Alexandra Waring

by Laura Van Wormer

  And wouldn’t you know, Gary did. He came back with trial segments to watch. The first opened with him standing in front of a topographical map of the United States (showing mountain ranges, desert flats, etc.), reporting the major weather story in America that day, which in this case was an electrical storm in Arizona. It cut away to footage taken by their Phoenix affiliate, and while they watched an incredible storm of lightning moving down out of the mountains and over the city, Gary described the storm, the kind of damage it had done and how damage had been minimized. Then they cut back to him at the map, where he gave a clear and concise explanation of how and why storms like this occur (cutting away to an illustration of the elements of an electrical storm like this one), and where in the United States they tended to occur (cutting back to the map, where he pointed out other regions). Then he led to a cut-in for a local weather forecast from each affiliate, as provided to them by the regional station of the National Weather Service.

  The next segment was on flooding in Mississippi, the third on fog socking-in Boston, the fourth on a blizzard in Minnesota.

  “This is fantastic!” Alexandra cried, vaulting out of her seat to hug Gary. And they all had to agree, there something to this angle, of presenting the most dramatic footage of the day related to the weather (“Pictures every day! Floods! Fires! Lighting! Blizzards! Ice! Drought!” as Alexandra so eloquently put it), explaining the phenomenon and its consequences, pointing out the parts of the country where it was a part of their weather pattern, and presenting a twenty-second local forecast according to weather experts. What Gary was offering, then, was an ongoing lesson in natural science and American geography with fantastic visuals—which, to Alexandra, fit in perfectly with their concept that viewers would better understand life in the United States if they watched “DBS News America Tonight.”

  And so Gary Plains and the weather won the highly esteemed nine thirty-two slot in the newscast.

  Their official press conference at West End went off without a hitch, and Derek had done a great job of booking interviews for Jessica, and as good a job as could be done with Alexandra, who they decided should stay off TV until after the newscast was on the air. Jessica was an unqualified publicity hit, since she gave much more entertainment than she ever did interview. (“My beauty secret for working women like me? Oh, gosh, I’d say—turn off the lights.”)

  It did not work out so well for Alexandra. No one, it seemed, was very interested in talking about DBS News with her; all they wanted to know about was the state of her personal life. “Tell us about your relationship with Jackson Darenbrook,” they would say. “He’s my boss,” Alexandra would say, answer complete. And so, when that didn’t pan out, the interviewers would ask about Alexandra’s relationship with Clark Smith. “I have no relationship with Clark Smith,” she would say, answer complete. And so, when that didn’t pan out, the interviewers would get ticked off and try to rattle her with a great question like, “Why would anyone want to watch you on DBS?” to which Alexandra would start laughing and say something like, “Because there isn’t anywhere else they can see me.” And once there, at that point where Alexandra felt as though she had played along far enough, she would simply seize control of the interview and tell them about DBS whether they liked it or not—and about how “DBS News America Tonight” was really a nightly inventory of America’s day, of what had gone right and what had gone wrong and why; and how it was also “an inventory of the state of our relationships, with each other, as fellow Americans—which we believe is key to understanding our national identity.”

  And even if a lot of this fell on deaf ears, Alexandra’s glossies were still knockouts (as were the color transparencies of her for the magazines) and she was still “the lady who got shot on national TV” and she still had taken the time to talk to reporters personally and DBS News was still newsworthy, and so they could still count on extensive pickup about the debut in at least picture/caption form. And they finally got Alexandra’s fan mail back from The Network, and in time to send a special letter, photograph and release about “DBS News America Tonight” to each of the over one hundred thousand people who had written her after she had been shot.

  DBS was up to seventy-three affiliates now, and their first-quarter advertisers looked good. Normally a TV network or temporary linkup had to offer at least a hundred stations to be considered a national advertising vehicle, but Rookie had offered such a bargain package for the first quarter, they had a full dance card of fairly classy sponsors. The idea was, after the first-quarter ratings results were in, and the demographic breakdowns on both programs were in, DBS would raise ad rates accordingly, and first-quarter sponsors would have first shot at buying into the second quarter. If one or the other program bombed completely—well, they did not speak of that. It was simply understood that, if DBS failed to deliver the audience they promised any time after the first quarter, then they would simply do “make-good ads,” running the sponsor’s ad as many more times as it took to reach the audience they had guaranteed.

  So they had two great programs, two great talents, good PR, a network to show them on, advertisers paying for the privilege of coming along for the ride, and Cassy’s two great “What if?” fears had been dealt with: if something happened to Alexandra, they knew their political editor, John Knox Norwood, and their editor-at-large, Chester Hanacker, could coanchor to substitute (they had done a complete run-through the other night, when Alexandra went to the benefit, and it had worked fine); and if something happened to Jessica, they had seven good shows in the can as backup.

  Still, however, in the privacy of her own bed—in those increasingly infrequent times she had reached it in these last days—Cassy worried about how audiences for national newscasts were in decline, about the risks of airing in prime time, about debuting in the summer, about going out early with only seventy-three affiliates, about how they would ever get the two hundred affiliates they wanted and needed, about what might happen this summer with the board of directors in July about DBS News, about the extent of financial problems within DBS, about whether she really wanted to run DBS…

  And these thoughts would rouse Cassy out of bed and have her wandering around the halls and rooms of her apartment. Of her empty apartment, now that her husband lived three thousand miles away with a twenty-nine-year-old girl, and now that her baby was six foot two and striding the campus of Yale University, embarking on a life of his own, separate from her. And then the eight rooms of the apartment would turn into a hundred cavernous rooms, all of them haunted. I once had a husband and child that I fed at this table twice a day? I slept with someone for almost twenty-three years? Men I first came here to this apartment, I had to put up window guards because my son was three years old? Could I ever have been young enough to have a three-year-old son? Could that have been me who bundled him up in his snowsuit in this hall? Attached his mittens to his coat? Took him sledding with his father—the three of us on that big Flexible Flyer, little Henry between us, my legs locked around Michael’s waist? Was I really there? Did Michael and I have sex in this room? Have I ever had sex? Then why can’t I remember what it’s like?

  Hopefully leaving the last of her fears at the haunted house, Cassy packed up her exhaustion and hurried to West End this Friday morning, May 27, anxious to see how their newspaper ads had come out. They had a very limited ad budget but had worked out a campaign of quarter-page ads to run in newspapers across the country, some running today and some on Sunday. She got her first shock of the morning when she opened the C Section of her New York Times in the car on the way to West End and found, instead of a quarter-page ad, a double-page spread.

  On Monday Night, May 30

  Meet Some of the Nicest People in America

  the headline said. And then on the left-hand page, below it, there was a close-up of Alexandra, underneath which it said:

  9 P.M. DBS NEWS AMERICA TONIGHT WITH

  ALEXANDRA WARING

  The Coast-to-Coast Chronicle of A
merica’s Day

  Under that were entries, each with a small head shot:

  With the Special DBS News Correspondents

  BROOKS BAYERSON AMES

  Arts and Entertainment

  HELEN KAI LU, M.D., Ph.D.

  Health and Science

  PAUL LEVITZ

  Business and the Economy

  JOHN KNOX NORWOOD

  Government and Politics

  GARY PLAINS, Ph.D.

  Weather

  DASH TOMLINSON

  Sports

  and

  CHESTER HANACKER,

  Editor-at-Large

  And then, on the opposite page, there were six pictures of Jessica, standing out in a studio audience, taken about ten seconds apart. She looked terrific, and her pose and expression in each were dramatic, but the expressions on the faces in the audience were a scream—ranging from adoration to horror.

  10 P.M. THE JESSICA WRIGHT SHOW

  The Terror of Tucson Comes to National TV

  This week:

  Monday

  Wonderful Moments in Sexual Intimacy

  Tuesday

  Paul Hogan [She tried to get him to come on

  Wednesday

  What to Do When You Think You Might Get Fired

  Thursday

  Bette Midler [Only if Jessica listens up on Wednesday.

  Friday

  Jessica’s Friday Cocktail Party: Traveling Salesman, Exotic Dancer, Unpublished Poet, Corvair Owner, Cabana Beach Boy

  And then, along the bottom of both pages, it said:

  *THE DBS TELEVISION NETWORK*

  A Darenbrook Communications Company

  9-11 PM, Monday through Friday, WST, SUPER TV-8

  It was a fabulous ad—only it had to have cost about a hundred thousand more dollars than they had allocated for the Times today, and Cassy couldn’t believe that Derek could have canceled so many other ads to run this one—and without even checking with her. Good God, this one ad alone represented a fifth of their total newspaper budget!

  When she arrived at West End, she went charging into Derek’s office, only to have him yell, “Cassy, what the hell is going on?” And then Cassy looked at all the newspapers around Derek’s office, and her eyes grew larger and her stomach sank further as she walked to first one paper and then another, seeing the same double-page spread ad… the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Newsday, the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Detroit Free Press, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Miami Herald…

  “Great!” Derek said later, slamming the phone down in her office. “They don’t know where our account executive is—and this kid says he’s not sure whose ads these are!”

  “Papers west of the Mississippi are starting to come in,” Chi Chi announced, bringing in another pile.

  A flurry of phone calls were made (“Dear God, I can’t believe this,” Cassy said at one point, holding her hands over her eyes, dropping down into her own lap, “we’re over budget by a million already.” She dropped her hands, looking to the ceiling. “God, we don’t have a million, don’t you understand?”), a flurry of phone calls were returned, and at nine-thirty Cassy received confirmation in her office that all of the Friday DBS ads had been canceled at one agency and a whole other set—this set—had been ordered for DBS at another, the bill for which came to one million nine hundred and seventy-six thousand dollars and fifty-eight cents.

  The order had been placed, approved and verified for DBS billing by none other than Jackson Darenbrook.

  “You’ve wiped out our entire advertising and promotion budget!” Cassy said, flying into his office. “Do you understand what that means? It means we have nothing, nothing left for anything after today!”

  “And good morning to you, Mrs. Cochran,” Jackson said, addressing her reflection in the mirror of his closet door. He was dressed in blue jeans, sneakers and a sweat shirt that had Jiminy Cricket on it, and he was, at the moment, adjusting a New York Mets cap to a jauntier angle on his head.

  “God damn it, Jackson!” Cassy said, swatting the door with the copy of the Dallas Morning News in her hand.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Jackson said, giving his cap a final tug, “such language from such a lovely lady on such a lovely day.”

  The tears came up before she knew what hit her. She was so tired there was no chance of stopping them. And so she threw the Morning News on the floor, covered her face, slumped against the door-banging it into the wall—and moaned, “Why are you doing this to me? Why?”

  Jackson’s head whipped around and he was bounding across the office in an instant. He reached Cassy just as Ethel poked her head around the doorway to see what was going on. “It’s okay,” Jackson said, waving her away, pulling Cassy in by the arm and closing the door.

  “It’s not okay,” Cassy said into her hands. “You’re killing me. Honest to God, you are killing me.” And then she felt Jackson’s arms slide around her, pulling her close, one hand directing her head to his shoulder.

  “They were a present,” he murmured. “They were for you, for all of you. For working so hard.”

  “God damn right we’ve worked hard,” she sobbed, thinking how nice his sweat shirt smelled and wondering if it was fabric softener. “Having to build the stupid network in the first place—keeping you from driving Alexandra crazy. You stick me with a talk show, tell me I have to keep double books—I don’t even know—”

  “I know, I know,” he said, holding her “And I promise I’ll make it up to you. Reward you for all you’ve done.”

  “I don’t want a reward,” Cassy said, crying. “I want you to stop driving me crazy.”

  He laughed then, a deep, warm, gentle laugh, holding her tighter.

  “Jack!” Langley said, bursting in through the door from his office. In his hand was a copy of the New York Times. “Derek said—”

  Silence.

  Cassy was thinking about how nice it would be to go to sleep right here. And then she thought maybe she should be worrying about what Langley was thinking. She imagined it must look pretty funny to him to see her standing here with her face buried in Jiminy Cricket, and to see that Jackson, who he knew drove her crazy, was holding her in his arms.

  “What did you do to her?” Langley finally said, angry, hurling his newspaper down.

  “Pushed her past the breaking point,” Jackson said, rocking her.

  “Not a chance, buster,” Cassy said into Jiminy Cricket, laughing.

  Jackson released her, his hands sliding up to rest on her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to upset you. No,” he then said, smiling, “I did mean to upset you. I wanted you to be angry and then be surprised. I’m sorry. I really only meant to give you a big present.”

  Cassy smiled, backing away. “It’s okay,” she said, wiping one eye with the back of her hand. “I’m just tired, that’s all.” She looked up at him. He was staring at her with a very peculiar expression. And then she realized that she was staring too, caught by his eyes.

  “What the hell is going on?” Langley demanded.

  “What?” Jackson said, startled. He looked at Langley and then back to Cassy, pulling a bandanna out of his back pocket and offering it to her.

  “What is going on?” Langley repeated.

  Cassy accepted the bandanna and dabbed at her eyes, turning to Langley. “I was a little upset about the ads,” she said.

  “Yeah, well,” Langley said, bending to snag the Times up from the floor, “some of us are more than a little upset. Some of us are furious because some of us are worrying about meeting the payroll as it is.” He looked at Jackson. “Do you know how much these cost?”

  “Yes,” Jackson said, striding back across the office to the closet, “one million nine hundred seventy-six thousand dollars and fifty-eight cents. Don’t worry, Lang,” he said, bending to retrieve a large brown paper bag from the bottom of the closet, “they’re a present—for Alexandra, Jessica, Cassy,
you, everybody.” He tossed the bag down on the carpet and a little cloud of dust came out from inside it. “From me.”

  “Yeah, right,” Langley snapped. “Paid with whose money?”

  Cassy did not like the sound of this. And apparently Jackson didn’t either, because he slammed the closet door so hard the mirror crashed and shattered inside. “Ethel!” Jackson bellowed. In a moment the door opened and she appeared. “Bring in my checkbook, please, and show Mr. Shithead Peterson here the entry for the last check I wrote and the balance left in that account. In my personal account,” he added, giving Langley the finger. Then he turned around and opened the closet door again, moved some pieces of broken mirror around with his foot, and then squatted down, moved some pieces of glass with his hands, and then stood up again, holding a basket of what looked like—if Cassy wasn’t mistaken—gardening trowels.

  Ethel came back in and went to Langley, offering him a look into a leather-bound book. Langley traced something with his finger and then looked over at Jackson. “Not a wise thing, considering your situation,” he said.

  “Ten to one it’s the best investment I ever made,” Jackson said. He picked up the brown paper bag and moved toward the door. “Come on, you guys,” he said to them, “I want an hour of your time this morning.” He turned around in the doorway, waiting for them, basket in one hand, bag in the other, Mets cap jaunty, and Jiminy Cricket smiling. To Ethel, “If anybody comes looking for them, either come out to the square or they wait. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ethel said, smiling, looking at her watch. “Y’all better get a move on. Not the kind of crowd you can keep waiting for long.”