Alexandra Waring

by Laura Van Wormer

  “And she said?” Langley asked.

  “And she said that, since I seem to be so keen on show biz these days, maybe I ought to think about replacing her with Jessica and hiring a fire-eater along with a weatherman.”

  “She said that?”

  “Oh, yes, Langley, she said that and a whole lot more.” Cassy sighed then. “We’ve scared her, Langley. She’s taken it completely wrong—and I should have thought of it, but I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean? How did she take it?”

  “Well, she’s been squaring off with me over this format thing, she’s been squaring off with you since day one, there was that horrible story about her in the Banner last week with more quotes from that idiot Clark Smith, and then all of a sudden the one person whose support she thought she would never have to question—Jackson—suddenly announces that DBS can’t afford to let me spend all my time on her. She thinks it’s all connected—she thinks Jessica is more important to DBS than she is, and she’s scared. I mean, she’s angry, but what’s behind it is a very badly shaken young woman who desperately needs a demonstration of support—but I can’t give it to her right now, not until she backs down on this damn format. And now she’s more adamant than ever about it, because she’s so angry.”

  “Well—should I make a demonstration of support in some way? Would that help?” Langley said.

  “Well, somebody’s got to do something,” Cassy said, “because Jackson told her—get this—he told her the reason why I had to take on Jessica’s show was because Jessica needed me. Now how the hell is that supposed to make Alexandra feel?”

  Yes, Langley had to admit, it didn’t look very good, did it? That Jessica arrives at a time when Alexandra is fighting with Cassy over the format of her newscast and then—bingo—all of a sudden Jackson announces that Alexandra has to share her executive producer and part of her studio crew with Jessica. But Alexandra didn’t know all that they did, that this was a move to insure her professional well-being. (But then, she had no way of knowing that her professional well-being was at risk with Darenbrook Communications in the first place. How was she supposed to know that Jack stole the money to launch DBS News? How was she supposed to know that they were doing this in order to protect her, not take anything away from her?)

  But, thankfully, this note Kate had brought indicated to Langley that Alexandra was not nearly as undone as Cassy had led him to believe:

  Langley [it said],

  Since Cassy—legally speaking—works for me, and “The Jessica Wright Show” is now under her, DBS News now handles the overseas syndication of any of Jessica’s shows that fit the classification of “news,” correct? Please verify immediately as my attorneys are awaiting instructions on how to proceed in response to the nine contract violations DBS incurred with this morning’s announcement.

  Thanks.

  Alexandra

  Now that sounded like the Alexandra he knew, quietly blackmailing him into giving her “The Jessica Wright Show” to syndicate overseas in exchange for her “allowing” DBS to have Cassy and the studio crews work on Jessica’s show too.

  Langley had known the syndication-arm clauses in Alexandra’s contract would one day come back to haunt him. They were fairly innocuous at first glance. Once the Federal Communications Commission recognized DBS as a network, the only programming DBS could syndicate overseas would be news, and since news tended to be so American, with so few foreign outlets, Jackson had given Alexandra everything she asked for in connection with said syndication arm, DBS News International.

  But, as Langley had learned, there were certain kinds of “news” programming that did lend themselves to foreign markets. Every week down the road at CBS, for example, the legal department made up a list of rights restrictions and permission clearances for that week’s edition of “60 Minutes,” detailing how they did not have foreign rights on one correspondent’s commentary pieces but did on their field correspondents’ pieces; or that maybe a celebrity had only granted certain permissions on how his or her interview could be used, and so the celebrity interview could not be shown in X, Y or Z countries, and so on and so forth. CBS could then repackage an edition of “60 Minutes” with the pieces that were cleared for foreign markets and sell it, outright, for a flat fee, to an overseas news distribution service, which, in turn, went on to sell it in various markets around the world, from French TV to a Brazilian hotel chain.

  According to Alexandra’s contract, not only did she receive a piece of the action (albeit small) on anything that was sold through DBS News International, but all other profits had to be channeled back into DBS News—and as funds that only Alexandra could allocate for expenditure. What Alexandra was after, Langley knew, was those one-on-one celebrity interviews from ‘The Jessica Wright Show” that could be classified as news and that she could easily sell overseas—and thus funnel what would otherwise be DBS profits under Langley’s control into DBS News as funds exclusively under her control.

  Langley had to hand it to Alexandra, she was swift and clear in her message. DBS had to pay a price to DBS News for making them share Cassy and their production crew with “The Jessica Wright Show,” or they could expect big trouble from her for violating her contract.

  Wow, you really took care of her, Jack, Langley thought.

  How easy business would be if there weren’t people to deal with! Every single problem at DBS could be worked out if it weren’t for so many overblown personalities involved.

  It had only been on Saturday that Langley had had such a great time with Cassy, envisioning all of the things that they could do with DBS and Darenbrook Electronics. It had only been on Saturday that he had been thinking how everything might get straightened out for Jack with the board. He had been thinking that he and Alexandra were getting along better, and that maybe he had passed judgment on her too quickly. He had even been thinking that one day, when he was back running Darenbrook Electronics, maybe there might be something to be pursued with Cassy—outside of work, on another one of those long walks. (Her husband moving to Los Angeles couldn’t be a sign of a very good marriage, could it? And she was so very, very beautiful. He had been surprised at how much he wanted to kiss her Saturday, watching her, down by the water, the sun on her hair, her eyes so blue, her mouth so…) But then—whammo—now Alexandra was furious at him, Jackson had fled, Cassy was upset, DBS was still improperly funded and the board still had to be dealt with.

  “By the way, Mr. Graham,” Kate was saying at the table, “your editing console arrived downstairs today. And Alexandra says she has an assistant coming for you tomorrow.”

  “Wonderful,” Mr. Graham said.

  Langley looked at him. “Are you in film?”

  “At one time,” Mr. Graham said. He looked at Kate. “I suppose it would be all right to tell him I was once in newsreels, don’t you think, Miss Benedict?”

  “We better hope so,” Kate said.

  Mr. Graham returned his attention to Langley. “I was once in newsreels—until 1963, at which time I sold my archives to ABC.”

  “Uh-oh,” Kate said. Langley looked at her and then followed Kate’s eyes to see that Jessica Wright was making her way toward them, looking very pretty in a narrow skirt, silk blouse, and blazer with the sleeves pushed up. Her earrings, necklaces and bracelets were on the conservative side today; her hair was unusually well brushed; and she was looking surprisingly respectable and normal, although her skirt was short enough to take many an eye with her. “Hi,” she said, drawing up to the end of the table.

  “Hello,” Langley said.

  “My oh my, Mr. Graham,” Jessica said, “I bet Alexandra doesn’t know that it’s you who’s out dancing with the Kaiser. Oops,” she added, turning toward Langley. “I don’t really think you’re the Kaiser, Mr. Mitchell—and I don’t think many other people really do either, but everybody’s pretty upset today about who’s invading whose territory and so maybe you can understand from where these nicknames can come.”

&
nbsp; Langley was so caught up in how together and pretty Jessica looked that it took a minute for what she had said to register.

  “If you could just sign that thing,” Jessica said, pointing to Alexandra’s note, “we could send Alexandra, Jr., here back to West End and I could join you for lunch. Sorry,” she said in an aside to Kate, patting her shoulder. “I know your name is Kate. I meant it as a compliment.” Then she looked back at Langley, rested her hands on the table and leaned forward to say, in a very low voice with unmistakable innuendo in it, “Or wouldn’t you enjoy being with me?”

  Langley would have enjoyed the moment more had Kate not audibly gasped and then giggled, and had Mr. Graham in his blue and green bow tie not been smiling at him from across the table.

  “Do you understand what this note is about?” Langley asked Jessica, swallowing, trying not to look at her mouth (which at the moment had her tongue running over it).

  “I know it makes no difference to me,” Jessica said, “not with the contract I have.”

  “So Alexandra’s talked to you,” Langley said.

  “Maybe for the last time if this doesn’t get straightened out. Look, Mr. Mitchell,” Jessica said, tapping one long finger on the table, “nobody knows what’s going on except that Alexandra’s upset and it has something to do with me so I want you to sign that thing so everybody at West End stops looking at me like I’m Typhoid Mary or something. I want to get to work, Mr. Mitchell!” she added loudly, pounding the table in such a way as to make the silverware jump and a couple of diners as well.

  Langley looked back down at Alexandra’s note. He took out a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled the cap off, turned the barrel, stuck the cap on the end and sat there a moment, pen poised, thinking. And then, writing slowly and deliberately, on the bottom half of Alexandra’s note, he wrote:

  Alexandra,

  Of course DBS News International will handle foreign on newsworthy Jessica Wright material. And however ironic it may seem to you now, I hope one day soon I may fully explain to you how the restructuring of Cassy’s responsibilities is, in fact, a sign of our deepest commitment to you, our unshakable faith in you, and of our pledge to offer strong and lasting support to DBS News as a whole.

  Until then, I hope you will trust me.

  Langley

  And then he dated it, folded the paper up, slipped it back in the envelope and handed it to Kate, feeling pretty good about it. If that wasn’t an open declaration of support, then what was?

  Kate went back to West End with the note and Jessica sat next to him in the banquette, swiftly drinking one vodka tonic down and ordering another. When that arrived, she said, “Well, Mr. Graham, it looks as though Mr. Mitchell’s a nice guy after all.” She leaned into Langley’s side as she said this, smiling rather sweetly (he thought). “I am so relieved, you don’t know,” she said, eyes briefly fixing on his chest and then coming back up. “I do so hate family fights, don’t you?”

  Langley laughed—a little nervously—glancing over at Mr. Graham, who was looking quite perky and festive after his glass of sherry. “As a matter of fact, I do,” Langley said, meaning it, looking into her eyes and wondering why he was looking into her eyes since he knew better. Idle notions about Cassy were at least sane and alluring. But the Terror of Tucson? Was he ready for this?

  “This is so nice,” Jessica sighed, looking around the restaurant and sipping her drink. “I haven’t been here since I was a little girl, with my grandfather.”

  “Perhaps I knew him,” Mr. Graham said.

  “Harold Wright?” Jessica asked.

  “Of The Saturday Evening Post?” Mr. Graham said.

  Jessica, opening her mouth, just stared at him. Then she looked at Langley and back at Mr. Graham again.

  “Oh, yes,” Mr. Graham said, chuckling, “I knew old Hare-Hare. He was here quite regularly.”

  “Hare-Hare!” Jessica said, excited, bouncing up and down in the banquette. “That was his nickname—you really did know him!”

  “When you’re my age,” Mr. Graham said, “you tend to know a great many people, Miss Wright.”

  Jessica grew more and more festive as the lunch went on, talking with Mr. Graham, telling funny stories about herself and her family, leaning into Langley every ten seconds or so as if to make sure he was awake and paying attention. She needn’t have worried. He was quite awake and quite content to eat the delicious food, sip the icy-cold white wine and, by the second bottle, feel Jessica’s hand periodically resting on his thigh.

  Somewhere along the line the lunch had turned unreal. It had turned into a slow-motion, warm, fuzzy dream where this splendidly warm, buxom creature next to him promised all sorts of seductive, wonderful times if only this lunch could last forever, or at least last long enough to find out what her hand on his thigh might want to do next. Langley very badly wanted to stay in this dream, to wander on, following this woman who was making him laugh and smile, who was making him feel like nothing mattered but that he might just this once—just once in his life—forget his responsibilities, forget everybody else and simply be himself, this laughing self, this man who was drinking too much wine but not caring, this guy who was thrilled by this young woman beside him, by this whole luncheon, by this whole idea that people found him worth laughing with, talking to… flirting with.

  Making love with?

  Oh, wouldn’t that be great?

  What a wonderful lunch this was, languishing in the fantasy of simply asking Jessica to spend the afternoon with him in bed somewhere, making love and laughing and feeling as warm and fuzzy and content as they did right here, at the table, the two of them, sitting here, thighs pressing against each other, her hand rubbing his leg—what? What? When had this started? Don’t think. For once in your fucking life, don’t think, Peterson. And so he drifted back into what it might be like to make love to Jessica, how wonderful it would be to make love with someone who would not go crazy, screaming and yelling and running around the house threatening to kill herself. And he drifted further, leaving Belinda far far far behind, continuing in the fantasy of Jessica—what those breasts must be like he could not even imagine… Oh, yes, he could, imagine those breasts—certainly, if he kept on like this, staring and getting caught, he would be in her blouse, yes, certainly.

  He felt her hand again on his leg and he looked at her. She was smiling—no, laughing—but then the check was there and Langley noticed that everyone else in the dining room was gone. He looked at his watch. It was almost four.

  Langley reluctantly signed the check, feeling depressed. By the time they were downstairs, outside, standing under the awning on 52nd Street, his warm fuzziness had turned into a headache. Jessica shook hands with Mr. Graham, explained she had to go on to the Plaza, thanked Langley for the lunch, and then, just after Langley directed Mr. Graham to where his car and driver were waiting, she grabbed his arm, whispered in his ear, “Do you want to come with me?” and then stepped back, looking at Langley with the most innocent of expressions.

  Langley was shocked. Maybe a little appalled. No—it was more like scared out of his wits. Jesus, now? Just do it? Now? After all these years, I just go and do it now? In the afternoon? With the Terror of Tucson? “Thank you, thank you very, very much,” he heard himself say, touching her arm, “but I’m afraid I can’t.”

  She shrugged, smiling, digging her hands into her blazer pockets, backing down the sidewalk. Then she waved to Mr. Graham. “Now don’t you let this wild guy take you to Atlantic City or anything.”

  Mr. Graham laughed.

  And Langley laughed, dazed, watching Jessica skip down the street, wondering if what had happened could have possibly really happened.

  21

  In Which Jackson Flees Alexandra and

  Flies to Hilleanderville

  Jackson knew how upset he was because, for the first time in a very long time, he actually wanted to go to Hilleanderville. Alexandra had lost her temper this morning and she had lost it at him,
and something had profoundly changed between them because of it.

  No. What had changed was his feeling for her.

  No, what had changed was that he knew his feelings for Alexandra, romantically speaking, were not as unique as he had thought.

  Oh, fuck, he thought, looking out the Gulfstream window. It couldn’t have been just another obsession, could it?

  But if he really cared for Alexandra in a special way, then why did he just want her to go away and leave him alone? And why did he feel so incredibly disappointed and depressed that Alexandra seemed to be just as scared and insecure as everybody else, only she hid it better?

  And why did she suddenly seem so young?

  When Alexandra arrived this morning in his office, she had been her usual buoyant, lovely self, cheerfully greeting him and throwing herself down in a chair, wondering what Jackson wanted to see her about. And so Jackson had started to explain about consolidating DBS News and “The Jessica Wright Show” under Mrs. Cochran and then Alexandra had been on her feet, her face scarlet, firing questions at him so fast that after a while he didn’t even know what he was saying, and then, suddenly, Alexandra had slammed both her hands down on his desk.

  “I never thought you would betray me, never,” she said. “And if you feel that I’ve betrayed you in some way, that I’ve failed to pay some kind of personal debt to you—then you’ve got to put it on the table now. Because you can’t”—she slammed his desk again—”take your personal feelings about me out on DBS News—by endangering it. Do you understand me? I won’t let you do it!”

  “I’m not taking anything out on anybody,” he said, “and I’m not endangering DBS News—”

  “But you are!” she screamed.

  They looked at each other. Alexandra seemed as stunned by her scream as he was.

  And then she whirled around and flew out of his office, slamming the door behind her.

  Sitting there in the plane, Jackson felt miserable. Where there had been fun and excitement and the possibility of happiness now there was only a sea of problems. Yesterday Alexandra had been a goal; today he wanted to avoid her forever because he felt so guilty. Because he realized, perhaps truly for the first time, just how much DBS News meant to Alexandra and how devastated her life and career would be if it failed. And he realized how terrified Alexandra was that it would fail—and that she would fail.