Lake News

by Barbara Delinsky

  Lily had been destroyed on page one. She deserved vindication on page one.

  Unfortunately, a front-page vindication wasn’t in his own best interest. Any revival of the story in the mainstream media, especially a story that focused on Terry, introduced the risk that another curious reporter would discover what John had. If that happened—if another writer stole his thunder after he had done the grunt work—John could kiss his book deal good-bye.

  Would that be so terrible?

  He’d had four reasons for wanting to write a book: fame, money, Gus’s approval, and the justification for leading a small-town life.

  Fuck the fame. He didn’t need that. Lily made him feel important.

  Fuck the money. He could live without that, too. Lily wasn’t a grubber. She made him feel like a million.

  And his lifestyle? If he didn’t care about fame and money, his lifestyle was just fine.

  That left Gus’s approval, which was still wanting, even with the man dead. It boiled down to conscience and self-esteem.

  So, did he write a book, or not? He had to decide and decide soon.

  Lily was as distracted as John over the weekend. With the Post’s refusal to issue a retraction even in spite of the test results on the tape, she had to face the reality of a court case that would be long and drawn out. Already the paper’s attorneys had asked Cassie for sixty days to consider the initial suit.

  “It’s a typical stalling tactic,” Cassie said.

  “Can’t we say no?” Lily asked.

  “We can, but it’s not strategically wise. If we refuse them the time, if we demand an immediate response, they may be annoyed enough to file a motion to dismiss in state court. We’ll win that one for sure. The problem is time. If they file a motion to dismiss now, the hearing date could be as late as February.”

  “What’s to say they won’t file the same motion sixty days from now?” Lily asked.

  “Nothing,” Cassie conceded. “If they want to be bastards, that’s just what they’ll do.”

  “Did they sound like bastards?”

  “No. But that wouldn’t have been strategically wise for them. The lawyer who called was humble and courteous. Fake as hell, but humble and courteous. I recommend we be good guys and give them thirty days. That doesn’t set us back too much in the overall scheme of things.”

  Lily went along, but she wasn’t happy. Thirty days meant a whole other month in limbo. She was feeling an urgency that went beyond loose ends in Boston. She was starting to make a life in Lake Henry. There were still things to work out with Maida if she hoped to stay long, and she was afraid to think too far ahead about John, but a resolution to the scandal was a sine qua non. None of the others would fall into place until it was settled.

  John took Lily to church Sunday morning. He took her to brunch at Charlie’s afterward, and for a ride in the hills. He took her to the Lake News office and gave her the packet of articles from the academy, and when she had picked three, he set her up with Quicken and let her do the dozen small checks that went to town correspondents, miscellaneous freelancers, and Jenny Blodgett each month.

  She was delighted to help, which pleased him immensely. Being hooked on the paper was akin to being hooked on him—not to mention that her help was badly needed. He was getting little of his own work done.

  Forget writing a book. Lake News had to be done. But he was having trouble drumming up enthusiasm for an upcoming intertown soccer tournament, much less dummying up the week’s pages. One layout was wrong, another was worse. His heart just wasn’t in it.

  After a while, pleading the need to air out his mind, he left Lily at the computer, walked up past the post office and across the street to the graveyard beside the church. He stood first at the plot where Donny was buried, and felt the pain he always did. Like Neil Sullivan, he would carry regrets to his grave, but Anita’s words helped. He was a kid, she had said in defense of Neil. He wasn’t God or a saint. He was a kid whose own life at home wasn’t as perfect as the story sounds. She might as easily have said it in defense of John. It didn’t take him off the hook with regard to Donny, just made the hook a little less sharp.

  He turned to the patch of earth beside Donny’s. Gus’s grave. There was no grass here. Grass would have to wait for spring. But there were leaves that had blown off the trees and drifted over the dirt, a dusting of pale yellows, faded reds, muted browns.

  It was quiet here—peaceful, as eternity was—because John did believe that his father was in heaven. A man who had suffered so much deserved that.

  It was me who let you down. Me who failed. Me who was never good enough. Not for your mother. Not for Don. Not for you.

  Sad that that should be a dying thought. Sad that worthiness had been so important to him. A man without a conscience had it easy, John decided. A man without a conscience didn’t have a worry in the world.

  Gus had a conscience. So did John.

  Gus wanted to be worthy. So did John.

  Gus built beautiful stone walls. John wrote beautiful articles. But neither was enough to guarantee worthiness.

  It was simple, really. Building walls and writing articles was fine. But the essence of worthiness had to do with people.

  No, Lily did not want to think about what she felt for John, but those feelings weren’t going away. Ideally, she would settle the scandal, then settle with Maida, and then think about him. But life was never ideal. Her heart insisted on squeezing and tugging whenever he came to mind.

  This Sunday, she felt his distraction and feared he was having second thoughts about their relationship. Unable to ask it lest he say that he was, she helped out at the office as best she could, then made dinner back at the cottage, trying to please him that way. He smiled, ate every last bite, and thanked her more than once. But she turned back from the sink when the dishes were done to find him outside on the dock. Pulling on his sweater, and a jacket over that, she followed him out.

  It was downright cold. A wind was up, rippling over the water as it had rarely done the month before. October was in full gear. November would bring snow.

  Her sneakers made a muted sound on the planks. John looked up and smiled. Taking her hand, he drew her down and settled her between his legs, facing the lake, with his cheek against her hair and his arms holding her close.

  Those arms didn’t feel like they were having second thoughts. She was momentarily content.

  “Listen to the water,” she whispered.

  “Mmm-hmm. Lapping up a storm. I’ve been trying to hear loons.”

  “Any?”

  “No. They may be out there. We’ll hear if they call. It’s hard to spot them with rough water and no moon.” His mouth touched her temple, the gentle brush of his beard. “Warm enough?”

  “I am.”

  “I love you, you know.”

  Her heart bumped.

  “Is it mutual?” he asked, sounding endearingly unsure.

  She was totally crazy. Since when could she trust a newspaperman? “Very.”

  She felt him relax some. When he said, “I want what’s best for you,” she believed him. More, she believed what she heard in his sudden somberness. The cause of his distraction wasn’t their relationship. It was the other mess.

  She was relieved, frightened. “What are my choices?”

  He breathed in the sigh of one who had examined each in depth. “You have three,” he said on the exhalation, still warm and close. “First, you can take the legal course. Hunker down, let Cassie pursue the case, get what remedy you can that way.”

  “Hunker down” was the operable phrase. That choice would take time.

  “Second,” he said, “you can say it all in my book. Jacobi wants to put it out in March. I’d rather a few extra months to write it well, but I can do it for March. That would bring quicker results than a lawsuit.”

  You can say it all in my book. Not, I can say it all. It felt like a joint endeavor. That was something.

  “Third,” he concluded, �
�we can make headlines this week. I can devote the week’s Lake News to the scandal. Blow the whole thing wide open. Armand will make sure that the mainstream press picks it up. You’d have your forum.”

  She swallowed. She would have her forum, at that. She would have exposure, which she hated. But this time there would be headlines, sure vindication, the final revenge.

  “If I do,” she pointed out, “you won’t have your book.”

  He was silent for a long time. When he spoke, the words held a certain resignation. “It may be that you need this more than I need my book.”

  She was more touched than she could believe.

  “It’s your choice,” he said.

  “But you wanted that book.” She knew how much. They had talked about his dreams. She wasn’t even as threatened anymore. Not really. It was the trust thing.

  “I can still have the book.”

  “It won’t be as strong.”

  “Maybe not. But right now you need headlines. You need flash.”

  “I hate flash.”

  He turned her around and looked her in the eye. “You may hate it, but damn it, it works. Flash took your jobs, your home, your reputation. Do you want those back?”

  She remembered the pride she had felt at the Winchester School when her a cappella groups had performed, and the pleasure of playing favorite songs at the Essex Club for people like Tom and Dotty Frische. She remembered the satisfaction of walking through the Public Garden and down Commonwealth Avenue to the place she had made her home out of sheer hard work and determination. Her reputation had been key in all of those things.

  “Do you?” John asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want vindication?”

  Did she want the world to know that she had never had an affair with Francis Rossetti? Did she want an acknowledgment of the horror that had been made of her life in Boston? Did she want an apology for having been singled out for humiliation and derision?

  “Yes!”

  “Do you want to punish the people who did this to you?”

  So many people who should be ashamed, so many people behind the scenes letting it happen—where to begin? There was Justin Barr, whose lying mouth had painted her a Jezebel across the airwaves, and Paul Rizzo, who had followed her and harrassed her and never once, never once given her the benefit of the doubt. But Terry Sullivan was the worst of the bunch. He had dreamed up the story in the first place. Did she want him punished?

  Did she ever.

  John spent the night at Lily’s, but he was the first one gone in the morning. He stopped at Charlie’s for coffee and the out-of-town papers, and went straight to the office.

  He never did open those papers. He had plenty to write without, and the words came in an effortless flow from his brain, through his fingers, to the screen. On occasion he thought to hold back. There was more than enough news here; he could yet have his book.

  But there was Lily, working at the cider house because she had been deemed unfit to teach kids, and Gus, paralyzed by the belief in his own unworthiness.

  Was John worthy, or not? Was he decent, or not?

  Lake News took on greater import as the hours passed. He wanted this issue to be the best thing he’d ever done. Holding back wouldn’t do. This was breaking news. Journalistically speaking, it was John’s dream. Lingering thoughts about writing a book took a backseat to the idea of getting justice for Lily.

  In a moment of what John now knew to be cynicism born of frustration, Gus had said that journalists reported the news because they didn’t have the brains to make the news. Well, John had the brains. He had followed a hunch, done his homework, and found new information to recast an old story.

  No, a journalist’s job wasn’t to make the news. He had learned that years before. But nothing he did or thought or imagined now told him to turn back. He had uncovered the truth and was making it known. That didn’t feel at all wrong to him.

  Tuesday morning, when Liddie Baynes arrived with Armand’s column, John was at the door to greet her. “For your better half,” he said, handing her a large envelope as he took her small one. “How’s the boss?”

  “Crotchety,” Liddie said, but with affection. “His new hip isn’t working like it would if he were twenty.”

  John grinned and gestured toward what he had given her. “This should cheer him up.”

  * * *

  It took Liddie five minutes to drive home, and Armand another five to see enough of what John had sent to react. His call came within a minute of when John had put down his pen in anticipation.

  “What the hell is this?” Armand barked into his ear. “Where did it come from? How long you been nosing around? Do you know the implications here? Christ, John, why wasn’t I told? I’m the publisher. When were you going to clue me in?”

  “It was a last-minute decision,” John said, knowing Armand was more excited than angry. “I’ve been digging for a while, but I wasn’t sure what I’d find. So. What do you think?”

  “What do you think I think? I’m… I’m psyched!”

  John grinned. “There’s still time to rework the issue if you don’t want to run it,” he teased.

  “I want to run it, all right. The question is, what do we do with it once it’s run?”

  John cleared his throat. “I have ideas. But I’ll need your help.”

  “That’s good. Shut me out at this point and you’re fired.”

  Timing was everything. The key was to get people curious, without allowing them to look into the story themselves. It was tricky with journalists. They were addicts. One whiff of something new and they hit the ground running.

  John and Armand made their separate lists and cross-checked them to eliminate duplications. The plan was to spend Tuesday evening making calls to those reporters who would need extra travel time, and Wednesday morning for those within easier reach.

  It was something of a game for John, calling old friends in the media, asking enough questions about the validity of the Rossetti-Blake story—and how it had played in their neck of the woods—to arouse suspicion, then confiding that Lily Blake was indeed home, that Lake News had a scoop, that yes, there would probably be a news conference at press time, and yes, he supposed the big guns would be there.

  “Supposed” was a fair enough word. He knew how press people worked. They wouldn’t take the chance of ignoring a tip, lest a rival follow it up and hit gold. He didn’t earmark Terry; didn’t have to. The people he called were insiders who knew Terry’s connection with the story. It helped that they respected John. One after another he heard murmurs and the rustle of paper for making notes when he said that if a press conference materialized, it would take place in the church in the center of Lake Henry Wednesday at five.

  That was the earliest John figured he could get Lake News back from the printer. It meant that Lily could finish up at the cider house, do what she had to do at home, and join him in town. It also meant that the story would break in time for the evening news.

  John didn’t spend Tuesday night at Lily’s but stayed at the office making calls until midnight, then worked on the rest of Lake News, local things that he had neglected, things that had nothing to do with the scandal but that were important, very important, to his readers. He was on the phone again by eight in the morning, made the last of his calls by eleven, put the finishing touches on the paper, and sent it to the printer just minutes before noon.

  That was when Richard Jacobi called. The grapevine was active. Richard had heard the words “scoop” and “press conference.” He wasn’t happy.

  “How much are you telling?” he asked.

  “Not much. Just one piece of the puzzle.”

  “It must be a hefty piece if our papers are heading up there. Listen, John, I have your contract here on my desk ready to be mailed, but if you’re telling everything now, what’s to tell later?”

  “Details,” John said. “Depth.”

  “That’s just fine if you’re David Ha
lberstam, but you’re not. You’re a newspaper guy who’s forte is breaking news. I was counting on this book to be a shocker. That’s what the money’s for.”

  “I thought the money was for the inside story. The story behind the story. Nothing’s changed about that.”

  “The deal was for an exclusive. If you run the story in your weekly, that breaks the deal. Hell, John, this is a business. Details and depth are fine and good, but they don’t have half the sales potential as shock. I was paying for that. I imagined prepub hype that would have bookstores and readers champing at the bit. Marketing is already on it. So’s Publicity and Art. The package was going to be great, and then we’d launch with a press conference. You do that now and the deal is off. Hell, maybe this isn’t a good match.”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” John agreed, because what Richard was describing didn’t jibe with his dream. He might not be David Halberstam. But the whole point of his doing this book was to prove his worth as a writer.

  At least, that had been the dream once. It wasn’t now. He wanted to prove his worth as a person. He was doing that just fine without a book.

  “Tell you what,” Richard said in what he must have thought was a conciliatory tone, “I’ll hold this contract here. Give me a call after your press conference, and we’ll see where we stand.”

  John hung up the phone doubting he would make that call, and not feeling disappointed in the least.

  CHAPTER 28

  Lily spent Wednesday morning feeling as jittery as she had those last few days in Boston. Seeking relief in routine, she devoted herself to the cider making, working the racks and cloths with a fever, but the sense of anticipation never left her for long. Each time it returned, her emotions swung wildly—excitement to fear to satisfaction to embarrassment to anger. One thing, however, remained constant: she did want justice.

  The irony was that Terry Sullivan had given her the tool to get it. He was the one who had put her name on the map. John barely had to breathe it to his media friends and they were on their way to New Hampshire. Once they were all in Lake Henry, the limelight would shift to Terry. As the saying went, he would be hoist by his own petard.