Sophie's Turn

by Nicky Wells

  “This is a temporary assignment,” he continued. “I want you back at the news desk as soon as the tour is finished.”

  He could see that I was still hesitant and put on his fatherly tone.

  “What is it?” he urged. “You can tell Rick.”

  “You mentioned traveling…you mentioned a tour. What exactly does this assignment entail?”

  “Isn’t that obvious? You go on tour with them. There are, I don’t know, perhaps ten gigs all over Europe, and you get to go to all of them. The idea would be a grand opening write-up, then perhaps a special feature on each band member and a series of entertaining insights for each show. I would have thought this would be right up your alley.”

  There was my opening, finally. I pounced.

  “Sure. It is. But…you know how Tim is.”

  Rick’s good will evaporated again. “As I said if your personal relationship gets in the way…”

  Now it was my turn to interrupt, and I played a more forceful hand this time.

  “It’s not my personal relationship per se that’s in the way here. Rick, come on, you’re a guy. How would you feel if your wife went gallivanting about with a rock band all over Europe?”

  Surely that would have him think.

  But no.

  “Are you saying Tim wouldn’t trust you?”

  I cringed. “I don’t know. He can be pretty jealous.”

  “Well, he’ll have to live with that. It’ll be no different once you have a job at one of the big papers and you go off to meet heads of state and other luminaries. If Tim can’t deal with his jealousy, you two will have a pretty rough ride.”

  “But…,” I started, but Rick wasn’t finished.

  “Now, are you saying that Tim shouldn’t trust you?”

  I blushed deeply. “Of course not,” I protested, perhaps a smidgen too hastily.

  Rick scrutinized me thoroughly. “Well then, that’s settled,” he concluded.

  I sighed, and acquiesced. I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to keep my job. Professionally, this was the chance of a lifetime. The big difficulty, as Rick had so deftly uncovered, was me. I had just drawn a big line under the Dan and Tuscq thing. What would happen once I was on the road with them? What were Dan’s motives in getting me embroiled on this tour? Was it my anticipated presence that had prompted him to tell Tim that his girlfriend wouldn’t be happy about the tour? Was he honestly just after my sympathetic coverage of their shows? Or did he have ulterior motives still?

  “Definitely ulterior motives,” Rachel squealed delightedly. Immediately upon my return to the office, I had grabbed her and we had marched right out again. I didn’t care what Rick would think of my complete neglect of today’s routine work. I was going to burst if I couldn’t talk this through with Rach. We were having a crisis meeting at the coffee place downstairs.

  “Sophie, this is so cool. You are so lucky.” Rachel could barely contain her envy.

  I didn’t feel lucky. During the short walk back to the office with Rick, a host of conflicting emotions had rendezvoused in my head. I was at once confused, excited, angry, and flattered. And very, very scared.

  “But Rach, what am I going to do?” I howled. “This is an impossible situation.”

  Rachel considered my predicament for the briefest of intervals.

  “As far as I can see, you have two options. You can play it strictly above board, and nobody could fault you for that. Question is, are you headstrong enough to do that?” She gave me a searching look, and then shook her head in silent answer to her question. “Your second option is to play it by ear and…well, see what happens. Be wanton. Have fun.” Evidently, she was still willing to send her supportive attitude towards my engagement packing at a moment’s notice.

  “No,” I insisted fiercely. “None of that. I can’t be wanton again. Do you know how difficult the past weeks have been? I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster. I can’t go there again. I don’t have the strength. If I go on this tour, I’ll have to be strong. And…and…well, why would I? I mean, what about his real girlfriend?”

  “What girlfriend?” Rachel pounced.

  Ah. I had not filled her in yet. But when I did, she just discounted the whole thing. “I don’t see why you get so worked up about this,” she admonished. “You told me he was like that. What’s the big deal?”

  Before I could respond, she continued, offering a masterstroke of persuasive detail, “And anyway, if he has a girlfriend, that rather lets you off the hook, doesn’t it?”

  “But I don’t want him to have been seeing someone else while he was…well, sort of, seeing me. That sucks,” I spat venomously.

  “Well, then. That brings us back to you, doesn’t it?” Rachel stated flatly. But now there was pity in her eyes. “Do you want the truth?” she asked mildly.

  I nodded mutely.

  “Okay,” Rachel sighed. “I don’t think you stand a chance. I think you’re in love with Dan whether you like it or not. Nobody, not even a saint, could withstand that kind of temptation, whether or not he has another girlfriend who”—she raised a finger in sudden insight—“may or may not even be there. On tour, I mean. So, I don’t think you stand a chance.”

  I gulped. She was probably right. But surely, as an adult, I ought to be able to cope with such a situation? Rachel was reading my mind and was already describing how circumstances would work against me.

  “There’ll be exhilaration after a great gig. There’ll be dinners. Alcohol. Parties. Confidences. Not a chance.”

  “So what do I do?” I snapped impatiently. “Rick’s made it plenty clear that he’ll boot me out if I lose Read London this opportunity. Tim probably won’t have a clue what he’s letting me go toward. But I don’t want to be an engagement breaker. I don’t do adultery. That’s a horrible thing to commit. Particularly with a sad bastard who is shagging someone else at the same time.”

  “Well,” Rachel reflected, “you could tell Tim the truth. You know, about tour dynamics.”

  “And what? Expect his absolution? ‘Oh, go on Soph, have some fun, sleep with the guy, I’ll wait for you here?’” My voice rose dramatically with each word. “Are you completely nuts?”

  “Hold your horses, we’re just thinking through your options,” Rach retorted, waving her hands at me in a calming motion. “You couldn’t just consider this as a three-week sabbatical from your engagement?” she eventually continued. “You know, just privately, without telling Tim? Some kind of suspended animation of your relationship?”

  “Could you do that?” I shot back, aggrieved. “Honestly? Could you do that to the man you want to marry?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel conceded. “I don’t know what it feels like to want to commit to someone for good.”

  She got up and bought another round of coffees. The conundrum was unsolvable. Somehow, Dan had managed to put me in a position where I had to make trade-offs between my job, my relationship with Tim, and my persistent weakness for himself.

  After another half hour of fruitless deliberation, we gave up. The temporary consensus was that I would go, and do my very best to remain aloof. Rachel and her mobile phone would be on standby to talk me through risky moments, night and day. Maybe, by some miracle, I would turn out to be a better person than I thought possible. Maybe, by some other miracle, the problem wouldn’t present itself. Maybe Dan’s other woman would prevent things from happening. Or maybe I would gain some insight about myself and my life that would enable me to make a better decision in the moment. And if all else failed, and if I failed, I would have to deal with the consequences when the tour finished.

  Things were moving rather too fast for my liking. When Rachel and I got back to the office, I found a fat folder marked ‘Tuscq revival’ on my desk, accompanied by a covering note scrawled in Rick’s spiky handwriting:

  Sophie,

  Dan has couriered over the tour schedule as well as air tickets and hotel details. Please let me know if you have any questions. Else t
hey all look forward to seeing you at Heathrow in three weeks. Please meet with me tomorrow to discuss details of your temporary assignment to entertainment. Thanks again for taking this on; I know how reluctant you are—but we depend on you for this scoop.

  Rick

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The whole thing had to have been a fait accompli even before Rick told me over lunch. But, I noted with some relief, at least the covering note would offer plenty of reassurance to Tim that I hadn’t somehow engineered this. Bless Rick—somewhere underneath that gruff editor exterior, he did have a soft touch.

  Weighing the hefty folder in my hands, I put off the moment of opening it and examining its contents. Despite my many concerns, I felt my heart lurch with excitement and my tummy gave a little flutter. I could be a bona fide tour groupie with a perfect, above-board excuse. This was my deepest, most secret dream come true. Almost reverently, I turned the folder over a few times and finally spread the contents out on my desk. As Rick’s note promised, a whole bunch of air tickets fell out. I thumbed through them idly, and then gasped: they were all first or business class. Furthermore, there was a long list of reservations at five-star hotels. Tuscq was going for the all-out, no-holds-barred experience, and I was in for the ride.

  Finally, I located the tour schedule: starting in Edinburgh, and covering Stockholm, Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Barcelona, Paris, with a glowing finale in London—over a three-week period. Wow.

  I stared and stared. What a round-up of places. And the venues—all big arenas and stadiums. This was serious stuff. And—I gave a tiny little squeal, increasingly unable to hide my excitement from myself—I really was going to be part of it. I even had a press pass that said Sophie Penhalligan, VIP, Access All Areas.

  Rachel had observed me from her desk and gave me a little wink. “You’ll never be strong, but it’ll be worth it,” she mouthed. I shrugged helplessly in response. What was the point of worrying right now?

  I told Tim over dinner that very same night. I thought if I brought the news home hot off the press—pun intended—it would seem more truthful and honest somehow. In fact, I gave him a blow-by-blow rundown of my day and a slightly censored insight into my emotions. Emphasizing my concern at Rick’s summons, my surprise at my reassignment, and my reluctance to take it. At this point, Tim—ever the career man—stared at me blankly.

  “But Soph, how could you even consider turning down an opportunity like this?” he asked, completely failing to grasp the situation.

  I wanted to scream. Are you blind? Can’t you see what’s going on here? Instead, I simply muttered, “It’s not that big a deal. It’s hardly going to win me the Pulitzer prize.”

  “You never know, it might. You can insert some social commentary or other deep and insightful observation…about Youth Culture or something. But that’s not the point. Sometimes, you’ve just got to think corporate. And you’re doing Read London a huge favor. Once the nationals want to get your copy, the syndicated pounds will come rolling in. If Rick plays this right, Read London will make a fortune out of your little column.”

  Trust Tim to wear his corporate hat. I continued to be cynical of the money-spinning potential of this enterprise. After all, who was to know whether Tuscq’s revival would be a success? The enterprise could turn out to be a horrible flop; then what would happen to me and my career, and my so-called golden opportunity?

  At the same time, I felt tremendous relief at Tim’s easy-going acceptance of this assignment. I couldn’t believe he was even encouraging me to go. Somewhere deep down, I was also ashamed at abusing his trust in such a blatant manner, but as Rachel and I had amply discussed, I didn’t have much of a choice.

  Tim decided to use the occasion as a cause for celebration, even after I had aired my concerns regarding the uncertainty of the success of Tuscq’s revival. In the end it was he, not I, who spent the evening pouring over the tour schedule in every detail, guzzling a glass of wine and dreaming up great things for me to write. I sat back and wondered if my life could turn out to be any more surreal.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A week before the tour was due to launch, Rick and I had a big powwow in his office with the band’s manager, Jack, about a suitable strategy for my serial column that would chronicle the tour. This was a new and quite frustrating experience for me. I was used to writing articles with the slant and spin that I considered appropriate. Here, I was given a precise schedule of the types of things I had to include in my various installments. In the end, it was decided that I should write a big teaser piece, featuring interviews with the band, to be published on the Wednesday before the kick-off gig in Edinburgh. The next installment would be a genuine fan’s write-up describing the Edinburgh show, and I was promised a free hand for this one. After that, I was supposed to create in-depth profiles of each band member and include real-life insight into funny events and mishaps. I had hoped that the interview with the band would give me an opportunity to have a little word with Dan, but the band was sequestered somewhere secret for pre-tour rest, so the interview had to take place by phone. I was extremely frustrated and couldn’t help feeling that Dan was still engineering things in his favor. Though I was fuming with indignation, I put on my most professional hat and rose to the challenge beautifully. The call went well and I scored one-nil on my own personal scoreboard. But my mood dropped again when I discovered afterwards that Jack had faxed me three pages of publicity bumph that he wanted me to include, and I had a serious artistic hissy-fit. I stomped around the office waving the fax and muttering under my breath, “I’m being paid to write an article, I’m not being paid to be a mouthpiece, and I’ll be damned if I compromise my professional integrity by taking the bait.” Rachel thought it was hilarious and was no comfort to me at all. Eventually, I picked the barest of facts from Jack’s exuberant blurb and gave the whole thing my own, specific and, yes, enthusiastic treatment. Weak with relief at having cleared this first hurdle in my three-week torturous assignment to entertainment, I submitted the copy to Rick with plenty of time for the Wednesday deadline.

  That was when all hell broke loose. It turned out that Rick needed to run the piece by Jack. He found that little gem of information on his answering machine literally twenty minutes before the copy had to be cleared for print—and he was livid. For one tiny second, sales and syndication income were forgotten as he ranted and raved in his office about freedom of the press, artistic freedom, the free hands we had been promised, and the impossibility of working with artists. Feet were stomped, pencils were flung, coffee mugs were thumped on the desk, papers were scattered. I sat meekly and observed, secretly enjoying the drama immensely. Good to know that someone other than me derived significant discomfort from this experience! Then, Rick recovered and tracked down Jack. With only minutes to spare, the two hooked up and Rick did me the honor of handling the conversation by speakerphone. He used his honeycomb voice, but there was no mistaking that he was laying down the rules, and for a change, they worked in my favor.

  “Jack,” he growled sweetly, “if this is going to work, you cannot review articles before they go to print. We have deadlines here, and besides, we’re either free to print what Sophie sees fit or we’re not printing at all. We can’t work in shackles. If you don’t like what you see, you can sue us tomorrow!”

  I took in a sharp breath but Rick winked at me conspiratorially. There was a baffled silence at the other end, but eventually Jack relented. “Okay then,” he grumbled. “I guess I hadn’t quite thought this through. I’m used to dealing with PR offices, not papers. I’m just trying to avoid…you know, the wrong impression.”

  “Well,” Rick reminded him, “you hand-picked Sophie for this assignment. As a longstanding fan and personal friend of the band, I doubt she’ll be out to create what you call ‘the wrong impression’. So, she writes, I edit, we print. That’s the deal.” And he hung up.

  He looked at me with a big grin. “I think that’s sorted then. Now when you’re out there
, don’t you go running to Jack for permission of any kind. Your copy comes straight to me, and that’s that.” He was dialing an internal number as he spoke to me, then abruptly barked “get printing” and settled back into his chair. “All done.”

  My mood improved somewhat. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of the actual opportunity I had here: writing my own copy without editorial input. Rick’s subtext was clear; he had neither time nor inclination to edit my pieces. I would control how many words and paragraphs I would put in the piece, what the headline would say. I had complete autonomy: unheard of for a journalist in my position. That, at least, was good news.

  Eventually, the big day arrived. I was due to meet with the band in the airline lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 at nine a.m. Rachel had offered to accompany me on this first leg of the journey—for moral support—and Rick had agreed to let her have some unofficial time off for this purpose. And so it was that we piled yet again into a cab together from my place, full of high spirits and giggles. Tim and I had had a farewell dinner the previous night. We both hated goodbyes and had agreed that they would be easier handled the evening before rather than on the actual morning. Plus of course, from my perspective, this arrangement absolved me from having to disguise my increasing excitement from him in the morning. The deception had begun.

  Rachel was uncharacteristically girlish. I guessed even she wasn’t totally immune to being star-struck. She mumbled something about gathering autographs and taking pictures, and I smiled indulgently and somewhat wistfully. As on previous occasions, there wouldn’t be any pictures of me and the band. I took out the brand new digital camera that I had been given and pressed a few buttons experimentally. I hadn’t quite got the hang of the thing yet. Because yes, in addition to being chief chronicler, I was also chief photographer. The idea had been Rick’s—fueled, no doubt, by the desire not to lose another valuable member of staff on this little venture. His reasoning was simple. I would have access to all areas and it would be so much more real, so much more convincing, if I took pictures, however amateurish, like a real fan might. After all, that was the perspective I was to take for writing: the real fan, not the journalist. The band had readily agreed, eager to limit the number of people hanging round their dressing rooms. Moreover, there would be professional photo shoots here and there, and Jack had offered us access to those photos as we saw fit.