by Holly Brown
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You’re right, it’s not. But you’re out of there now, and we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
“I don’t think we can stop them.”
“The usual place you met,” I say. “Was it a bathroom? On the same floor as the studio?”
Reese nods.
“Then we can stop them.”
Chapter 43
I walk into my apartment building with a complicated brew of emotions. A part of me is grieving for Beth, and the other part of me feels more hopeful than I have in a while, like I have a true teammate and a real mission.
I stop in my tracks. Edwin is sitting in the lobby. Thankfully, my wig is back in my bag.
“You look a lot better,” he says, with a note of accusation.
“You know how food poisoning is,” I say. “Quick recovery.”
“So you could have come in to work.”
“I wanted to rest.”
This is the kind of conversation some girls had with their fathers when they came home past curfew. I never did.
“Do you want to come upstairs?” I say. I have to think fast. I have to get out of this, whatever this is.
I’ve been trying so hard not to leave any traces, not saying anything in my apartment or on my phone, slipping out back doors, wearing my wig, using cash everywhere. I’m pretty sure no one’s been following me. But there’s something about Edwin’s countenance, like he already knows.
The phone itself is probably tracking me. I’m such an amateur.
I do know that it was turned off during my talk with Reese, because I didn’t want any interruptions, so I don’t think anyone could have actually heard what was said. But I have to proceed as if Edwin knows where I was, and I have to hope that I haven’t put my friend in danger.
In the elevator, Edwin and I stand far away from each other. “Nice outfit,” he says.
“Thanks. I did a little shopping.” He must know that. “Then I took my first trip to the library.”
“What books did you get?”
Think fast, think fast. “I just read a bunch of magazines.”
Don’t ask which ones. Don’t ask who was on the cover.
The elevator door opens, a welcome interruption. Once inside my apartment, his manner changes. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” he jokes, badly. He’s nervous.
“I haven’t had a ton of free time.”
“Your office looks pretty good.” It has the feel of an accusation. A reference to Reese, maybe? To where I’ve just been?
“Reese did the decorating. I actually just saw her.” Best to come out and say it. Come clean—well, give the appearance of coming clean. “I’d never been to Brooklyn before.”
“What did you think?”
I keep moving so he can’t see my face, busying myself in the tiny kitchen, looking in the refrigerator as if to see what I have to offer him when I know it’s just bottled water and Red Bull. “I liked it,” I say, emerging with one in each hand. “Sorry, it’s all I have. I never have company.”
He glares at me.
Graham. He knows Graham was here.
So there’s no camera in the apartment then? Otherwise, he would know that he has nothing to worry about. The visit ended prematurely with another bout of puking. It makes me think of the diary, and the self-defense advice: if someone wants what you don’t, do something disgusting. That definitely fit the bill. Graham was out of there fast after that.
But if it’s just jealousy about Graham, then that’s good for me. That I can handle.
Edwin doesn’t take either drink. I put the Red Bull back and open the bottle of water, chugging it. I’m thirsty, having sweat a lot from the heat, and now from the pressure.
“So are you and Reese still friends?” Edwin asks. “I didn’t have that impression when she quit.”
“I had to do damage control. I didn’t want her to bash me on social media.”
“What did she say?”
“She made it perfectly clear that now that she’s not being paid, she doesn’t want to talk to me or about me.”
“It’s a tough lesson. Finding out who your friends really are.”
I’m not touching that one. I guzzle the water, stalling.
“I wanted to check and see how you’re taking the news about Beth.”
I head for the couch. I hope he’ll come sit beside me. I’m not my prettiest at the moment, but proximity might work in my favor. We’ve always had chemistry.
He sits beside me, and I hate to admit it, but I still feel it. Those damned pheromones. A hint of attraction, despite everything.
“I can’t believe Beth’s really gone,” I say.
“I can’t either. I had a lot of respect for her, and what she was trying to do.” He does look a little sad, actually, but it could just be an act.
“What was she trying to do?”
“What we were all trying to do. Make a difference.”
I’m not used to him sounding so facile. I study his face, but I can’t get a read. I can’t tell what he knows. What he’s done. Or what he’s had done on his—on INN’s—behalf.
I sink deeper in the couch. I should use this opportunity, but I’m not only tired; I’m weary.
Edwin moves a little closer and starts to massage my shoulders. It feels good, though it’s totally inappropriate. Very Harvey Weinstein. Have these titans learned nothing?
Still, my eyes close, almost involuntarily. I’ve missed touch. I’ve missed sex. Despite all I know about Edwin . . . what do I really know, for sure, about Edwin? It’s all so murky, and this feels so good.
“You seem like you could use a friend,” he murmurs. “You and I have been friends right from the start. From that first plane ride.” His hands slip just a little lower and pause. He’s waiting for a signal. So he’s not like Graham, or Harvey. He wants me to want him.
The truth is, I do. Which is convenient, because it’s also my best move to save myself. I remember in the diary when Elyse said that whatever happened, it would never come to her sleeping with Dennis. But Elyse had never felt this way about Dennis. Her life never depended on him.
Then Edwin and I are kissing, and maybe because it’s so bad, it feels especially good. I haven’t been with anyone besides Chase in years, and I like the differences in weight and pressure and urgency, and I like the things I know I shouldn’t, like that Edwin’s a billionaire and he’s my boss and I can bend him to my will, for the moment at least. So I’m going to take advantage of it, and him, and I’m not going to think about whether it’s actually the other way around.
Then he’s inside me, and we’re both gasping because we’ve waited so long for this, and because I need the release. I’ve been holding on to so much these past weeks, and I’m letting it go, right now, with a cry.
We fall against each other and I don’t know what’s next, I don’t know how low I’ll sink, but this has bought me more time, and hopefully, it’ll be enough.
Chapter 44
Inside a Manhattan skyscraper, more than a hundred floors up, in an elegant office of cream and pale gold, I’m sitting opposite Elyse Rohrbach. The Elyse Rohrbach.
Or should I call her R.G.?
People could be awestruck for any number of reasons: because of how Elyse not only survived but thrived; because of the broadcasting career she went on to have; and her impact on women’s issues, to name just a few. For me, it’s the diary.
It’s been my companion since the beginning of this ride. It’s helped me see the world as it was and as it is and what it should (and could) be. It’s enabled me to think on my feet in ways I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. It caused me to realize that there’s nothing shameful about female ambition, and that making it seem so is just a tool to deter women from embracing their true power. It’s kept me going; it’s kept me fighting. It’s led me here, to the headquarters of Elyse’s nonprofit, and now, I’m the one do
ing the interviewing.
Reese helped make contact with R.G. initially through the Talk section of Wikipedia (I could only do so much when I’m being surveilled). She got me a burner phone so R.G. and I could text each other, so I could cultivate my first source.
And what a source it’s turned out to be. The Elyse Rohrbach, who actually helped Beth to reinvent herself in 2001 and reenter the world of broadcasting. Elyse was the one who vouched for Beth, which gave this no-name journalist immediate credibility and kept anyone from asking too many questions. No one would have imagined that Elyse would be on Trish’s side, so they accepted Beth as an entirely new face and voice on the broadcasting scene.
Elyse and Beth remained close. There are photos online of Beth emceeing Elyse’s charity event last year. So I’m holding out hope that Beth went to her old pal Elyse about whatever was going on at INN, and that Elyse might have a good idea what got Beth killed.
I left my own cell phone at home so I couldn’t be tracked. I’ve told no one. I made sure to take the subway and then catch a cab and then the subway again so I couldn’t be followed. I wore my wig. But I’m no spy. There are so many ways this could still blow up. The INN clan could be two steps ahead of me.
Still, I’ve gotten sweet texts from Edwin today, and I continue to string Graham along, so their collective googly eyes might not be seeing straight. Unless they’re both playing me; unless they’re the ones playing dumb, and getting phone sex and actual sex to boot.
I can’t control any of that now. I just have to focus on the icon in front of me.
Elyse is in a coral pantsuit, her blond hair close-cropped, her curls long gone, her badge of courage on display whenever she turns her head. “It’s good to meet you,” she says. “Beth told me wonderful things. I only wish this was under different circumstances.”
“I do too. I really looked up to Beth.”
“I know she wanted to help guide you. After she returned to television, one of her goals was to create a different climate for women.”
“Did you want to help guide me too? Is that why you were sending me the diary?”
“If I’d known how everything was going to play out, I would never have started that. Beth and I had that idea before—” She breaks off, looking upset. “Beth told me you were coming to INN, and we thought the diary would make you see that no matter what you encounter, you can use it as fuel. You don’t have to play their game, you can play your own.”
“Why send it anonymously?” Hadn’t it occurred to someone as smart as Elyse, who’d been stalked and harassed, that receiving the diary like that could feel, in itself, threatening?
“I thought that it would be a journalistic test. See if you could follow the trail of breadcrumbs, and if you could, then I’d know you’re someone who could go far in this business.”
“So you were making me play your game.”
Elyse colors. “It was never meant to be mean-spirited. But now I can see how it might have felt that way. It’s funny how sometimes you can only see your own intentions, and if you know they’re good, you presume others know that too. I didn’t take your perspective as much as I should have. And then once I learned more about what was going on at INN, and what you were experiencing, I could see it quite clearly. I considered stopping, but that seemed like abandoning you. Then I had the idea of reaching out through the Talk section. I put in the question about what those three things had in common to remind you that just because people don’t know something, or don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it’s not real. You need to trust yourself. Adding the quotes was meant to spur you on.”
“It did. But why pretend to be R.G., after the way he treated you?”
“I needed some kind of code, and there were only two sets of initials in the diary. Everyone knows B.N. is my husband, so that left R.G. And Rich isn’t evil, he’s just always been gutless. He doesn’t knowingly perpetrate evil, he’s just one of the silent bystanders.”
“Which lets evil flourish.”
“Yes, it does.” Elyse brushes her hair back from her face, and I see her peekaboo scar. “I truly apologize, Cheyenne, if I’ve made your life harder. That wasn’t my intention.”
It did make my life harder. And it made it easier. “My relationship to the diary is complicated, but on the whole, I’m very glad I read it.”
Elyse looks relieved. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.” But enough about me. I have a job to do. “How did you and Trish become friends after everything that happened with her husband?” And after everything I read in the diary, where Elyse was hardly a Trish fan, and vice versa.
“It didn’t happen right away, that’s for sure. At first, I couldn’t believe she didn’t know what her husband was doing. But then I learned more about her problems with alcohol, and I came to feel she was a victim herself: of her husband’s abuse and mind games, of Dennis Graver, and of network politics. She told me that she had her suspicions and confronted Vince but that he gaslighted her. She started to doubt and blame herself. Vince had put her up to sleeping with Dennis, by the way, and when the affair didn’t save her job, he was even angrier.
“In the years after Vince was locked up, Trish saw that she wasn’t to blame for his abuse, and that alcohol wasn’t solving any of her problems. She went into recovery, and while she was doing the Twelve Steps, she reached out to me to make amends for what she should have known about her husband, and how she should have protected me.” Elyse wipes at her eyes. “She was so sincerely remorseful and so determined to be a better person. She’d moved away from New York, changed her name, and started over. She was doing a great job raising her girls with grace and humility.” The tears begin to flow. “I just spoke with one of them. It’s a huge blow, losing their mother this way.”
“I can’t even imagine. I never knew my mother.”
“I’m sorry. That must make this journey you’re on even harder, not having a female role model.”
“My father’s amazing.”
“But he’s still a man. They’re living in a different world.” Her eyes become faraway. “When Trish worked on Morning Sunrise, she wasn’t much of an interviewer; she was always waiting for her turn to talk. But after all she went through with the speculation and the death threats, and after all the work she did on herself, she developed so much empathy. When she was ready to be back in the limelight, I was glad to help her. She became a great interviewer, which she exhibited after September eleventh. That’s why I made sure I got those tapes in the hands of the right people in order to jump-start her career. She deserved that.”
“What was your friendship like?”
“We understood things no one else could. We’d both dealt with sexism and sexual harassment. We were both deeply impacted by Dennis, the network culture, and of course the overall mainstream culture for women. That was all playing out in the morning show wars: the insistence that women be everything but not too much of anything. We could have it all, but we needed to be really careful how we defined ‘all,’ and in pursuing it, we had to be especially careful that we didn’t step on men’s toes, or their egos. Our female viewers were going to hold us to those standards that they’d internalized, the ones that support a power structure with men at the top. We do it to one another. That’s the worst part.
“Sorry to get up on my soapbox. That’s my life’s work—addressing the status quo as it impacts women. Trish might have seen through her husband if she hadn’t been driven crazy by the rivalry, the who’s-blonder-who’s-younger-who’s-relatable-who’s-an-ambitious-bitch competition. The line we had to walk was so narrow, we all fall off sometimes.” Elyse looks at me with true curiosity. “Has the line gotten much wider, do you think?”
“I thought it had, but now . . .” I trail off. “That’s a conversation for another time. When there’s less urgency.”
“Every time is urgent.” Elyse’s smile is faint. “Part of why Beth wanted her own show was to be a force for good, behind the scenes. She wanted t
o promote respect, kindness, and equality, to hire deserving women, to listen without interruption. To be a haven. She wanted to inspire other women to take back their power, but in a feminine way.”
“She led by example. I could feel that in her pitch meeting.” Though with the way her staffers have glared at me or ignored me altogether since the TMZ footage, it’s not clear that what Beth tried to create will outlive her.
“Beth thought that if she changed the boys’ club starting with her show, if she succeeded in creating a more nurturing and less cutthroat environment, it could extend beyond and soften the entire network. She initially believed in Edwin and his good intentions.”
“Did she stop believing?”
“As time went on, she had her doubts. Nothing she could point to definitively, just little inklings. But recently, she told me that she’d uncovered something at INN, something about how the female staffers were being treated by some more powerful men, and that she was investigating further. She started to think that maybe the culture of INN wasn’t much better than the culture created by Roger Ailes at Fox, that the highest levels weren’t necessarily involved but were looking the other way, with a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude. You know, the silent bystander syndrome.”
The bathroom.
“In the last communication I had with Beth, she texted, ‘They know.’”
“Know what?”
“That’s what I wrote back, but she didn’t respond. They might have known she was really Trish and they were trying to blackmail her, or maybe they knew she was digging into things that could sink their reputation. INN depends so much on looking different from the other networks. If it was revealed that behind the scenes, they’re just the same, that could kill their image, and their advertising support. Beth must have gotten in someone’s way.” Elyse is tearing up again. “I admired her so much. She didn’t start out a great human being, but she became one. She worked at it. For her to come to an end like this, it’s just heartbreaking.”
