just say I'm rearranging your
schedule. You don't work for me anymore. The rest is up to you."
Perry dimpled in a familiar way. No one could have told the dimples
or voice from Gypsy's own.

"Very, very good. Where'd you learn to do
that?"

"I was a theater major in college."

"How'd you end up as a nurse?"

"I got tired of waiting tables to pay the
bills. Not a lot of call for funky-looking black women with
dreadlocks. Whoopie's got the market sewed up. I still go out on an
audition every once in a while. Just to stay in shape. That's why
I'm doing private duty instead of a regular job."

There were three sharp taps on the door,
then three more. Gypsy had heard metronomes with a less precise
cadence. The door opened before she could respond. Nan, in palest
lavender, stepped over the threshhold. "Oh, you
are
here . .
. When you didn't answer, I thought maybe you hadn't made it
through the day. . ."

"Come in, Nan." Gypsy widened her eyes. "I'm
sorry, you already have, haven't you?"

"What a
brave
soldier you are, Gypsy.
Most of us would have stayed away until we were fully recovered."
Nan stepped all the way inside and closed the door behind her. "I
don't know a
single
person in this world who would have
tried to come back under the circumstances."

"Which are?"

Nan touched her forehead with her index
finger.

"Are we playing charades?"

"Gypsy, you
don't
have to try to hide
the truth from me. I
know
what you're going through."

"Enlighten me."

"Your memory. Gone. Shot. Destroyed."

With great effort Gypsy didn't flinch. "You
forgot kaput."

"Everyone's talking about it, you know. You
haven't
fooled
a single person. How
can
you survive?
I mean, how are you going to do your job here? There are so many
things you probably don't know anymore. It must be
too
devastating."

"Nan, are you speaking in code? I mean, if
the words you're stressing are the directions to buried treasure, I
don't want to miss my chance."

"Don't make jokes to hide your pain. It's
just
not necessary. I can't believe how courageous you
are."

For a moment Gypsy's confidence faltered,
and she wondered if Nan had won this round. She had managed to get
through the first part of the day with help from Kendra and Perry
and lots of fudging, but how could she possibly continue to pull
this off? Already her colleagues were suspicious, although she
doubted they understood the extent of her memory lapses. She had to
give Nan credit for finding and targeting her Achilles heel so
expertly.

She was grasping for something to say when
Perry spoke.

"I'm afraid she's more courageous than
anyone else could guess." She aimed her comment to Nan but inclined
her head toward Gypsy.

"Excuse me?" Nan's ice blue eyes stared
straight through Perry.

Suddenly Perry looked confused. She turned
to Gypsy. "Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Dugan. I thought she knew . . ."

The "Miss Dugan" was a tip-off. In all their
weeks together Perry had called Gypsy every pet name imaginable,
but never Miss Dugan. Gypsy played along. "That's all right, Perry.
You were trying to help."

"Help? What do you mean? What's going on?"
Nan said.

"It's just that . . ." Perry hesitated. "I
mean . . ."

"Go ahead, Perry. She should know." Gypsy
wanted to know, too.

"Well, it's only . . . You see, there were
problems after the accident, of course. I'm sure you know about
Mediacranial Syndrome, Miss Simmonds. As well informed as you are,
you've probably done stories about it. We expected it, of course,
but we hoped . . ."

"Hoped?" Nan tilted her golden head.

"Yes. After injuries as serious as Miss
Dugan's, we were afraid she might be prone, and we did everything
we could . . ."

"But?"

"Well, we just couldn't do enough,
unfortunately. And poor Miss Dugan . . ." Perry shook her head.
Tears filled her eyes. "And you're right, of course. She's so brave
about it all. She had the full-blown syndrome, of course. Every
last symptom, but she insisted on coming in today. Despite
everything. Even though she may still be. . ." Her voice cracked.
". . . Contagious."

Nan's eyes doubled in size.
"Contagious?"

Gypsy waved her hand in dismissal. "Oh for
Pete's sake, Perry. You know that's very unlikely. What were the
odds? Three in seven?"

"Five. Three in five. But that's just on
paper, of course. We have every hope that the infection is
completely out of your system."

Nan's voice rose an octave. "And if it
isn't?"

"There's nothing to worry about," Gypsy
assured her. "Do you think I'd put any of you at risk? If you're
relatively healthy to start with, there's a series of injections
you can take, starting the moment you notice the first
symptoms."

"Very similar to rabies vaccine," Perry
said. She managed a watery smile. "And just as effective. I've had
them, myself. I only missed a week of work. . ."

"I can't believe you came back so soon and
exposed the rest of us!"

"But I had to," Gypsy said. "The show was
going to hell. You know that. You needed me. How could I let you
down? Sure, my memory's not as good as it once was. But the moment
the infection's all cleared out of my . . ." She frowned. "I'm
sorry. What was I saying?"

Nan threw the door open with a crash and
leaped through the doorway.

And like Julie, no one had taught Nan the
proper way to close a door after an exit.

There was a long silence.

"Mediacranial syndrome?" Gypsy asked
Perry.

"Seemed appropriate."

"You ever consider working in
television?"

"Television just never considered me."

"I suppose you love nursing so much now that
you wouldn't consider a change."

"Never did love it. No! Hold on there! Wait
just a minute . . ."

Gypsy was already heading for the telephone.
She didn't know any extensions by memory, but she found the one she
needed in the index beside the phone. "Hi. This is Gypsy. Des
busy?"

He was, but not too busy to speak to her
apparently. She waited until he was on the line, then explained
what had happened with Julie. "No, I couldn't wait another day or
two to see if I warmed up to her," she said as soon as she had the
chance. "Besides, I've found someone better. Do I have your
permission to hire her?"

She hung up a few moments later. Perry was
still shaking her head. "I never had the foggiest notion to do
news," Perry said. "Never did, and don't think I've changed my
mind."

"Does this look like the news to you?"

Perry searched for an answer. Finally, she
shrugged in defeat.

"Welcome to
The Whole Truth
." Gypsy
slung her arm around Perry's shoulders. "Baby doll sugar, I think
we're going to make you a star."