Want Me

by Jo Leigh

She flipped all four pancakes, then glanced at him before facing the stove once more. “I hope she lands on her feet. That’s what frightens me the most. She’s so talented and bright, but it never seemed to matter how often we told her she could do anything at all, chase any dream, she was convinced that the business came first. That we all lived and died for the bloody printing plant. I’m grateful for it, God knows, it’s kept us in food and clothing and our home for all these years, but if I never set foot in that place again, it’ll be too soon.

  “Mr. Fitz is deaf in one ear, did you know that? And the hearing in the other ear isn’t good. He’s tired, and he’s ready for a full retirement without the worry. We all are. Shannon deserves her own life, cut off from any obligations, real or imagined. I want her to be happy, Nathan. I want her to be free.”

  He stared at his coffee, wishing he could skip the painful part, the part where Shannon would be crushed by the betrayal. But he couldn’t. “You’ll need to tell her that in a while,” he said. “You’ll need to say it many times, I think. She won’t believe it at first. She’ll just be angry. Worse, she’ll feel like a fool.”

  Mrs. Fitz filled his plate and brought it over to the table. After setting it down, she placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to bring you into this,” she said. “But we’re all grateful for you being there to help us through it.”

  He covered her hand with his. “We’re family,” he said. “I love you guys.”

  “Shannon’ll be down in a minute. Eat up. You’re far too thin.”

  Today was going to be wonderful for Shannon. She deserved the spotlight, the attention. She deserved the best he had to offer.

  * * *

  THE DAY WENT BY IN FITS and starts. Shannon’s butterflies would swoop around and she’d fixate on the potential for failure, then some bit of work would catch her notice. Rinse. Repeat. It was only two o’clock. She was due at the studio at eight. She’d decided to eat her lunch at midafternoon, because she didn’t want to have a blood-sugar crash, but she also had to account for the nerves. She’d brought soup, crusty bread, a banana.

  Now she wanted chai tea, which they had only in the big break room. She left the quiet of her office, putting in her earplugs as she walked. Across the floor, she saw Melissa, Greg and Patrice huddled around someone in a chair. Shannon raced over to find out what was going on.

  There were accidents from time to time; it was a big plant with lots of machinery, but it had been a while since anyone had been injured. Brady ran a tight ship, and there were frequent enough breaks so that no one would get too drowsy at the controls. Oh, God, she could see now that it was Daphne, and she had her face buried in her hands, shaking, crying. What the hell?

  Patrice saw Shannon first and the expression on her face, such incredible contempt, made her flush. It was awful being the object of scorn, of mistrust. She was hated and no amount of explanations seemed to change anyone’s mind.

  Greg and Melissa were staring at her now, and they backed away from Daphne, who continued to weep. Shannon crouched in front of Daphne’s chair, touched her knee. Daphne glanced up, her mouth opened as if gasping, and she rose so swiftly she almost knocked Shannon on her ass.

  Daphne darted past her coworkers, heading toward the back of the shop, Shannon right on her tail. There was no way she could ignore this or even send Brady to investigate. She didn’t know if Daphne had been injured or if something else was tearing her apart.

  Daphne rushed into the ladies’ room. By the time Shannon went inside, her ex-friend was shutting a cubicle door behind her. Shannon’s right hand pressed back, and she yanked out her earplugs with her left. “Daphne, wait.”

  “Go away.”

  “I can’t. Please. Tell me if you’re hurt.”

  “No. I’m fine. Just go away.”

  “You’re not fine,” Shannon said. “I hate this. Please, let’s just talk. I know it’s been rocky between us, but—”

  The pressure on Daphne’s side of the door vanished, and Shannon stumbled forward, barely able to stop herself before she plowed into Daphne. Straightening quickly, Shannon took several steps back.

  Daphne didn’t seem to have noticed either the stumbling or Shannon’s attempt to give her some breathing room. “Rocky?” she repeated, as if Shannon had spit the word at her. “Things have been rocky? Do you know what the insurance company wants to charge for catastrophic illness coverage? More than my monthly paycheck, that’s what. Because I was born with diabetes. I’ve stopped sleeping, I’m going to lose my apartment, and then what? All I know how to do is work the printing machines, and there are no jobs out there. None.”

  She took a step toward Shannon, her face blotchy and her eyes red. She pointed her finger like a weapon as she shouted, “Why don’t you just do it already. You think we’re stupid? That we don’t know?”

  “Do what? Know what?”

  Daphne’s face twisted into such an ugly mask it made Shannon feel sick. “Yeah, you do think we’re idiots. Working twice as hard for less money. Doing the job of three and four people. No insurance, and your father is all about planning his retirement so he can go sit on a beach somewhere and have fancy drinks. Brady’s got a drawer full of brochures about new and better places to work. We know that guy that came by last week with your dad was a buyer. You all are going to walk away millionaires, and we’ll be shit out of luck without a nickel.”

  “What are you talking about?” Shannon had to grip the sink behind her. The tirade was insane, it made no sense. “My father’s not retiring. We’re not trying to sell anything. I’m doing everything in the world I can to bring us more clients. Why do you think I’ve been working so hard on this Easter project? I’m trolling for customers. I spend half my day making cold calls. Would I do that if we were trying to sell the plant?”

  Daphne wiped her nose with a tissue, then crossed her arms defensively. “Fine. Great. And I was feeling all guilty, but now I— You’ll just keep feeding us this bullshit until we’re all so desperate, we quit, and you won’t have to pay severance.”

  “What? No. That’s not true.”

  Daphne looked over Shannon’s shoulder, and Shannon followed her gaze. The entrance to the ladies’ room was filled with the other employees, and it was clear they hadn’t believed a word she said.

  “I’ve never lied to you.” Shannon stood up straight, rallied her dignity. “It’s been a struggle for everyone. All I’ve been working toward is keeping the plant going. Getting back on our feet so we can rehire a full crew. The decision to cut the insurance came down to the wire. It was that, or close the doors for good. You know that. I told you that. I give you my word, we’re not trying to sell the building. Why would we? It’s been in our family for generations.”

  Daphne laughed. “You know what? I don’t feel so good. I think I’ll take a paid sick day.” She put her hand in front of her mouth. “Oh, wait. Those were cut down to two days every six months. I don’t have any left.”

  Shannon opened her mouth to keep trying, but Daphne shut the cubicle door. The staff didn’t leave, but they did part to let her through. It was torturous, walking that gauntlet of mistrust and anger. She wasn’t everyone’s favorite person, but she’d never been hated before. Not even for things that she had done wrong.

  Why did they all think she was lying? The confrontation had been a nightmare, her worst fears shouted in her face.

  It had to be terrifying to have a chronic illness and not have insurance. Scary to have no real job security. But that was how it was now, not just at Fitzgerald & Sons. At least they had jobs. The plant had never missed a single payroll, not once. Shannon knew other companies were eliminating sick pay altogether.

  She went back to her office, staring straight ahead. She wanted to leave, to find Nate, to fall into his arms and have him tell her that things couldn’t have gotten this messed up.

  She locked her door, closed the blinds. Tears threatened, but she wouldn’t give in, not today. Not when she was busting her as
s to keep all the employees. Daphne wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sleeping.

  Her screensaver mocked her with pictures of happier times in the plant. Birthday parties, potlucks, costumes on Halloween. This had always been a great place to work, and it could be again. If only the staff were willing to have a little faith. But they weren’t. After all these years, all the effort and the stress. They obviously hadn’t bothered to think about the family’s side of the equation.

  She sniffed, opened her purse to get out her face powder, but took out Nate’s trading card instead. She smiled at him and at the fact that she still carried his card around with her. She thought of calling, but he was in meetings until this evening when he was going to watch her interview along with half the neighborhood at Molly’s.

  That was the good side of living someplace forever. With the obvious exception of their employees, the Fitzgeralds meant something in Gramercy. They were honorable people. Her family had taught her to tell the truth, to value a job well done, to treat people with respect.

  Time to focus again on Nate and let his picture bring her blood pressure down. It was coming on three o’clock. She had work to do, as always. Cold calls, mostly, but some filing, emails to answer. There was very little chance those things would be accomplished if she didn’t lift herself out of this funk. So she’d take her lunch, a whole damn hour, and she’d go for a walk. Walking always helped. Then she’d come back to the office, and she’d do her job.

  Tonight she’d put on her favorite outfit, brush her hair, freshen her lipstick and she’d smile when she got on camera. She’d talk about the fun they would have on Easter Sunday after mass. How each donation would help people who were truly in need. She refused to be in a bad mood when she had no power to change the outcome. She was doing her best. Working as hard as she knew how.

  She was not a failure, and she wasn’t going to act like one.

  * * *

  THE BUILDING WAS STEEL AND glass, and it didn’t look like a television studio lived inside, but she’d never been to one before, so that made little sense. It had taken Shannon over an hour on the subway to arrive at the studio in Yonkers. She’d used the time to gear herself up, to let the earlier part of the day go as she focused not on the opportunity to promote Fitzgerald & Sons, but on the altruistic purpose of the Easter egg hunt itself.

  Inside she was given a badge, and an escort, a harried young woman named Felicity, took her into a tiny little makeup area where someone who barely acknowledged Shannon powdered her face within an inch of its life. Felicity then took her to the green room, which wasn’t green and didn’t smell nice, either. The monitor that would have let her watch the broadcast was down, needing to be replaced, so Felicity pointed out a stack of old magazines. Shannon would be the only in-studio guest for the evening.

  As soon as she was alone, she brought out her phone and called Nate.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice as comforting as a hug. “How you doing?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Nervous.”

  “You’re a natural. They’ll probably ask you to be their next anchor.”

  She laughed a bit, a first for the day, and debated telling him about what had happened at work. The decision was made a second later as she really couldn’t afford to get caught up in any drama. It was disappointing, though, to realize that her pep talk had given her only a veneer of equilibrium.

  “Tell me about your meetings,” she said.

  “They were about as dull as meetings get.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to think about being on camera. So you need to entertain me. You’re at Molly’s, right?”

  “I am. It’s packed. Everyone’s here. Even people I used to know. Mrs. Gailbraith from four doors down is here.”

  “What? She never goes out. Did you thank her for all those candy bars?”

  “I did. Told her she was the best Halloween house on the whole block. She seemed pleased.”

  “What about the family?”

  “Myles and Alice are here, so are Brady and Paula. Danny’s come with a very beautiful girl who’s far too good for him— Ow.”

  Shannon was smiling now for real. She knew instantly that Nate had made that last crack within hearing range of Danny, who had proceeded to exact immediate revenge.

  “Princess!” It was Danny himself on the phone now. “Ow. Jesus, Nate, take my shoulder off, why don’t you.” Danny added a muttered expletive. “Hey,” he said into the phone. “Is it true you don’t want to be called Princess anymore?”

  “Yes.” She let out a happy sigh. Nate would get a bonus tonight for that. “Who’s your friend?”

  “She’s a gorgeous woman of discriminating taste, and you’ll meet her when you come back to visit the little people.”

  She shook her head. “As always, Danny, you’re a riot. Is Tim there?”

  “Yeah. He and Brady are arm wrestling. For money.”

  “Don’t let Ma catch them.”

  “She’s already made ten bucks, are you kidding?”

  “Give me back to Nate, you hooligan.”

  It took a moment for the phone to get into Nate’s hand, and then he told her to hang on. When he spoke again, the background was much quieter. “I’m back. It’s a madhouse out here.”

  “Watch, I’ll probably do something horribly embarrassing. Get the hiccups or something.”

  “No, you won’t. And even if you did, we’d love you just the same.”

  She knew he was talking about the family, about love in the broadest sense, but that didn’t stop the flurry that kicked up inside her. “I’m going to splurge after this and take a cab home.”

  “Good. I was about to suggest that. I was worried about you on the subway.”

  She wished he was there with her, not at Molly’s. “I can take care of myself, but I’m tired, and I want to be at home.”

  “Tonight’s going to be rough,” he said, his voice lower, a little harder to hear. “The gang’s all staying over.”

  “I figured. Maybe you can sneak in when everyone’s asleep.”

  “Or maybe I could steal you away, and we could spend the weekend at a hotel.”

  She sighed. “That sounds—”

  Felicity opened the door. “You’re up.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Shannon said, as the butterflies in her stomach suddenly grew teeth.

  “Break a leg,” he said.

  “Thanks. ’Bye.”

  Felicity barely glanced at her as she led her through corridors, over great big cables that were strewn about on the floor. There were flashing red Silence signs all along the way, and as they got closer to where the action seemed to be, the signs changed to On Air.

  There were cameras, two of them, and the cohosts’ desks. The set itself seemed incredibly smaller than it looked on television. She recognized Lisa Jenner at one desk, a very large picture of the New York skyline behind her, talking to the camera, reading from a TelePrompTer. She seemed relaxed and pretty, never once looking down at the papers that were in front of her.

  Grant Yost was at the second desk, the one Shannon was escorted to. It had a swirled blue backdrop with the station’s call letters in white. To his right, out of camera range, Shannon saw herself and Grant in a very large monitor. Her hair looked okay, but she should have gone with the matte lipstick. She was seated in a chair that had a low back. Since Lisa was still speaking, no one gave her any instructions, but she assumed that would come in a moment.

  Sure enough, the red light on the camera went off, and before Shannon could introduce herself to Grant, Felicity got her attention. As she fit Shannon with a tiny clip-on microphone, she said, “Look at Grant, not the camera. Seriously, looking at the camera ends up being creepy.”

  Shannon took out the flyer for the Easter egg hunt. “Who should I give this to?”

  Felicity looked at the paper blankly, then said, “I’ll take care of it. You’ll be on in five.”

  Five didn’t mean minutes, but seconds. Grant sti
ll hadn’t looked at her when he faced the camera. “Tonight’s guest is Shannon Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald and Sons Printing. They’re famous for making trading cards for the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, to name two famous franchises. They also print textbooks and catalogues and even children’s books. What WNYC has recently discovered, however, is that Fitzgerald and Sons also prints a different type of trading card.”

  A picture replaced the live shot of her and Grant. Shannon stared in mute horror at Nate’s trading card, surrounded by five other cards, all the men from the last batch she’d taken to the St. Marks lunch exchange.

  “These cards aren’t keepsakes. They’re solicitations. Traded among a prominent group of women including, it appears, Rebecca Winslow Thorpe, CEO of the venerable philanthropic Winslow Foundation.”

  A video of Rebecca, Bree and Katy came up in the nightmarish slide show, walking into the church, with Rebecca looking behind her as if she were doing something illegal. Shannon’s mouth opened. Inside her head she screamed for Yost to stop but she couldn’t seem to make a sound.

  “The men on these cards,” Grant continued, “have no idea they’re being traded like so much chattel.”

  Grant shifted his attention to Shannon. “Ms. Fitzgerald, I understand you were the person who came up with this trading scheme several months ago, and since then, over a hundred unsuspecting New Yorkers have been up for auction in the basement of St. Marks Church. Is it true that a percentage of each sale goes directly into your pocket?”

  15

  SHANNON COULDN’T BREATHE. The room spun and she had to grab on to the desk to keep herself upright. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What about the Easter egg hunt?”

  “Please, Ms. Fitzgerald. Explain to us how this trading card system works. How you’ve managed to keep the scheme quiet for so long. I was told there’s a strict confidentiality agreement among the women who sign up to be involved with the auction?”

  “There’s no auction. It’s not like that. We’re friends. It’s for fun, and for connections between friends.”