Langley looked at her.
“That DBS is being awfully slow about payouts on the miniseries. Is that going to happen to us?”
Langley shook his head. “We are slow on the miniseries, but that’s because of the production moving overseas. Financial transactions have to go overseas and then come back into this country—that’s all,” he said, lowering his eyes to his coffee. “That’s why we’re having the review this summer.”
“Mom,” Henry said, coming in. “Sorry—but Dad wanted to make sure I sent his rowing machine. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s right where he left it eight years ago—in the basement,” she said. “Sorry, Langley—you were saying.”
Langley turned around to make sure Henry was gone before continuing. “We’d like to strengthen DBS News’ financial outlook by consolidating production of The Jessica Wright Show’ under you. You’ll be named president of news and information and—”
Cassy waved her hand through the air. “Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.” She dropped her hand and looked at him. “Why are we consolidating production?”
“Because Jessica can pay a lot of your bills—”
“Let me get this straight,” Cassy said. “You’re going to let me drain the profits of ‘The Jessica Wright Show’ to make DBS News look better for a corporate review this summer?”
“Not drain—” Langley started to say. Seeing Cassy’s expression, he shrugged. “Essentially, yes.”
“Why?”
“Sorry—” Henry said, reappearing in the doorway.
Cassy looked over.
“Do I have to call the super or something to get into the basement?”
“Yes, sweetheart. His number’s in the book.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Langley waited a moment to make sure Henry was gone. And then he leaned forward to say, “This is purely a preventive move—one we’re taking only to make sure that DBS News is not interfered with in any way by the board.”
“Why should it be interfered with?”
And so Langley explained that one of Jackson’s brothers would be stepping down from the board, thus altering the balance of the vote and reducing the majority who had originally endorsed the idea of DBS News to the minority. And since DBS News had been launched much earlier than originally planned, and was actually twice the size of what had originally been approved, they were simply making sure that DBS News would be left alone.
Cassy was looking at Langley like he was crazy.
“What?” he said.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” she said evenly.
“All we’re doing is asking you to consolidate your position and get promoted in the process,” Langley said.
“Langley,” Cassy said, leaning forward in her chair, “what you’re asking me to do is help you defraud the board. That’s what you’re asking me to do—to skew the numbers between news and entertainment.”
“No, no, Cassy,” Langley said quickly, reaching across the table to touch her wrist. “We want you to consolidate them as a financially attractive investment—as our initial block of in-studio programming—and do it in such a way so as to discourage anyone from thinking of trying to separate them.”
“And going after the vulnerable one,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Which would be DBS News.”
“Really, Cassy,” Langley said, “the only reason why we’re asking you to do this is to clear the way for smooth sailing.”
“It must be the Virginia Woolf school of sailing then,” Cassy said, “because it seems like every time I turn around I catch Jackson putting rocks in my pockets.”
“No, that’s wrong,” Langley said. “It’s absolutely wrong. I know you think otherwise, but Jack is a tremendous supporter of yours.”
“Oh, right!” Cassy said, slapping the table and throwing her head back to laugh.
“I’m serious, Cassy,” Langley said. “Regardless of your personal differences and conflicts over Alexandra, he has no doubts about your capabilities and contribution.” After a moment, “Cassy—Cassy, listen to me.”
She stopped laughing and brought her head back down, wiping the trace of a tear from one eye. And then, sniffing once, her expression grew quite serious. “No, you listen to me, Langley,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forward. “I will do this, Langley—I will do whatever you tell me I have to do in order to protect my people, to protect their jobs, and to protect our collective future. And I will now work to protect Jessica and her people too. But I’ve got to tell you, Langley, I don’t like it—and I don’t like how arbitrarily you guys trade on the good faith of the people you lured to DBS. As for Alexandra—”
“Jack’s going to talk to her himself about it first thing Wednesday.”
“Wednesday,” Cassy repeated, thinking.
“And there’s something else, Cassy,” Langley said. “About you, and why Jack wants to do this.”
Cassy looked down at first her one side and then her other, murmuring, “Just checking for rocks.”
Langley smiled. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but I will. Before the year is out, Jack is hoping to make you president of DBS. Turn the whole operation over to you.”
Cassy looked up, stunned.
Langley’s smile expanded. “So you see? We do have other reasons for wanting to put Jessica’s show in your hands now.”
“But what about you?” she finally managed to say.
“Oh, I’ll be running Darenbrook Electronics. And you and I will be doing a lot of business together over the years. You know, Cassy, we had more than one reason for naming the network DBS.” He paused. “It’s also the nickname for the direct broadcasting system—transmitting from satellite directly into homes. And we’re ready to do that now. The day a home is equipped to receive is the day we can broadcast directly. And five years down the road I’m going to have a whole slew of interactive programming to offer DBS, Cassy.” He paused, his smile expanding further. “Imagine the possibilities for the news division if DBS were the first broadcasting network to have spontaneous interaction with its viewership.”
“We could take the pulse of the country at any given moment,” Cassy murmured.
“But the big plan, Cassy, the real dream behind this effort—my dream…” he said, voice trailing off.
Their eyes connected.
“As Xerox was to carbon paper, DBS will be to broadcast television,” he said. “It’s not really a network we’re building—it’s a technological revolution.” He waved his hand through the air. “But that’s the dream. The reality is, for the moment, DBS is a struggling venture which Jack and I both believe could flourish under your direction.”
After a long moment Cassy laid a hand on her chest, looked down at the table and said, “I never…” She looked up. “I came to DBS to be near the newsroom again.”
“And you’ve been building the network instead,” Langley said.
They were both quiet for a while, smiling, looking at one another.
Then there was a crash in the kitchen.
“What was that?” she called.
“Nothing, Mom. I’m just moving a box to the front hall.”
Cassy looked at Langley. “Could I possibly interest you in taking a walk?”
It was a gorgeous day, this first Saturday in May, and they walked out of the building, across the Drive to the brick esplanade under the trees, and then took the steep concrete stairs down into Riverside Park. As they made their way down the hillside and through the glen, they talked on about the consolidation, and paused for a long while at the flats of the community garden, looking at all of the flowers. (“This park is so beautiful—I had no idea,” Langley said, looking up to see how the apartment buildings on the ridge of the Drive towered over the tops of the trees in the park.) They strolled to the end of the gardens, went down some old stone stairs, walked through a tunnel underneath the West Side Highway and came out on a lovely promenade running along the edge of the
river.
The Hudson was blue today. At eye level, the twelve hundred yards of water across made New Jersey seem miles away. The wind was light and sea gulls were screaming overhead, and the afternoon sun, moving down toward New Jersey, felt warm on their faces as they walked south along the promenade, hands in their jacket pockets.
After a while they stopped to lean on the wood railing and look out across the Hudson. Eyes dropping to the water lapping against the rocks below, Cassy noticed her engagement ring and wedding ring on her hand, and wondered when or if she shouldn’t take them off. It felt very strange to think about this, about taking off the rings she had been wearing every day of her life for over twenty-two years. It gave her a sick, hollow feeling inside and so she looked up and took a deep breath—drawing in that funny mixture of salty sea air from the south, the harbor, and the fresh-water-and-greenery smell from the river north—and it helped make the awful feeling go away. And the sun, so warm on her face, and the breezes, playing with her hair, felt lovely.
“Can you keep a secret?” Langley asked her.
Cassy looked at him. He was looking overhead at the circling gulls, the breezes playing with his hair too. She was struck by how pale he looked, how alien he seemed to the outdoors. She wondered when was the last time he had had a vacation—and what he did when he took one. “Sure,” she said.
Langley looked straight out across the water, still leaning on the railing, holding his hands together in front of him. “Ever since you people arrived at West End,” he began. And then he stopped, looking down at his hands.
“Tell me,” Cassy said, moving a little closer to him, sliding her elbows along the railing.
“I’ve been having fun,” Langley said. He looked up, back out over the water. “I complain all the time, I know, but truth is—” He turned to look at her. “We weren’t having much fun around there—at Darenbrook Communications. Not since Jack’s wife died. It all changed then. Jack changed. Everyone changed.” He looked back at the water, thinking. “And I’m beginning to think that maybe it is Alexandra. That she’s making things come alive again—making people feel alive again. Provoked, certainly,” he added, laughing to himself. “God knows, she sure gets Jack all worked up and me worked up and you…”
“I love her very much,” Cassy said with a smile, closing her eyes and angling her face toward the sun.
“And it’s exciting these days, you know?” Langley said. “Even with all the problems, all the headaches.”
Cassy opened her eyes and shielded them with her hand to get a good look at him. And then she smiled again and leaned over to nudge him. “And the best part’s to come. You haven’t lived until the day you walk by a TV store and see Alexandra on the set in the window. Or Jessica. And watch people watching. ‘I helped make this happen,’ you say to yourself. This is what I do for a living.’” She laughed, softly, bending to rest the side of her head on the railing a moment. “It’s a little like motherhood.”
“I guess,” Langley said, sounding distracted. And then he looked down at Cassy. “You’re very special, you know.”
Cassy hesitated, blinked twice and said, “Thank you,” straightening up. “I think you are too.”
“No,” Langley said, touching her arm, “I mean it. It’s been a long time since I’ve known someone like you.”
Cassy smiled faintly, turning to look out across the water.
After a long moment Langley said, “I haven’t offended you, have I?”
“Of course not,” she said gently, glancing at him. “Actually,” she added a second later, turning toward him, resting one elbow on the railing, “I was thinking about Jackson’s interest in Alexandra.”
Langley looked a little surprised by this.
“I worry about him,” Cassy said, “about his reaction down the road when he finds out about Alexandra and Gordon. It’s one thing to keep it quiet from the public for now and cash in on the publicity about Jackson—but it’s quite another to keep him in the dark about it if he’s seriously interested in her—if he genuinely…” She shrugged.
“I know his interest in her is real,” Langley said slowly, “but I’m not convinced anything else is. Jack can get a little star-struck sometimes.”
“Don’t we all,” Cassy murmured, turning back to the railing and leaning on it with both arms. After thinking a moment, she looked at Langley. “Someone told me that Alexandra’s a lot like Barbara—like his first wife.”
“His only wife,” Langley said. And then he started chuckling to himself, bowing his head to hold it in his hand for a moment. “Oh, God, no,” he said, smiling still, bringing his head back up. “Alexandra’s nothing like Barbara.”
“Oh,” Cassy said, turning back to look at the water.
“Barbara was just like you,” he said.
20
Langley’s Luncheon
“I’m sorry,” Kate Benedict said, standing by Langley’s table in the upstairs dining room of the “21” Club, “but Alexandra said she has to have some sort of an answer in writing.”
Langley nodded, rereading Alexandra’s note, marveling to himself how quickly their young anchorlady could move and still maintain the illusion around West End that she “didn’t have a head for business.” Nonsense. Alexandra looked after her business the same way she looked after the business of gathering news she surrounded herself with excellent people whom she could trust to accurately inform her. So, instead of reporters and newswriters, Alexandra’s crack attorney, agent and probably her accountant as well had helped prepare this note—and in record time. Alexandra had been told of Cassy’s promotion to president of DBS news and information only this morning and already she was playing hardball in response.
Mr. Graham, who was sitting across the table at “21” from Langley, was frowning. “Miss Waring must be very upset if she sent this young lady all the way here,” he said.
“Yep, she is,” Kate confirmed. “Like your bow tie, Mr. Graham.”
“Miss Waring is upset about my bow tie?” Mr. Graham said, forehead furrowing.
“No,” Kate said, “I was just remarking on how much I like it.”
“Oh. Thank you,” Mr. Graham said, touching it with his hand.
Langley listened to this exchange, thinking how the day was getting stranger by the minute. He was supposed to have had lunch with Gordon Strenn and Sven Hagerström, a Swedish producer, but when they arrived at the restaurant there was a message that Hagerström had fallen ill. Gordon then begged off from lunch, saying he really could use the time to run up to FAO Schwarz to see if he could find a special building set for his son’s birthday. And so Langley had been standing there, in the foyer of “21,” debating whether to eat alone or not, when Alexandra’s mysterious personal employee, Mr. Graham, came strolling in just as he had for thirty-three years, the maître d’ said) and Langley thought, what the heck, he’d ask the old guy to lunch. Mr. Graham had been delighted to accept.
“Here,” Langley said to Kate, moving over on the banquette and patting the seat next to him. “Sit.” He signaled the waiter, who had been watching Kate carefully. (Luncheon upstairs at “21” was to be a quiet, elegant and dignified affair, and so the staff was a bit wary of breathless young women dashing in who, in this case, could have been anyone from Mr. Peterson’s scorned mistress to a drug-crazed daughter home from Bennington. One simply couldn’t tell anymore.) “She will be joining us for lunch,” Langley said.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry—I can’t,” Kate said quickly. “Really, I have to get back as soon as I can. I promised.”
“At least have a drink then,” Langley said, returning his attention to the note.
“Oh,” Kate said, looking surprised.
The waiter was patiently waiting.
“Grapefruit juice—and Perrier,” Kate said. When the waiter left, she turned to Langley. “Gee, Mr. Peterson, I didn’t expect you to invite me to lunch. Thank you. I thought you’d yell at me.”
Langley looked at her. “
Have I ever yelled at you?”
“A lot,” she said, but cheerfully so.
That’s right, he had. But since it had always been Alexandra he really wanted to yell at, it had never occurred to him that Kate would consider his yelling about Alexandra as yelling at her. “Did Alexandra yell at you today?” he asked her, curious.
She shook her head. “No. Alexandra doesn’t really yell. She gets very quiet—which in a way is worse, you know what I mean?”
He knew what she meant, though judging from how white Jackson’s face had been this morning—after telling Alexandra that DBS had to expand Cassy’s managerial responsibilities to include overseeing “The Jessica Wright Show”—Langley was not so sure Alexandra hadn’t done some yelling in that meeting. And though Jack had promised to “take care of it” with Alexandra, the fact that he had suddenly decided to fly to Hilleanderville to talk to Cordelia (a week early) had signaled to Langley that Jackson had not taken care of anything with Alexandra, a fact that Cassy shortly thereafter confirmed.
“He gave her the impression that it was my idea!” Cassy had said to Langley over the phone. “And now he’s gone, leaving us holding the bag.”
“So Alexandra’s angry?” he had asked.
“Angry? She’s furious she wasn’t consulted. And then I explained to her that the restructuring was only meant to strengthen the financial future of DBS News.”
“And what did she say to that?” Langley asked.
“She said that was no excuse for her not being consulted, that we didn’t have the right to present it to her as a fait accompli,” Cassy said. “How Darenbrook presented it to her in their meeting—I don’t even want to think about it. Anyway, I told her that the reason why she wasn’t consulted was because Jackson didn’t want to burden her with anything more while she was working on the newscast.”
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