by Lis Wiehl
“Yes, it works fine. I have been known to make a halfway decent omelet.”
“Sounds perfect.” He reaches across the table and gently strokes her hand. His hand feels so warm—the warmth spreads through her body. But another feeling flares up, for the first time with Greg—wariness. She can trust him. Can’t she?
“I better get cracking. I’m doing a promotional interview for the show in twenty minutes.”
Erica sits in the makeup chair, and as Rosario works on her face, she goes over the key points she wants to get across in her interview. She puts the troubling information about Ed Spellman—and all its implications—out of her mind for the moment. As the makeup goes on, so does her game face.
“Nylan Hastings was in the chair today,” Rosario says.
“Oh, why?”
“He was doing an interview on the business show.”
“How was he?”
“He was okay at first and then he got a text that upset him. He became agitated and angry.”
“I wonder what it could have been.”
“I read it over his shoulder,” Rosario says. “I read everyone’s texts. How else can I gossip?”
“Well, what did it say?”
“It said ‘she knows’—Erica, please try not to flinch when I’m spraying your face.”
“Just ‘she knows’?”
“Yes. Maybe Nylan’s girlfriend found out he’s been sleeping with Claire Wilcox.”
“Yes, yes, that must be it,” Erica says, looking at herself in the mirror—can anyone else see the terror in her eyes?
CHAPTER 72
ERICA GETS ALMOST NO SLEEP and when she finally does doze off around five a.m., she wakes up suddenly an hour later in a cold sweat. Out the window the gray dawn is oppressive, unforgiving. There have been many times in her life when she’s felt alone and vulnerable, but never anything like this.
Her mind keeps circling back to that text: SHE KNOWS.
If she knows, she goes.
Erica gets dressed and heads up to the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle to shop for her dinner with Greg. It’s tough to concentrate, and the store is jammed with people, too many people, they’re all around her, writhing and streaming, she can barely move, a cart bumps against her, people whisper and point. Why are they looking at her? Claustrophobia grips her throat. She needs to get out of here. In a near panic she grabs what she needs and rushes to the express checkout.
After dropping off the groceries at home, Erica heads down to GNN. Today is blocked off for work on her show, including a couple of rehearsals. In her office she has a hard time sitting still, can’t even get through a hand of solitaire. Then Claire appears in the doorway. She seems subdued, as if she’s turned her wattage down a few notches.
“May I come in?”
“Sure.”
Claire is even dressed down, in a dark pantsuit. “Listen, Erica, I know I’ve been horrible. And I’m sorry. Sometimes my ambition gets the best of me. I also know we’re probably never going to be besties, but I’d like to try and clear the air. So we can all move forward.” She smiles, and it actually looks sincere—or at least in the ballpark. “Any chance we could get a cup of coffee and chat?”
Erica is wary—sharks don’t suddenly turn into minnows. But it’s in her own best interests to get along with Claire, especially if she’s sleeping with Nylan. “Yes, coffee would be nice.”
“Great. What time works for you?”
“How about four?”
“The Four Seasons?”
“Why not.”
Rehearsal is called, and Erica knuckles down and does her best to focus. But the mood on the set is subdued, there are no smiles or quips. When her eyes meet Greg’s, his light up with anticipation. She gets through the day and heads off to her meeting with Claire.
CHAPTER 73
ERICA IS AWED BY THE lobby of the Four Seasons—it looks like the set for one of those glamorous 1930s movies—soaring, exquisitely lit, Art Deco details. She sees Claire sitting on a cozy sofa and crosses to her. Claire stands up—she’s changed into a little silver dress and looks sensational, if a little overdone—and they air kiss, which feels so phony. Heads are turning; they’ve both been recognized.
“Isn’t it fun being famous?” Claire says with giddy girl-talk intimacy.
“It has its perks.”
A waiter comes over and they order coffee.
Claire grows serious. “I’m going to cut to the chase, Erica. What I really wanted to tell you is that I have tremendous respect for you. As a journalist. I know how high your standards are and I think your example is good for all of us at the network.”
“Thank you.”
“The truth is, I’ve been a little jealous of you. You arrived and I felt overshadowed. Nylan suddenly seemed to turn all his attention to you.”
“You’ve held your own.”
The coffee arrives and they both take sips.
Claire puts her cup down and says, “It’s been tough at times, to watch your star soar. You’ve forced me to up my game. I appreciate that.”
“We all have a stake in GNN’s success,” Erica says.
“Exactly. I hope we can move forward in that spirit.”
“So do I.”
Claire raises her coffee cup and clinks it against Erica’s. “Cheers then.” She puts down her cup, runs her fingers through her hair, gives her head a shake, sits up a little taller, and lowers her voice. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Nylan and I are seeing each other.”
“I might have heard a rumor.”
“He’s the most intriguing man I’ve ever met. His intellect, his ideas never fail to astonish me. He’s just so passionate . . . in all areas, by the way.” Claire smiles with satisfaction.
Erica is unsure how to respond to this overshare, and for a moment she wonders if she should warn Claire about Nylan’s predilections—she wouldn’t want her to end up in the emergency room—but it’s their business. “He’s certainly passionate about the network.”
“I believe he’s a great man, Erica. And that we’re seeing—not just seeing, are actually a part of—history in the making.”
Someone drank the Kool-Aid.
“I hope I can use my show to move the arc toward justice,” Erica says.
Claire reaches out and grasps Erica’s hand. “That’s another reason I have so much respect for you. You care.” She fiddles with an earring, her expression darkens, becomes regretful. “I feel very protective of Nylan. Of what he’s working to build at GNN. That’s why I felt compelled to do some digging. I discovered something that I felt I should share with you. It’s upset Nylan. I think he views it as a threat to the network’s future.”
Erica feels a wave of foreboding. “Is it something to do with me?”
“I’m afraid it is, yes.” Claire gives Erica a look of pitying sympathy. Then she takes a deep breath and exhales with a sigh. “I got hold of the court records of your divorce.”
Erica feels all the blood drain from her head, she’s afraid she’ll faint—she grabs a sofa arm to steady herself.
“Are you all right, Erica?”
Erica sits stock-still—and then a welcome wave of anger sweeps over her. “No, no, I’m not all right. Those records were sealed. What you did is illegal and immoral and . . . wrong, just wrong.” She’d like to slap that pitying look right off Claire’s face.
“Oh, Erica, can anything really be kept hidden in this day and age? Besides, this isn’t about you, or me, it’s about protecting the man I’m falling in lo
ve with. Imagine if one of your enemies had gotten hold of it. They could torpedo your whole show.” She takes a sip of coffee. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Of course Nylan is upset, I’ve never seen him so angry. But I’m sure he’ll calm down. I just wanted to give you fair warning. . . . You look a little flushed, sweetheart.”
“Do I? Let me use the ladies’ room.”
As Erica crosses the lobby, she wills herself to walk tall when what she really wants to do is lie down on the plush carpet and curl into a fetal position. She sees the bar across the lobby and takes three steps toward it. No! Not with Claire here, the Queen Bee of the Mean Girls . . . “You look a little flushed, sweetheart.” The woman has the ethics of a gutter rat.
A dying gutter rat oozing blood as it crawls across her desk.
Erica makes it to the ladies’ room. She looks at herself in the mirror—her eyes look hollow and haunted. The past has crawled out of its hole like a snake and is wrapping itself around her neck. She won’t give in, she can’t give in—she silently says the Serenity Prayer but finds no serenity. She wets a paper towel with cold water and holds it to her temples, takes measured breaths. She has to get out of here, she has to think, and she has to deal with Greg, who’ll be arriving at her apartment in about ninety minutes.
Erica crosses the lobby to Claire, willing herself to stay composed. Claire is checking messages on her iPhone and looks up innocently.
“I’ve got to run,” Erica says.
“I’m so glad we did this,” Claire says with a warm smile. “Sisterhood is powerful.”
“I don’t have a sister.”
CHAPTER 74
AS ERICA MAKES HER WAY down Fifty-Seventh Street, people are staring at her and she hates her fame—it’s intrusive, assaultive, a trap. Has she stepped into a trap? Her secret-in-a-box has just sprung open and a leering clown has popped out—she’s shocked, scared, humiliated. And angry—at herself. She paid a heavy price for her transgressions, but the records were sealed and she felt that the slate had been wiped clean. She believes in redemption, and every step she took in getting to GNN brought her closer to it. How could she have been so naive as to think the records would never come to light? Or be dragged into the light by someone like Claire Wilcox. Imagine if the tabloids and gossip sites get ahold of it?
She passes a liquor store. She needs a bottle of wine. For Greg, of course. She ducks inside. It’s a lovely liquor store with wood accents and soft jazz playing, filled with bottles of expensive vodka and gin and exotic whiskies and fine wines from all over the world. Erica feels herself relax; she walks down an aisle, reaches the vodkas, and stops in front of the display of Belvedere. She loves the image on the frosted bottle—a palace reached through mysterious, beckoning branches. Belvedere. Her friend. She runs her fingers down a bottle. She was famous for her Belvedere and tonic. First pour the vodka into the chilled glass—two fingers’ worth—then squeeze in a whole lime, yes, a whole lime, and then add the tonic—those lovely effervescent bubbles—and finally two lime wedges. It was an elixir more than a cocktail, stimulating, invigorating, it heightened all of her senses, made her so witty and carefree—la-di-da!
“May I help you?” a young male clerk asks.
“Oh . . . I’m looking for a nice bottle of wine to go with a mushroom omelet.”
“I would suggest a white, perhaps a Sauvignon Blanc. What’s your price range?”
“Price range?” Erica remembers she’s rich, she’s rich and famous, she’s a star. “No budget. I want the best. It’s for a dear friend. I don’t drink. I mean it’s not some sort of rule or edict. I just don’t. Not that I can’t or won’t. I just don’t. Today. Tonight.”
The clerk’s brow furrows. “We have a really superior Sauvignon Blanc for eighty-five dollars.”
“I’ll take a bottle.” As the clerk goes to retrieve the wine, Erica calls after him, “Make it two.”
CHAPTER 75
GREG WILL BE HERE ANY minute.
After getting the wine, Erica picked up flowers. A beautiful bunch of white and blue hydrangeas. Then she grabbed a dozen red tulips—so simple and elegant—and then a stunning mixed bouquet. She spent two hundred dollars, good for her. But now—as she moves the three vases from one table to another—she worries that the flowers are too much, that they come off as a desperate attempt to impress. She grabs the tulips and rushes into the bathroom and puts them on the counter. No, too fancy for a bathroom. She goes into her bedroom and puts them on her dresser. That’s better. Isn’t it? Should she light a scented candle in here? Candlelight is romantic, but is it cutesy, presumptuous, jumping the gun? Is romance even still a possibility?
And what about music? She grabs her iPhone and goes to Spotify—something for the soundtrack of the evening. Nothing too hip or jangly. Classical? No, too fusty. What about Michael Bublé or Celine Dion? Too Vegas-y?
Erica is desperately trying to ignore the elephant in her head: how to deal with Claire’s news about her court records. Does she tell Greg? What will he think of her when he finds out? Does he know already? And what about her plan to bring him in on her investigations?
Erica stands still and sucks air, closes her eyes and wills herself to calm down. Tony Bennett! He’s timeless. She puts on Bennett and moves the hydrangeas to the side table in the entryway. She goes to the galley kitchen. The small red potatoes are already roasting in the oven. Are they done? If they are, will they dry out? She pours olive oil into a frying pan and starts to sauté the mushrooms. She should have done this earlier. She doesn’t want Greg to arrive and find her sautéing mushrooms. But what should she be doing when he arrives? Not watching TV, not just sitting around.
Before she has time to decide, the intercom sounds.
“Greg Underwood is here,” comes the doorman’s voice.
“Send him up.”
Erica checks herself in the entryway mirror, smoothes out her little black dress. Is it too short? Is it wrong for what might turn into a very serious evening? The doorbell rings.
Greg stands there looking exhausted and stubbly, his black mop even more unruly than usual. Clearly he’s come straight from work. They look at each other for a moment—there’s no kiss, no touching—and Erica can’t read his look. It leaves her more unsettled. She has to take things one step at a time, not get ahead of herself, not get desperate. Don’t get desperate.
“Welcome,” she says.
Greg hands her a bouquet of lilies.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you.” The place is starting to look like a mortuary.
They walk into the living room. “This is nice,” he says politely.
“It’s fine for now.” Does Greg seem oddly subdued—or is that her imagination? “How about a glass of wine?”
“I could use one.”
Erica goes into the kitchen, sticks the flowers in a vase, and opens a bottle of the eighty-five-dollar wine. She holds the bottle under her nose and inhales the dry, fruity bouquet. She’d love a glass, just one . . . but that’s out of the question . . . with Greg here. She pours him a glass and brings it to him—he’s sitting on one of two facing sofas. He takes a sip. “This is fantastic wine.” He definitely seems serious, almost preoccupied.
Erica sits on the opposite sofa. “So I thought the rehearsal went well,” she says, brushing at a nonexistent spot on the sofa.
“Yes, it did. We’re moving in the right direction.”
“Things seem to be coming together,” Erica says, feeling inane.
Greg looks so uncomfortable, even morose. He takes a long swallow of wine and looks like a man steeling himself for an unpleasant task. “Erica, there’s something I need to talk to you about. I’m afraid it’s serio
us.”
“Is it my court records?”
“You know?”
“Claire told me.”
“Nylan gave them to me to read,” Greg says.
“Who else knows?”
“Just Nylan, Claire, and Fred Wilmot.”
“And you, of course.”
“Nylan felt I need to know because it could impact our show. I reassured him that you were sober now and there was no chance of another incident.”
No chance?
“Did he accept that?”
“He wishes you had told him.”
“What Claire did is despicable.”
“I’m not convinced she actually unearthed them. I think Nylan may have fed them to her.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To exert his power and control. Knock you down a peg. But, listen, how the records were obtained is secondary at this point. We have to deal with what’s in them.”
Erica stands up abruptly and starts to pace. “What’s in them is that I drove drunk with my Jenny in the car.” Just saying the words makes her nauseated. Erica hates self-pity, but for a moment it washes over her.
It all happened that fateful day she was fired from WBZ. Dirk had moved out of their lovely house—the house Erica’s salary paid for—and taken Jenny with him, to some crummy rental, basically kidnapped her, really. Yes she started drinking early, yes she drank all day, yes she got angry, yes she went to Dirk’s crummy rental to confront him and found Jenny with a babysitter, yes she snuck Jenny out of the house and into her car—but she put her in the backseat and fastened her seat belt—yes they drove to some crummy motel on Route 9 and Jenny was crying and Erica left her alone in the room and went to go get some ice cream—oh all right, she went to find a liquor store—and yes she slammed into a pickup truck.
