Once More With Feeling (25 page)

"We're starting tonight with a story that
will touch the hearts of anyone who knows a teenage girl who is
worried about her weight. You'll want to pay close attention,
America, because even though our subject is anorexia in the royal
family, your family could be next."

She stared at the camera until the floor
manager cued her again. Then she slumped in her chair.
"Better?"

"You're not putting yourself into it, Gypsy.
I'm no director, but even I know you're not punching the right
words. It's lacking."

"At least I didn't drop my eyes at the
end."

"Yeah, you're learning. At this rate you'll
have it down by next month." Hal ground the sole of one shoe
against the studio floor as if he wished she were under it. "Put
some sex into, huh? Jeezum. You sound as soppy as Nan. I want to
cry every time you say that bit about your recovery."

Her temper flared. She was learning that
Gypsy's boiling point was a lot lower than Elisabeth's. "Then tell
them to give me something sexy to say, for Pete's sake! Anorexia's
not sexy. Cards and flowers aren't sexy! What do you want me to do?
Strip on cue?"

"That's more like it. A little spirit. Try
it again."

"In your dreams." She stood up. She and Hal
had been practicing for most of an hour. In two hours they would
"ride the bird." The entire show had to be in the can by then,
ready to be sent by satellite to the 170 affiliates who broadcast
it. Before that moment the anchor lead-ins had to be seamlessly
spliced to the segments that were already recorded.

Before Gypsy's accident there had been 174
affiliates.

"Maybe I should be standing beside the
prompter." Casey materialized out of the shadows.

"Well hi, stranger." She came out from
behind the desk and held out her hands.

He ignored the hands and put his arms around
her. "Hi yourself." He kissed her, and his hands slid lower to cup
her bottom and bring her closer.

"Hey." She placed her hands against his
chest and pushed. "When did you get back?"

"About an hour ago."

She hadn't seen him since the night she'd
landed back in the hospital, but he'd kept in touch. He'd been to
San Francisco, Baltimore, a private island in the Caribbean, and
back to San Francisco again. Obviously the travel agreed with him,
because he didn't look exhausted.

He looked ravenous, and she was on his
menu.

"How long are you going to be around?" she
asked. It seemed imperative to keep him talking.

"About three hours. I'm flying back out
after the taping."

"I'm not sure if I'm glad you'll be here
watching today."

"You're going to do fine. It'll all come
back to you when the camera starts rolling for real."

"Will it?"

"You can't miss. You're Gypsy Dugan."

"That's what they tell me."

"Memory getting better?"

"I'm picking up the things I need to."

He relinquished her with obvious reluctance
and stepped back. "I've got to retape some commentary on the P.I.
story, but I'll be back to give you support if you need it."

She suspected he was going to be nothing
more than a distraction, but she smiled. "Great."

"Better go finish getting ready," Hal said.
"You'll need to be back on the set in thirty-five minutes."

She picked her way over cables snaking
across the floor, brushing shoulders with more technicians who were
arriving to set up. She found her way to her dressing room by pure
instinct. From the moment she had awakened that morning with her
post-accident debut just hours away, she had considered finding a
new body to inhabit, preferably one without such a terrifying
occupation. All week she had tried to convince herself that she
could do this. All week she had known, deep down inside, that she
wasn't going to make it. She had Gypsy's body, her instincts,
sensory memory, and come-hither smile. She had Elisabeth's
intellect, memories, and scruples. The combination did not an
anchorwoman make.

Perry had taken to her new job like the
proverbial duck to water. She was waiting when Gypsy walked in, the
lemon yellow dress hanging from her arm. "Found a navy blazer that
looks great with this. Want to try it on?"

Gypsy had settled on a more conservative
teal green suit for today's taping, but now she was tempted to wear
something brighter. "Maybe that dress will cheer me up."

"You're going to be fine. Terrific."

"I don't think so."

Perry looked sympathetic. Too sympathetic.
"Don't worry, sugar lump. Nan's been in twice to tell you that
she's ready to go on if you need her."

"I'll just bet. When's makeup getting here?
The hairdresser's scheduled to come in fifteen minutes and I don't
want them working on me at the same time."

Perry hesitated just a moment too long.
Gypsy's head shot up. "Perry, didn't you get my note?"

"What note?"

"I left you a note and asked you to make the
arrangements."

"Didn't get it. And I cleared my desk just
fifteen minutes ago."

Gypsy believed her. Perry was as organized
as an air traffic controller. "That's odd. Call, will you, and see
if you can get someone? I really don't trust my own hands
today."

"I'll run out and see what I can do. It'll
save time."

Gypsy tried on the yellow dress again while
she waited. It was brash and eye-catching. While she was still
wearing it she took the teal suit jacket off a hanger and held it
up for contrast.

A brass button fell off in her hand.
Frowning, she held the jacket at eye level. There was a conspicuous
stain across the breast pocket.

"No one." Perry came back into the room at a
trot. "Anyone who could help has disappeared. Somebody out there
said you always do your own preliminaries."

"Look at this." Gypsy held out the
jacket.

"Wait just a minute. I checked it myself
about two hours ago. There wasn't anything wrong with it then."

"This is beginning to seem like more than a
coincidence."

"Take off the dress and sit over there. I'll
do your makeup."

"Perry, do you know what you're doing?"

"No one better. You major in theater, you
learn to do everything. You want to look like Romeo's Juliet or
Blanche in Streetcar?"

Gypsy flopped into a swivel chair in front
of a bank of mirrors. "Get ready to help with my hair, too.
Something tells me the hairdresser may not show, either."

Fifteen minutes later she stared at herself.
Between her efforts and Perry's they had transformed her into a
creature of the camera. She knew enough to realize that she needed
the more vivid makeup to photograph well, but she felt like a
painted lady. "Yellow dress?"

"Got no choice that I can see. Put it back
on and I'll get that blazer."

The navy blazer sobered the dress just
enough. Perry held up a circle of heavy gold links. "Try this."

"Looks like something Casey would use to
chain me to the bedpost."

"If that's what it makes you think of, it's
perfect."

Gypsy added round gold earrings with a matte
finish that wouldn't distract on camera. "That's it. What do you
think?"

"I think I'm glad someone was playing at
sabotage. We did all right, didn't we?"

"Why don't you go on for me?" Gypsy put her
head on her arms. In the rush she hadn't had time to be nervous.
But staring at herself in the mirrors now that she was ready
brought it all back. She looked like Gypsy Dugan. She looked like
her.

But she was someone else.

A knock rattled the door. Des didn't wait
for an invitation. He strode in before the sound had died away.
"They need you on the set."

She sat up. He was wearing a maroon
sportcoat and plaid pants that belonged on a golf course. She
couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Come on, Gyps. Don't screw this up now.
We've got everyone waiting. You had a chance to practice with Hal.
You know what to do. Now you've just got to do it."

She knew what the last mile felt like. She
got to her feet, standing on legs that were already wobbly in three
inch heels. "Do you really think I'm ready?"

"Hell, I don't know. But if you're not, you
have to be anyway. We've got to get that show in the can and send
it off. And if we don't, we're through. Tito's going to be watching
what we do."

"You didn't get where you are today because
of your counseling skills, did you Des?"

"Don't fricking let me down, Gypsy."

He waddled out of her dressing room on his
incongruously short legs. She teetered in her ridiculous pumps
behind him and wished she was wearing Air Nikes for a quick
getaway.

The studio was crowded. She had watched a
taping yesterday and rehearsed with Hal today, but she hadn't
really noticed how many people it took to put together the show.
The control room, glassed-in and high-tech, was bursting at the
seams. She recognized the director, an associate director, the
technical director, and the associate producer who would oversee
the taping. A row of monitors in front of the control panel was
blank except for one that was rolling a segment with a young woman
walking along an ocean boardwalk, footage from their feature
story.

The anchor desk was teak, a simple curving
Scandinavian design that called no attention to itself. Behind the
desk to the left was a large globe like the one used at the show's
opening. When she finished her lead-in a camera would focus on the
globe and zoom in for a close-up. The opening of each report would
appear to be projected directly on the globe's facets, although
that was really just a technician's trick, performed in the control
booth.

Des waved her to her seat as the crew worked
out the final details of the taping. A young woman in ragged jeans
spoke into a headset, changing the position of one of what must
have been a hundred lights as she chattered away. A man in a
T-shirt and a tie adjusted one of the cameras. Casey stood in the
corner conferring with an unfamiliar man in an expensive suit.

A woman wearing an institutional green smock
hurried toward the desk where Gypsy was attempting to clip on her
mike. "Who did your makeup?"

"Perry. My assistant."

"Not bad. But you should have let me get it
today. You look too good, like you haven't been sick at all."

"Isn't that what we're after?"

"Uh-uh. Des wants people to feel sorry for
you, so they can forgive you if you screw up."

"Thank him for the vote of confidence, would
you?"

The woman pulled a soft brush and a
container of pale powder from one of the voluminous pockets of her
smock. "This'll help."

"No." Gypsy turned her head. "Unless my nose
is shining or I've smeared my lipstick, I don't need you."

"But Des--"

"I don't give a flying--" She stopped
herself, appalled at what she had almost said. "I mean it. Thanks,
but I'm fine the way I am."

The woman shrugged. "Your call."

The studio was cool, but under the lights
the temperature quickly climbed.

"Let me get that."

Gypsy looked up and gave Casey a nervous
smile. He took the microphone from her trembling hands and clipped
it under her jacket lapel. "Gyps, listen. All you have to do today
is read your lines. That's it. The viewers will be so thrilled
you're back, they're not going to notice anything else. There's not
a viewer in television land who won't cut you some slack when this
airs tonight."

"You don't think I can do it, do you?"

He straightened. "I didn't say that."

"None of you thinks so. Everyone expects me
to fall flat on my face!" As if to prove Gypsy's point, Nan stepped
out of the shadows and up to the closest cameraman. They put their
heads together in conversation. Nan was dressed in a Kool-Aid
purple suit and a peppermint-striped blouse, and she looked ready
for anything. Nan, who was ready to go on if Gypsy failed.

"What's she doing here?" Gypsy said.

Casey tightened his lips. "She's just
watching."

"Bullshit." She didn't have time anymore to
be appalled at her own language. "Who asked her to come? Des?
Tito?"

"She's here because you probably won't make
it through the taping. Is that what you want to hear?" He leaned
toward her again, but this time he stared straight into her eyes.
"You don't have what it takes anymore, Gyps. Everyone knows it.
You're too nice, too vulnerable. Hell, anybody on the show could do
better than you did with Hal today. Any kid right out of high
school could do it better!"

"You bastard!"

"And Nan's in her element knowing you're
going to make a fool of yourself. You think Hal went to her after
he worked with you today? Damned right he did. You can count on it.
And he told her that you were washed up, that nobody will want you
behind this desk ever again. So she's ready. And she's a
professional. Nan can step in the second you fail, and she can be
the one to save the show."

Her hands clenched in her lap. "Drop dead,
Casey. And do if off the set. I've got a show to tape right
now."

"If you can." He raised one skeptical brow.
Before she could respond he started toward Nan. She left the
cameraman and followed Casey back into the shadows. Gypsy could
just see them, heads together. Watching her.

Des sped toward the desk. He leaned over, as
Casey had done. "We're about ready. You okay?"

"I'm fine. Just stand back and let me do my
job."

"Just remember, the camera with the red
light is the one that's taping. And--"

"Get the hell out of here! Now!"

"Fine. Great. See you."

He shook his head as he walked away.

Hal appeared, sweating more than ever.
"Countdown's on. Get ready for your cue."

She sat up a little straighter. She could
just see Casey and Nan, heads still together. She wanted to
strangle him. She wanted to strip off the mike and go right for his
throat. And she wanted to mop up the carnage with Nan's pretty
grape-flavored suit.