by Nancy Adams
“Why’d you turn it off?” she asked him.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Paul put back to her.
“What?!” Claire spluttered, her heart dropping in her breast.
“Your face, Claire. How pallid you’ve gone. How much you hung on each of the words of those terrible people in that studio. He was at the hospice—Burgess was at the hospice around the time you got pregnant, you would have had contact, and your reaction just now proves it. I remember your reaction to his name that time in the coffee shop, do you remember?”
“No,” Claire mumbled.
“You went cold back then when I asked you about him. I asked if you’d seen him or his wife, and you went white—just like you did a moment ago. It was before you told me about the pregnancy, so I didn’t make any connections then. But later I got thinking about it and thought maybe it was him that was the father. Of course, I laughed it off as a crazy theory, the sort of ridiculous gossip that my ma would have been proud of. Seeing you just now, though, has convinced me that I was right.” There’d been a little anger in his tone up to now, but his hard expression dissolved the moment he saw the sadness erupt on Claire’s face. That look, so forlorn and so broken, flooded his heart with such sincere love for her. “Claire,” he said softly, “you’re crying.”
It was true, tears were cascading down her cheeks.
“It was a stupid mistake,” she whimpered.
“I know,” Paul said, coming away from the television and joining her on the couch. “I’m sorry. I’m a dick! I just got a little jealous when I figured it all out a minute ago. I looked at you and the way he affected you and it made me see red. I shouldn’t take it out on you. I’m sorry, I have no right to be jealous.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Paul,” Claire said as she leaned her head onto his shoulder. “I should have told you who it was, I just felt weird saying his name.”
Paul placed his arm warmly around Claire.
“I completely understand,” he said. “It’s pretty big. I can’t say that I would have said anything in your position.” Paul paused for a moment and mused over a certain question that he held upon the fingertips of his mind. Feeling an inner prod, he asked her, “You don’t still have feelings for him, do you?”
Claire stayed silent for a moment before saying, “Not in that sense. I still care for him, but it was only a transient moment in my life. When I saw him on the television a minute ago, it brought everything back up again—the pregnancy, the affair, the fact that I just had his baby.”
Something suddenly dawned on Paul. He recalled their conversation back in the coffee shop, when she’d first revealed the pregnancy.
“That first time when you told me in the coffee shop, you said that the father didn’t want anything to do with the kid,” he began. “Is that true, Claire? Does he even know about the pregnancy?”
Claire closed her eyes tight and muttered, “No.”
“You never told him?”
“No.”
“Holy shit, Claire!”
“Please, Paul, can we just leave it and watch Friends.”
Paul sat in silence, staring forward into space. He was shocked. However, he decided to leave it. The whole thing was clearly a very harrowing subject to Claire and before today, Paul had made the vow that he would make her return back to her apartment as comfortable as possible. So with all his grit, he left it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll drop it.”
With that, he took the remote and put on Friends. The two watched episode after episode, ordering pizza a little later when their appetites returned after the earlier emotions, before watching more Friends, eating popcorn, then more Friends, until both of them fell to sleep on the couch, Claire in Paul’s arms, Joey, Chandler, Monica and the rest nattering away in the background.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I told you, Mrs. Blackwell,” Tom Higgins of the Medical Board of California was saying down the telephone to Jenna, “the disciplinary panel can’t make exceptions for anyone, regardless of the current climate of hostility against them. You’ll have to arrive for the hearing by three PM today. I’m sorry, but we can’t postpone.”
“But I need a little time,” Jenna put to him as she paced up and down Sam’s kitchen.
It was eight days since the news of Jenna and Sam’s affair had broken, and disciplinary proceedings against her had been filed three days ago. Her hearing was today. Jess had stayed at her grandparents in the meantime and they, along with Maud, were doing their best to keep the furor away from her little ears.
“Look, Mrs. Blackwell,” Higgins continued over the phone, “we understand the difficulties of the time, but if you are not here by three then the panel will have to decide on your fate without your evidence.”
Jenna closed her eyes tight and felt herself begin to sway.
“I have no evidence,” she said after a short pause, her eyes still shut. “I just want to be there when you take away everything I’ve worked so hard for.”
“But it would be better for you if you were to present any corroboration of the facts to the panel. At the moment all we have is the evidence passed on to us anonymously, your employer’s complaint and the flames of a scandal which is being fanned by the media.”
“Don’t I know it,” Jenna groaned.
“Techsoft—who hired you—have made a formal complaint. You have to answer that complaint, Mrs. Blackwell. So I advise you to be at our offices by three PM today. That is all I have to say on the matter, so goodbye Mrs. Blackwell. I wish you all the luck in your current situation.”
Jenna didn’t even bother to say goodbye. She merely put the phone down and stood holding her head with one hand, leaning with her other hand against the breakfast bar. At that moment, Sam walked in and, seeing her in distress, he walked over to her and warmly placed his arms around her as he came up behind her. She immediately melted into him and he kissed her neck gently, feeling a shiver run through her.
“You couldn’t put them off?” he asked her.
“No,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I’ve got to be there by three today. It’s nine now, so I’d have to leave here in two hours to be sure to make it.”
“Then you’ll have to go.”
“Huh!” Jenna exclaimed softly. “Just to find out that my license has been revoked for having an unethical relationship with a client. Techsoft have made a complaint and the evidence is pretty overwhelming—as well as true—so there’s nothing to fight. But it’s not even that which frightens me. It’s the press hassling me as I go into the building. They’re sure to be there waiting for me.”
Three days before, Sam had made it to his first board meeting in over five years. He did it in the faint hope that he could sway them from voting to issue a complaint against Jenna for breach of her contract with the company. Unfortunately it was voted seven to four. Sam had managed to pull one of Bormann’s cronies over to his side, alongside him, Calloway and Sue Reynolds. But it wasn’t enough. The complaint was issued only moments later, meaning that Jenna would definitely face disciplinary action.
“You’ve still gotta go and face them,” Sam said to her. “Just weather the storm for a short time.”
“Hey, guys,” came the voice of Gary Scott, PR guru, as he stepped into the kitchen holding his mobile.
Jenna and Sam turned to him, the former opening her eyes. The day after Jenna had arrived, Sam hired Gary and the guru flew out with a small team to stay with them, turning the Cliff Top into a PR headquarters. The couple had decided not to tell him of Bormann’s involvement. They would stay quiet on that part of the episode for now, Sam realizing that it would be counter-productive to involve the CEO at this juncture.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Gary continued as he came toward them, “but I just got off the telephone with Oprah’s people and I’ve gotten Jenna a live interview for this evening at six PM with the queen herself. I thought as Jenna has already been on Oprah a few times, it would be the most comfo
rtable platform for her. A real chance for her to get her side of the story across just like we’ve been saying. We’ve held off for long enough, it’s time for us to give the public her side of things.”
“Isn’t that great,” Sam said to Jenna. “You just go out there and tell them that this isn’t what they think it is. You tell them that you never went to the Times or OK! You tell them that a smear campaign has been instigated against you and that it was hackers who obtained the video.”
Jenna allowed herself a faint smile.
“There is one more thing, though, Sam,” Gary added.
“What’s that?” Sam inquired.
“It’s a double interview.”
“I don’t get you.”
Gary’s expression took on a pained look and he struggled to say the next part.
“I’ve booked you to appear alongside Jenna,” he said sheepishly.
“WHAT?!” Sam burst out, letting go of Jenna and giving Gary an incredulous glare.
“Sam, please, listen to me,” Gary said holding out the palms of his hands.
“No!” Sam repeated, a panicked look on his face. “You’ll have to cancel.”
“Sam, it doesn’t work if it’s just Jenna up there,” Gary insisted to him. “People will simply listen to what she’s got to say and ignore it. They’ll simply continue to think of her as some kind of tell-all-unscrupulous-gold-digging-whore. Pardon the term,” he added, glancing over at Jenna. “But if they see you up there together, side by side,” he proceeded, “they’ll see for themselves that there’s more to this than some duplicitous affair and a sex tape. They’ll see real love and that’ll blow all of everything else away. If you’re there with her denouncing all these claims, it will give credence to our side of things. Please, Sam, at least consider helping Jenna.”
As Sam stood there in the kitchen, Jenna came up to him, took him by the hands and looked him square in the eyes.
“If you’re not up to this,” she said, “you don’t have to do it. I can go out there on my own and face them.”
Sam’s slightly frightened expression dissolved in the face of her soft look, her dazzling grey eyes burning into his soul.
Shaking his head, he said, “Okay. Okay.”
Jenna smiled and took him in her arms.
“That’s awesome,” Gary let out. “I advise that when you go to your hearing you don’t say a word to the press. Everything in the Oprah interview.”
Just then, a large shadow cast itself across the kitchen as something came swinging in front of the glass facade of the house. Looking up from Jenna’s shoulder, Sam observed a helicopter hovering in front of them. It stunned him at first, and Gary also stood frozen, gazing at the helicopter as it loomed before them.
Pulling herself delicately away from Sam, Jenna asked him, “Is he one of yours?”
“No,” Sam muttered as he walked to the glass wall to face it.
Suddenly he jumped as a flashbulb went off in his face, emanating from the chopper.
“Get inside the house,” Sam cried to Jenna, and she immediately left the kitchen. “Motherfucker!” he added turning back to the helicopter.
“I’ll go see to Jenna,” Gary said to him as he left the kitchen.
When Gary had gone, Sam stood eye-to-eye with the paparazzi helicopter. Taking his mobile from his pocket, he called his security team.
“Hey, boss,” one of the team answered. “We got the bogey in our sights. He was pretty quick onto the reserve and we only got in the air five minutes ago, but we’ll have him intercepted in less than a minute, just hold tight.”
“Thanks, Cody,” Sam replied.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and continued to stand eyeball to eyeball with his tormenters—a single pilot and some guy hanging out of the door with a camera taking Sam’s picture, the flashbulb continually illuminating his eyes, but Sam staring wildly at them the whole time.
“YOU ARE CURRENTLY TRESPASSING,” came the sound of his security team turning up in two choppers of their own, speaking through megaphones. “YOU ARE ADVISED TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS BEING FILED AGAINST YOU FOR ILLEGAL TRESPASS AND ILLEGAL INVASION OF PRIVACY.”
With that, the paparazzi jumped back in and the chopper swung out of there, the two security choppers following it. Sam shook his head and walked away from the window, joining Jenna and Gary in the lounge, the blinds all drawn. Jenna was sitting on the couch next to Gary. She was shaking all over and Gary had an arm around her shoulder as she sat with her arms pulled tightly across her knees.
Sam came over to them and Gary made way for him. Sitting himself down next to Jenna, Sam placed his own arm tenderly around her shoulders. She turned to him and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing into him, trembling as she did. An anger permeated through Sam then. An anger aimed at the outside world and their cruel disregard for other people. Their need for the story. Their need for gossip. The journalists caring about nothing more than the sales of whatever rag was paying their salary. The people caring for nothing more than the raw flesh of other people’s lives, picking through it with cold indifference.
He’d only ever wanted to make the world a better place by taking it forward with technology. The money, the fame, these were merely side issues, footnotes. He wanted to live his life like normal people; in obscurity. But ever since he became one of the youngest self-made millionaires and then one of the youngest to reach a billion, the world had felt the need to own Sam Burgess, to peck at him and pull away small amounts of flesh, never killing him outright, but always keeping him weak. The public bleeds its celebrities and its public figures. It ties them to a post for all to see and then continually pecks them.
He’d attempted to hide from this, but that hadn’t helped him. Only nine months after his wife’s death, the company they started was being destroyed by a corporate demagogue who would have Techsoft become synonymous with death. He realized now that the only way to win such wars would be to open himself up to the very thing that he’d hidden from his whole life.
If Sam Burgess was to defeat Bormann, he would have to become a man of the people.
CHAPTER SIX
Jules had noticed that Juliette had been very quiet that day. They were currently driving to Malibu up the Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean to the left of them, the early evening sunbeams dancing off of it. They were going to see baby David. The night before, Margot and Claude had returned from Maine and after getting themselves comfortable were now awaiting the visit of their best friends to see the new addition to the family.
All day Juliette had said nothing of the possibility of meeting baby David, and when Jules had begun talking on the subject, Juliette had been rather short with him and he’d left it alone. He knew his love, and he knew when to leave something. In the last days, it hadn’t escaped him that Juliette was being pensive about her friend’s child. It also hadn’t escaped him as to why this was. Danny.
Ever since the loss of their only child, Juliette had found it hard to engage with children, seeing her little boy’s face on each of them. He haunted her.
Danny was nearly ten when he first got sick in 1979. The boy was always sickly, catching whatever illness was hanging around the playground, and he’d suffered from anemia for a few years up to that point. But in '79, the infection had lasted for several weeks and he wasn’t getting any better. Plus, Juliette had observed that the boy bruised easily and that the bruises took a long time to fade. She took him to the doctors, and several tests later Danny was diagnosed with leukemia.
You have no idea the cruelty suffered by parents forced to watch their own child slowly disintegrate in front of their very eyes. Try to explain all the treatments to him, why he has to be made sick in the hope of curing him, and then why he’d been made so sick for no reason once it had all failed and he was cast off to die anyway. So much inhumane suffering. And then at the end, after all that terrible suffering, you have nothing to show for it except an
empty space where there was once a child. A child that represented so much life and light, and now represents a void, nothing more than a sad memory.
A piece of Jules and Juliette faded from their own hearts the day that Danny died.
As Jules pulled off the highway into the small road that led them to Margot and Claude’s, he decided to stop at the side of the road before reaching the house.
“What is it, Jules?” Juliette asked as he pulled the car over. “Is there something wrong with the car?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong,” he assured her. “I just wanna talk to you before we get in there.”
“What about?”
“I simply wanna tell ya that I understand it if you need to get outta there at any point. If you need to—if you’re feeling like the baby’s making you think too much about Danny—you just let me know by looking me in the eyes and I’ll make our excuses and we’ll leave.”
Juliette sat motionless for a moment, looking out across the beach, people flying kites and walking along the sand.
“Thank you, Jules,” she said after a time. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Sorry that I spoil everything with my sadness.”
“A mother should never apologize for feeling sad when it concerns her own child. All I ask of you is that you try, for Margot and Claude’s sake.”
“I will,” Juliette let out, and she leaned across the car to kiss Jules on the lips.
Having kissed warmly, Juliette returned to the passenger side, gazing at Jules with a smile on her face. Jules started the engine and drove the rest of the way to Margot’s.
When they got out of the car in the driveway, Jules grabbed the shopping bag of presents off of the backseat and the two walked to the door arm in arm. They rang the bell and soon the blurred figure of Claude could be seen through the frosted glass of the door.
“Bonjour!” he cried in a merry tone when he’d opened it.
