‘Right,’ Ada said. ‘Which considering all her other merchandise, she’s practically taken over Martco. I bought a spatula with her name on it.’ Ada stared out at the highway. ‘So how does a reality show about antiques fit into knock-off made-in-China merchandise that pretends to be high quality?’
‘It’s a fantasy,’ Lil said, ‘a life people think they want: affluence, lovely things, grace.’
‘What we have,’ Ada commented.
‘Yes, but we have something more.’
‘Which is?’
‘Contentment.’
‘There is that,’ Ada said, and she thought back through the morning. Her funk over the Medicare application, the joy of being with Lil … and now this. There was a tingly excitement in her gut. ‘This feels like the start of something.’
‘This meeting?’
‘I don’t know why, but there was something interesting about that Barry guy.’
‘How so?’
‘Hard to find the words, and it was just a phone call, but … he seemed desperate, hungry … searching.’
‘Interesting assortment. And you’re doing your weird clairvoyant thing, which if you weren’t always right … You got that from the phone call?’
‘Yeah, and it gets weirder,’ Ada added, letting her thoughts drift. ‘I think in some way he needs us.’
‘You,’ Lil said. ‘I don’t need a crystal ball for that. It’s you.’
‘Maybe … What I don’t understand is why.’
FOUR
Lenore Parks focused on the steady in-and-out of her breath as her nubile trainer, Jodi, corrected her kneeling pigeon pose. A bead of sweat trickled from her brow to the tip of her nose and dripped to the floor.
‘Now take your left hand,’ Jodi instructed, her voice soothingly accompanied by Japanese flute and harp music, ‘and grip your left ankle. Sink your pelvis into the floor as you pull your leg into your buttocks. Feel the stretch in your quad, and hold for five breaths.’
Lenore’s thoughts were anything but calm. She’d focus on the breath and then her mind was off running statistics and facts, such as that at the height of Lenore Parks Productions she’d had fifty-five full-time producers and now she had twenty-nine. Or the fact that her long-running talk and style show, Lenore Says, was on the network chopping block. Or that Martco was in conversation with that silly gay man from the Style Network. They’d assured her his brand wouldn’t replace hers … but that was a lie, or at the very least a strategy to leverage her into a smaller cut. Fine, she thought, they’ll pay for that.
‘And one last breath on this side,’ Jodi instructed, ‘and push up into downward dog.’
Lenore felt the tug in her shoulders as she raised her ass skyward. It was all about staying hot and current. Truth was, Lenore Says had a great run, but the midday audience had shrunk. After all, who stays home in the middle of the day watching TV? The answer − and she’d done the research − was obvious: the retired, the unemployed and the unemployable. She snorted; these were her peeps, the legions of Lenore.
‘Swing your right heel back, as high as you can go, and hold for three fluid breaths. In for five and out for five.’
She felt the blood rush to her head. She’d find her way through this slump. She knew what was needed − something new, something fresh. Creativity was a commodity; admittedly it was also a luxury item, something of which she was a connoisseur. She refused to listen to the bean counters, like her Chief Financial Officer, Patty Corcoran, with her constant worry over the day-to-day cost of keeping Lenore Parks Productions (LPP) afloat. What Patty, and even Lenore’s son Richard, couldn’t understand was that most basic truism of business − you have to spend money to make money.
‘Now swing that leg through and let’s repeat on the other side.’
She felt the pull in her hip as she pushed her torso straight. She felt a surge of pride: not bad for a fifty-two-year-old. She wouldn’t worry about this temporary downturn in her empire. Another truth was that pruning was essential for new growth. It was time for some head rolling. She thought through her current roster of producers, those who still had it and those whose lights had dimmed or burned out entirely. Like Stromstein; his desperation was a kind of poison. He’d started so full of promise, with that successful Model Behavior that had brought him to her attention. But that was three years ago and since he’d come on board at LPP, he and his team had done a few mediocre episodes of Lenore Says and come up with two half-baked shows that barely made it through their pilots, each derivative of something else. He’d come to the end of his shelf life. It was familiar, and if Lenore were a sentimental person, she’d find it sad. But the Barrys of this world were like an expensive dish, a perfect Lobster Thermidor or exquisite Pinot Noir. You enjoyed them, savored the last morsel or drop. But when they were done it was time to toss the bottle and throw the carcass on to the compost.
‘Let’s finish the moving asanas,’ Jodi instructed, ‘with twelve sun salutations, one breath per movement, hands in prayer, and …’
Fifteen minutes later, Lenore thanked Jodi and chuckled as her trainer, with her severe blond haircut and warm brown eyes, chided her.
‘I think you were with me maybe twenty percent?’ Jodi said, handing Lenore a towel.
‘At least that,’ Lenore offered, openly admiring Jodi’s flat abdomen and toned legs. If it wasn’t that she was such an excellent trainer, she would have made a play for her. But lovely young bed-mates and eager-to-please producers were plentiful. A trainer that could keep her middle-aged body as a taut size two, however, was not to be messed with.
‘We’ll shoot for twenty-five tomorrow,’ Jodi said as she pulled on sweats and a hoodie.
Lenore watched as Jodi returned their mats to the eighteenth-century armoire that housed a variety of exercise equipment. Yes, there was a fully equipped gym one floor down, but Lenore preferred these private before-airing office workouts. She felt invigorated, her blood pumping and her breath full. Even her pores tingled. She felt alive and vital, and ready to give her viewing public − however pathetic they might be − a glimmer of glamour.
Her reverie was interrupted by the phone. She glanced at the clock; it was too early for wardrobe and make-up. And her assistant, Justin, knew not to intrude on her quiet time unless it was a true emergency.
She picked up. ‘Lenore,’ her assistant sounded tenuous, ‘it’s Richard on three. He said it’s important.’ Of course it is, wondering once again why she’d ever thought having children was a good idea. ‘Hello Richard.’
‘Mother, we’ve got a problem.’
Her yoga glow dissipated as her son laid out the latest crisis. Before he’d said the words, she accurately predicted their content.
‘It’s Rachel,’ he said.
She bit back the surge of annoyance. Richard was the good one, the one that stayed out of the tabloids, the one who’d get his MBA and take a meaningful role in the running of Lenore Parks Productions. Why she’d felt the need to have a second … ratings … ‘I’m waiting.’
‘She’s in the emergency room. I’m with her now.’
She didn’t flinch; a hospital is better than jail. ‘Please Richard, I’m heading into wardrobe, so just the highlights.’ She brought up her web browser and typed in ‘Rachel Parks’ and ‘most recent’.
‘She’s stoned to the gills and not making any sense. They found her passed out in front of a club in Brooklyn and brought her in by ambulance.’
‘I can see that,’ Lenore said, scanning through a lurid piece with pictures of her nineteen-year-old daughter, legs akimbo, a black bar both concealing and underscoring that she wasn’t wearing underwear, passed out on a sidewalk. She knew that while the paper had to put in the black box, there were probably dozens of others shooting explicit shots of Rachel’s genitals, which would now be all over the Internet − and not for the first time.
‘They were going to arrest her,’ Richard said. ‘And then she started talking about killing herself.’
‘Can you get her out of there? Get her to say the right things and bring her to the country house. Call Doctor Ebert and see if he can do something.’
‘Already done,’ he said. ‘What do you think about getting her into rehab?’
‘If she’d sign in that would be great.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. Maybe if she thinks they’re going to hospitalize her, she’ll agree just to stay out of the nut ward … or jail. They threw some charges at her − interfering with an officer, resisting arrest … And Mom …’
‘What?’
‘She’s cutting again. All over her upper arms, and I think on her legs. Like high up, I saw it in the emergency room. It’s a mess. The psychiatrist in the emergency room asked me about it.’
‘Shit!’ At times like this Lenore could have killed her daughter. ‘Why does she have to do this?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yeah, I’m a horrible mother … I get that. I didn’t validate her enough. Somehow, this is all my fault. Richard, you know I love you.’
‘I do. I’ll take care of this, Mom. So what’s the afternoon show?’
‘Transgender chefs. We’re making coq au vin.’
‘Awesome.’
‘Don’t mock your mother.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Pays the bills. And just for the record, Mom … you did OK. In fact, I think you’re amazing. And Rachel is not your fault. It’s more her than you. OK, the doctor’s coming back, and Dr Ebert is trying to call. Do your show; I’ve got this.’
‘Love you, son.’
‘I know.’ And he hung up.
Lenore let out a slow breath. ‘Should have stopped at one.’ But God, those two pregnancies had given Lenore Says its all-time highest ratings. She’d done reality TV before it existed, taking her audience step-by-step through the process of in-vitro fertilization. Up front and frank about the selection of the sperm donor, without revealing who it was − great TV. It was bold and flew in the face of every convention. She’d played it to the hilt − the successful talk show hostess who’d not made marriage work. Her audience could relate. They felt her pain as a woman unlucky in love who desperately wanted to know the joys and fulfillment of motherhood. She’d kept nothing back … well, almost nothing. She wasn’t Ellen, after all, or even Rosie after she came out. Her love life was no one’s business. And frankly, considering the wasteland of her romantic efforts, there wasn’t much to speak about. Lenore didn’t ‘do’ relationships, so why risk the L word? Instead, she’d dated the Hollywood hunks in her twenties and thirties, half of them gay. They’d provide mutual beards for the week or the month. Or A-list actor John Gregory, for a few years. Hell, she and John had even considered a marriage of convenience. She thought about Jodi and the other young women who orbited LPP. Young and vibrant, so many of them openly gay. They’d chat about their girlfriends in one breath and the nutritive value of quinoa in the next.
A rap at the door.
‘Lenore.’ Justin in the doorway. Like all of her assistants young, handsome, perfectly groomed. This one with skin the color of caramel, close-cropped black hair and amber eyes. ‘Fifteen minutes till make-up. Do you need anything?’
‘No,’ she said. She caught something in his expression; he was trying to read her. He’d probably been on the Internet and knew about the latest crisis with Rachel.
‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.
She suspected he’d eavesdropped on her conversation with Richard. ‘Everything is fine.’ She headed toward her richly appointed bathroom and dressing area. She stopped. ‘Didn’t you have an audition last week at The Public?’
‘I did. I wasn’t what they were looking for.’
She stood at the door and looked back at him. He was very good-looking, mixed-race … striking. She’d cast him as her assistant, but could easily see him in a T-shirt and tool belt on one of Lenore Parks Productions DIY shows. ‘We should have you test,’ she said. ‘I think you’re a natural.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I’m not. You’ve been a good assistant, but we both know this isn’t your dream.’
‘I like working for you,’ he said.
She weighed his words, and drew two cartoon bubbles over his head. One contained the words he said, and the other held the raw ambition that lay beneath them. ‘Good.’ They were all so transparent, these pretty young things. She saw her single word answer create castles in his head as she closed the door behind her.
‘Damn Rachel,’ she muttered as she tried to hang on to her yoga buzz. She turned on the shower, stripped off her workout gear and flung it into an open wicker hamper. She caught her reflection in the infinity mirrors that bounced off each other creating an illusion of endless Lenores, each one smaller than the one before. Mugging into the mirror with her trademark head bob and wink, she muttered ‘Lenore says, age is a number.’ She surveyed her toned body, her stomach still flat even after two natural child-births. She popped on a shower cap and, with a dozen jets blazing, stepped into the steaming spray. Her thoughts drifted to her daughter and her latest bout of drunken attention-seeking chaos. Sad thing was, the girl was too miserable to realize just how much she had … and was throwing away with both hands. A natural green-eyed blonde, Rachel had hit the genetic jackpot. Lenore’s choice of sperm donor, a carefully guarded secret, was none other than sometime beard and long-time friend John Gregory, action hero, all round hunk and deeply closeted actor. Just like Lenore, his career was dependent upon the fantasy. Do twelve-year-old boys really want to pay twenty bucks to see gay super heroes? An unanswered question and one John, their mutual agent Max Titelbam, his publicity machine and his risk-avoidant backers were unwilling to answer.
But she’s not grateful, Lenore realized. And according to Rachel’s five-hundred-bucks-an-hour shrink, Dr Amos Ebert, she had Borderline Personality Disorder. Which, courtesy of Lenore Says and several episodes over the years on the topic, gave Lenore pause. You weren’t a horrible mother. To which Rachel would reply – ‘You were no mother at all.’
Unlike her brother, Rachel had been a hard child from day one. In constant need of nurturing, not sleeping more than thirty or forty minutes at a stretch − thank God for the nannies. But even there, too many of them; one that took pictures of her children and sold them to the tabloids, a couple more who viewed the job as a stepping stone to careers in entertainment. There’d been no stability and Rachel had needed that. Lenore stepped out of the shower. No use crying over spilled milk. She chuckled … and third time’s a charm. She felt a little thrill of excitement, knowing that, unlike the Barrys of this world, she still had it. Her pregnancies and unorthodox strategies to make a family had shot her to the top of the ratings, and she was poised to shock the hell out of them again.
She checked the misted dial on the clock over the vanity. In three minutes her hair and make-up people would knock. She stepped into her panties − no need for SPANX − and then into the underwire bra selected for the day’s outfit. A knock at the door. Two minutes early, she noted. ‘Come in.’
Without looking up she fastened the front of her bra. She felt a sharp pain in her back, at first thinking she’d pulled something in yoga, and then something wet and warm on her fingers. Confused, she saw red in the mirror, blossoming under the left cup of her lacy bra. An acrid smell, like something burning. I’ve been shot. She looked in the mirror; she was alone. She turned and her legs buckled; blood seeped from beneath her fingers. Her mind sped as her knees gave way. She slipped to the floor, clutching her chest, feeling the warm pulse of sticky blood over her fingers.
There was a knock at the door. She barely managed, ‘Come …’
A smiling woman’s familiar pudgy face: her dresser, Peggy. The smile vanished.
No, Lenore thought, missing that smile. Wishing she’d told Peggy how pretty she was, with her plump cheeks and lustrous brunet hair in a long French braid. She’d been fun in bed, but clingy, and so long ago. How many years was that?
Her vision grew fuzzy and the pain in her chest and back seemed far away. Just sleep. Just sleep.
FIVE
‘What’s happened?’ Ada asked, as she and Lil rounded the corner of Fifty-sixth and Fifth Avenue. In front of the towering glass and steel LPP Tower was a swirling lightshow of police cars and a single ambulance. On the street side of the building stood a bunched up line of mostly women − a few hundred − waiting to get into the afternoon taping of Lenore Says. Their attention not on the entrance, but on the gurney being rolled at a run out of the building by EMTs.
‘It’s Lenore,’ Lil said, as she grabbed her camera from her bag.
‘Come on,’ Ada urged. ‘We need to get closer so you can get a shot. Did she have a heart attack?’
Sirens blared as they jogged across the street. Lil’s camera finger pressed record as she spoke over the video. ‘It’s April twenty-third 2013 and I’m outside the headquarters of Lenore Parks Productions.’ Careless of the snarled traffic, she focused on Lenore’s face. Her mouth and nose were covered by an oxygen mask. Her auburn bob was plastered to the side of her face, and – even without make-up − there was no mistaking that this was Lenore Parks.
Lil struggled to keep her in frame and pressed the zoom as the EMTs paused at the ambulance’s rear doors. With efficiency of movement they collapsed the wheels of the stretcher, and on a quick count of three hoisted it into the back. One climbed in next to the stretcher accompanied by a uniformed officer, while the other ran to the front. With lights and siren it pulled away. The entire episode from start to finish lasted less than forty-five seconds.
Oblivious to a young officer trying to shoo her and Ada from the middle of the Avenue, Lil filmed the ambulance as it headed north and then west. ‘What just happened?’ she asked the officer.
‘Ladies, I couldn’t say, but if you don’t get out of the middle of Fifth Avenue you’ll be the only people in New York ever to have gotten a ticket for jay walking.’
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