Alexandra Waring

by Laura Van Wormer

  Her portable makeup mirror and kit were set up in the all—purpose control room, and after changing her clothes Alexandra sat down and quickly went through the cosmetic routine she had done for herself until coming to West End. “Stand back,” she warned everybody, shaking a can of hair spray, “Time to bomb my hair.”

  At West End, Dick called for mini—rehearsal and Alexandra hurried out to the set. Although things seemed to be working pretty well (cues were being given and heard back and forth from West End to WMN well; the TelePrompTer screens over the cameras were hooked up to West End, where Alexandra’s usual operator was doing her usual smooth job; Parky, acting as stage manager, was quite good at it; the studio monitors were working and in position), unfortunately, according to Parky, Dick said Alexandra and Dash “looked like two faceless ghouls” back at West End, prompting Alexandra to jump out of her chair and cry, “Will!”

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry!” Will assured her, running out of the control room. “Come into the control room—both of you. I’ve got Cleo on the phone and she’s going to tell you what to do.”

  And so Alexandra and Dash went into the control room and Alexandra sat down in front of the makeup mirror and followed Cleo’s instructions while Dash held the phone to her ear. “Heaven help me,” Alexandra said a while later, “I’m starting to look like an aging madam. Am I supposed to look like an aging madam? Cleo? Am I supposed to look like an aging madam in normal light?”

  “I think she’s laughing,” Dash said, holding the receiver to his ear.

  And then it was Dash’s turn—who recoiled from Alexandra’s lipstick brush as if it was a cobra—but Alexandra managed to coax him into complying with Cleo’s instructions by reminding him that it was the only way he was going to have a face on camera. But when she was finished and Dash looked at himself and groaned, “Aw, geez, I look like that guy on ‘Batman,’ the guy Cesar Romero played,” Alexandra couldn’t help laughing and then Dash started laughing, but then Parky called the ten—minute cue and they raced back into the studio and onto the set, put on their microphones and waited for the verdict.

  “Passable,” Parky said, relaying the message received through his headset from Dick back in the West End control room. “Okay, Alexandra,” Parky continued, “we’re in business. We’re going to open on camera 2. Program will be on that monitor—keep an eye out. If anything goes wrong, Dick says to remember that Chester’s waiting to back you up in New York.”

  “You mean if my face melts off,” Alexandra said, flicking through the pages of her script a final time to make sure they were in order. “Shut up, Tomlinson,” she growled out of the corner of her mouth at Dash, who was laughing again.

  Time passed, last—minute checks were made, Alexandra was waiting, calm, hands on either side of her copy, looking straight ahead at camera 2. The countdown took place; Alexandra leaned forward slightly, toward camera 2; the “DBS News America Tonight” opening unfurled on the monitors, with a special banner added, reading, ACROSS AMERICA TOUR; the red light on camera 2 came on and Parky gave the cue.

  “Good evening, everyone, and happy Independence Day,” Alexandra said, as if everything in the whole wide world was just as it should be. “July 4, 1988. Reporting for the DBS television news network from Portland, Maine, I’m Alexandra Waring and this is the news in America tonight.”

  “Well,” Cassy said back at West End, watching the monitor in the satellite room with Langley and Dr. Kessler, “it doesn’t look too bad.”

  “Vut do you mean?” Dr. Kessler said. “She looks like she’s in Sibeeriah.”

  Cassy grimaced and abruptly turned away.

  “It’s okay, Cassy,” Langley said, touching her back. “Really, it doesn’t look that bad.”

  When she turned back around, they realized she was laughing and was trying very hard not to—but when she looked at the monitor again it was all over. “Oh, she looks so awful,” she managed to get out, doubling over with laughter, shielding her eyes from the sight. “She’ll never forgive us, never.”

  “Vut is dat?” Dr. Kessler said.

  Cassy straightened up, wiping her eyes. Then she leaned closer to the monitor. “Good Lord, what is that?”

  “A moose,” Kelly called out from the console. “The WMN logo.”

  “Well, no more mooses!” Cassy said, cracking up again and hobbling toward engineering. At the door, she looked back. Langley had his glasses off and was wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, he was laughing so hard, and Dr. Kessler was lying over the top of a machine, sides heaving, his hand banging the top of his head.

  With the exception of Alexandra and Dash looking so dreadful (prompting a number of phone calls and letters to DBS, i.e., “For a million and a half a year, she could at least brush her hair”), the newscast actually went very well. The transitions from Portland to New York were smooth. And when Alexandra led over to Gary Plains for the weather, and he smiled and waved, saying, “Thanks, Alexandra. It’s great to see you, even if you are way up in Maine,” it gave viewers a sense of the distance, but also a taste of the real friendship and camaraderie that had developed among the DBS crew over the months. And there was another special feeling viewers got—or so many wrote to her—a feeling that, via satellite, Alexandra was as close to her colleagues in New York as she was to them in their homes, that there was a very strange sense of, as one viewer put it, “neighborhood.” (“The town meeting,” Alexandra would later say in an interview, “that’s what we’d like. To bring this tremendous country of ours together for an hour each night with a sense of community.”)

  After striking the set, the DBS gang gladly said good—bye forever to WMN, the van started back to West End, and Alexandra, Dash, Marc, Will, Oscar and Parky went back to crash at the hotel. They were up at six the next morning, in a plane by seven forty—five and at their Boston affiliate by ten.

  The Boston affiliate was paradise and they had a wonderful day.

  “Hey,” Cassy said that night, watching the Boston rehearsal in the West End control room, “you know, I actually like their set better than ours here.”

  “I like that Alexandra looks like Alexandra,” Dick called back over his shoulder.

  “I like the story they lined up for her,” Kyle said. “Wait till you see it.” (And it was a great one. It was called “College Town, America” and was about the population and demographic shifts of Boston at various times of the year. Dash did a story on Red Sox fever, that affliction which strikes all Bostonians in the spring and lasts through the summer into fall.)

  The next morning they flew into Philadelphia and were equally pleased with their affiliate there and the newscast that night was very good again. They were getting the hang of this traveling road show. Thursday morning they arrived in Washington D.C., where Alexandra did a very funny piece on D.C. as a summer ghost town, giving viewers a tour of all the hot spots around the city where the powerful and the mighty normally hung out. Friday was at their small but very talented affiliate in Columbia, South Carolina, where Alexandra and Dash both did pieces connected with the university, and after the newscast everybody flew home for the weekend except Alexandra, who flew ahead to Atlanta to work on a special Democratic convention piece for their Tuesday night newscast from there.

  Alexandra also went out to Hilleanderville to meet Cordelia Darenbrook Paine and Jackson’s father (“Just call me Big El, gorgeous gal”), a meeting which, according to Jackson, was a huge success and for which he thanked her profusely.

  Monday reunited the DBS team in Miami; Tuesday they were in Atlanta; Wednesday found them in Nashville; Thursday in Louisville; and Friday in Cleveland. They were five for five that week, good newscasts all. Again, Friday night, everyone flew back to New York for the weekend except Alexandra, who stayed on at the Bond Court to catch up on her sleep and take up the station owner’s offer of some tennis in Shaker Heights Sunday afternoon.

  Come Monday morning, Alexandra, Will, Marc, Oscar and Parky met at one of their biggest
and best affiliates, WXA in Detroit. When Alexandra arrived at nine o’clock everyone from the station manager on down was lined up at the door to greet her. The news director showed her into an office that was hers for the day; the producer offered her four stories to choose from; the sports editor offered Dash six. WXA was one of the best—organized and inspired TV stations that any of the West End crowd had ever seen, and Will, Oscar, Marc and Parky had virtually nothing to do all day.

  Alexandra opted for a story on the special summer programs for inner city kids and had a ball with the producer and the WXA mobile unit. On their way back to the studio, going north on Route 375, a stretch limo went flying past them at what had to be ninety miles an hour. And then, when not one but two police cars went flying past them to chase the limo, Alexandra did not even have to say it—the news van had already joined the chase, and the cameraman sat in the passenger side window, with Alexandra holding his legs, to film it. The chase was short, ending in the first—time arrest of an underage boy. The film of the chase was so funny in places, though (shooting back into the van through the windshield, showing the news team looking like mobsters in a getaway car and Alexandra holding onto the cameraman’s legs), they used some of it to do a little thirty—second piece at the expense of themselves on how ninety—nine percent of all news leads don’t lead to the scoop all reporters hope for.

  The newscast was wonderful that night. The hard news broke well that day, with a little natural disaster, a little man—made disaster, some hot political fighting, rounded out by a little good news here and there around the country, and the usual update on the ongoing mess in the Middle East. Everything flowed, transitions were terrific. The visuals were arresting, the film first rate, the writing tight, the mix of segments fulfilling, knowledgeable. The smiles around the studio at the close of the newscast were real; the talent displayed over the hour had been real.

  It was the best they had ever done and everybody knew it. “Boffo, gang!” Will said, leaping into the studio from the WXA control room. “They’re dancing in the aisles back in New York!”

  But the really big news of July 18, 1988, missed the live feed of “DBS News America Tonight” by minutes, and Chester Hanacker, pale beneath his makeup, had the honor of being the first DBS News anchor to interrupt programming—in—progress to scoop everybody on a major news story.

  The news was that at 10:04:22 P.M., in the studio of WXA in Detroit, another crazy with a handgun almost killed Alexandra Waring.

  39

  Cassy Flies to Detroit

  “Oh thank God, thank God,” Cassy said, rushing past Will into Alexandra’s bedroom at the Pontchartrain Hotel.

  She was curled up on the corner of the bed, talking on the phone, still in the dress from her newscast. She looked up and saw Cassy and her expression was one of relief. “Cassy just walked in,” she said into the phone, “hang on a minute,” and dropped it to receive Cassy’s embrace.

  “Thank God, thank God,” Cassy repeated, hugging her for dear life, “thank God you’re all right.” She held her for a full minute more and then sat back, holding Alexandra’s arms, to look at her. “How do you feel, sweetheart?” she said gently, releasing one of her arms to brush the hair back off Alexandra’s face.

  “Very glad to see you,” Alexandra said. “Very glad to see everybody.” Her eyes skipped to somewhere behind Cassy. “Jackson, hi—it’s okay, I’m quite alive, you can come in.”

  “Creeping crickets, kid,” he said, coming in from the living room, “you’ve gotta cut out this Calamity Jane stuff. My heart can’t take it.” He leaned over the bed to give her a brief hug, kissing her on the side of the face once too.

  Alexandra looked back to Cassy, touching her hand. “Thanks for coming.” She looked up at Jackson. “Both of you.” Then she looked around for the phone, found it and picked it up, explaining to Cassy and Jackson, “This is Jessica. What?” she said into the phone. “Jessica who is hysterical,” Alexandra relayed. “You’re not hysterical, Jessica, everything’s fine.” She looked at Cassy. “Why don’t you go out in the living room and have a drink or something—let me get off here and then I have to call Gordon, and then I’ll be out, okay?”

  “Okay,” Cassy said, kissing Alexandra softly on the cheek.

  “No,” Alexandra said as they left the room, “you can’t have a drink, Jessica, I was talking to Cassy. You can eat some of the Godiva chocolates in the freezer, though, if you want. Oh—you found them already.”

  Jackson went downstairs to check in, and Will went to the bar to pour Cassy a glass of white wine and a scotch for himself. The TV set was on, the sound low. Cassy threw herself down on the couch, listening to Will as he told her the story. It was almost identical to what the station manager of WXA had told them over the phone while she and Jackson were flying here on the Darenbrook plane.

  The newscast had ended, the lights had come on and Will had been dancing around the studio with glee. Dash had been signing an autograph for a summer intern. Alexandra had taken off her microphone and was just stepping down off the set to shake hands with the floor manager when someone yelled, “Who are you? You’re not allowed in here,” and everyone turned to look.

  The man was young, white, in his twenties. He looked fairly well kept but a little strange nonetheless, since he was wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbows and corduroy pants in the middle of July. He had loafers on without socks—why that stuck out in Will’s mind he didn’t know. Anyway, the guy had been staring at Alexandra, holding a folded newspaper under one arm, slowly walking across the studio toward her, ignoring the assistant producer who was talking to him.

  “Hey! Outta here, buddy!” the stage manager had barked, pointing to the exit. “You gotta wait outside like everybody else. George, escort this gentleman outta here.”

  A hefty stagehand reached out to take the guy’s arm and he jerked away, pulling a pistol out of the newspaper. He pointed the gun at the stagehand—sending him diving—and then swung his arm in a slow arc across the studio (making everyone in its path dive for cover) and stopped when he had Alexandra in his sights. Alexandra, eyes on the gunman, was slowly backing her way toward the desk on the set. The gunman tracked her with the gun, holding it out with both hands, smiling this bizarre smile.

  Dash yelled, “Watch out!” and the gunman looked over at him but pulled the trigger with the gun still pointing in Alexandra’s direction. (Will thought the shot was accidental—not that it mattered much, since the bullet only missed Alexandra by three feet.) She dove behind the desk; Will hit the guy from behind and then Dash from the side, cracking the gunman’s head into the base of camera 2. Alexandra yelled to find out if everybody was all right and, when they said yes, then she started yelling for somebody to get behind a camera and get the scene on tape.

  The Detroit police were there in seconds, it seemed, an ambulance right behind them; and now the gunman was in the hospital with a concussion; Dash was in his room, sound asleep after the sedative a doctor had given him; and Marc, Oscar and Parky were all fine, playing poker down in Oscar’s room.

  Will nodded in the direction of the bedroom. “She hasn’t cried or anything yet. Me neither.” He shrugged, smiling, sipping his scotch. Lowering his glass, “I don’t know, maybe the two of us are getting used to this.”

  “Good Lord,” Cassy sighed, “I hope not.”

  “She went downstairs about an hour ago and gave a statement, you know,” Will said, pointing to the TV. There Alexandra was on the screen, talking to reporters. “She said that since we had a film exclusive for tomorrow’s newscast we might as well let everybody advertise it for us.” He laughed at Cassy’s expression and then shrugged. “You know how she gets, Cassy—I couldn’t stop her.”

  “No, Gordon, I’m serious!” they heard Alexandra say. The door to the bedroom was ajar. “I absolutely forbid it. No—no! Even if you don’t have work to do, I do and I can’t give in to this thing. Not now.” Silence. “I told you, I’m fine! Wait—wait a m
inute. Hold on.”

  Silence.

  The bedroom door closed.

  Cassy cleared her throat and took a sip of her wine.

  “He used to work in commodities,” Will said.

  “What?” Cassy said, looking at him.

  “John, the ding-dong with the gun. He’s from Chicago—at least a couple years ago he was. They haven’t told us anything else.”

  Cassy sighed again and turned to look out the window. The suite overlooked the Detroit River. The night lights of Windsor across it, in Canada, were quite beautiful.

  “And I should warn you, Cass,” Will said, yawning then and covering his mouth. “Oh—excuse me,” he said, dropping his hand. “But I’m not so sure Alexandra’s going back to New York.”

  “Of course she’s coming back,” Cassy said. “All of you are.”

  “You better talk to her about it then,” Will said, putting his drink down and getting up. Somebody was knocking on the door. It was Jackson. “The bodyguards are here,” he said, pointing back over his shoulder with his thumb.

  “Half the Detroit police department’s here,” Will reminded him, closing the door.

  “Yeah, well,” Jackson said, walking over to Cassy, “from now on that young lady has a bodyguard every minute she’s working for us around the clock, if she wants it.”

  “But don’t scare her, Jack,” Cassy said, sipping her wine.

  “I’m not going to scare her,” Jackson said, throwing himself down in a chair. “But I’m not going to let any son of a bitch near her again, either. Those days are over.”

  The bedroom door opened and Alexandra leaned against the doorway. She was smiling but looked exhausted. Her color was not terrific either. “I think it’s time for all good little girls and boys to go to sleep,” she said, rubbing her eye. “Tomorrow morning’s going to come awfully early.”