A Man of Honor

by Cynthia Thomason

  He glanced over the pool, taking in the bobbing heads of his children. All was right in that world. “So what should I do? Practice? And how does a person practice to be a newscaster?”

  “It’s training,” she said. “I’m sure you understand that. You trained to be a wide receiver. Work on making your script voice sound like your ad-lib voice. Keep your words simple. Use words like traffic tie-up instead of transportational gridlock.”

  “I would never say transportational gridlock in my lifetime,” he said.

  She laughed. “Yes, but you get the point.”

  “So it’s like those people who need to walk ten thousand steps a day wearing a monitor from the time they get up. I have to have a microphone ready every time I plan to say more than a few words.”

  “Can’t hurt. Talk, talk, talk, and then listen. How many times did you catch a football before you were drafted by a professional team?”

  He shrugged. Not all that many times, actually. Maybe he was just a dumb jock. Maybe his talents were destined to be centered on what his body could do and not his brain.

  “And one other thing—don’t ever smile during a serious story.”

  “Okay. I’ll try to remember that,” he said. “Don’t give up on me, teach.”

  Her smile was warm when she said, “Not a chance.”

  “Hey, Dad!” Cody’s voice drew Jeremy’s attention away from the mesmerizing blue of Brooke’s eyes in the sunlight.

  “What is it, Cody?”

  “Why don’t you get in and swim with us?”

  He looked at Brooke. “Do you mind? I think I may have some stress to work off. Wanna come?”

  “Go ahead. I’m perfectly happy in the sun.”

  He stood, unbuttoned his shirt and chucked it on his lawn chair. Thinking about a dive from the deep end, he walked to the diving board. And he was aware, every step of the way, that Brooke’s attention was fixed right where he wanted it—on the body that could catch a football, not the man who could deliver the news. That made him feel a bit better, but he’d still like to be the man who could be both brawn and brain for Brooke.

  * * *

  BROOKE STAYED BY the pool until the Crocketts got out, dripping and panting. “That was so fun,” Cody said.

  “You bet it was,” Jeremy said. “Won’t be long before you can take me in laps.”

  Cody snapped off his arm wings. “Gotta get rid of these stupid things first.” He tossed the wings to a chair and came over to Brooke. “Did you watch us?”

  “I did. Looked like you were having fun.” She looked around for Alicia. The girl was not on the patio. She’d obviously gone inside without stopping to talk.

  “I need a snack,” Cody said. “Dad, will you get something for me and Brooke?”

  “Sure will. I promised Brooke some lunch and I don’t want her to think I’m not going to keep my word.”

  Jeremy dried off and hung his towel over the back of a chair. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “You guys will be okay?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Brooke said.

  Cody sat across from her. “Did you have a pool when you were little?” he asked.

  “No, I didn’t, but I lived pretty close to some great beaches on the Carolina coast. My parents would take us almost every Sunday if the weather was nice.”

  The next hour went quickly with Brooke, Jeremy and Cody munching on fruit and cheese and chatting about Cody’s school and his successes in soccer. If someone had sauntered onto the patio, they might have thought they were witnessing a perfectly happy, typical family gathering. Only in this case, the missing person made the whole thing far from typical.

  “I should be getting back to Charleston,” Brooke said.

  “I can’t interest you in a movie and pizza later?”

  “It’s tempting, but no.” Brooke didn’t think she could add much to a Crockett family outing, especially when one family member didn’t like her interference in their lives. An opportunity to talk to Alicia hadn’t evolved naturally, so Brooke would wait until she had another chance to engage the girl. Besides, Brooke needed some time, as much as Jeremy did, to process everything she’d told him today. She didn’t want him to become discouraged. The last thing she needed was for Jeremy to quit. She just simply wanted him to be great, for his sake as well as hers. Was that too much to ask? According to Cissy, he didn’t have a chance.

  Brooke went into the house to use the bathroom. She passed a small, classically decorated room, Jeremy’s office perhaps, since the furnishings were dark and masculine. She almost walked by before seeing Alicia at the desk. Brooke stopped, considered her options and then went inside, armed with the lessons she’d learned from her reading the night before and her desire to help Jeremy with this troubled child.

  Alicia looked up but didn’t speak.

  “Hi,” Brooke said. “Since I saw you here I thought I’d say a quick goodbye. It’s been a lovely day, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.”

  Brooke interpreted the kidspeak as “it was until you got here.”

  Colored pencils littered the desktop, and Alicia was coloring an intricate design of flowers and small animals. “Wow, that looks hard. Coloring was never like that when I was a kid.”

  Alicia continued filling in the tiny spaces without looking at Brooke. “We use pencils now. Nobody uses crayons anymore.”

  “In any case, it’s quite a work of art.” Brooke tried to think of something to say that might initiate a conversation with Alicia. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind that didn’t sound rehearsed. “Well, goodbye,” she said.

  “Goodbye.”

  She started to leave when she noticed a photograph on the desk. It was a picture of a very pretty woman about Brooke’s age. Her hair was dark blond like Alicia’s, and though she couldn’t tell for sure, Brooke was certain her eyes were the same soft blue.

  “That is a beautiful woman. Is it a picture of your mother?” she asked.

  Alicia nodded.

  “She’s lovely.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You look like her.”

  “That’s what Daddy says.”

  Encouraged by the responses, however short, Brooke probed a bit deeper. “I’m sure you miss her so much.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m very sorry that she died. Mothers are very special, and I’m certain your mother loved you and Cody a lot.”

  Alicia’s eyes became tiny slits. Her lips turned down. “How would you know that? You never even met her.”

  “You’re right,” Brooke said. “I guess I must have gotten that impression from what your father told me.” She tried to remember something concrete from her research last night but she found herself floundering.”

  “She did, though.”

  Brooke paused, leaned in toward the desk and the small voice that had reached out to her. “She did?”

  “She did love us.”

  Brooke nodded. “It’s not fair that you lost your mother, Alicia. I wish I knew the right words to say. To make things better for you.”

  “Daddy says that, too. But he can’t do anything about it.”

  “He would like to. Your daddy wants you to be happy, but he understands that sometimes you just can’t be.”

  The child picked up a colored pencil and pressed hard on the page. The tip of the pencil snapped off. “Now look what you made me do!”

  “We can fix it. Doesn’t your dad have a pencil sharpener in here?”

  Alicia pointed to a bookcase where an electric sharpener sat on a low shelf.

  Brooke extended her hand for the pencil. “May I?”

  Alicia gave her the pencil and Brooke sharpened it to a fine point. “Look. Good as new.”

  Alicia continued with her coloring as if nothing had happened, as if Brooke was no longer ther
e.

  “I would like to learn to color like that,” Brooke said. “Maybe you can teach me.”

  Alicia looked up at her. “You don’t need a teacher to color. You just have to stay in the lines.”

  Brooke took the initiative of pulling up a chair to the desk and sitting down. “What else do you like to do, Alicia?”

  Another shrug. “I don’t know. Stuff.”

  Brooke took a deep breath. “Would it be okay if you and I did some stuff together sometime? Whatever you want. You can pick the activity.”

  Alicia stopped coloring. Was she weighing up her offer? “Maybe.”

  It was a start, and Brooke allowed herself to feel encouraged. “I enjoyed seeing the picture of your mother, Alicia. Any time you want to talk some more, I would love to listen.”

  No response, but Brooke was pleased with what had happened so far. It felt as if a door had opened. Maybe Alicia would walk through. “I have to go now,” Brooke said, pushing the chair back. “I hope I see you again soon. Have a good week at school.”

  The girl raised her head and looked into Brooke’s eyes. “Thanks for fixing the pencil.”

  Wow. Brooke smiled, but secretly, she wanted to cheer.

  Brooke said goodbye to Jeremy and Cody, who were both back at the pool. Jeremy offered to walk her to her car, but she told him to stay with his son.

  She suddenly felt drained from two of the most difficult conversations she’d ever had in her life. First, she’d had to tell Jeremy that he had a lot of work to do. Second, she spoke to a grieving child who made her own heart ache. She didn’t know which conversation was hardest, but as she got in her car and headed back to Charleston, she felt as though she’d made some inroads with both Crocketts today.

  And the odd thing was, she truly wished she could help both of them, and not just because her job depended on it.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT ON the phone, Brooke confided in her sister. “Come on, Cammie, you’re the child expert. How can I reach this kid?”

  “It’s tough, Brooke. Everyone grieves differently. I never had to comfort Esther over the loss of a human in her life, but I remember what it was like when those wild boars massacred our chickens.”

  Brooke remembered, too. That incident, which took place in the middle of a stark, cold night, had sent her sister to the hospital, where her pregnancy was monitored and normalized. A few weeks later, Camryn had delivered a fine, healthy baby girl, but it had been touch and go for a while.

  “Okay, so how did you reach Esther when she learned about the chicks?”

  “I let her talk, Brooke. And I let her know that despite how awful that night was, we would go on. I do remember reading something once that might be helpful.”

  “What? Anything,” Brooke said.

  “Well, don’t dance around the fact that someone is dead. Don’t use euphemisms for death. A child who’s nine knows that death does not mean the person is just going to stay asleep forever. Dead is dead. We all die. Our job as the adults is to help the child cope, not sugarcoat the truth.”

  “Okay. That sounds wise.”

  “And make the child feel safe,” Camryn added. “A death in the family can cause enormous anxiety and fear. Help the child know that she is safe and will always be cared for. That might be more a job for her father, but it can’t hurt for you to second the notion.”

  This was good advice and much easier to grasp when told in Camryn’s simple, honest way. “Anything else?” Brooke asked.

  “If I think of anything else, I’ll call you. But, Brooke?”

  “What?”

  “Why is this so important to you?”

  “I don’t know.” Brooke answered so quickly and without thought that she felt her head spin. Of course she knew. She cared for Jeremy, and she cared for a little girl who would rather destroy an entire kitchen than reveal her true emotions.

  “I bet you do know,” Camryn said. “I bet the woman who always said she didn’t want to have children, that she couldn’t cope with them, has just found that her heart has a soft spot for the little creatures. And perhaps their father.”

  “You always sound like such a romantic,” Brooke said. “I guess that’s why I love you.”

  “You’ve got romance in your soul, too, sister. And compassion and a heart that’s almost too big to fit in your chest. And truthfully, I know these emotions scare you to death.”

  No way was Brooke going to continue this conversation. If she let Camryn expound on her idea, they could go on talking for the rest of the night. “Kiss Esther and Grace for me, okay?”

  “I will. And Brooke, good luck with this. The most important thing I can tell you is to be yourself. You’re a good person, you know? I expect to hear how it’s going.”

  Brooke wouldn’t know how it’s going for two days. She had no plans to see Jeremy on Sunday and the next day was the beginning of a new week. How much time she would have with Jeremy was, as always, anybody’s guess.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MILT CRAMER BREEZED by Brooke’s office door midmorning on Tuesday. With no greeting, he simply said, “Brooke, I need to see you in my office now.” And he kept walking.

  Brooke abandoned the news stories her team had selected in the production meeting that morning. She’d get back to them later. She hustled to Milt’s office.

  Milt sat behind his desk, his hands folded on top. He leaned back in his chair. “Sit down, Brooke. We have to talk.”

  She sat, but not comfortably, with her feet flat on the floor, her knees feeling stiff. “Is something wrong?”

  “I would like to think not, but I’m afraid so,” he said. “I hear our boy did that broadcast test on Wednesday. Is that so?”

  So that’s what this was about. Brooke relaxed. She could easily defend Jeremy’s first attempt in front of the camera. Many others, she knew, had done a lot worse and had still ended up being successful. “He did, yes,” she said. “You and I talked about giving him time in front of a camera. Actually, I thought Wednesday might be a bit early, and—”

  “How do you think he did?”

  “Not bad. But he isn’t quite ready yet. With a little coaching he’ll be up to the task.”

  “You’re skirting the truth, Brooke,” Milt said. “He was lousy!”

  Brooke tamped down a spike of anger. He hadn’t seen Jeremy’s performance. How could he judge? “That’s not so, Milt. Jeremy wasn’t perfect, but he was okay. Quite good, actually.”

  “No. He wasn’t. Even that ditzy girl with the pink hair who follows you around all the time...what’s her name? Chrissy? Missy?”

  “Cissy.”

  “Yeah, her. She said Jeremy looked like a cardboard cutout sitting at the desk. And his voice sounded flat as a pancake.”

  “This was his first attempt at working in front of a camera,” she said.

  “He’s been here three weeks. He’s watched Fred. He’s shadowed everyone in this building. You gave him practice camera time once before. And that’s not even counting that he’s been in front of cameras his whole football career.”

  “That’s not the same,” Brooke argued. “Speaking to a reporter about a sports game can’t compare to delivering the news to a general audience.”

  “Still, he should be a pro. I thought he was when I signed him to a contract. He was confident enough then. ‘I can do it, Milt,’ he said to me. ‘This is the chance I need.’ I believed him, and then, just to make sure he was camera ready and picture-perfect, I set him up with you to round out the rough edges. Turns out the guy is all rough edges, and maybe you can’t fix him.”

  “Milt, you’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “Am I? Do you have any idea how much money is involved with that contract?”

  Brooke remembered Jeremy telling her that he’d taken a pay cut from pro football to serve as anchor
for WJQC, but now probably wasn’t the time to say that. “I assume it’s a considerable amount,” she said.

  “You’re darn right it is, and I counted on you to make him an anchor—not just any anchor. The best one in the Charleston area.”

  “Don’t read too much into what Cissy told you. She doesn’t have experience in judging what makes a good anchor. I’m telling you that Jeremy shows all the signs of a competent reporter. We still have time before you want to introduce him to the Charleston audience.”

  “Only a couple of weeks. Jeremy is supposed to take over for Fred on June twenty-fourth.” Milt placed his elbows on his desktop and leaned forward. “You knew what this deal means to me, Brooke. And what it means to you and everyone at this station. I’m starting to wonder if you’ve been putting all your effort into this. Or if you’re still wrapped up in whatever personal thing is going on in your life.”

  “I’m putting every spare moment into this,” she said. “And as for my personal issues, they aren’t your concern. They never were. I haven’t brought my problems into work since you warned me about it.”

  “Good to know, Brooke. We’ve always been a team, you and me. And I’ve counted on you for this. I had to get you to recognize the importance of hiring Jeremy for this job.”

  “We’re a team? You said you’d fire me.”

  “I say a lot of things. And it’s still a possibility. We have a board of directors at WJQC. I have to answer to them. They’ve been wanting Armitage out for months, and I’ve stalled them because Fred has been here so long. Thank goodness Fred announced his retirement before my hind end was up to the fire. Crockett was my ace in the hole. He was going to save the station, make the board happy, wow the listening audience. If he doesn’t, Brooke, I’m going to look like a fool.”

  “You’re not going to look like a fool,” Brooke said, hoping it was true. “Jeremy will be ready.”

  “Then you’re going to have to up your game,” Milt said. “Missy got that tape from the production room and brought it to me.”