Talk to Me

by John Kenney

  Who are you again? Oh yes, my daughter.

  Tamara’s office, the twelfth floor. Ted, Simon, Tamara, a network lawyer named Camilla, and a PR guy named Maxwell. He’d written Ted’s apology.

  Tamara was staring out the window. Everyone was waiting for her to speak. Ted had presented the email he had received from Franny and Henke formally proposing the story.

  “Max?” Tamara said to the window.

  “I like it and I don’t like it. I like it for the obvious optics. I don’t like it because scheisse is a rag and Henke Tessmer makes Rupert Murdoch look like Bill Moyers. I like it because we need women and the girl—sorry, what’s your daughter’s name?”

  Ted stared at Maxwell, pure disgust.

  Simon said, “Franny. Frances. She goes by Frances.”

  “Anyway. She’s an unknown quantity. I don’t like it for that reason. I worry about inflaming the story. I also worry that the story is getting away from us. The best PR is to do nothing most days, let the speed of news and new scandals bury us deep under them. But nothing’s doing that yet. So, I say, with regret and fear, that we should let her write it. With one condition that I can’t see them ever agreeing to.”

  “Which is?” Tamara asked.

  “We have to see it first.”

  “They’ll never agree to that,” Simon said. “What news organization would?”

  Here Tamara turned from the window and stared at Simon.

  “Of course they will,” Tamara said. “Because they’re not journalists. They’re entertainers. They want the booking. They want the show. Max. Call Graydon Carter. Tell him we can offer him an exclusive on Ted, with his daughter and his wife, the women in his life. Then call Frances Grayson and Henke Tessmer and tell them we’ll give them their story if we see it first. If not, Vanity Fair is in an Uber on their way to Ted’s house and Annie Leibovitz is riding shotgun.”

  Tamara looked at Camilla.

  “I’ll have a contract for them end of day,” Camilla responded.

  “Thank you, everyone.” Tamara stood and Camilla and Max walked out of the office.

  “Ted.” It was Tamara.

  Ted stopped. So did Simon.

  “Bryce is taking the chair tonight. Take the evening off.”

  The two men were confused, little boys told it was bedtime when the sun was still out.

  “What?” Ted said.

  “Bryce is taking the chair tonight. Friday night. Low ratings night. Don’t worry.”

  The words “Don’t worry” did not have the intended effect on Ted.

  “Wait a minute,” Simon said, clearly annoyed. “Whose idea is this?”

  “Mine.”

  “Well, I don’t like it. She’s, like . . . eleven years old.”

  “She’s twenty-six years old, thank you very much, with a law degree from Yale.”

  Bryce Ringling had come from a Chicago affiliate six months ago. Tamara had taken a shine to her.

  “I think part of getting past this moment is the consistency of seeing Ted in the chair. So I say, as head of the news division, that Ted’s in the chair tonight.”

  “And I say differently,” Tamara said evenly.

  “Yeah, well, news is my call.”

  “No, Simon,” Tamara said, raising her voice. “The moment your man called an immigrant a Russian whore he made it my call.”

  Tamara loathed raising her voice. She preferred intimidation by silence, by being smarter than everyone else. She turned and walked to the window, ujjayi breath. A long breath where the inhale and exhale are equal in length. In through the nose, out through the nose, the back of the throat. It was called ocean breath in yoga class, because of the sound, but Tamara had looked the word up. It meant victorious.

  “You have the flu, Ted,” Tamara said. “That’s what we’re going to say. Let’s hope you get better.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Last Christmas Eve. That’s the last time Ted had seen Franny. Claire had an open house every year, starting late in the afternoon. Drinks, food Claire had prepared for days. Old friends and their grown children. Over the years the numbers dwindled. Friends getting older, moving to warmer climes, their children marrying, starting traditions of their own.

  Franny had left early Christmas morning with her then boyfriend, to visit the boyfriend’s family in Boston. Tom someone. A no one who’d followed Greg. It hadn’t lasted long.

  Before that? The wedding of a family friend the previous June.

  Before that? The previous Christmas.

  Ted heard about her life from Claire.

  * * *

  • • •

  Franny had called Claire two nights earlier.

  “Hi,” Franny had said.

  And in one word Claire knew something was wrong.

  “Hi,” Claire had said, trying to counter Franny’s tone and mood with lightness, motherly cheerfulness. “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  Silence.

  Claire was pouring pine nuts into the Cuisinart. She was making pesto.

  “Oh hey. You know who I saw recently?” Claire asked, not waiting for an answer. “Claudia Paine.”

  Franny hadn’t thought of that name in years. A junior high school friend. Sleepovers. Summer camp three years in a row, a place in New Hampshire on a deep lake. The name made Franny smile.

  “Really,” Franny said. “How is she? Where is she?”

  “She’s good. Lives in Los Angeles. Makes documentaries. She’s married. Has two little girls.”

  She has my life, Franny thought. The life I want. I’m almost twenty-eight years old and I am nowhere. These thoughts pulled Franny down into her dark place. It was 8:30 on a Tuesday night and she was drinking a glass of white wine and pacing her apartment and realized she hadn’t eaten any dinner.

  “She said to say hello. Gave me her email address to give to you.”

  “Oh. That would be great.” Which was, of course, a lie. It wouldn’t be remotely great. She wouldn’t email.

  Claire started to say I’ll send it to you, but Franny cut her off.

  “They want me to write a story about Dad.”

  Claire paused, looked at a block of Parmesan cheese on the counter.

  Please tell me you’re calling to say you’re not going to do that, Claire thought.

  “Oh,” Claire said instead. “Is that a good idea?”

  “Probably not. But I’m doing it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The place was Franny’s choice. Breakfast at Noho Star. It was Franny’s go-to spot. Ted had wanted to do it at his apartment. The network didn’t want him out, but they discussed it and being seen with his daughter, they felt, was a plus.

  Ted arrived early and was seated with his back to the room. He’d brought a newspaper but found he couldn’t concentrate. He was nervous to meet his own daughter.

  He scanned the paper—stories the broadcast would reference that evening. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. NFL concussions. Ted read the first paragraph of many of the stories and then moved on, drifted, got bored. All of it—the news stories, the editorials and op-eds, the movie reviews, the local news horror and accidents and subway shutdowns—felt like something he’d read before, heard before, seen before. Nothing felt new.

  Ted put the paper down when he saw his own photo and a small story that he chose not to read. He drank more coffee, even though he didn’t want any.

  * * *

  • • •

  Franny stood on the corner of Bleecker and Crosby smoking a Marlboro Light. She hadn’t smoked since before New Year’s Eve and was mad at herself for stopping and bumming one off a construction worker who wanted to give her two and kept smiling at her.

  She just needed a moment. More and more she found that she just needed
space, mental space, a little time to think and be quiet. She couldn’t seem to find it, though. The phone buzzed and pinged and never seemed to stop. She couldn’t turn it off. The smoke felt filthy and delicious and soothing. Her palms were sweaty even though it was chilly out, a wind tunnel on this corner.

  In the window of the Bleecker Street Bar, a lone man sat drinking a glass of beer. He was wearing a fuzzy red suit. On the bar next to him was a large Elmo head. It was a little after 9:00 a.m.

  She dropped the cigarette, stubbed it out, and took a deep breath.

  “For fuck’s sake, Franny,” she said in a whisper.

  She reached for her phone and walked around the corner to the restaurant.

  * * *

  • • •

  Franny was fifteen minutes late, her cell phone on her ear as she walked in. She looked at Ted like she might look at opposing counsel at a deposition.

  “What does it matter?” she said into the phone. She looked like Claire. “It’s Gisele. Run it. Use the line.”

  She sat, put her phone down, and looked at Ted.

  “Hi,” Ted said.

  “Hello.”

  Franny took off her coat.

  “Work call?”

  She nodded. “We have a video of Gisele Bündchen kissing another guy.”

  “Isn’t she married to Tom Brady?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So she’s cheating on him?”

  “We’re not sure. The guy she’s kissing . . . we can’t tell if it’s on the lips or on the cheek. Also, it might be her personal trainer. Or her brother-in-law. Or a cancer survivor from a benefit she did. But we think it’s a model.”

  “Huh. So, wait. Was she cheating?”

  “She might have been. But it doesn’t matter. It’ll be viewed fifty thousand times by lunch. Tweeted and retweeted twice that. And we’ll have attached five different ads to it that make you watch them before you watch Giselle suck face with a guy who’s not Tom Brady. It’ll be picked up by every tabloid and blogger in the Western Hemisphere, every fashion blog, sports site, every twenty-four-hour news show. We paid ten grand for the footage and will make twenty times that. That’s the news business today.”

  It was the way she said it. The little girl trying to sound confident.

  Ted did his slow Ted nod, leaning forward, elbow propped on the table, index finger across his upper lip, eyes squinted. The look millions of Americans knew and trusted. It was a thing Franny had always hated. She felt condescended to.

  The waitress appeared.

  “Can I start you out with coffee?”

  Franny checked her phone.

  “No-foam, nonfat latte,” Franny said to her phone. Then a quick fake smile to the waitress and back to the screen.

  We spoiled her, Ted thought. We spoiled her and loved her too much. Or not enough. We did this. We made this. But then Ted was part of a generation where it was impolite to look at a cell phone while you were talking with someone. For Franny’s generation, it wasn’t. And it didn’t seem to bother the waitress one bit.

  The waitress said, “Do you need more time or are you ready to order?”

  “I am,” Ted said. “But do you need more time, Fran?”

  Franny looked up at her father. A couple of beats. Fran. Don’t call me Fran. You’ve lost the right to call me that. But she said nothing.

  Then to the waitress. “Egg-white omelet with mushrooms and asparagus. Thank you.” Back to the phone.

  Ted said, “Scrambled eggs and bacon for me, please. White toast, dry. Thanks.”

  The waitress collected the menus and left. Franny put her phone down and sighed.

  Who is this person? Ted wondered. This stranger.

  The morning she was born. Claire’s water had broken at midnight the night before and she had a fairly easy labor. When the doctor pulled the baby’s head from Claire, she gently turned Franny and Ted saw his daughter’s profile for the first time, a perfect little Botticelli cherub face, fully formed. My God, Ted thought now, wanting to reach over and touch her. Ted hadn’t realized that he had a mildly idiotic smile on his face at the memory.

  Franny mistook Ted’s smile for sarcasm and drew on a deep well of hatred for her father. Her phone buzzed and she picked it up with an urgency that suggested she was awaiting test results. For just a moment Ted was tempted to take it from her, as if she were a teenager. As she listened to the person on the other end of the phone, she held up an index finger to her father. She got up and walked out of the restaurant. Ted watched her out the large plate-glass window.

  * * *

  • • •

  The food had arrived but Ted hadn’t touched it. He wanted to wait for Franny, who was still on the phone outside. He also found he wasn’t hungry.

  When she came back she looked at her food, then his. “Why didn’t you eat?”

  “I . . .” And here Ted reverted to his old self, the one afraid of a Franny explosion. He was about to say I wanted to wait for you, but he knew that would make her feel guilty and her guilt would manifest itself as anger at Ted when, really, she was angry at herself.

  She sighed, annoyed. He could see the inner workings.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

  She was chilled and put her coat on. She picked up her coffee mug and held it with both hands.

  Franny’s phone buzzed, a text. Ted’s buzzed at almost the same time. They both looked and saw links to scheisse with a photo of the two of them taken not twenty minutes ago through a window, sitting together.

  “Wait. What is this?” Ted asked, confused.

  “Fucking dickhead.”

  “What?”

  Franny was shaking her head.

  “It’s my boss.”

  Ted stared at Franny and Franny saw that he was actually hurt.

  “I didn’t know they were sending a photographer,” she said, hating the sound of her voice here because she thought she sounded thirteen.

  Ted nodded, his slow nod, his I’m disappointed in you and will withhold my affection and love for you. At least that’s how Franny read it.

  “I have to get back,” she said.

  There is an unpleasant secret of family life. It’s not found in movies because it doesn’t hew to a narrative we care for. We are told, instead, that there is always time, always another chance, if only we try. That we can mend relationships. That is a lie. Because with enough pain, with enough time, we close the door on those people and we do not let them back in. We move on. Ted could see it on Franny’s face. He was a stranger to her. He had caused her too much pain. Knew so little about what she felt and wanted and needed and hoped for.

  The image came so fast and so clearly that Ted was forced to sit back in his chair. The image was this. Franny, in Ted’s hospice room, watching him die. He sees the scene as if apart from it. He knows she will feel pain and regret and the thought of his death causing her pain forces him to wince. The film continues in his head. The scene switches to Franny, older, children of her own, children who would never know their grandfather, who would hear little of him. Franny going on with her life. He would be forgotten, as if he hadn’t lived. The waitress asked if he wanted more coffee. He managed a nod.

  “Your mother told you? We’re getting a divorce.”

  “I know.”

  “She met someone.”

  Franny said nothing.

  “Have you met him?” Ted asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I hear he has his own plane. Not that that matters.”

  Franny looked at her phone. She seemed unable to not look at it for more than a few seconds.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but that’s between the two of you.”

  “Me and Dodge or me and your mother?”

  Franny ignored him.

&
nbsp; “So you’ll do an interview?” Franny asked.

  “Whose idea was it?” Ted asked.

  Franny looked up, a lock of hair falling over her face. Ted wanted to push it back behind her ear.

  “Why does it matter?” Franny asked.

  “I’m just curious.”

  “My boss.”

  And something about the answer relieved Ted.

  “And what did you say when he asked?”

  “How do you know it’s a he?” she demanded.

  “Fine. What did you say when your transgender boss asked?”

  “It’s comments like that that got you into this mess.”

  There was something about her expression, her voice, a meanness, and it’s out before Ted can stop it because he’s under attack, has been under attack and he is so tired of being hit again and again and here his own daughter . . .

  “Don’t lecture me,” Ted said in a hard voice.

  It came out too loud. People a few tables away turned and looked.

  They had played this match before, many times. And, of course, Franny couldn’t help but react.

  “Whatever.” Her face contorted.

  How did he inevitably do this to her, make her feel this way?

  “Anyway,” Ted said, trying to move past it, like it never happened, a thing Franny hated. “I was just curious.”

  “I said I . . .” And here her New York confidence deserted her for a moment. “I said you’d never do it.”

  On Franny’s plate, next to her untouched omelet, sat a wedge of orange. Ted watched her pick it up and pull the rind off. And then he watched as she began pulling off the tiny white pieces of pith, almost obsessively. Ted ate an orange the same way. That’s how they peeled an orange when she was little. It drove Claire nuts. “I want Daddy to peel it,” Franny would say.