"No. Well, yes; sometimes for compliments, and always for audiences."
He looked starded, then began to laugh. "I remember: you're so honest. I like that. Val's the same way; took me a while to get used to it. What kind of audiences? For yourself?"
"For my programs. I've never cared about audiences for myself, being on camera, that sort of thing. It seems so... fake... talking to a camera as if you were about to take it to bed—"
Carlton gave a nervous laugh. "Sounds uncomfortable."
"Well, someone once told me a good television personality makes love to the camera. I don't know exacdy what that means, but it sounds like something I'd be ashamed of"
"Val does it, you know," he said abrupdy.
"She does? Still? Oh, I'm sorry; I had no idea she was still doing it, I thought she'd outgrown... oh, damn, why can't I keep my mouth shut? Carl, I'm so sorry; I'd never say anything against Valerie; I think she's wonderful. I've looked up to her all my life."
"Have you? She thinks you don't like her."
Sybille stared at him. "She thinks I don^t — "
A couple came to their table, carrying heaping plates. "You two plotting something illicit?" one of them asked jovially.
"No such luck," Carlton said with an easy laugh. "Come on; sit with us. We were talking about fishing."
Sybille picked at her smoked pheasant and cheese souffle, half listening to the talk around her, occasionally glancing at Carlton. Once she met his eyes and, flushing, looked quickly away. When, at last, the couple rose, saying they would stroll a bit before the hunt began, she kept her eyes lowered.
"Thank God," said Carlton cheerfully. "The dullest couple in Loudoun County. Pity we had to get them. You looked thoroughly bored."
"I was rude," Sybille said in a low voice. "I hope I didn't embarrass you; I just kept wishing they'd leave."
"Well, they did, and you didn't embarrass me. Why would you? I'm not the host."
"Because they're your friends."
"Not mine. And not Val's. Our hosts' friends, I assume, though God knows why?"
'*Why does Valerie think I don't like her?"
"Have you been brooding about that? I shouldn't have said it; stupid of me. It was just something Val said a while back. New Year's, I guess; nothing major; I probably got it wrong."
"But what did she say? It's not true that I don't like her! She knows that! I love her; I always have. She's like my older sister; I think she's the most wonderful... What did she say about me?"
He sighed. "Something about you never getting over something at
Stanford. She didn't say what, but what difference does it make? It's ancient history, and pretty childish, if you ask me; and I don't believe it, anyway. In fact, I'm sure I heard it wrong and I apologize for babbling about it. Tell me I'm forgiven."
Sybille's pale-blue eyes held his. "Of course you're forgiven. I couldn't be angry at you. Ever since we met I've felt something—I feel foolish saying this, please don't laugh at me—I've felt as if I've known you before and trusted you not to hurt me."
"Good God." He sat straight, distancing himself from her. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing." She pushed back her chair. "I'm sorry I said that; I knew it would sound foolish. I'm not usually mystical; I'm very practical. But there was something about our meeting I couldn't be cold and rational about. I would have kept quiet, but you said you liked my honesty..."
"Wait, I do like your honesty. I like you. But what did you mean?"
She made a small, helpless gesture with her hand. "I meant that it's hard to find anyone to trust. Don't you think so? There are so many unknowns, pitfalls..."
"That doesn't tell me what you meant."
"Oh... I'm not very smart about men. I think there must be something wrong with me. I can't be tough and careful and calculating; I just rush in, all ready to love, wanting so much to be loved..." She turned away. "But it never works out; I always get hurt." She turned back to him and gave a short, hard laugh. "I'm getting pretty tired of it, to tell the truth. Most women find someone to share their lives; why shouldn't I? I don't think I give too much or ask too much; I think I'm pretty normal; I just don't seem to choose men who are right for me. Or I'm not right for them. Maybe it's my fault for not paying more attention and figuring out what they need and then giving it to them. I'm just in such a hurry to find someone to be with, and I can't always bury myself deep enough in work to forget I'm alone. A lot of the time I can, but then all of a sudden something will make me feel such a failure..." She touched the comer of her eye. "I'm sorry, Carl, I didn't mean to spoil your breakfast by whining about myself; of all the things you don't want to hear, that probably heads the list." She looked behind her. "They've all gone! What have I done? Carl, if I've made you miss the hunt, on top of everything else..." She shoved back her chair and stood up. "I've done a great job of ruining what could have been good firiendship, haven't I? I'm so ashamed. I wish I
could go back to the beginning and start this conversation again—"
"Sit down," said Carlton. He was frowning. "Val said you seemed happy with Enderby."
"I was; oh, I was so happy. But it was just at the beginning. After a while he wasn't home much. I didn't know it at the time, but he had another woman. I think it was important to Quentin, at his age, to keep proving how virile he was. I loved him the way he was, but he just couldn't be satisfied with himself, so he kept finding young women, one in particular, but I'm pretty sure there were others. I never even tried to find out; it made me feel so... inadequate. I found out about the one, just before he died. And then he left most of his money to her, and some of it to a preacher he'd met; I suppose he got worried about his soul or something, when he was sick."
"He didn't leave anything to you?"
Sybille shook her head.
"I thought you got the television network."
"Oh. Yes. But it had enormous debts. And even if it didn't, it seemed so cold and unfeeling—a lot of equipment—nothing personal, nothing to show that we'd loved each other."
Carlton thought briefly that there was something wrong with that: why would money seem more personal or loving than a business they'd owned together .> Still, she had touched something deep inside him when she said she'd felt inadequate. He often felt that way with Val. She did everything so well—riding, steeplechase, giving parties, those httle things she did on television, raising money for some cause or other, being a wife—and everyone praised her; he did, too. It was a good thing she never wanted to do anything really serious, he thought. If she did, she'd probably leave him behind in the dust.
'Tou shouldn't feel inadequate," he said to Sybille. "He probably didn't know how to appreciate you, and on top of that he had his own problems, with his illness. It must have been a rotten time for you."
Sybille said nothing. She ran her riding crop slowly through her fingers, as if lost in thought.
"Why did you think I wouldn't hurt you?" Carlton asked.
She looked up again. "I don't think you'd hurt anyone, if you could help it. That first time we talked. New Year's Eve, I felt something special. As if we'd known each other for a long time, and laughed together, maybe even loved each other. Not with passion, but widi... oh, with affection. Closeness. Trust. You know so much more than I do; I had the feeling that I could come to you for advice and comfort
when things were bad, that we could share some of the craziness of the world... that we'd had—or we could have—the kind of love that makes life bearable."
Carlton could not take his eyes from her. "You're an incredible woman."
Slowly, still holding his gaze, she shook her head. "I'm glad you think so. But I think it's just that silly honesty; I can't lie to you, Carl... I can only love... or wish..."
He stood and pulled her up to him, covering her mouth with his, forcing it open, his tongue crushing hers as if he would subdue her by force, though she was not struggling. With a litde sob deep in her throat, Sybille put her arms arou
nd him and gave herself up to his kiss with the submission of a child, and the passion of a woman.
Carlton swept her into his arms and carried her across the veranda into the house. "No," Sybille whispered. 'Tour friends... the hunt..."
"They don't need me."
"But this house..."
"... has lots of bedrooms and they're all empty." He laughed, buoyant and excited. "God, Sybille, we've got the whole day. You're very small, you know that? You fit right in my arms, like a litde girl." He climbed the stairs, still holding her, and she snuggled against him, making herself smaller. He turned into the first bedroom off" the landing, a guest room with flowered curtains and flowered armchairs. He laid her on the flowered comforter on the bed, then looked down at her, laughing again. "Damned riding clothes... wait a minute."
He disappeared into the hall and returned a moment later with a boot pull. Sybille had not moved; she lay wide-eyed, waiting for him. ''Now," he said, and pulled off" his boots and clothes, while Sybille lay still, watching. He felt her eyes on him, burning into him; he thought he had never been so excited about a woman. "God, you're a witch," he said, and leaned over her to tear off" her boots and clothes, roughly, flinging them from the bed. Sybille felt his fingers rake her skin as he pulled away her brassiere and silk underpants, and then she gave a long moan and pulled him onto her. She spread her legs and felt him fit himself between them, felt the hairs on his chest as he lay on her breasts. She raised her hips, whispering his name, and he pushed into her. The only sound in the room was their breathing, sharp and quick. Sybille bit the side of Carlton's neck, sucking the skin between her teeth, running her tongue along his perspiration. She felt him shiver as she licked him. She moved her hips in ways she had practiced since college; her breathing grew more rapid, matching Carlton's, and then
he thrust deeply into her, pulled up, and thrust again, and cried out. At just that moment, Sybille too cried out, and then they both lay still.
"Incredible," Carlton murmured. "Incredible litde witch." He lay heavily, crushing her small body beneath his. She made him feel powerful. In a few minutes, very slowly, Sybille began to move her hips in circular motions beneath him, and he raised himself halfway and gazed down at her, at her piercing eyes. "My little witch," he said, and bent again to her mouth. And Sybille sighed, a long, deep sigh of passion. Or perhaps it was satisfaction. Carlton did not wonder which, because he did not think about it. He thought about her body, and the feeling of a little girl in his arms and beneath him, and her low voice saying she knew he would not hurt her.
Carlton had always been too lazy to expend the kind of energy that true intimacy required. He came closest, he thought, with Valerie. But now he was feeling something new. He was transfixed by Sybille En-derby. Something different, he thought, and heard her sigh again. Passion. Or satisfaction. Either way, he knew it was for him, and only for him. She trusted him; she'd hinted that she loved him. And that sigh, and the movements of her hips and hands, roused him as if he were a boy of sixteen. Sybille, he thought exultandy; you're mine.
Nick's days and nights were like the early times at Omega: there was only work and Chad, the exhilaration of creating something new, of learning and doing, of gathering a small staff that worked well together, and developing a list of customers who helped spread his growing reputation. His first act had been to hire two vice-presidents, for news and entertainment, and the three of them had spent the next three months planning a totally new schedule to replace Sybille's. They also had a new name: the E8dSI network.
"I get the N for Nick," said Les Braden, his vice-president for news, at their first meeting. "But who's E?"
"Entertainment and News," said Nick with a grin. "Straight and simple. I decided I don't need to splash my name in front of the public to feel good about myself."
Les chuckled. "I like that; a man who doesn't have to tell the world how important he is. Is that all? Entertainment and news?"
"What else is there?"
"Oh, the heavy stuff. Documentaries about athlete's foot and trench building in World War One; that sort of thing."
Nick laughed. "We'll have documentaries that are so well done they're entertaining. I don't think athlete's foot would qualif)^, unless
you can think of a way to tie it in with swimming and diving competitions."
"Not my job; I do news. I'll talk to Monica about it; she's so good she'll probably work it out. What do you think of Tracy Moore as anchor of the six and ten news?"
"I like her. She's tough and warm; a good combination. But we need a man too. Or do we? They always seem to come in pairs, like make-believe marriages. It's as if someone decided viewers need to think the world is full of happy couples grinning at each other and making litde jokes; otherwise the news won't be palatable."
"Sounds like the way television executives think," said Les. "Connie Chung does weekend newscasts alone, and she's damn good. I think we could get away with Tracy on her own; we'll have plenty of male reporters."
"It's jSne with me. Sign her up."
The planning went on all through September, during the day at the offices of E&N, in the evenings at Nick's house. At the same time, Nick was reading everything he could find on each part of the business; he was calling on dozens of people for information and advice, and he was traveling, to meet with cable operators. "Another dog and pony show," he told Chad. "I'm still trotting out what I've got to offer, hoping somebody buys."
Most of them bought his ideas and agreed to stay with E8cN, at least for a year after he began programming in October. As they agreed, one by one, the planning sessions with Les and Monica became more cheerful: they had a beginning.
"I have an idea," Nick said one morning early in October. It was three weeks before they would switch from Sybille's programming to their own.
Les sat back and stretched his legs. They were sitting in Nick's office, once Sybille's, almost bare since Sybille had removed her furniture. The two men sat on folding chairs beside unpacked boxes of books they were using as coffee tables; nearby were six more chairs, and across the room, in front of windows looking into other office windows, was Nick's desk and drafting table, shipped from California. That left him no desk for his office at home. One of these days he planned to go shopping; so far he had not taken the time.
"What idea?" Les asked. He poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Nick. The two men had become friends almost the moment they met. On the surface, they could not have been more different. Les
was twenty years older, a self-proclaimed failure as a radio announcer who had lost two jobs when his stations were sold and a third when he quit after being ordered to report early election returns and projections in favor of certain candidates before the polls closed. He was happily married to his high-school sweetheart and struggling to send two children through college. Compared to Nick's brilliant success, he seemed to have little. But the two of them shared ideas about television, about news, and about the world they lived in; they were at ease with each other, and worked together in the same harmony Nick had known with Ted Mcllvain at Omega.
"What would you think of a program called The Other Side of the News'?" Nick asked. "Subtitled: What Didn't They Say? What Didn't They Show?'"
Les considered it. "I like it. We show a speech, the President for example, a senator, somebody at the UN—"
"Or someone in business. Not just politics."
"And then we have somebody else give the speech, parts of it anyway, with what was left out."
"Or what was bent out of shape."
"Lies," Les said. "People lie and politicians lie better."
"We're going to think of every way of saying 'lie' without saying it." Nick grinned. "Or we don't say anything; we use a scene—some action that shows, without any words, or as few as possible, what was missing or false about the statement we just heard. We can do the same with television, and newspapers, by the way. If a reporter distorts a story, I'd want to show that too. No sacred cows."
"Good tide," Les murmured. He was making notes. "So who's going to produce this show? Everyone is already overloaded."
"We'll have to hire someone. If you have any names, I'll follow them up."
"I might, in my office. I'll go look. Any other ideas?"
"Yes, but they're for Monica."
"Entertainment. Like what?"
"The Bookstall.' Review of new books."
"Nobody'll watch it."
"Nobody?"
"Ahandftil."
"Then we'll do it for a handftil. There are two shows reviewing movies on the networks; I want one for books."
"Good," said Les promptly. "I don't mind a handftil if you don't.
Monica can probably produce it herself. Anything else?"
"A few dozen; we'll talk about them later. Do you have anything new?"
"A notebookful; you'll get them all eventually. You and Chad want to come to dinner tonight?"
"Sure. If you don't mind listening to Chad talk about his new school."
"Still? He's been doing that since September."
"He hasn't stopped. I hope he doesn't; I've never seen him so happy."
"How about you?" Les asked. "Are you happy?"
Nick laughed. "Coming from a married man, that means, have I met someone. No; not yet. But I'm having a good time, and you know it, Les; this is as much fun as Omega ever was. I'll meet women—how couldn't I, in this town? I'm outnumbered about five to one. And I'll probably manage to get married one of these days. But I'm not going to be in a hurry; if s not important, as long as I'm having fun along the way." He stopped. The words echoed from a distant memory. Someone else had said that. Why should I be in a hurry when Fm havin£[ so much fun alon^ the way?
Valerie, sitting on the grass at Stanford, sunlight glinting on her tawny hair, laughing at him for being so serious. The scene came back so vividly Nick could hear her laughter, feel the warmth of the sun, recall even the names of the books she had bought at the bookstore a few minutes earlier, when they had just met.
"Nick? You with me?"
"Sorry," Nick said. "I just remembered something."
A Ruling Passion Page 36
