Happy Endings

by Sally Quinn

  “Does President Osgood have AIDS or has he tested positive for the HIV?”

  “Look, you told me you were coming here for one reason…”

  “I have my answer.”

  “I’m not telling you anything. All I’m telling you is no comment.”

  “Dr. Lanzer, we are not talking about Joe Ordinary. We are talking about the President of the United States. The state of his health affects all Americans. Are you going to conceal that to the detriment of your country?”

  She knew she was going a little too far. She was really playing hardball here.

  “I don’t discuss my patients with the press or anyone.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t even say if anyone is a patient or not.”

  “Right,” she said.

  He realized he had given away more than he had intended. He immediately turned conciliatory.

  “I hope we can still have a working relationship…”

  “Why did it take so long for the President to announce the results of his AIDS test?”

  “I’m going to have to go with ‘no comment’ again,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  He was trying to placate her, but the fact was that his whole no comment, rather than a denial posture, told her everything she needed to know. She didn’t have enough to go with a hard story, but she certainly had enough to keep working on. If the President was being treated out here, a good reporter could find it out. It would only be a matter of time.

  She stood up. There was no point in pressing him anymore.

  “Thank you so much for taking the time to see me, Dr. Lanzer,” she said warmly. “I really appreciate it. And I do understand what a difficult position you are in. I will probably be calling you from time to time. I hope you will speak to me.”

  He seemed relieved by her equally conciliatory tone.

  “On any subject but who I might or might not be treating… it would be a pleasure.”

  * * *

  She had no plans for Christmas. She had spent Thanksgiving with Jenny and a group of strays on the Eastern Shore and that had been quite pleasant. Fun actually. She was glad she had done it. Thanksgiving was a relatively neutral holiday with no emotional context for her. Unlike Christmas—Christmas was Sam; Christmas was Kay Kay. She didn’t actually know how she was going to make it through this one alive. She wasn’t sure even her best defenses would hold up under the strain of this holiday. Jenny was going to be away. She didn’t celebrate Christmas anyway. Sprague was going to be in Savannah with Jane and Melissa. Aunt Molly and Uncle Rog had invited her to come out to Colorado to spend it with them, but she didn’t think she could hack that either. Aunt Molly was on the sauce most of the time and Uncle Rog had had a series of operations and was so feeble he could barely keep up a conversation. She was afraid that visit might really put her over the edge.

  In fact, something terrible was happening to her. Little cracks were beginning to appear in her armor. She was suffering the emotional equivalent of metal fatigue. The campaign was over and there was always what they referred to in the newsroom as the postcoital letdown after a major story. The eighteen-hour days had turned into twelve-hour days, which were not long enough. Nothing much had turned up on the AIDS story. Sprague had gone to see Sadie and had come back with basically the same “no comment” confirmation that she had gotten from Michael Lanzer. Since then he had been off trying to get the tapes, which meant that he was rarely in the office. They had become friendlier after their initial period of enforced estrangement, but it was not easy. They still made a point of not being alone together. She had asked him to go with her to the NBC Christmas in Washington show at the Pension Building. It was to benefit Children’s Hospital and she really wanted to go. She knew Sadie would be there and she didn’t want to go alone. When she told Sprague it was for the hospital he accepted immediately. He was very formal and gentlemanly when he picked her up. He seemed to sense this would be a difficult evening for her and he was protective. Neither had any idea how difficult it would be.

  She had had no idea that Des would be there with Sadie and Willie. She had gasped when she saw them come in together, and Sprague quickly took her hand and held it through the rest of the show. She could feel herself being sucked down into a spiraling black pit of depression, the same pit she had been in when Kay Kay died, and this time she felt helpless to do anything about it. What saved it for her was the fact that the President passed out on the podium. They had all rushed for the phone, then gone immediately back to the office. The White House claimed Freddy had “orthostatic hypotension from high blood pressure.” They rushed to get doctors’ opinions from all over the country to see if they could connect it to any kind of AIDS symptoms. She had worked half the night and gone to bed exhausted. She would never know what would have happened with Sprague if Freddy hadn’t fainted. She suspected they might have started up again. Certainly they would have if she had wanted to. Sprague could not have refused her under the circumstances. It would have been against the “macho code.” What she didn’t know was whether that was what she wanted. The fact was that she did not have any idea at all what she wanted right now. It was the first time in her life she had ever been in that situation and she found it debilitating. The one thing she knew she didn’t want was to be alone on Christmas Day, the first anniversary of Kay Kay’s death. The problem was that the only person she could possibly spend that day with was Des, and he would be with Sadie and his son, Willie. It was, after all, Willie’s birthday as well as Christmas.

  She was standing knee-deep in quicksand and she could feel it sucking her down.

  * * *

  “Sonny?”

  Her heart stopped.

  “Hi.”

  She could barely get it out.

  “Hi.”

  Neither one of them seemed to know what to say after that.

  “Where are you?” she asked finally.

  “At my house.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s, uh, it’s getting close to uh…”

  Was he choked up? She couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she wanted to cry herself. She could feel the tears coming.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to be alone. I mean, I want to be with you.”

  “Me, too.”

  If she said anything more she would break down.

  “May I come over Christmas morning?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  If he didn’t get off the phone she knew she would lose it completely.

  “Good. I’ll see you then. Bye.”

  He barely got the words out himself.

  * * *

  It was eight in the morning when he rang the bell on Christmas Day. She crawled out of bed, brushed her teeth, threw on a pair of jeans and a turtleneck, and went down to answer the door.

  When she opened it and saw him standing there she threw herself into his arms as though she had been running a marathon and had just crossed the finish line.

  He shut the door and put his arms around her and held her and they stood there.

  He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. She certainly hadn’t.

  “Oh Des,” she said. “I’m so tired. I feel so tired. I feel so sad. I feel so hopeless. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t hide it and I can’t pretend and I can’t go on. It isn’t worth it. I don’t care about anything anymore. I just, I just, I don’t know anything anymore. Oh God, it’s so hard.”

  She broke down, despite herself.

  “She would have been so beautiful. She would have been walking now and saying Dada and Mama and we would have been so proud and happy. We would have had a tree and lots of toys and a stocking and maybe her first doll.”

  “Don’t, Sonny.”

  “Des, help me. I can’t do this. It hurts too much. Please help me, Des.”

  He wrapped his arms around her more tightly and swayed with her back and forth in a rhythmic motion, trying to calm her down, to soothe her, to soo
the himself.

  “It’s okay, Sonny. It’s okay. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

  She broke away from him.

  “No!” She yelled at him. “No, it is not okay! Don’t you understand? Kay Kay is dead. Our baby is dead. She will never come back again. We will never hold her again. We will never be able to love her again. I will never nurse her again. She will never call me Mama. I am not a mother. I am a woman whose baby has died. That is how I define myself now. That is not okay.”

  They were standing in the downstairs hallway next to the kitchen. Des leaned against the wall.

  “Oh Sonny, I would do anything to make your suffering easier. I want to take on your pain, to wrest it away from you so that you might have some peace. I can carry it because I don’t carry it alone. You don’t have that. It makes me crazy to think that you’ve had to deal with this by yourself. I have tried to help you but I don’t know how. I can’t do more than I know how. All you should know is that I love you and I want to help you any way I can. If you will let me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Des,” she said after a while. “I didn’t mean to turn on you. I know I’ve already done this before. It’s just that I haven’t known where to direct my anger. It’s easy to be mad at you. You’re here and you’re defenseless. It helps me. Anger has been my religion this past year. The problem is that I’m losing it. It’s going away. I can feel it and it’s scary. Mainly because I know what will replace it. Sorrow and sadness. I’d rather be angry. The only thing is that I’m having trouble sustaining it. Especially at you. I just realized it when I had that outburst. I didn’t have my heart in it. It was sort of a last gasp. The last of my defenses. I’m sorry. I know you’re suffering as much as I am. And you have Willie. Your son you cannot claim. I ache for you as much as I do for myself. I despair for you and me. I guess that’s what worries me the most. What will make it better, make it easier for either of us? I don’t see that it’s possible. I see us living in this hell forever, having no control over our pain. I just can’t bear it. I don’t know what to do.”

  He reached out and put his arms around her again and they held on to each other until they were both calm and still.

  “I have an idea,” said Des finally. “If you’re looking for something to do?”

  “What?” She was dubious.

  “You could make me a big breakfast.”

  * * *

  Breakfast had given them strength. Literally and psychologically. Des loved huge cholesterol-filled breakfasts and she had bought eggs and bacon and croissants especially for him. She was suddenly starving, though earlier she couldn’t have stood the sight of food. Their binge had been cathartic and they were both feeling an enormous release of emotional energy. On some level Allison felt that she had managed to purge her feelings of anger and embrace her feelings of sadness. Now that she faced it, it wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought. In fact, it was easier to be sad about Kay Kay’s death than it was to be angry at Des.

  They were both wiped out and didn’t talk much during breakfast. They ate and read the paper together in the dining room downstairs off the patio. For the first time Allison noticed that it was a gorgeous sunny day, unlike last Christmas when it was so dark and snowy. Maybe it was a good omen. For the first time she felt a tiny twinge of hope.

  After breakfast Des suggested they take a walk. They strolled all around Georgetown, up Wisconsin and over near the university, across to P Street and over by Dumbarton Oaks. It was a lovely walk and she felt invigorated by the time they got back to her house on Olive Street. They kept going, down by the Washington Harbor, where the sun was sparkling on the water, casting brilliant little diamond patterns on the glass of the buildings. It was after 1:00 P.M. so they decided to have Christmas lunch at the Sequoia, a large all-glass restaurant on the second floor of a building with spectacular views of the Potomac River.

  They had champagne and turkey and told stories about the campaign and made each other laugh. It was after three when they left and walked arm and arm up to Allison’s house.

  When they got to the door Des paused. Neither of them wanted the day to be over.

  “There’s one more thing I’d like to do,” she said.

  He waited.

  “I’d like to go to Children’s Hospital. To the little chapel on the first floor off the atrium. I’d like to go there with you and just think about Kay Kay. Just let her know that we’re there and that we love her wherever she is.”

  Her eyes welled with tears. It was such a relief to be able to do that. And to do it with Des.

  They drove to the hospital and parked in the underground garage. They rode up the automatic ramp into the atrium and walked slowly to the tiny chapel at the far end.

  They went in hesitantly and sat down in the middle row. Des crossed himself and genuflected. Allison looked at him and reached for his hand. He clasped hers in his and they squeezed very hard. The tears began rolling down her cheeks and she didn’t even try to stop them. Des was crying, too.

  “Oh Des, I miss her so much,” she whispered. “I loved her so much. I would have been a good mother. Don’t you think, Des?”

  “Sonny” was all he could say, and he put his arm around her.

  “Do you think she knows we’re here? Do you think she knows we love her?”

  “I think she does. I believe she does. I know she does,” he said.

  “She has to,” she said. “She just has to.”

  They sat for a few more minutes. Then they got up to leave.

  Allison paused at the door and looked back at the altar.

  “Merry Christmas, Kay Kay,” she said. “Your mommy loves you.”

  * * *

  When Des pulled up in front of her house he hesitated.

  “You can just let me off,” she said, putting her hand on the door handle.

  He reached over and touched her other hand.

  “Where do we go from here, Sonny?”

  “I don’t know, Des. All I know is that it was impossible before. There was too much anger. Right now, for me, there’s still too much pain. Maybe, maybe when the pain changes to hope…”

  He leaned toward her and holding her head in one hand, he kissed her softly.

  “Just know that I’m here and that I love you,” he said. “You are not alone.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, and smiled at him, then turned and got out of the car.

  * * *

  Sprague got the tapes. One of his Colombian journalist sources managed to get a copy of them and, unable to use them himself, passed them on to Sprague. The Daily stripped the story across the top of the front page. It was late January, several days before the inauguration. The bottom fell out of Washington. It was a great day in journalism. Newspapers, networks, wire services, cable news—all of them were besieging the Daily for more information. Sprague was asked on every talk show in America. He chose to go on “Good Night” with Desmond Shaw.

  He came in to tell Allison about it after the evening story conference.

  “Maybe we could have a drink afterward,” he suggested. The way he said it made her believe that it was important. She agreed.

  Since there was so much happening she decided to stay down at the office and deal with all the reaction, have a quick supper in the cafeteria, and wait until Sprague finished the show. She’d look a mess by then, but she had the feeling that this “drink” would not turn into romance. Somehow she was relieved.

  It was strange seeing Des interview Sprague. She wondered if it was not some sort of conflict of interest, but she couldn’t exactly define the conflict. Des had planned the entire show around Sprague and his series of stories on the drug situation in Colombia and the Jenkins’s Cove operation in the Bahamas. He introduced Sprague as a Pulitzer Prize winner and a man who would surely win another one for this extraordinary body of work. Des was probably right. After this story there would be no way they could refuse to give the prize to Sprague. At least no honorable way.

&n
bsp; Sprague talked about how difficult it had been to work with a bodyguard and the threat against his family. He allowed as how the two guys in the Bahamas had both been arrested. He had told Allison earlier that he felt pretty secure now and that he had let Ralph go. Both Sprague and Des came across looking good, looking intelligent and professional, and looking like hunks. She had to admit she was as amused as anything else.

  Sprague called as soon as the show was over to say he would be picking her up shortly. They went to the Ritz Carlton bar, a cozy, low-ceilinged room with love seats and chairs, oriental rugs, and soft lighting. It was the perfect place to sit and talk privately, something they were clearly going to do.

  “I want to tell you a little about myself,” he said, after they had chosen a secluded corner. He had had the waiter put a bottle of bourbon on the coffee table in front of them.

  “I’ve already told you how my daddy got aced out of his job as publisher by the wrong side of the family. But I didn’t tell you how it made me feel. I didn’t tell you my fantasy. I felt like I wanted to make good, give them the finger, leave the paper, come up North to the big city and make good again in the big time. My fantasy was that after they had fucked up the paper, they would beg me to come down and take it over and I would go back down there and make the bastards eat shit.”

  “I guess you forgot to tell me that last part. Sounds like a good plan though.”

  He laughed.

  “I knew you would approve.

  “The first part works,” he continued. “I do a series on drugs, I win a Pulitzer, I get offered a job by the Daily and quit. I’m lucky. I’ve got a little family money that makes it possible for me to do things I might not otherwise be able to do. I come to Washington. I bring my wife and my child and I think I’m going to break through this cold glass ceiling of a city and make it big. I’m under a lot of internal pressure. The pressure to produce comes not only from my father but from my desire to avenge my father. I have to succeed.”