by Sally Quinn
“Doris doesn’t have enough in petty cash.”
“Shit. I don’t believe this. All we need are computers and money and we can’t get either. This is supposed to be one of the great metropolitan newspapers of the free world and nothing works around here. I’ll go to the bank next door and get some money out of my own account. But Malkin, please make sure we’ve got clips.”
When she came back with her last five hundred dollars in cash Malkin was waiting for her, looking glum.
“There’s not a computer working. They’re all broken,” he said.
“Try to get Tyson at home before he leaves and see if he has one he can take. And talk to some of the others about using theirs. I can send somebody back to my house for mine. If worse comes to worse we can go downstairs to the computer store and buy one. I might as well be running a pawn shop.”
Walt and Alan both stuck their heads into her office.
“Nice work on the Tyson thing,” said Walt with a lascivious grin. “What did you have to promise to get him to—”
“Don’t even finish that thought, much less that sentence, Walt,” she said, smiling.
“Okay, so how’d you do it?” Alan asked “I’m impressed.”
“Some people just have leadership ability and some haven’t,” she said.
They both laughed as they walked back toward the national desk.
“I think, Malkin, we’ve already spent far too much time on Sprague Tyson,” she said. “We’ve got a huge story breaking and too many other cities and too many other reporters to deal with to worry about him. Why don’t you round up the boys and let’s figure out strategy.”
Just as Malkin left, the phone rang. It was Des.
“What a story,” he said.
His juices were flowing. She could tell. He just wanted to share the excitement with her. They couldn’t really share information even though he worked for the Weekly and didn’t have a next-day deadline. They had long ago decided that was unwise.
Allison decided to tell him about her contretemps with Sprague. She knew Des was predisposed not to like him just from what little she had told him. She was also curious to know how he would react to what she had done. He listened carefully while she recounted the details of her standoff. When she was finished he said nothing.
“Well,” she said rather proudly. “How do you think I handled it?”
“I think,” said Des carefully, “that when you cut off a guy’s nuts in public you have either created a eunuch, in which case he will no longer be the kind of reporter he is now, or you have created a monster bent on revenge. Or he will mull it over for a long long time and say to himself, ‘That is some kinda dame.’ In any case, you have not heard the last of him.”
* * *
“Allison? Allison!”
Allison was vaguely aware of somebody saying her name but she couldn’t bring herself out of her stupor.
“Allison? Are you all right?”
“Huh? Uh, what, huh?”
She was aware she wasn’t making any sense. She was trying to come out of her groggy state but she still couldn’t orient herself. She didn’t know where she was or who was talking to her. All she knew was that the lights were too bright.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, still trying to get her bearings. She pulled herself up in her blue chair. Blue chair? Where was she? She wasn’t in her office. She blinked her eyes. At the head of the conference table she saw Walt leaning forward with a worried expression on his face. Several people were crowded around her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You just blacked out,” said Walt.
She looked around and saw the rest of the national staff sitting around a large table staring at her. It must be the weekly national staff meeting.
“Do you feel okay? Do you want me to take you down to the nurse?” Walt was asking.
She could make out Lauren Hope’s face across the table and next to her Sprague Tyson. God, how humiliating. She felt as if she had been drugged. What was happening to her? This was the second time she had just passed out like this. She was beginning to be frightened.
“I’m fine, just fine, thank you, I just, if I could have some water… I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t sound very convincing, but somebody got her a drink with ice. She managed to get herself together enough to go to the ladies room, with Lauren nervously accompanying her, and splash cold water on her face.
When she came back Tyson was talking. He was discussing the fight between the DEA, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the CIA over the drug strategy and the President’s cleanup operation in the District of Columbia.
“This is small potatoes for the cartels,” Tyson was saying. “The Colombians…”
He looked up as she walked back in and lost his train of thought.
“The uh, the, uh…”
“The Colombians,” said Walt. Sprague’s reaction to Allison did not go unnoticed by Walt.
“Oh, right. Sorry. The Colombians are just laughing at the whole group, at how inept they are.”
“How could they have been so stupid as to have this press conference?” Walt asked.
“Foxy persuaded the President that it was a great idea. He told him they were on a roll, getting all this great coverage. Foxy obviously likes the publicity. A lot of thought had not gone into this.”
“What about Foxy?” asked Walt. “What’s his role here and what kind of clout does he really have with the President?”
“Tight. Very tight. Nobody closer. And Foxy’s down on the head of DEA. Not that he’s high on the FBI or CIA heads either. He’d rather oversee all of those agencies himself as far as I can tell. But he really wants a bite out of Garcia’s ass. And if I know Foxy he’s going to get it.”
Allison was having a hard time following the conversation, even after the drink and the splash of cold water. She should be involved in the discussion. This was her story. The staff would be looking to her to see if she was on top of it. Yet she was so preoccupied with her blackout and she felt so groggy that she didn’t dare open her mouth. Besides, she wasn’t sure what to say anyway. She really didn’t want Tyson to know she was out of it either. She decided to say nothing.
“New business,” Walt was saying. “Honoraria. Do we have a policy?”
This was a subject that was intensely interesting to all of the staff—whether or not they could accept speaking fees and from whom.
“Everybody needs to read the Style book,” Walt said. “You know you can’t accept money from the government or anything you cover. Then we’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis to see if there’s a conflict. In any event, your assistant managing editor should approve it in advance. And if your editor has a problem he or she should come to me.”
Allison felt strongly about this issue. She had assigned one of her reporters to do a story not only on Hill people taking speaking fees but on journalists as well. It had had a mixed reaction at the Daily. Many reporters refused to cooperate and tell how much they got and from whom.
“Does it trouble you, Allison,” asked one of the reporters, “that if an increasing amount of income comes from outside the Daily then the question arises as to who the real master is?”
Allison tried to answer but she found herself slurring her words. Walt jumped in.
“Some people are in demand and it’s a very heady experience,” he said quickly.
“Did everyone at the paper who was asked to, cooperate, and are we going to continue that practice?” asked another.
“No, they didn’t,” Allison mustered a response. “It’s Alan’s idea that we continue to look into it occasionally.”
She leaned back in her chair. Walt looked relieved.
“Well, I think from looking at the situation closely,” said Lauren Hope, “that people who don’t take honoraria, inside or outside the paper, are rich and people who do are not rich.”
Everyone laughed appreciatively.
“It’s always
open to discussion, outside writing and speaking,” concluded Walt. “I’ll be meeting with each staff to discuss this further and I’m sure there will be a lot of reaction.”
Walt stood up, signaling the end of the meeting.
He grabbed Allison and took her by the arm.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Well, we’re going to talk about this. Come down to my office right now.”
They took the elevator down to the fifth floor in silence. Unfortunately Tyson was on the elevator. He never looked at Allison, though several other reporters were glancing suspiciously at her out of the corners of their eyes. When they got out of the elevator Tyson put his hand lightly on Allison’s shoulder as he walked away. It was obviously a gesture of support. It stunned her. She couldn’t get it out of her mind.
“Okay, what’s going on?” asked Walt, once they were in his office.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?”
She didn’t say anything.
“How long has this been going on?”
She looked down at her watch. She didn’t want him to see her eyes tear up.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me, Walt,” she finally managed to choke out. “I’m really scared.” She was on the verge of breaking down but she couldn’t because of the glass office. Everyone was watching. Damn these stupid glass offices. There was no privacy in a newsroom.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“No.”
“Have you mentioned anything to Des?”
She shook her head again.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number while she was sitting there.
“This is Walt Fineman. Please tell Dr. Goldberg that I’m sending over Allison Sterling right away to be examined. It’s urgent. Extremely urgent.”
Goldberg was everybody’s doctor. They also shared the same therapist, the same agent, the same dentist, and the same personal trainer at the health club. It was part of the pack journalism syndrome.
Before she could protest he was standing up and pulling her out of her chair. “If you don’t go I’ll physically take you there.”
“Walt, I’ve got too much to do. I’m supposed to have lunch with Jennifer Conlon about her maternity leave. Do you know she wants to work only part-time when she comes back from having the baby? I can’t believe how self-indulgent these people are. Honest to Christ. How are you supposed to run a newspaper like this? This is Marie Rogers’s first week back and she’s going home several times a day to nurse. And have you seen her tits? They’re leaking like a faucet. She’s got these horrible little wet spots on her silk blouses. It’s really disgusting.” She shuddered.
Walt laughed.
“I must say this conversation certainly brought you back from the dead.”
She looked up at him and a shadow crossed her face.
“I’m sorry, Sonny. I didn’t mean to joke like that. You’re really scared, aren’t you?”
She managed a weak smile.
“I’m too mean to die,” she said to Walt. “Besides, I’m not finished yet with Tyson.”
* * *
Riding over to 19th Street in the taxi she broke out in a cold sweat. It was the first of May and unseasonably warm for this time of year. She took her suit jacket off and leaned her head against the back of the seat.
All she could think about were her parents. They both died young. Maybe that was her fate, too. She was probably going to die of a brain tumor. There. She actually allowed herself to think the worst. What else could it be? Please, please don’t let it be cancer, she said out loud. Who was she whispering to? Not the cabdriver, who said, “I beg your pardon?” Not herself. Not God. There wasn’t any God. She knew that for sure. Despite Des’s feeble attempts to ease his way back into the Church since they’d gotten together again… it was odd. He’d been so contemptuous of it before. Now he was constantly making oblique references to it. She didn’t think he even meant to. He was even talking more to his priest brother. She was terrified he’d be sucked back into his religion. It wasn’t just one thing. It was sort of creeping up on him like the invasion of the body snatchers. You fall in love with one person, marry him, and the next minute he becomes somebody else, someone you don’t even know. Praying and going to mass. It was like marrying a normal person and then having them start jogging. The next minute they’re running marathons and talking about cross-training. This was ridiculous. What was she thinking about? Here she was afraid she was dying of a brain tumor and then thinking about being married to a jogger.
The taxi pulled up to Dr. Goldberg’s building. Her heart was pounding when he ushered her into his office.
“I think I should tell you right away that I’m afraid I have a brain tumor,” she blurted out. “I know I always come in here even if I have a hangnail and tell you I think it’s cancer but this time”—she found her eyes going blurry again—“this time I really think it is. I’ve been sort of passing out for the past week or so. I can feel my eyelids get heavy and then I’m gone. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe, I was hoping it could be some kind of seizure disorder. But I’m really afraid, David. I just don’t think I can deal with this.”
Goldberg was her friend as well as her doctor. He was funny, smart, and attractive and he understood completely what babies toughminded journalists were. He chuckled reassuringly, examined her carefully, then sent her to the nurse for a blood test, with instructions to go home and get some rest.
At first she protested, but when she finally got home she had barely gotten out of her clothes before she went under again.
It was Des who woke her when he got home. It was already dark.
“Sonny, Sonny, wake up, wake up, are you okay?”
She could hear his voice in the distance, urgent and frightened.
“Oh Des… I, Des,” she could feel herself drifting away again.
“Sonny, what’s the matter? I just called the office to see when you were coming home and they said you went home sick at noon. What the hell’s going on? I’m going to call Goldberg.”
“No, no, Des, I saw him…”
She couldn’t keep her eyes open and she flopped back against the pillow. She just wanted to be left alone.
“Well, what did he say? Sonny! Wake up for Christ’s sake.”
“I can’t wake up, Des. Please, just let me sleep.”
“We’re going to the emergency room, right now if you don’t wake up. I’ll carry you if I have to.”
“Please, Des. I’m okay, I think. I’ll wake up. I promise,” she mumbled. “Just give me a few minutes, please.”
Des picked her up, placed her arms around his neck, and carried her into the bathroom. He pulled off her wrapper, turned on the shower and held her under it, all the while ignoring her vehement protests. It did, however, wake her up. When she got out of the shower she was cursing Des at the top of her lungs.
“You motherfucker,” she yelled, grabbing a towel. “You had absolutely no right to do that. I was just fine, a little sleepy, that’s all,” she said, furiously drying herself off.
Des smiled for the first time since he’d come in.
“You had me worried there for a while. Let’s go downstairs. I could use a wee taste of Irish after this.”
“I think I’ll have some camomile tea,” she said. “Something soothing.”
She slipped on her robe and slippers and they went down to the study, which had a tiny kitchen-wet bar tucked into a closet. She made her tea while Des fixed a drink.
They sat on the love seat, the French doors open to the tiny patio below. There was a soft spring breeze. They were silent for a long time, the only sound the clink of the ice in Des’s glass. Allison moved closer to him and he put his arm around her. She snuggled up against him and rested her head on his shoulder. He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, stroking her like a kitten.
It was his gentleness that made her cry and soon the tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“Sonny, what is it? What’s the matter?”
“Oh Des. It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair. After all that we’ve been through. I can’t bear it. I’m so scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“I don’t want to die.”
* * *
The next morning she felt better. Actually, she felt pretty good. She got up, got dressed, and went to work.
She felt fine but she couldn’t keep her eyes off her watch. She was waiting for David Goldberg to call Des. Even though he hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with her in the exam, he had ordered up a battery of tests and she knew that was where the bad news would be. She had given Goldberg strict instructions to call Des with the results of the test. She didn’t want to hear bad news over the phone.
At about eleven the phone rang. It was Des.
“How about lunch?” he said.
“David Goldberg called you and told you I have a brain tumor and you’re taking me to lunch to tell me. That spineless bastard. Why can’t he do his own dirty work?”
“Wrong,” Des laughed. “I was just worried about you and I knew you were worried. I wanted to cheer you up, take your mind off things.”
“Are you sure?” She still wasn’t convinced.
“Positive. Where would you like to eat.”
“Let’s go to Bice’s. I might as well make my last meal a good one.”
* * *
Bice’s was a popular new restaurant off Pennsylvania Avenue. It was all bleached woods and green plaids, banquettes and glass. Des had staked it out early on as his new favorite restaurant and had even been awarded his own table by the maître d’hotel. It was on the side of the front room next to the window with a view of the whole room and the entrance stairs.
Allison was a little nervous that they were in full view of everyone, given what she expected the news to be.
“God, I need a drink,” said Allison, once they were seated across from each other. “I think I’ll have a glass of white wine. I know I’ll be sorry at four when I get a tiny hangover, but I don’t care.”