The Cutaway

by Christina Kovac

  “Those are her war wounds,” Javier said, wandering from the window with his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped in front of me. “They came during the performance of her duty to the News Division, for which she should be commended, not interrogated.”

  “Of course, Javier,” Henry agreed. “This is no criticism of the story itself.”

  “It sounded critical to me.”

  “The concern back at corporate is for a larger pattern of risky behavior that could jeopardize the company, and her personal safety as well. That is our duty to the News Division.”

  “With every great story comes risk,” Javier said flatly. “She has dealt with that risk admirably and answered your questions to my satisfaction. Move on.”

  There was a knock at the door. Mellay’s secretary carried a tray with bowls of fruit and cookies and sandwiches cut in quarters. She set the tray on a low table between the row of chairs and left. No one touched the food.

  “Well, then.” Mellay tugged at the knot in his tie and shifted toward Javier. When Javier nodded, Mellay told me: “We brought you in today to thank you for a job well done. As a reward, we’d like to give you your old title back.”

  I blinked, struggling with the abrupt change in direction. “My . . . show?”

  Mellay swept his hand across the air as if unfurling an imaginary banner. “Executive producer of the Morning Show.”

  It was stunning. “The Morning Show? That’s not my show. Mine is the Evening News. That’s what was taken from me.”

  “There’s currently no opening on the Evening News,” Mellay said.

  “The Evening News is my show,” I repeated. “It was for that show I brought in a story that shot our ratings through the roof. It also increased our Web traffic a hundredfold. I walked through fire for that story—Ben Pearce and I both did—and he’s the Evening News anchor. That’s the kind of story we’re capable of. That’s why we belong on the highest-rated and most-watched show.”

  Henry’s mouth thinned again. “Unfortunately, Pearce is gone.”

  “Gone?” I said, sputtering. “Pearce . . . as in Ben?” I glanced from each man to the next. “Ben’s gone where?”

  “I’m here to negotiate his buyout,” he told me.

  My mind jumped through the possibilities. First, Henry had to be lying. Ben would never take a buyout. Not without telling me, anyway. He certainly would have told me he was leaving. And then Henry started talking about how Ben will take this buyout—future tense—and I understood. “Ben doesn’t know yet, does he?”

  Mellay didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Mellay had never liked Ben. From day one, Mellay had fussed over costs, and Ben’s was the highest dollar contract and therefore a target.

  “We toss Ben, we lose female viewers,” I said.

  He drew the key demographic advertisers most coveted: eighteen- to thirty-four-year-old women held a powerful economic sway, and they didn’t even know it. But Mellay knew. He was fiddling with the knot on his tie again.

  “Women love Ben,” I said. “If he goes, that audience is irrecoverable. Do you really want to lose the gains from these past weeks?”

  “This is about the money we save on an outrageous contract. It’s not about holding on to a shrinking demographic,” Mellay said, and then to Javier: “As I told you, I have a fresh young anchor named Heather Buchanan—”

  “Who has talent but no experience,” I argued. “One day she may be as good as Ben Pearce, she really might, but that day is far in the future.”

  The lawyer chimed in: “We’ve drawn up a package for Ben that’s extremely generous.”

  “Ben’s got a ranch back home that needs a constant influx of cash,” Mellay said, and jerked his chin toward me. “There’s no noncompete clause in the package. If we let him stay in town, she’ll talk him into signing.”

  What an outrageous assumption. “I’m not talking Ben into anything,” I said.

  “Why should she have to?” Javier asked Mellay. “I was told you have a high-dollar employee who’d expressed interest in a buyout. If that’s not the case, why am I here?”

  I caught Mellay’s brief glance at Henry. So they were in this together. Javier was the odd man out.

  “Ben and I have an inside line on follow-up stories to yesterday’s exclusive,” I said, directing my comments to Javier. “There are also a number of investigative stories that have emerged during the course of the Evelyn Carney investigation, stories of government corruption and illegal campaign money. These stories are available only to me.” And then, because there was no other possibility I could feel good about, I said: “If Ben goes, I go, and I take my stories with me.”

  “You can’t use stories as a bargaining chip,” Henry said furiously. “They belong to the company, not you.”

  It was such a silly lawyer thing to say, I just laughed.

  “You’ve received an offer from a competitor?” Javier said.

  This strained the meaning of Leila Gupta’s let’s have lunch offer at the correspondents dinner, but I didn’t correct him. Let him think what he would. Besides, if I had to jump with nowhere to land, I’d do it. No way would I let them hurt Ben.

  “State the terms of the offer,” Javier said. “Whatever it is, I’ll match it.”

  “Ben Pearce remains anchor of the Evening News.”

  “Done.”

  Mellay jumped up from his chair. Henry cut him a look of caution.

  In a formal voice, Javier asked if he might use Mellay’s office to speak with me privately. Mellay looked as if he’d been slapped. “Gentlemen?” Javier said, dismissing them.

  After they left, Javier took a seat across from me. “I want your stories on my station,” he said. “Let’s get down to the specifics. What will it take?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE SCREEN DOOR creaked when I opened it and pounded on the front door. Ben answered with a huge grin that faded quickly. “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “I had a meeting with Mellay. Some corporate bigwigs came down from New York. Can we talk?”

  “Let me guess. Mellay was an ass.”

  “Does the sun rise in the east?”

  He stepped back to let me in, and the screen door thwacked behind me. “I’m glad you came by,” he was saying. “I’ve got some things to tell you about, too. Give me a minute, though. I’ll be right back,” he said, and was gone.

  He left me in the front room, which was meant to be a formal receiving room. Despite its elegant bones, it was crowded with a huge television and old leather couches and heavy wood tables piled with sports magazines and paperback novels, a handful of remotes.

  On the bay window were photographs of Ben’s family—lots of big, dark-haired men—and there were pictures, too, of his farm with mountains in the distance. I picked up one of Ben and me at an awards ceremony a couple of years ago. He was in a tux, and I was in a black gown, and we held the statue of a winged woman between us. We wore the same smile, a grin from ear to ear.

  “That was a good night for us,” he said from the doorway. He’d spruced himself up, changed out of sweats and an old T-shirt into a button-down and khakis, and his hair was wet with comb lines. “I didn’t care about that Emmy,” he went on. “But I went to see you get what you worked so hard for. That’s when I realized what you meant to me.”

  A warm feeling flooded my chest.

  “My official statement on the record,” he said, his mouth twisting wryly. “For when you get mad at me.”

  “At you? You must be joking.” I put the photograph back in its place, impatient to get back to the news. “You won’t believe what Mellay tried to pull this time.”

  I told him how Mellay had tried to use me to break Ben’s contract. I was talking fast, excited now that it was all over, feeling that same breaking-news euphoria—except that this time it came from outsmarting Mellay and saving Ben.

  Ben didn’t seem surprised. I said, “You knew Mellay was after you?”

  “Ho
ney, I didn’t just fall off the applecart,” he drawled softly. “Course I knew. He’s been trying to get rid of me from day one. It only pissed me off when he went after you to get to me.”

  I held up my hand, needing a minute. “Mellay took away my show,” I said, finally, “to piss you off?”

  “That time, I nearly bit. If I hadn’t gotten out of the building to work on Evelyn’s story with you, I might have done something stupid. I really might have.”

  It was astonishing. All the time I’d thought Mellay was coming after me, when in truth, I’d been nothing more than a tool to get to Ben. A demotion should at least be about the person demoted, for Christ’s sake. It should’ve been about me.

  But it was also a relief. Mellay was a bad boss and needed to be pushed out the door, which meant I had no regrets.

  “You deserve so much better than this dump,” Ben was saying. “You should be where your strengths are rewarded. That’s what I’ve been working on.” He was prattling on nervously. “Will you give me a minute to show you?”

  “But you’re missing the good part. The deal with Javier.”

  He held up a finger. “Just one minute. All I’m asking.”

  “No, listen.” I went to him in the doorway. “Javier asked what else I wanted, other than you, so I did it. I told him what I really wanted, secretly, all this time.”

  “You got your show back.”

  “No,” I said, feeling the wild rush again, all the excitement. “I’m the news director.”

  His mouth opened. There were no words. I waited for him to say something, but he kept gaping at me.

  “You think it was heavy-handed?” I said. “Not so nice of me to take Mellay’s job?”

  “Mellay,” he said, as if the name was a curse. “He was never good enough to answer your phones. You’ve been carrying this dump for years, which is obvious to anybody with half a brain. Javier is that rarity in upper management, a dude with a working brain.”

  “Then why are you so angry?”

  “Not at you.” He moved his shoulder in frustration, as if fighting against a terrible constraint. “I should have seen this coming. We’re so alike, the way we charge ahead without looking.”

  Little pinpricks of anxiety tickled my spine. “I don’t understand what’s happening here.” He guided me to the sofa, handling me as if he were afraid I’d get away, and I complained: “You’re treating me like that girl we interviewed, Lil’ Bit.”

  “No, not like a reluctant interview,” he said gently. “Like my best friend, the person I’d rather be with than any other. My statement on the record, remember?”

  He was handling me, all right, and I didn’t like it.

  “Whatever this is, just say it.”

  So he did. Since Mellay had come to town, Ben had been testing the waters for other jobs. The network expressed a serious interest. There was an immediate opening for a national correspondent position, very prestigious, great salary and bennies, and best of all, it was closer to his home. He would be based out of the Chicago bureau.

  Chicago was all I heard. There was a punch of heat to my chest, unbelievably painful. He was leaving, and it was an entire world away. Chicago.

  “But I hesitated,” he said. “I couldn’t leave you. My agent negotiated into the contract my choice of producers, so you could come. It’s a good offer. I knew you’d be tempted. Then Evelyn Carney disappeared. The network took notice of our reporting. Well, that’s an understatement. Now they’re frothing at the mouth. I told them you broke it, not me, that the brilliance was all you.” He gave me a nervous, boyish smile. “They want you, badly. I bet we could negotiate for you a higher salary.”

  “But, Ben . . . Chicago?” I said, trying to slow it all down.

  He clasped my hands and pulled them close to his chest.

  “Come with me,” he said. “It’s the network. Deep pockets for the kind of investigations you like. More resources. Better work environment.” He was gripping my hands so tightly they hurt. “Take a chance. I promise you’ll never regret it. You know my word is good.”

  I looked down at our hands together, his, which were big and rough with those little half-moon scars over the knuckles, and I believed him. His word was good.

  But I pulled away and got up and wandered the room, my thoughts jumping. He was talking about working for the network in Chicago, a steppingstone to New York and even bigger opportunities. He might someday have his own network show. There really was no limit for Ben. This was a serious offer. He’d be a fool not to take it.

  “Whatever Javier offered you, we could get the network to match,” he said.

  I needed a good excuse but couldn’t think of one. I was trying too hard to keep my thoughts from my face. But he had already seen, and he knew. “For you, it’s not about the money, is it?” he said. “This, here, running the station, you said this is what you’ve dreamed of?”

  “It is, yes.”

  He was waiting for me to say more, and I had no idea what. I made my way to the window and ran my fingertip across the picture of us holding the Emmy, and talking down to it, I said, “This is the beginning of great things for you.”

  He hesitated. “For me, the network move makes sense.”

  “Of course it does,” I said quickly, still looking down at the picture. “I understand.”

  “Chicago is closer to where I feel more at home.”

  “You need a bigger skyline, fewer people.”

  He got up and came to me and turned my shoulders until I faced him. He lifted his hand to my cheek. “I like the women here, one in particular, very much.” His voice had gone thick.

  My smile wobbled. “And those women will all wear black when you leave.” This was the old joke that never truly fit, but I was trying to keep it light, failing miserably. It was settling in now, and with it, the panic. What would I do without him?

  One thing I learned, you can’t make a person stay. Begging was out. Trapping him with pity was beyond contempt. When you lost a person, you had to let him go. But the words rushed out: “What if I wanted you to stay?”

  He said nothing. I couldn’t read him, dammit.

  “What I mean is, is there anything that might keep you here?” I went on. “More money? Longer contract? More annual leave to spend time at home?”

  After a moment, he said carefully, “As the anchor, you’re saying? You want to know how to keep me on the set of the Evening News?”

  It was terrible and selfish, and I was ashamed.

  “That’s what I’m asking,” I said.

  He took a step closer. “Do you need me, Virginia?” His voice was deep and husky, and oh, how I’d miss that voice.

  But did I need him?

  “To stick around until you can get your news director feet wet?” he went on. “You know I’ll do what you need, but it’s not a great idea. Working for you with the way I feel about you.”

  I paused before nodding and saying, “You might be right,” and then he nodded with me, and we were in this together, talking quietly with polite words, afraid to say the wrong thing. “You were always more at ease with yourself than I am,” I murmured. “You’re a bit of a romantic. That’s the big difference between us. I would like to be. I might have been, but could never afford it.”

  He was studying me. “Why is that, do you think?”

  “For me, it feels dangerous.”

  “Because you can be hurt.”

  “I don’t know how to explain.” I was frustrated, struggling with this part of me I’d never understood, and not understanding it, had pushed it aside for too long. “It’s a feeling I get,” I said haltingly. “I know it’s not real, it’s just—well, it feels like I’m lost in the dark and someone is with me but hidden. I keep waiting for him to show himself for who he is or what he wants.”

  “To hurt you?”

  “Not you,” I said quickly. “You’re the finest person I know and I trust you. But that’s what comes over me, and the feeling’s not rat
ional, but I’ve never figured out how to make it go away.”

  He got a distant, thoughtful look. I’d been afraid he’d mock or disregard my feelings out of hand, but he didn’t. He was actually trying to see something quite alien to him, and this seemed a generosity so rare and precious, so Ben-like, that it hurt.

  “I understand,” he said.

  I blinked up at him. “You do?”

  “You think I don’t worry? Or have my own fears? Because I’m a man or because I’m a pretty big guy, I can’t be hurt?” Emotions flickered across his face, tenderness and something else too complex to comprehend, and I knew I’d be wondering about that look for a long time.

  Then he said gently, “If I let myself, I could easily fall in love with you. Which is why I can’t work for you. Every day I’d look at you and want to touch you. It’d be bad for me, but worse for you. There’d be gossip. It’d undercut your authority, everything you’re going to accomplish.”

  He touched my cheek again briefly and said, “I won’t hurt you like that,” and then he walked away.

  I dropped to the sofa with my head in my hands, stunned, like when you cut yourself accidentally and wonder at the depth of the slice and why you don’t feel pain in that brief, dazed moment before the blood rushes out.

  Soon there were heavy footsteps in the hallway. I lifted my head from my hands. Ben was holding an envelope.

  “What’s that?”

  He dropped it onto the table in front of me. My name was written across it in his big, bold scrawl. “You know what it is,” he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING it rained. My car was still impounded in the Mobile Crime lot, and I needed a cab. You can never find a cab in bad weather, so I walked to work in the nasty sideways downpour that flipped up my umbrella and soaked my pants legs and ruined my shoes, the squish-squish-squish matching my mood admirably.

  Tucked deep in my satchel was the sealed letter Ben had given me. I didn’t have to read it. I knew what it said. But as long as it remained sealed, it was not yet real to me, so I didn’t have to act on it. Besides, there was always the chance Ben might change his mind. If he changed his mind, it’d be easier if I hadn’t accepted his resignation. He could slide onto the anchor desk as if nothing more than his leave of absence had happened.