“Kai,” his voice shouts up the stairs just as I was thinking about him.
“Yes Poppa?” I say, my heart picking up speed. Maybe he wants to talk.
“You’ve got friends at the door.”
“Friends?” I say.
What the hell does that mean? I try to take a peek out my bedroom window, but the angle isn’t quite right. So, I leave my bedroom, with my brow wrinkling, and walk down the stairs until they come into sight.
“Oh… hey, guys,” I say.
Wendy smiles back at me while the new Irish girl waves awkwardly. Then Poppa huffs loudly through his nostrils as I squeeze past him.
“We just thought we’d come by to see if you wanted to go for a walk?” Wendy says.
“A walk?” I say. “With you two?”
“Uh-huh,” Wendy says, nodding.
I spin on my heels and race myself back up the stairs where I snatch at my coat before sprinting back down.
“Momma, Poppa, I’m going out,” I shout.
Then I slam the door closed behind me and breathe in fresh Lebanon air for the first time in a very long time.
LUCY DECKER
I point my hand to the armchair across from the sofa and as I do a wave of panic washes through me, because I realize that from where he is about to sit he’ll be able to see the mound of wet tissues I have been tossing on the carpet all night.
He clears his throat as I try to back-kick the tissues under the sofa while I sit into it, but I already know it’s too late. There’s no way he can’t see them.
“I told Mia not to bother you with my troubles… she shouldn’t have said anything―”
“I wanted to drop by to thank you for the birthday card,” he says, interrupting me.
Okay. This is definitely weird. Zachary has barely thanked me for birthday cards before, let alone dropped by my place to do so. In fact he has never dropped by here on his own. I recall he briefly helped when I first moved into this place, by carting some of the heavy boxes from the car to my kitchen countertops, but aside from that, I don’t recall Zachary ever being in my home.
“It’s the least I can do,” I say. “I just wish I had more imagination than just throwing two fifty-dollar bills inside your card.”
He clears his throat again. Awkwardly.
“You uh... gotta glass of water?”
“Sure,” I say. I get up from the sofa, back-kicking more tissues before I walk over to my tiny kitchen where I begin to pour him a small glass of lukewarm water from the tap. It’s the best I can offer. In fact, it’s all I can offer. I’m not sure when I’ve last been to the store.
“It’s just… when I opened your card it got me thinking about you,” he says, following me over to the kitchen where he drums his fingers noisily against the countertop. “And then I asked Mia why you haven’t been yourself lately.”
“I haven’t been myself lately?” I say, turning to him, my brow furrowing.
He nods his head back to the sofa, to indicate the wet tissue mound I tried, but clearly failed, to hide.
“Mia opened up, told me all about your struggles to get pregnant. I had no idea.”
I grin at him while shaking my head, hoping he gets the message that this is not a conversation I wish to have with my brother-in-law.
“Well… just one of those things, isn’t it?” I say, gripping the glass of lukewarm water I just filled for him.
“I’ve booked you in for your IVF treatment,” he says.
“What?”
“Here’s a number for a clinic in Smith Center. They said you have to call them as soon as you can to make an appointment. As soon as your… uh... eggs are… uh...”
“What?” My brow furrows even further, and I’m pretty certain I’m about to cry, right here in the middle of my kitchen, standing in front of a brother-in-law I’ve never really felt comfortable in the company of.
He shuffles closer to me, and takes the lukewarm glass of water from my grip.
“Lucy, you have given me a hundred bucks inside a card for every single one of my birthdays since I started dating Mia… wanna know what I’ve given you for your birthday all these years?”
“Well, Mia always buys me a lovely gift from you all―”
“Exactly,” he says, before taking a sip from his glass, making a face, and then placing it back down on the countertop. “Mia gets you a gift from each of us. Yet you always buy each of us a gift for our birthdays. That’s one gift, once a year from us. You give me and Mia and the two kids a gift for each of our birthdays. That’s not fair.”
“Well, it is… there’s only one of me,” I say, my head shaking, my mind whirring.
“We want more than one of you. I want a niece or a nephew… or … whatever it is you want, that’s what I want. It’s what we all want. Take your IVF appointment as a gift for all of the birthdays I have missed in the past, and all of the birthdays I will miss in the future.”
“What?”
“I’ve paid for your IVF session from my savings.”
“What?”
He smiles at me, then reaches into his back pocket.
“All you gotta do is call this number, make an appointment for when your eggs are next… whatever the science is. All you gotta do is call this number.”
I take one large step closer, so I can wrap my arms around him and I squeeze as tight as I can.
“I can’t take your money, Zachary,” I whisper.
“Yes you can. I’m giving you a lifetime of birthday presents from me, all at once.”
I swipe my sleeve across my face as I rest my chin on top of his shoulder.
“But you were saving for your Vespa,” I say.
“I don’t want a fuckin Vespa,’ he whispers. “I’d rather have a niece or a nephew.”
BRODY EDWARDS
It’s boring as hell around here. Mom kicked us out of my bedroom ’cause we were playing video games for too long. So, me and Stevie have just been walking round Lebanon not knowing what to do but talk about who we will probably jerk off thinking about when we go to bed tonight.
“So did Decker have, like, a big bush?” he asks, before coughing into his elbow.
“Yeah,” I say, ‘it was like a newborn baby’s head of hair, all sweaty and hairy and ugggh.”
He makes a face. And so do I.
“I wonder if all older women have big hairy bushes like that. You think SJZ has a big hairy bush?”
We both turn to each other, then shake our heads at the same time.
“Nah!”
“We’re not far from the monument. You wanna take a walk around it?” he says.
I shrug, and then, without really answering him, we take the left down the narrow dirt road that leads to the central monument. It’s unusual we walk this way, but it’s also unusual that we’re not either at football practice or playing games on one of our Nintendos.
We hear the voices before we see them. Wendy is so loud when she talks.
“Oh hey, you two,” the Irish chick shouts over, waving at us.
“Don’t say anything about me finger fucking her,” Stevie whispers as we walk toward them.
“I won’t… and you don’t tell them about me and Decker doing it on her desk,” I say.
“Holy shit, Kai!” Stevie says as Kai pokes his head out from behind the monument. We both sprint toward him.
“What the heck, man, I heard you tried to kill yourself,” I say. And as I do, Stevie elbows me in the ribs. “Oh... uh… sorry. Sorry. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. Ain’t never known anybody who tried to kill themselves before.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Kai says. “You’ve never said anything to me in all the years we’ve been in school together. Why start now?”
I scratch my head while I look at the Irish chick. Then I stare at Wendy. Everybody’s quiet. Even her. Which is not normal.
“Sorry,” I say, eventually ending the silence.
“You don’t need to say sorry,�
� Kai says.
“No… I mean, I’m sorry that you felt sad enough to want to kill yourself. That’s…. that’s… well, I’m sorry that’s how bad you felt. I can’t imagine what that must be like.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, too, bro,” Stevie says.
Then Stevie holds out a clenched fist and Kai stares at it before clenching his own and bumping it off Stevie’s. So I do the same.
“So what you two doin’ round here?” The Irish chick says really, really quickly in her really, really cool accent.
“Chillin’,” I shrug. “What are you guys doing?”
“Just talkin’,” Wendy says.
“Cool.”
“Wanna join us?” the Irish chick says.
“What... and, like, just talk?”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding.
Me and Stevie stare at each other. Then he coughs into his elbow again.
“Yeah... okay… cool,” I say.
Without saying anything, everybody decides to just sit where we had been standing; in a circle on the freshly cut grass right next to the monument.
“So ah… what should we talk about?” Stevie says, picking a blade of grass from the dirt before stretching it until it snaps.
“Oh, I know what we could talk about,” I say, “Who you guys think Sarah-Jane Zdanski is interviewing on Thursday?”
Seven
Sarah-Jane strode to wardrobe with her ponytail swaying behind her and a gray overcoat and red cheerleader’s uniform draped over her arm.
She had refused to meet with the guest who had called by hair and makeup; not because she didn’t personally respect Patrick Klay, but because she had long decided that meeting guests prior to interviewing them would have a negative impact on the interview itself. Not liaising with your subjects prior to interview was taught as a moral journalistic approach in most media colleges, though it was by now considered old-school, what with a number of television hosts now pre-interviewing their guests, so they can decide what questions will specifically be asked, and what answers should be expected in return. Sarah-Jane, though, had long decided that she would take the old-school approach to interviewing, even when she was a desperate-for-stories reporter back in her earliest days at PBS.
“Tell him I’m sorry,” Sarah-Jane had said from the large chair in front of the brightly lit mirror, “but I’m only speaking to guests once the cameras are rolling.”
“Less than one hour until you go live,” Phil whispered as they continued to walk toward wardrobe, stalling every now and then to point down the maze of dark hallways, wondering if that’s the route they should be taking.
“Jeez. We that close to going live already? I’m not even dressed yet,” Sarah-Jane said, as she continued to stride in front of Phil, leading him nowhere, her ponytail bouncing from side to side. “’Scuse me!” she then said, stopping a young woman in the hallway. “Where’s wardrobe? We’re a little lost.”
“Your next left, then take two rights,” the young woman instructed.
Even though they had been offered precise directions, Sarah-Jane and Phil still took another wrong turn before eventually finding themselves outside a door they had last knocked on just over two hours ago. It struck Sarah-Jane, as she rapped her knuckles against the door, that they had been a helluva long two hours.
“Hey,” Isla said, thumbing the straps of her overalls after she had answered the door. “I’ve got your dress all set out for you. Your makeup looks awesome.”
Sarah-Jane stiffened her lips at Isla, because she had since let it sink into her mind that, like Barbara — Walter’s secretary — Isla, too was an enabler in the big boss’s elite-level misogyny. Or rape, Sarah-Jane thought it to be—having sex with somebody who doesn’t want to have sex with you.
“Here,” Sarah-Jane said, holding the gray overcoat and red cheerleader’s uniform toward Isla, “I don’t want you to ask me to wear any of these items again.”
Isla let the clothes fall into her hands as her eyes widened behind her blue-framed glasses.
“It’s just… I follow orders and—”
“Well follow this order,” Sarah-Jane said. “Next time Walter or Barbara instruct you to dress me in some slutty uniform, you tell them I said they can go and shi’e.”
Isla squinted.
“Shy?”
“Shite!” Sarah-Jane said, producing her best Scottish accent and kicking the sound of the T off her palate as forcefully as she could.
Isla glanced over Sarah-Jane’s shoulder to see Phil eyeballing her intimidatingly while scratching at his patchy beard. Then she opened the door wider and invited them inside.
“Well,” Isla said, walking over to the rack on the far side of the room and draping the uniform and overcoat across the top of it. “Maybe you should just tell him that yourself.”
“Isla,” Sarah-Jane said, placing her hands to her hips. “Don’t do his dirty work for him. You’re better than that. You’ve got to be better than that.”
Isla didn’t turn around to face Sarah-Jane, deciding, instead, to slide garments across the rack, even though she wasn’t looking for anything in particular.
Sarah-Jane had been playing the events of the past two hours around in her head since she’d left hair and makeup with her blonde locks swept back into a tight ponytail.
Although there was undeniably a sense of strength within her voice, Sarah-Jane was still carrying a weight of worry in her stomach; worry about the ramifications of her refusing to take part in her boss’s games. She had assumed that if she turned down Walter Fellowes’s advances, then he would surely just cancel her show. But, buoyed by the knowledge that thirty million Americans were due to tune into her debut tonight, she felt she likely held the upper hand. Afterall, Walter Fellowes firing his new anchor after she had just broken all CSN viewing records would surely make news on other networks. Reporters would inevitably want to interview Sarah-Jane, to ask why she had lost her job at CSN after such a groundbreaking launch. And if that were the case, then surely she would have to be frank and honest. I lost my job because I refused to have sex with my boss.
Howie burst through the door, making Isla finally spin back around from hiding her face in the garments hanging from the rack.
“What took you so long in hair and makeup, Sarah-Jane,” Howie snapped. “There’s only fifty minutes until you’re live. Let’s get you into that black dress. Hey,” he said, pointing his finger. “Why is your hair in a ponytail? I told Mollie we needed a throwback, blowback, like you had in the teaser commercials.”
Sarah-Jane pressed her hands to her hips.
“And I told Mollie that I wanted my hair in a loose ponytail.”
Howie dipped his chin into his neck, a stunned frown forming across his forehead.
“It’s important the viewers see the woman they were tuning in to see,” he said, as calmly as he could, in an effort to reduce the tension that had just begun to enflame.
“They’re not tuning into see my fucking hair, Howie,” Sarah-Jane said through gritted teeth. “They are tuning in for the story.”
“No. No. No.” He shook his head while wiggling a finger. “I have been in national television production for twenty-five years. I’ve been an executive producer for over a decade. I know what works, and what doesn’t work when it comes to live broadcasting.”
“Excuse me,” Phil said, tapping a chubby finger to Howie’s shoulder. “It’s her hair.”
Howie stood still for a long moment, flaring his nostrils at Sarah-Jane while everybody else in wardrobe stared at him, wondering how he was going to react to Phil’s tapping of his shoulder, and his authority being questioned.
“Fine,” he decided to eventually say, “anyway, we don’t have time to get you back to hair and makeup. You need to get moving. I’ve left a copy of the manifesto, as I said I would, on your desk. Mikey will have a copy of it with him in the control room as he is directing you. I know you don’t get to the issue of the manifesto until after the third com
mercial break, but promise me you’ll take Mikey’s directions when it comes around. Don’t cast any aspersions… Mikey will take you through it.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Sarah-Jane said.
And then wardrobe fell silent again while everybody stared at Howie, wondering, once again, how he was going to react to his authority being questioned. He reacted by, at first, twisting his neck to take in Phil as he glared at him from over his shoulder, then spinning back to nod once at Sarah-Jane.
“Well, I’m gonna wait outside for you to get dressed, then I’ll walk you to set.” Howie spun, then walked around the bulky frame of Phil without acknowledging him, before exiting out the door he had just come in from, leaving the three folks left in wardrobe to awkwardly glance around at each other.
When Sarah-Jane’s eyes met Phil’s she shrugged her shoulders, then began peeling of her clothes. Isla — who was somewhat frozen stiff by the tension that had quickly erupted — snatched the black dress hanging from the back wall and walked it toward the new host. The little black dress was cut square across the top from the height of the collar bones, but it did only travel downward as far as the mid-thighs, and therein passing Walter’s test of female anchors teasing either their tits or their legs anytime they appeared in front of his cameras.
After she had stepped into the dress, and placed her arms through the short sleeves, she turned her back to Phil and held her ponytail to one side so he could pull her back zipper all the way to the top. Then she flattened down the front of the dress, stepped into her high-heeled shoes and let out an audible sigh; relieving wardrobe of the tension that seemed to rise up as soon as her and Phil knocked on that door.
“You look amazing,” Isla said, pressing her lips together at Sarah-Jane’s reflection. “Camera’s gonna love this look.”
Sarah-Jane gazed at her own reflection, then nodded her agreement.
“Isla,” she said, flicking her eyes to the grungy wardrobe manager’s reflection, “somebody has to put a stop to the male dominance around here. Walter plays you. He uses you to get his female employees ready for him to sleep with them. If you stop, it’ll all stop.”
In The Middle of Middle America Page 21
