Once More With Feeling (26 page)

There was only one thing better than murder.
Revenge.

The teleprompter operator moved into
position. She adjusted accordingly and waited for Hal to point his
finger.

The studio suddenly seemed truly familiar,
not a place she had recently visited, but a place where she had
lived. The cool, dark cavern beyond the cameras, the overly warm,
brightly lit anchor desk. The soft padding of her chair. The globe
turning slowly behind her with a sound like the muted whir of an
electric fan. Even the smells were familiar, although she couldn't
identify any one of them.

Hal's hand came down. She looked straight
into the camera and gave her most outrageous smile.

"Good evening. Welcome to
The Whole
Truth
. And before we begin tonight's top story, may I say that
it's good to be back? Your cards and letters made my recovery
speedier, and I'm grateful to all of you for your support."

She flirted with the camera the way she had
flirted with Owen on their first date. She made love to each word,
lingered over vowels and punched consonants. When the camera
shifted, she shifted, too.

"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."

And by the look on Des's face as the tape of
that first segment began to roll and she was no longer on camera,
she knew not one viewer who was the parent of a teenage girl would
sleep easily tonight. Gypsy Dugan had sold them anorexia in her
most persuasive tones.

Des sprang out of the shadows. "Damn it,
Gypsy. That was terrific. Why in the hell have you been playing
with us like that? I've cornered the fricking market on
Rolaids!"

The man in the suit who had been talking to
Casey before the taping stepped forward.

No one had to introduce her. There was a
sudden electric silence on the set, and now that he was closer
Gypsy knew that she was facing the great Tito Callahan himself. His
face was tan--and familiar from the news. His hair was gray and
closely cropped, his build that of a man who regularly worked out
at the gym--probably with a telephone in both hands.

She dimpled. She was not going to be easily
cowed again. Not ever again. "Tito. Like what you saw?"

"Not bad." Tito didn't smile--she suspected
he was too busy thinking about his next billion-dollar deal. There
was a slight Irish lilt to his voice, but this was no leprechaun,
no charming barroom tenor. This was a man bent on controlling the
world's communications, one medium at a time. "You've still got it.
Just be sure you keep it."

She tossed her head. "I wouldn't know how to
get rid of it if I tried."

He strode off, and technicians parted for
his exit like knights before their king. She turned to the spot
where Casey had been standing with Nan. Nan was gone. Casey stood
alone.

As she narrowed her eyes and glared at him,
he lifted his hands and began to applaud.

Everyone, down to the lowliest technician,
joined in.

If there was a blood red rose waiting on
Gypsy's desk when she arrived for work, then the day was clearly a
Tuesday. Tuesday's rose was always accompanied by a note that
graphically described some portion of her anatomy. The notes had
arrived every Tuesday for three years, and the show's technical
crew started a pool every Wednesday to see who could guess what
body part Gypsy's fan would describe next. So far the records
showed that her admirer was particularly fond of kneecaps and
elbows.

There were other eccentric viewers who wrote
long rambling letters of commentary, who asked to talk about their
grisliest delusions on camera or made obscene suggestions. There
were phone calls from the subjects of previous shows whose lives
had changed after their stories aired--not necessarily for the
better. And much too often there were calls from the Rev. George
Bordmann.

"Rev's on the phone again," Perry said on
Tuesday morning three weeks after Gypsy had resumed her job as
anchor. "Want to have a little talk with him?"

"About as much as I want to have a little
case of the bubonic plague." Gypsy was systematically tearing the
petals off the weekly rose and dropping them into her trash basket.
In the first year of their marriage, despite sitting squarely on
the poverty line, Owen had sent her a rose every week, too.

"Rev says you're going to hell."

Gypsy tried to summon the Bible training
Elisabeth had absorbed in Sunday school. "Judge not that ye be not
judged. Or something like that. Tell him I said so."

"He's breathing kind of heavy. Don't know if
I can make myself heard." Perry put the receiver back up to her
ear. "Nope." She set it back in the cradle.

"The world is full of crazy people. You know
that?" Gypsy stared at the last rose petal clinging to the leafless
stem. "Very, very crazy . . . ."

"Yep. And sometime, some way, in their kinky
little lives they get involved with this show."

Gypsy plucked the last petal. "Perry, what
if we did something that was more serious?"

"What? You don't think that piece Kevin did
about the love slaves of Martian men was serious?"

"I'm serious."

"You said we. You mean like you and me? Or
this whole nutso show?"

"I want to spend a day at a high school in
the Bronx. Shoot the day or maybe even a week, just the way one of
the students there sees it. You know? Show the drugs, the violence,
the overcrowding."

"You think this is PBS, honeysuckle?"

"I'm going to suggest it at today's story
conference."

"They're gonna wonder if you banged your
head again."

Gypsy suspected Perry was right. No one
expected her to be a pretty face and nothing more. By the same
token, no one seemed to think she wanted hands-on involvement with
a story either. She conducted occasional interviews and taped
lead-ins. Now that she was back at work full-time she wrote her own
copy and worked with the producers to put together a seamless,
visually attractive show. But she didn't suggest story ideas and
particularly not ones that the production staff might find socially
redeeming.

"There's this high school in the Bronx. I
visited there a couple of weeks ago. I think they'd let me do it."
Gypsy glanced at her watch. "Show some enthusiasm when I make the
suggestion, would you?"

"Me? I don't go to story conferences."

Gypsy stood. "You do now. Because if they
let me do this, you're going to be doing a big chunk of the
work."

The conference was in Des's office, a small,
fussily decorated space with one narrow window. By the time Gypsy
and Perry arrived all the seats had been taken and there was
minimal room on the floor. No one gave up a seat for Gypsy. She had
proved she was fully recovered--at least physically. She and Perry
leaned against bookcases, gossiping with the others and sipping
muddy coffee from battered foam cups while they waited for the
remaining reporters to arrive.

Gypsy had learned to look forward to these
meetings. Her colleagues were sharp and creative, and with the
exception of Nan, every one of them had a wicked sense of humor.
There was an irrepressible enthusiasm that accompanied even the
most outrageous suggestion. In this room the sacred cows of
journalism were only calves.

She let the meeting crank into full gear
before she made her pitch. There was a brief lull while notes were
made between ideas. Nan, wide-eyed and springtime fresh in mint
green, was batting her navy blue eyelashes at Kevin, whose mouth
was said to be close to Tito's ear. Gypsy knew her time had
come.

"I have an idea."

"Somebody ring a bell," a bored voice
proclaimed from the corner.

"Idea number one. Fire whoever said that,"
she shot back. "Idea number two. I visited a high school in the
Bronx a couple of weeks ago. It's a typical example of what goes on
in the inner city schools in this country. I think we should spend
a day there taping, maybe even longer. I thought we could follow a
student, maybe even plant someone there. Give the viewers a taste
of what urban education is really like."

The lull, which had been little more than an
indrawn breath, was now a roaring silence.

"You lost your mind?" Kevin asked at
last.

There was another silence as everyone
remembered that she had lost her mind, or at least a large chunk of
her memory.

She dimpled to show there were no hard
feelings. "Look, Kevin, I know how it sounds at first. I felt the
same way. But this story's got everything. Sex. Violence.
Sentiment. We'll get down with the kids and look at stuff from
their viewpoint. We won't pretty it up like some of the network
news magazines might. We'll let our footage speak for itself. No
self-righteous commentary. Just a quirked eyebrow or two."

"What's the point?" Des reached for a jar of
Rolaids on his desk.

"Education. Letting the viewers know what's
happening. Isn't that always our point?"

"Not if it's not entertaining. And I don't
think footage of kids learning Shakespeare and calculus is high
drama."

"Des is right," Nan said sanctimoniously.
"There's no heart. No pathos."

"There's as much heart and pathos as we're
willing to find. It'll just take the right person to find it. And
that person's me."

"You?" Kevin narrowed his eyes. "Since when
did pathos interest you, darlin'?"

"Yeah. This ain't like you, Gypsy baby," one
of the field producers said.

"There's more to me than you know," she
said--and certainly meant it. "Look, no one or hardly anyone's
learning Shakespeare and calculus in that school, Des. Sure, some
of these kids have normal lives, normal enough that they can pursue
their studies and think about college for the future. But there are
a whole lot more that are just worried about whether they're going
to survive another week and how they're going to do it."

"Fricking bleeding heart," Des said. He put
his head in his hands. "Jeez Marie, Gypsy's turned into a fricking
bleeding heart."

Her bleeding heart sank. She hadn't prepared
well enough. She hadn't presented her idea with the right kind of
enthusiasm or skill. Not only had she destroyed her chances of
doing the school segment and working with Grant, but she had
lowered her standing in the eyes of her colleagues.

Des straightened. "We'll do it. And the more
you bleed on camera, Gyps, the better it'll be. Just don't get
sappy. We've got Nan for that. But let 'em see that this really
matters to you. It'll give your work a whole new dimension. The
rest of you get out of here and go find some ideas this good. Only
let's dole 'em out. We don't want all our viewers rushing out at
the same moment to join the NEA or the ACLU or any other frigging
group with initials. We'll educate 'em a little at a time. Gypsy
pick your crew for this and get on it. Who's next?"

Grant returned Gypsy's phone call late in
the afternoon after the day's show had already gone out to the
affiliates. She told him about the story conference and invited him
out for a drink. An hour later they were sitting in a smoky bar
across from the studio with an AM radio station blaring commercials
in the background and straight back chairs that would have been
suitable for the Spanish Inquisition.

Grant looked tired but wonderful, her son of
the preppy shirts and the inherited taste in ties. He'd gotten a
haircut since she'd seen him last. She longed to tell him to get
another barber.

"So they went for the idea?" He was sipping
Foster's. He had spent his high school junior year in Australia as
an exchange student and a taste for Foster's was the main thing
he'd brought back from down under.

"With enthusiasm." She was working on a
Jameson's. Straight. Along with her body and diplomacy she had lost
her taste for Manhattans. "Now I'll have to get permission from
school authorities. I thought you might be able to tell me the best
way to go about doing that."

"The school administration's okay. They'll
be able to guide you through the bureaucracy." He gave her some
names and she wrote them down.

"I want your help, Grant. I was impressed
with your commitment. I think our viewers would be, too."

"Don't make me out to be a saint."

"You don't have to be up for canonization.
Just a good, committed guy."

"You know, the funny thing is that I took
this job as a rebellion against my parents."

She didn't know what to say. She couldn't
believe he had admitted that to her. Then she realized who she was.
Not his mother, but a woman just a few years older than he was.
"It's an odd kind of rebellion," she said cautiously. "Didn't they
want you to teach?"

"They never said so. But I think I was
always a disappointment. I was that square peg in a round hole.
Never brilliant at any one thing. My father's such a brilliant
architect that people from all over the world come to study with
him. They'll empty wastebaskets and sort mail, just to be in his
presence for a little while."

She refused to think about Elisabeth's
brilliant husband. "And your mother?"

He looked up, because her voice had caught.
His eyes gleamed compassion. Gypsy knew that he believed she was
wallowing in guilt about the accident. "My mother was . . . is a
brilliant hostess. She makes Martha Stewart look like Marge
Simpson. She's one of these people who does everything well."

"Including being your mother?"

"She was--is absolutely the best. And that's
probably why I had to rebel. I had to get away from my father's
brilliance and my mother's perfect love. I had to get away from
them and function in my own sphere. And the Bronx is a million
miles away from the Gold Coast."