Wimbledon, Kentucky

by H. Claire Taylor

  “Water,” panted Malcolm. “I need water.”

  “We don’t have time for water, we’ve got to hurry to the body shop where Frank—”

  “Water first,” Malcolm snapped in a way that would have surprised even himself, had he been in a sound enough frame of mind.

  “Jesus, man,” said Lee. “What did that old creep do to you?”

  Malcolm shook his head vaguely. “Nothing. He liked me.”

  Lee grunted knowingly. “That’s awful, Mal. We’ll stop and get you some water. Maybe a beer, too.”

  Malcolm, like everyone else at Channel 6, figured he was the only one who had noticed Lee’s drinking problem. And though Malcolm knew he was being an enabler, he thought stopping for a beer wasn’t such a bad idea.

  So, they stopped for a beer.

  By the time they had gotten back on the road from the bar, Malcolm was feeling slightly buzzed from his one beer, on top of the fact that he hadn’t eaten in quite a while and his adrenaline was already shot. Lee was just about drunk from the six beers he’d downed in the time it took Malcolm to finish one plus a glass of water.

  When Malcolm pointed out that operating a camera properly might now be difficult for Lee, Lee only replied that drinking made his camerawork more artistic.

  Malcolm had seen this unique form of art on one occasion and had needed to run to the bathroom to vomit from the motion sickness caused by the unsteady and swaying picture.

  But this was the biggest story in the world right now, and they couldn’t pass it up.

  “You know what would really be artistic?” Malcolm said to Lee. “If we used a tripod. Just set the camera up there and had a static shot of the interview.”

  Lee looked skeptically at his reporter. “Are you drunk or something?”

  * * *

  Melanie Johnston was just completing her first full sigh of the day now that the bell had rang and her students were off to torment the lunch staff for a while, when she heard the intercom blaring through the speaker that was mounted inexplicably close to her desk at the front of the classroom.

  “Melanie Johnston to the front office.”

  She wasn’t expecting anyone. She took her phone out of her pocket and looked to see if she’s missed any messages…besides Laurel’s.

  Nothing.

  Against her better judgment and Cooper’s warning earlier in the day about keeping to herself until things blew over in Wimbledon, her curiosity was piqued, and she made her way to the front office.

  As she opened the door, she began, “What can I do for—” before spotting a cameraman sitting beside one of the men on Cooper’s Do-Not-Talk-To List. The reporter’s eyebrows were even more prominent in real life.

  Eugene jumped up from his chair and took a few smooth steps toward her. She stayed in the doorway, not wanting to commit to any interaction, but also not quite able to tear herself away from the possibility of her fifteen minutes of fame.

  “Eugene Thornton, News 5 out of Lexington. I was wondering if you could spare a few moments—”

  What was she thinking? If she gave this interview, Cooper would know without a doubt later that day when he saw a clip on the evening news. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t. My hus—lawyer already advised me not to speak to anyone from the press regarding…well, regarding anything.”

  “Oh, so then you’ve heard,” Eugene replied, sidling closer.

  “Heard?”

  “Yes, about the Dinner Summit.”

  “The…Dinner Summit?”

  “Yes, that’s right. You are planning on attending, aren’t you?”

  Melanie was already flustered. “Well, I don’t—I’m not sure…”

  “I’m sure they could use such a scientific mind as yours. I mean, Laurel Sapphire isn’t exactly a scientist.”

  “Laurel Sapphire?” Melanie asked a little too loudly. “Is she going to the Dinner Summit?”

  “Of course. In fact, she’s not only going, she’s hosting.”

  Well, that explained the phone call, then. “Hosting! And what exactly is this Dinner Summit supposed to discuss?”

  “The global cooling crisis, of course.”

  “Laurel Sapphire hosting a global cooling summit? Preposterous. She was the one responsible for starting this whole crisis.”

  Eugene looked like he’d just been electrified…and had loved it. “Then certainly you’ll do your part by showing up and contributing your expertise to the discussion, right?”

  Melanie thought back to tenth grade, when she and Laurel had chemistry class together and Laurel spent ten minutes looking for milk on the periodic table before finally asking Melanie to give her a hint by telling her what the symbol was.

  Melanie’s sense of duty took over, and she completely forgot her husband’s forbiddance to discuss anything related to what he called “Wimbledon’s shit storm” as she stuck out her chest, cheated out toward the camera and said, “There’s not a thing in this world that would keep me from doing my very best to help solve this global crisis. Not a gosh darn thing!”

  Eugene couldn’t believe his luck as he quickly did the math in his head and decided that this was probably a two-hundred-and-thirty-thousand-dollar sound bite.

  After thanking her for her contribution, he quickly called cut.

  He suspected that his coverage of this situation might actually pay for him to retire early, like in the next couple of months.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS SOON AS THE NEWS 6 van pulled up to Frank’s Body Shop, before any of the crew could even get out of the clunker, Frank Leinenkugel’s white handlebar mustache, along with the rest of him, walked out of the garage, and began inspecting the dent in the van’s bumper that the News 12 van had inflicted when it skidded across the ice.

  “Your van looks like a heaping pile of shit,” Frank said to Malcolm, who was having a difficult time finding his footing as he exited the vehicle, thanks to his one beer, empty stomach, lack of adrenaline, and general clumsiness.

  “Well, sure,” Malcolm replied defensively, “it’s a little banged up, but I wouldn’t say it was a pile of shit.”

  “Heaping pile of shit,” Frank corrected, “and yes, it is.”

  “No it’s—”

  “It’s brown. Shit is brown. It’s bulky. A heaping pile is bulky. Should I keep naming similarities?”

  “Umm, you can if you want,” Malcolm said, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “I don’t imagine it is. I’m sure you can hear that sort of remark about your shit-van just about anywhere you go.”

  “Er…” Although Malcolm was relieved to be saved the trouble of an icebreaker, he wasn’t pleased with the way this interview was going. He could only hope the camera wasn’t rolling. Not because he was afraid it would be broadcast—it couldn’t with all the uses of “shit” in it—but because he was afraid Lee would make a point to show it to all the others back at the station.

  He looked behind him to see if Lee was shooting, and saw the camera aimed in his direction and the red light on.

  Damn.

  Frank erupted with booming laughter and patted Malcolm firmly on the shoulder. “I’m just fooling with you, boy. Lighten up.”

  Malcolm tried to laugh, too, though his face felt heavy and weighed down.

  “What can I really do for you?” asked Frank.

  “An interview would be nice.”

  “You don’t want a mug like this on TV,” said Frank, pointing to his chins, “and I’m pretty sure the FCC can’t handle a mustache like this. What do you really want?”

  Malcolm could only repeat himself. “An interview would be really, really nice.”

  “Oh yeah?” Frank said, acting like he might actually consider it. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Why should I?”

  Malcolm had to think hard about that, and he began to believe that he might not come up with an answer.

  But then his mental clumsiness paid off by stumbling upon a mildly acceptable response. “I’ll be honest with
you, Mr. Leinenkugel. There are a lot of reporters—clever, cunning reporters—on their way here, and they’re all going to want to interview you, and they’re going to ask tough questions, and some may try to make you look stupid, and some may try to make you look naïve, and others might just flat-out patronize you, but I won’t. I’m too slow and too lousy at my job to pull off anything malicious like that, and if nothing else, I’ll make you look really smart by comparison.”

  Frank let Malcolm finish completely before asking, “What’s your name, son?”

  “Malcolm Goldman, sir.”

  “Well, Malcolm, I tell you what, if you keep throwing your pride in front of the news van like that, you might just become the first honest reporter someday. So, sure, I’ll give you an interview. Follow me.”

  As Frank turned around and walked back toward his garage, Malcolm involuntarily jumped a couple inches into the air (he had no ups), squirming his body around a bit. That was the only way he ever celebrated, and it’d caused quite a bit of concern on the part of loved ones, who were never quite sure if he was having an epileptic fit or not.

  Malcolm looked back at Lee, hoping to find a congratulatory look, only to be disappointed.

  “Dude, are you all right?” Lee asked.

  “My mojo is back!”

  Lee had no idea what an awful sort of illness “mojo” might be, but after seeing how it’d just made Malcolm jump and squirm, Lee hoped he would never be as unfortunate as to catch it. Especially since it could apparently go in to and out of remission.

  Frank led Malcolm and Lee through the garage and into a tiny office. He sat himself behind a desk with not much on it other than a small nameplate that read, Frank Leinenkugel, PhD. Along the wall hung a handful of framed diplomas with writing too small for Malcolm to read from where he stood.

  “You’re a doctor?” Malcolm asked.

  “Of course,” Frank replied.

  “Of course?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Of course,” Malcolm echoed in a self-pitying sort of way. “So, when I called you Mister Leinenkugel a little while ago…”

  “Yes, I was very offended. I didn’t go to school for eight years to be called ‘Mister.’”

  “And when I assumed you couldn’t stand up to other reporters and that you needed a dumb one like me to make you seem smart…”

  “Yes, also very offensive.”

  Malcolm turned slightly toward Lee and mumbled, “Mojo’s gone,” out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Well, thank God for that!” Lee said. “I knew you’d pull through!”

  “Have a seat.” Frank motioned to the chair in front of his desk. “And don’t worry, even intelligent doctors like myself can appreciate a struggling artist like yourself.”

  Malcolm flopped into the chair.

  “I guess you want to start the interview now,” Frank said.

  Malcolm shook his head. “Not really. No, not at all, now that I think about it. But thanks just the same.”

  They sat there in awkward silence for nearly a minute, as Frank stared shamelessly at Malcolm who stared shamefully at the floor, head in hands. But the silence was broken by Malcolm, who remembered that Lee was still rolling. “Cut.”

  They sat there in silence for another thirty seconds before Frank took it upon himself to slice through the tension.

  “Out of curiosity,” he began, “why did you come here to interview me?”

  “Oh, that? Yeah, well, it was because you’ve been named as one of the people Laurel Sapphire is going to have to dinner tonight.”

  “Ah, that’s nice. I didn’t know that. Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

  “Yeah, it starts at five thirty. Casual dress, I believe.”

  “Any particular reason she’s going to have a dinner party that’s newsworthy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course?” asked Frank.

  “Of course,” replied Malcolm. “To discuss the climate change.”

  Frank nodded sullenly. “Oh yes, I heard something about that. But I thought that was only happening in China.”

  “No, sir. It’s happening everywhere. Even here.”

  “You don’t say?” Frank said.

  Malcolm couldn’t tell if Frank was just messing with him or not. Frank seemed like a nice enough guy, but he was also a lot smarter than Malcolm and seemed like the type to have a grand old time amusing himself by messing with whoever was around—not maliciously, so much as out of simple boredom.

  “I–I–I do say,” Malcolm said.

  “Well, I can’t feel the cold,” said Frank, “but then again, I got these glands.”

  “Is there…a problem with your glands?”

  “Yeah, I developed it back in grad school. Doctors don’t know what it could be. When it gets really cold, the glands start acting up, and I can’t feel the chill.”

  “Which glands?”

  “The glands, Malcolm. The only ones that act up like that.”

  “Oh, okay, that’s my mistake,” Malcolm said. He was no doctor himself, but he had always believed that glands were a lot more complicated than Frank was making them out to be.

  “Quite all right. Not everyone can have his PhD. If everyone was PhD material, there’d just be no point to a PhD.”

  “I suppose not,” Malcolm agreed. “Just out of curiosity, or I guess just to have on record, since I’m a reporter and all”—he didn’t mean to sound like he was reassuring himself, but he knew he did a crummy job of disguising his motive—“what field did you get your PhD in?”

  “Endocrinology.”

  Malcolm really didn’t get this guy’s sense of humor. “Oh, that’s—”

  “Philosophy.”

  “Oh, philosophy t—”

  “And aerospace engineering.”

  Malcolm’s jaw dropped and Frank began to laugh.

  “I’m just fooling with you. I didn’t get a PhD in all that stuff. Do I look that smart to you? Of course not. Just Endocrinology and Philosophy, that’s all I have a PhD in.”

  “Then why are you a…you know…a mechanic?” He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to whisper the last word, but it happened and he couldn’t undo it.

  “Because I enjoy it.”

  In his confusion, Malcolm realized that, for the past few minutes, he’d been hoping that Eugene Thornton would show up.

  He got his wish only a moment later, but, unfortunately for Malcolm and Eugene, this didn’t seem to be Frank’s wish.

  Frank spotted the News 5 van through the open office door and his face instantly changed. “Son of a bitch.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a silver handgun, then headed out of the office. Malcolm didn’t follow. All he heard outside was Frank’s booming voice and, thank god, no gunshot, then Frank returned to the office, calmly tucked his gun back in the drawer, and then stood just inside the office

  “That’ll show him to try to patronize me,” said the mechanic. “My glands are kicking again. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Goldman”—he motioned politely for them to head out the door—“I’m going to go take a nap, drink a beer, and take a dump, but not necessarily in that order.”

  As Malcolm and his cameraman exited and Frank shut the door behind them, Malcolm found himself wondering which order might work best, realized what he was imagining, then took off at a dead sprint for the van.

  Lee took his time in following, wondering if maybe a good beer, nap, and dump wasn’t exactly what Malcolm needed to cure his mojo.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LAUREL WAS BUSYING HERSELF IN the kitchen, fussing over which spices and garnishes to use, when she heard Bill burst into the house, yelling, “Go, Trevor, go, go, go!” The front door slammed shut and she knew what was coming next.

  “Laurel! What the hell is going on?” Bill stomped through the living room and into the kitchen with Trevor trailing behind.

  Laurel couldn’t help but take some pleasure in seeing Bill as perturbed by the media circus in t
he front yard as she’d been all day. They hadn’t left her alone. When she’d left for the supermarket, she was shamelessly trailed by the News 12 van, which looked like it’d seen better days. When she was at the checkout, she saw reporters broadcasting what she was putting on the conveyer belt, predicting what sort of menu all her ingredients might add up to and opining on whether or not the possible dishes were fit for a Dinner Summit.

  The News 24 and News 12 vans somehow beat her home, and reporters were waiting on her doorstep with, “Mrs. Sapphire, what exactly do you plan to prepare for tonight’s summit?”

  Laurel patiently said, “no comment” as many times as she could before she lost her cool and told the reporters to make themselves useful, drop their recording devices, and help her carry groceries inside.

  But their responses were all the same: their job was to be observers, not participants.

  “It’s not a story, it’s just me carrying in grocery bags!” Laurel had said.

  So, yes, she got some enjoyment out of seeing Bill get badgered by the reporters, and she didn’t think it was too awful of her to feel that way.

  Trevor, however, was a different matter. He seemed to be in quite a daze, so Laurel took a minute away from her preparations to give him some NyQuil and put him to bed early, hoping he could sleep through the night and be more prepared for tomorrow’s trials.

  When Laurel reentered the kitchen, she was met by a stern-faced Bill.

  “I said,” he began, “what the hell is going on, and I wasn’t kidding. Now tell me, what the hell—”

  “Oh, cram it, Bill,” Laurel said, cutting him off. “It’s not my fault we have these vultures out on our lawn, so don’t you try to take it out on me.”

  Bill appeared stunned for a second, but then he seemed to consider her argument and softened his tone. “Fine. Then let me just ask you one thing. What the heck is going on?”

  “That’s more like it,” Laurel said, tossing an empty mixing bowl into the sink. “What’s going on is that we’re having a dinner party, but no one wanted to come, just like you’d said. So, I had to find some people to do my dirty work. Long story short, you’d better shower because I’m expecting people in less than two hours.”