by Sally Quinn
“I think he has a great style and wit,” she said. “His stuff transcends sports. He makes it magic. It’s brilliant reporting and writing. I read him regularly and I never read the sports pages.”
She got general agreement. Her choice won the prize. When the editor of the losing paper came back in Allison couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t help feeling guilty even though she told herself she would have voted the same way even if he hadn’t been responsible for the Daily’s jail sentence.
After the journalism awards were over she was able to relax and have a good time. She felt fairly secure in all the categories except for the music one. She was a musical idiot. When the three finalists were presented she hadn’t a clue what to do. The member in charge, who fancied himself something of a music connoisseur hummed a few bars of each entry, pronounced all three unworthy and recommended that they not award anyone that year. Since none of the other members had any idea whether or not he was right, they all followed his advice and nobody got the Pulitzer Prize for music.
When the day was over Allison couldn’t wait to tell Alan, even though it was supposed to be a secret. She quickly left the room and raced out of the building, bumping into Lanny at the entrance.
“You owe me,” he said and winked.
“Wait till you see Tyson’s entry next year!” she said, laughing.
“You’re getting awful cocky, girl.”
“It’s not hard to be cocky when you’ve just seen the most uplifting example of how true excellence is always rewarded and how those who deserve to win always triumph. You could score that sentiment and win a Pulitzer Prize for music.”
“You’re as bad as you always were,” he said, kissing her goodbye. “Now hurry down to the corner bookstore. There’s a phone booth there and you can call Alan Warburg and tell him the good news.”
* * *
She and Des had hardly seen each other over the past two months. She had been avoiding him, but even if she had wanted to see him she had been too busy. April and May were unbelievably hectic for her, with the drug story, the Pulitzers, and the campaigns. Not only was she involved with Sprague’s project but she was having to oversee all the campaign coverage, and the conventions were coming up in less than two months. She rarely left the office before ten or eleven these days, and she worked every Saturday and part of most Sundays.
Des, who often did the Sunday morning talk show, had been signed on as a regular and was up at dawn on Sundays to go to the studio. His days at the Weekly were long toward the end of the week, and lately, because of the campaigns, he’d been staying late on Saturday nights to close the magazine. As if that weren’t enough, the “Good Night” anchor on ABC had terrible drinking problem that had escalated appreciably in the past few months, so that he was often out “sick,” a not terribly well-kept secret in Washington. Des had been drafted to fill in for him occasionally and had done so well they were using him most of the time. This meant that he was almost never home, because when he did “Good Night” he never got home before one-thirty or two in the morning. She had almost forgotten what he looked like. They communicated through notes left on the kitchen counter by the phone. The rare times they did actually meet they were cordial at best.
She was surprised when he called out of the blue the first Monday in June.
“Des? Desmond Shaw? Aren’t you the one I used to be married to?”
“Right. Tall, dark, curly hair, chiseled features, crooked smile. You remember me?”
So there was some humor, some life yet in what had begun to look like a marital carcass. Maybe the separation had helped—maybe time.
“What’s the occasion?”
“Dinner.”
“Where?”
“Nora’s?”
“We always end up at Nora’s.”
“Well, where would you like to go?”
“Nora’s.”
“See you there at eight.”
* * *
Allison got there first, parked her car illegally in front, and was taken to her favorite round table in the back corner. She ordered a kir, very light, and willed herself to unwind. The atmosphere was conducive to it. Soft lights, pale walls, hanging quilts, candles, tablecloths, plush rugs. She always felt at home at Nora’s.
As she was sitting there two television correspondents came in and took a table up front. Seeing her, they got up and came back to say hello.
“Great news about Des!” said one. “What a coup! He’ll be terrific, too. Who would have believed they would be so smart.”
She didn’t have a clue. She smiled and nodded. Maybe she’d get an idea if she kept listening. Old journalistic trick.
“The bastard really has nine lives, doesn’t he? It’s incredible. What’s it going to do to the home life?”
“What home life? This is an election year.” She was winging it.
“Good point. Well, tell the ole boy we’re proud of him.”
“Tell him yourself, he’s right behind you.”
“Hey pal, congratulations,” he said to Des, who had just come in. Des glanced nervously at her, as he was shaking his friend’s hand. After they left he sat down and gave the waitress his order for an Irish whiskey, neat.
“So,” she said, a glacial smile on her face, “I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Sonny, listen, I—”
“Don’t tell me. You’ve won the lottery and you wanted to surprise me. Well, it worked. I’m surprised.”
“Give me a break, Sonny. It all happened so fast I haven’t had time to—”
“I have an idea. Why don’t we speak Chinese tonight. Maybe we’ll have better luck at communicating with each other.”
“I’m really sorry, I….”
“Moo shu pork, egg foo yung, kung pau shrimp, hoysin sauce.”
“Very funny.”
“Shanghai, Peking, Hong Kong.”
“I quit my job, okay. I quit my fucking job at the Weekly and I accepted the job as the anchor of ‘Good Night.’ ”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
She looked at his solemn face.
“You’re not kidding.”
“They shit-canned Benton Halloran. The guy was half in the bag every night by the time he got there, and then he’d take little nips when nobody was looking. He’s blown it a couple of times on the air, he was so sauced. They finally had no choice. It was hair-raising. They never knew from night to night whether he was going to make it to the office and then whether he was going to make it on the air.”
“Have you told New York?”
“They went crazy. Even though I was sick of the job and I couldn’t stand them and they thought I was a pain in the ass, I was still the best damn bureau chief they ever had and they know it. They tried to talk me out of it. Even the editor got in the act. ‘Nobody has your contacts,’ he said. That’s all he thinks about. Contacts. Christ, am I glad to be out of there.”
“I take it you’ve given this a great deal of thought. You’ve determined that you can live without writing and reporting and that you can deal with the fact that you don’t have much respect for television?”
“Of course.”
The waiter came and they both ordered another drink, then took long sips in silence.
“Who did you talk it over with?” Her voice was barely audible.
“Jenny and O’Grady.”
“Do you want out of the marriage?”
Her question came as a shock to him and he nearly bolted back in his chair. After he recovered he didn’t respond right away.
“What marriage?” he said at last.
“They say that ninety percent of all couples who lose a child eventually break up.”
She felt nothing. No pain, no sadness, no relief, nothing. She was totally numb. Even the memory of Kay Kay evoked nothing from her at this moment. Her work and her deliberate estrangement from Des had cauterized her emotions. That was the way she wanted it. That was all she knew she wanted. She wante
d not to feel. After that nothing mattered.
“The answer is no. No, I don’t want out of the marriage. But I don’t want the marriage the way it is either. I’m not getting what I need. And I need more now than I ever have. I’m trying, Sonny. I have tried. I’m doing the best I can. It’s obviously not good enough for you. I’m willing to do more or at least to try if you can tell me what you need. But I’m a blind man. I can’t see my way to helping you or helping myself alone. I can’t clap with one hand and you’re not even lifting yours. You ask me the question. Now I’ll ask you: Do you want out?”
“Do you want the truth?”
He sighed.
“Do I have a choice?”
“The truth is that I don’t know and I don’t care. There’s nothing left inside me. Intellectually I think we both need each other, that this is a stage of the pain we have to go through, that it will come back. But emotionally it just isn’t there. If you said you wanted out right now I would have to say to you, ‘Fine. Leave.’ I have no right to ask you to stay. I don’t have anything to give you. You have nothing to give me. Maybe it’s the best thing. I just don’t know, Des. I really don’t know.”
The waiter brought them menus. They both declined and ordered a third drink.
“So what are we going to do, Sonny?”
“I don’t see that we have to do anything. With my schedule and your new job we’ll never see each other anyway. So why bother?”
She suddenly felt exhausted. Almost unable to move. It was all she could do not to slump over on the table.
“Des. I’d like to go home now. I need to lie down. I’m so tired.”
She reached for her purse and got out her car keys. She was trying to gather the energy to stand up.
“I love you, Sonny.”
She looked at him, into those deep, dark, needy eyes. The love and pain were practically oozing out of him in equal proportions. If it had been a comic book you could have colored the clouds around him. She wanted to comfort him, to heal the pain, to make the hurt go away. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
She sighed and with every fiber of energy she had, pushed herself up out of her chair. She stood there, looking down at him for a moment before she walked away.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know you do, Des. I know.”
* * *
It was eighty-six degrees, not a drop of humidity, not a cloud in the sky. A perfect mid-June day. A perfect day for a picnic.
Allison was feeling cooped up in the office. She had been working so hard she hadn’t been outside in weeks. Her skin was beginning to take on a slightly greenish tinge, her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused from staring at the computer screen, and she had a perpetual headache. She also hadn’t eaten a decent meal in so long she had forgotten what food tasted like. She was getting ready to go down to the cafeteria for her usual salad and fruit when she saw Sprague heading toward her office.
“We need to talk,” he said, sticking his head in the door.
“Unfortunately it’s lunchtime and I’m starving,” she said. “And since you don’t do lunch I’m afraid it will have to wait.”
“Okay. So I’m an asshole. Anything else?”
“Yeah. How about lunch?”
“Great idea.”
“Where had you planned to take me? Jean Pierre? The Jockey Club? The Maison Blanche?”
“Actually I was thinking of Lafayette Park.”
“Brilliant!”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“On the contrary. It’s a gorgeous day. I was just pining to be outdoors when you walked in. Let’s get some salads and lemonade from the cafeteria and take them over there.”
“I’ll meet you at the elevator in five.”
* * *
She had forgotton about Ralph. She always forgot about Ralph. But there he was, joined at the hip with Sprague.
“What would you do, or rather what would one do, if one wanted to have an affair and had this bodyguard tailing you every minute?” she whispered to Sprague as they walked up 16th Street, past St. John’s Church toward the park. She wanted to bite her tongue the moment it was out of her mouth.
“I’d have an affair,” he said, without hesitation. He looked at her and caught her eyes before she had a chance to look away. “Why?”
“Oh, no reason. I mean, I was just curious how people…” She was flustered and didn’t know where to look. He wouldn’t look away. “Never mind. It was a silly question. I was just wondering, that’s all.”
They chose a maple tree to the right of the statue of General Jackson facing the White House. They had decided to sit under a tree rather than on a bench because they could talk more privately. Ralph took up his post at a bench across from them. They sat down on the grass and spread out their food.
They sat there for a while, just taking in the sights and sounds of summer.
The park looked especially beautiful in June with its colorful flower beds, velvety green grass, and large spreading trees. Under the tree next to them was a group of hippie peace demonstrators with long beards and braids, leaning on backpacks and playing the flute and the guitar. The music seemed to drift on the air around them. Bees buzzed around the pollen and the birds flew overhead, in and out of a dark green birdhouse perched high atop one of the trees. Somewhere in the distance the sound of workmen on a construction project hammered almost rhythmically. A group of Japanese tourists took pictures of each other in front of the White House, and a homeless man slept a drugged sleep on one of the benches near Ralph. To the right of them some old men played chess on the permanent chess tables, a man with a motorized wheelchair sped by, several deaf people were speaking in sign language, and a group of pretty girls strolled by in sundresses, laughing and giggling with each other. Sprague followed them appreciatively with his eyes. A couple holding hands came up to one of the benches along the path to the right of them, sat down, and began to neck rather passionately.
Allison was unexpectedly overcome with lust. Insane, irrational, almost uncontrollable lust. She hadn’t felt that way in over a year, since she had gotten pregnant. Certainly not since the baby. It came on her so fast that it made her mouth dry. It was as if she’d suddenly been possessed. It was not undirected. It was lust for Sprague. Lust for that tiny scar over his left eye, the full lower lip, the bedroom eyes and strong, tanned hands; lust for the muscled arms she wanted to be in this very minute. His eyes met hers for an instant and she had no doubt that he knew what she was thinking. She was so horrified that she nearly got up and left.
Sprague cleared his throat and took a sip of his lemonade.
“You may be wondering why I brought you here today,” he started in a husky voice, then blushed. She hadn’t seen him blush before. She almost didn’t notice it because of his tan, but it amused her. He obviously hadn’t meant to refer to the necking couple but it came out that way.
“I didn’t mean…” he said.
She wasn’t going to help him out of his misery. Let him suffer, too.
“Anyway, I needed someplace secure where we could talk. I just wanted you to know that I am very very close to nailing Foxy. You know that trip he took down to Colombia last month? Well, it seems that he spent the weekend out at the Foreign Minister’s ranch with Antonia. Apparently Antonia got him to do some coke and the Foreign Minister had the whole thing videotaped. Foxy knows about it and they’ve told him unless he calls the DEA off the Bader-Skinner story they’re going to release the tapes.”
“My God. How could he be that stupid?”
“They’re all stupid, Ally. You, of all people, should know that by now, after covering Washington for so many years. They’re all stupid. Once they get into power they lose sight of reality. They think they own the world and that they’re not accountable. It’s a disease. A Washington disease. Nobody is immune, there’s no vaccine. The only cure is downfall.”
“So how solid do you have it?”
“I may be able to get the tape.”<
br />
“What are you going to do with all the money you make on the book and the movie?”
He looked horrified.
“Do you think that’s why I’m doing this?”
“Relax. I didn’t accuse you of being an ax murderer. I’m just being realistic. I can’t help wondering whether you’ll stay the same sweet, humble, adorable person you are or whether you’ll change, too, the way the very people in power that you’re talking about do. Some people just can’t handle fame, you know.” She couldn’t help smiling at his reaction.
“Will you knock it off?” He wasn’t quite sure why he should be teased about this. It was serious.
“Where’s your sense of humor today?”
“I have just told you the most incredible piece of news you’ve ever heard as an editor and you’re acting like it’s some kind of a joke. What the hell is wrong with you?”
She burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think spring fever. I haven’t been out of the office in so long that I’m just overwhelmed with the air and the flowers and…”
They both glanced at the couple near them locked in an embrace.
He looked at her and smiled, then shrugged helplessly.
“I’ll try to be serious, Sprague. I promise. It’s…”
Suddenly his face changed. His smile disappeared. She had her back to Ralph so she couldn’t see what was happening. Sprague pushed her to the ground, leaped up, and started running toward Ralph. When she turned around she saw Ralph was in some kind of scuffle with two men, both with dark, slicked-back hair, shiny suits, very pale skin, and rosy cheeks. She thought she saw a flash of metal as Sprague reached them, she heard swearing in Spanish, then a crunching noise like somebody had been hit. After that there was a loud crack as if someone had been shot, then a cry of pain. She lay on the ground where Sprague had pushed her in shock. It was all happening so fast.