The Lost Enchantress

by Patricia Coughlin

  “Really? How many was it?”

  Eve hesitated and then gave a resigned sigh. “Only one hundred and eighty.”

  “Lordy. That’s close enough. Any particular significance to that number?”

  “Long story.”

  “I have time. Dish.”

  “Can’t. I’m taping an interview with the dean of Newberry College at one, and we’re planning to shoot some walk-and-talk around campus first . . . which I still have to write script for. And before that I have to return calls and squeeze in a meeting with Angela.”

  “Lucky you.”

  Eve smiled at the way Jenna’s tone soured at the mention of her boss. Angela Beckett, the station’s straight-shooting, hard-driving and very glamorous news director was not on Jenna’s list of favorite people. Eve sensed the chill was mutual and that it had something to do with it being impossible for two larger-than-life personalities to hold center stage at the same time.

  “Why don’t we have lunch sometime this week and I’ll fill you in?” By then she should be able to come up with a story that would satisfy Jenna’s craving for details without revealing too much of the actual truth.

  Jenna sighed theatrically. “Oh, all right. But at least throw me a crumb to hold me till then. Who is he? Where did you meet? Is he really as young as he looks? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “I honestly don’t know how old he is. And it doesn’t matter, becau—”

  Jenna broke in. “I totally agree. In fact, I say the younger the better; that way they don’t have time to form any annoying bad habits. And besides, no one bats an eye when men date younger women. Turnabout’s fair play. Go, cougars. Hey, wouldn’t this make a great topic for my show? I can already hear the phones ringing off the hook. You could be my star guest!”

  Eve winced at the thought. “What I was going to say was that his age doesn’t matter because this . . . thing is no big deal. Really. In fact, there is no thing. He’s just someone I met last night at the auction.”

  “I knew it,” Jenna crowed. “As soon as Diane described him, I knew it had to be the same yummy guy who was checking you out last night. I was going to mention it to you, but you took off in such a hurry I didn’t have a chance. And speaking of, I still want to hear what gives with you and that necklace. I mean, good God, that was a lot of money. Anyway, when I saw him follow you out I thought to myself, hmmm. And now he shows up with a hundred and eighty roses. Hot damn, Eve.”

  “Like I said, it’s no big deal.”

  “If you say so.”

  Eve could hear the grin in her friend’s sing-song tone. “I’ll check my schedule and get back to you about lunch. Try not to let your imagination run amok in the meantime.”

  “Sorry, amok is my imagination’s natural habitat. As for lunch, sooner works for me.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Eve hesitated before saying good-bye. “Hey, Jenna, you’re a good judge of people. Would you describe me as brainy and uptight? Be honest.”

  “Brainy as in smart and insightful? Yeah, that’s you all day. As for being uptight, well . . . ‘uptight’ is such a harsh word, with really negative connotations. If you think of it as being careful and highly structured, then I suppose some people might consider you a teensy, tiny bit uptight . . . in a charming sort of way,” she hastened to add.

  “Charmingly uptight,” Eve muttered. “Terrific. I have to run.”

  “Lunch. Soon. Don’t forget.”

  Around the station, the news director’s spacious corner office was known as “the fishbowl.” Exterior windows overlooked the bustling center of downtown Providence, and a wall of glass provided a view of the newsroom, where the tempo ranged from busy to frenetic depending on how close it was to broadcast time. Phones rang, police scanners hummed, printers spit out an endless stream of fresh copy and everywhere there were monitors to monitor the local and national competition.

  There were more monitors inside the fishbowl, a half dozen of them mounted in a row close to the ceiling. At the moment they were all muted, but at regular intervals Angela scanned them, and Eve knew that if anything exploded, crashed or declared war anywhere in the known world, her boss would have the sound up in one heartbeat and a reporter working the story in two.

  Angela was a master of the game of television news. The average tenure for a news director in a midsize market was eighteen months; Angela had been at WWRI for nearly three years and things were still rosy. Her arrival had been akin to tossing a live grenade into the studio. With management’s support, she’d overhauled the existing sets, played to the stations’ strength by focusing resources on local news, and defied convention by axing such formula relics as the one-two punch of running an attention-grabbing prime-time tease followed by the irritatingly coy “details at eleven.” Angela had little in common with average viewers, but she was shrewd enough to get them; she understood what interested them and what pissed them off, and she proceeded accordingly.

  Initially, she and Eve were wary of each other. Eve didn’t want the new boss trying to clip her wings, and the new boss didn’t want Eve thinking longevity entitled her to coast. However, it didn’t take long for each of them to recognize a kindred spirit in the other. They were both ambitious, unafraid to take chances and willing to do whatever was necessary to get the job done right. On the personal side, neither of them had to balance her career with a husband and children. And neither of them lived with one eye on the next rung of the ladder, a rarity in the world of television journalism.

  Most journalists and news directors were always looking ahead to the next job in the next biggest market, ready to pounce on any opening that would bring them more exposure and more money, with the ultimate prize of being tapped by one of the major networks. Eve had never viewed her job as a stepping stone. She’d always intended to stay put in Providence. In the beginning it was because Grand and Chloe and Rory were depending on her and she wanted to be there for them, even if it meant letting go of her own dreams. But as time went on she discovered other reasons to stay. Not that a fatter paycheck wouldn’t come in handy; Rory’s college tuition was right around the corner, and for all she knew there were other expensive family talismans to be rescued. But there were things that mattered more to her, personally and professionally.

  Providence wasn’t simply her hometown; through the years and through her work it had also become an old friend, one with quirks and flaws along with all the things that made it shine, a friend with the power to make her laugh and make her cry. She knew Providence the way you came to know a cherished friend; she knew its hidden pleasures and its dark alleys and its secrets, and that gave her an invaluable edge as a journalist.

  It was a perfect fit. Her home beat was big enough to continue to interest and challenge her professionally and small enough that she could see the effect her work had, small enough that every once in a while something she reported made a difference. Not a huge difference and maybe only a difference in a handful of lives, or even in just one life, but that was enough. Because when it happened, for just a little while, she felt like Superman, champion of the little guy, able to right wrongs and leap buildings in a single bound.

  It was an amazing feeling, one most folks never got to experience and that even the most lucrative job offer couldn’t promise to deliver. And even if it could, she wouldn’t leave. She felt too strong a connection to the city; if she could do good through her work, she wanted to do it there.

  It was the reason she’d become a journalist in the first place, to make a difference. Once, she’d dreamed of doing it on a grand scale. That wasn’t meant to be. But even if she wasn’t reporting from a war zone or famine-ravished country, she stilled needed to know that what she did mattered somewhere besides her bank balance, that she wasn’t simply marking time at WWRI or temporarily filling a space on a giant chessboard. If she felt an occasional stab of restlessness, a niggling sense that there was something else, something more she could be doing, or should be
doing, she tried not to let it bother her. Most of the time, she was too busy for prolonged navel-gazing or soul-searching.

  And her dedication had paid off. After years of honing her own style and approach to the news, she was no longer hostage to the daily assignment desk; instead, she was in charge of Special Projects, which meant freedom to enterprise her own ideas for longer, magazine-style stories that ran over several broadcasts and allowed for more nuanced coverage of a subject.

  Practically speaking, she didn’t just head the Special Projects Department, she was the department, and that was just fine with her. She liked having control of every aspect of a story, from inception to broadcast. And she had free rein to tap whatever support staff and equipment she needed as long as she kept Angela up-to-date with what she was working on, brought the package in on time and continued to deliver in the all-important ratings department.

  Today’s meeting was of the keep-Angela-up-to-date variety.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” Angela said, with brisk nods of approval as she ran down Eve’s list of bullet points for a follow-up that was the biggest of several projects she had in the works. A year ago, fire had ripped through the top floor of a Newberry College dorm, claiming the lives of six students and leaving a dozen others seriously injured. Fire stories were something Eve usually avoided; that brand of pain and loss struck too close to home. But something about this story had drawn her in. Or rather, someone.

  Freshman Allison Snow, one of the burn victims, also lost her twin sister, Cassidy, in the fire. She was struggling to survive an avalanche of trauma and grief and physical suffering that would crush most people when the fire marshall’s report delivered another blow. The report concluded that the fire had started when sparks from a frayed electrical cord ignited flammable decorations hanging nearby, decorations Allison had hung for a party that weekend. The revelation touched a deep personal chord in Eve and she’d been unable to turn away.

  The first time they met, Allison was still hospitalized with second- and third-degree burns from face to knee on her left side. She was past the early stages of treatment, the agonizingly painful scrubbing and removal of dead tissue, but she still faced months of skin grafts and surgery and physical therapy, and then, in all likelihood, a lifetime of scars, physical and psychological, to remind her of that night. Eve was working on a series of reports on the aftermath of the fire, intended as a tribute to those who’d been lost and to show how the entire community had been touched by the tragedy. She started with the victims and their families, then the firefighters who’d saved lives and the doctors and nurses who’d worked around the clock to keep the injured alive, and she followed the ripples outward, through the Newberry faculty and student body, and finally to the community at large.

  She wanted Allison and Cassidy’s story to be part of it; she wanted to give Allie a chance to memorialize her sister as only she could. But she made it clear from the start that it wasn’t her only reason for reaching out and that even if Allie never agreed to an interview, she would keep coming back. It was important to Eve that Allie know there was someone around who wouldn’t try to brush aside what she was feeling, someone in a position to understand in excruciating detail because she knew firsthand what it was like to be trapped inside that tangled web of grief and guilt and regret.

  The instant she walked into the hospital room, Eve had recognized the look in the girl’s eyes. It was the same lost and haunted look she’d seen in her own eyes for years after the fire that killed her parents and laid waste to life as she’d known it. She knew that behind that look an endless loop of “what if?” and “if only” was running inside her head. She knew what a dark and lonely feeling it was to hold yourself responsible even when no one else did.

  Angela finished reading Eve’s notes and looked up. “I like it. I especially like your idea of fading from clips of earlier interviews to new tape of the same subject. Have you been able to get in touch with everyone you spoke with last year?”

  “Pretty much. One professor retired and moved to Florida, and a few kids have transferred to other schools. I have someone trying to get new contact info for them, but it’s nothing I can’t work around if I have to.”

  “Good. I’ve checked out some of the raw tape you’ve logged. You’ve developed quite a rapport with Allison Snow.”

  “Unfortunately, we have a lot in common.”

  Angela nodded without comment. She knew a little about Eve’s background, but she wasn’t given to extraneous prying or sentiment and Eve blessed her for it.

  “When do her bandages come off?” she asked Eve.

  “Next week. She wants me to be there. For moral support.”

  A gleam appeared in Angela’s dark eyes. “Any chance she’d let you bring along a photog?”

  “I wouldn’t even ask.”

  Her boss shrugged. “Just a thought.”

  Eve sometimes thought that if Snow White had an evil twin, it would be Angela. She had the right look—wavy black hair, pale porcelain skin and ruby red lips—and, at least when it came to business, a heart of pure, calculating ice. And she’d made good use of all of it to get as far as she had on a playing field that still pretty much favored men. Angela didn’t pretend to be one of the boys. Far from it. Like Eve, she preferred to do things her way. In Angela’s case that meant wielding her femininity like any other weapon at her disposal, ruthlessly and with a style all her own. She dressed for the daily battle in defiantly girly colored suits, raspberry and lavender and lemon yellow, with jackets nipped at the waist and skirts that were straight and narrow, showing off a figure many younger women would covet. A hint of cleavage was not unheard of . . . but comfortable shoes definitely were. Comfort, her own and others, was not a priority for Angela.

  “We really don’t need anything sensational to hype this anyway,” she assured Eve. “The latest viewer survey shows there’s still mega interest out there. I don’t want to sound . . . callous, but we really lucked out having the one-year anniversary fall during sweeps. We’ll tease it—tastefully—during every broadcast the week before. With any luck we’ll pull a forty share on at least a couple of nights.”

  A forty share meant that forty percent of households in the viewing area were tuned in. Once that had been a fairly common occurrence, but with all the competition from cable networks and online news sites—including their own—pulling a forty these days was like hitting a grand slam. That made Angela’s expression of confidence even more significant, and Eve made a mental note to remember it when contract negotiations rolled around.

  “Tell me more about this other idea,” Angela said, moving on. “What do pets have to do with finance and foreclosures?”

  “Pets cost money. If you get laid off and have to cut expenses to the bone, pets sometimes have to go. Or if a family loses their home and has to crash with relatives for a while, the invitation might not include the family pooch or kitty and so they end up in a shelter. It was a volunteer at a local animal shelter who tipped me off to it. I made a few quick calls to other shelters and heard the same thing over and over; they’re filled to capacity—and beyond—and more animals arrive daily.”

  “So do they . . . ?” She made a slicing motion across her throat.

  Eve gave a grim nod. “Eventually. But most of them are trying to hold out as long as they can to give owners a chance to get settled somewhere and come back to claim them. It’s heartbreaking—these aren’t strays with health problems, three strikes against them and no place to go; they’re members of the family.”

  “We had a little black poodle when I was a kid,” Angela recalled. “Mitzi. She chased the mailman until the post office threatened to cut off delivery if it didn’t stop, and whenever it thundered, she’d get nervous and throw up on our feet.” She sighed, as close to misty-eyed as Eve had ever seen her. “She was a real pain in the ass, but I still would have hated to have to give her away.”

  Eve nodded. “Some shelters have started Foster Friend campaigns, asking
for volunteers to help ease the overcrowding by taking in an animal—or two—on a temporary basis. Best-case scenario, the pets get reclaimed by their owners. Worst case, they get a few extra weeks, or months. And maybe, if they’re lucky, that’s enough time for their foster friend to fall in love with them and they get a new home.”

  “Hmm. It has possibilities. And it’s sure as hell timely. Maybe we could spin it off the financial segment . . . give the C block a softer edge. Or maybe . . . maybe . . .” She paused, her gaze sliding past Eve to focus on the clear blue sky outside the window. Eve could almost hear the wheels turning inside Angela’s head. “Maybe we could do a version of the Tuesday’s Child spot, only instead of featuring a kid each week; we spotlight a pet in need of a foster home. We could get an existing advertiser to sponsor it . . . or better yet, pick up a new sponsor. One of those big pet-store chains would be perfect.”

  “That’s actually not a bad idea,” Eve told her. “Just getting the word out is bound to spur adoptions . . . and hopefully donations too.”

  “And create good word of mouth for us,” added Angela, cutting to the heart of the matter from her standpoint. “I mean, who the hell doesn’t love snips and snails and puppy dog tails? This could be big. I say we toss it to Promotions and see what they come up with. Okay with you?”

  Eve sort of nodded and murmured agreement. A second earlier she’d glanced at the monitors and her attention had been instantly shanghaied by the image on one of them. A square-jawed, sun-bronzed, tawny-haired man was being interviewed by the ladies of The View. And, judging by the fawning expressions on the faces of all four women, he was charming the pants off them. It was, she recalled, something he was very good at.

  She couldn’t be sure how long she sat there, staring up at the screen, heart pounding, chest constricting, memories popping in her head like tulips in springtime. It finally penetrated that Angela was speaking. To her. And she managed to drag her attention away from the monitor. Slowly, as if freeing herself from mental quicksand.