The Best in the West

by Kathleen Walker

  She grew pale with his words.

  “But what about me?” she wondered aloud, still confused by his confession.

  “Nothing has changed,” he assured her. “I may be here for another five years. I thought you should know that I saw her. I thought it was only fair.”

  “I don’t understand why you came here.” she cried, glancing around the room.

  “Because I like you, Debbie. Because we’re friends.” He reached for her. She pulled back.

  “No,” she said. “Friends don’t hurt each other and I thought we were more than friends.”

  “Hey, Debbie, don’t get so serious about this. I care about you. You know that. There’s no reason for us to stop seeing each other. It was only one night. Come on.” He opened his arms. “Come on, big ‘un, give us a hug.”

  “One night? You spent the night with her? Is that what you mean?” She was stunned.

  He shrugged.

  “Get out of here,” she ordered, jumping to her feet. “I don’t want you here.”

  “Debbie, don’t be ridiculous,” he argued. “It wasn’t anything. It just happened. We can talk about it.”

  “No. You get out of here now.”

  “Debbie, this is silly. I don’t want to leave you like this.”

  “You go now, right now,” she demanded. “Now.”

  “Okay, then.” He shrugged. “If that’s what you want, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t.”

  So much for telling the truth. He’d talk to her later, when she calmed down. Everything would be fine.

  She told Ellen on Monday morning.

  “I cried all night. I couldn’t even talk. But, I am okay now.”

  “He’s a bastard,” Ellen stated loudly.

  She looked around to see if Jason was near. She’d give him a look if she saw him.

  “I mean, I don’t even understand,” Debbie was saying as she wiped at her eyes with a tissue. “He’s with me and goes to her? And then he comes back to me? That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “And then he says it is nothing. How can that be? How can it be nothing to sleep with someone? Is she really all that wonderful?” she asked.

  “Who, Ashley?”

  “Yes, Ashley,” Debbie snapped.

  “She was okay. Blond. She was pretty in a loose sort of way. You know, the sweater girl.”

  “Was she a good reporter?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe he won’t get a job in Washington.” Debbie pulled a tissue from her purse.

  “Who cares?” Ellen shouted it out. “He’s not important, Debbie. He obviously doesn’t worry about your feelings.”

  “Maybe I should see somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “A doctor, like I told you before.”

  “Because of this?”

  “No, not this, lots of things.”

  “I suppose,” Ellen said. “If you think so. What could it hurt?”

  *

  He smoked and drank coffee while Debbie tried to read the degrees hanging on the wall behind him.

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  “The phone book,” she said and smiled. “I liked it because you called me back yourself.”

  He reached for another cigarette.

  “Do you mind?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is there something in particular you want to talk about?”

  “The crying,” she said and smiled shyly. “I cry a lot and I don’t think it’s the job anymore or because this man I was dating slept with an old girlfriend. I think it’s because I’m not happy about a lot of things and I want to change that.”

  “You said there was this other doctor who told you to find someone here?”

  “That was a few months ago. He was my doctor for a while in Oregon and he said I might need a tune-up. I guess this is it.”

  She tried to see the time on the watch he had placed on the small table beside his chair.

  “Anyway, I feel okay now so I thought this might be a good time to start changing.”

  “Tell me about this crying.”

  “It’s nothing. I get sad, that’s all. I see things and people that make me sad and I don’t know why.”

  “Have you ever been on medication for depression?”

  “No!” She yelled out the word. “I don’t believe in medication.”

  “I’m not suggesting it,” he told her quickly. “However, sometimes we find medication useful.”

  “Not for me,” she stated firmly. “Nothing is that wrong.”

  He may have seen her on the news. He couldn’t remember. He knew at least one doctor who was seeing a few of these television people. Once the word got around, others came, he supposed. He’d have to call him, mention this reporter and ask about her melancholy. Possibly part of the business.

  He put out his cigarette. Ridiculous that he couldn’t hold off for fifty minutes.

  “I want to do this fast,” she said. “I don’t have lots of time, but I’ve been reading that there is some therapy that goes really fast.”

  “It all depends on the problem and how committed the patient is. Would you like to come twice a week to begin with, for speed?” he said with a smile.

  “Yes, yes,” she agreed. “That would be good, at first.”

  It wouldn’t be two times a week for long. Soon she would be coming to this office once a week and soon, she told herself, not at all.

  Clifford waited in the van. He looked around the parking lot while he ate his fast-food lunch. The cars were no big deal. No Mercedes, no BMWs, and that’s what these guys drove. Her doctor could be parked around back. Still, he didn’t like it. If you were good, you had a Mercedes or a Jag, not some old junky Toyota or Ford.

  “Everything okay?” he asked when she got back to the van.

  “Great.” She smiled.

  That night she told Ellen about the visit.“He is nice.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Waddell. Stanley Waddell.”

  “What’s that? I mean, isn’t Stanley Polish? What’s the Waddell?”

  “English?”

  “Or German. Man, what a combination.”

  “There was one thing, though,” Debbie said.

  “What?”

  “He wanted to know if I wanted pills, you know, medication.”

  “That’s the last thing you need,” Ellen pronounced.

  “I told him that. I told him I didn’t want anything. I never took pills, even the first time. I went through therapy without pills and I was worse then, not like now. Why did he bring that up?”

  “It’s all part of the quick fix philosophy. Got a problem, take a pill. The whole fucking country is taking pills.”

  “I got scared when he asked me that, Ellen, like something was really wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. You told him you didn’t want pills. That’s the end of it.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Maybe he’s testing you, seeing if you went to him to get pills. People do.”

  “That could be,” Debbie said hopefully. “That was probably it.”

  “You have to trust him,” Ellen told her. “If you don’t, don’t go back.”

  “I have to go back,” she cried out. “That’s the point. I won’t be better until I figure out why I feel so sad all the time.”

  “Debbie, there is nothing wrong with you.”

  “I know. I know. You’re right.”

  Ellen was right. She was always right.

  “And thank you, thank you, for being my friend.”

  “Right,” Ellen said, with a long exhale.

  She was lucky to have Ellen, Debbie thought as she put the phone back on the nightstand, so lucky. She pulled up the quilt her grandmother made for her own wedding night, and lay with her hands atop it.

  What would happen if Ellen got tired of her the way Jason did? she wondered. What if Ellen sto
pped believing in her? She stared into the darkness, folding her hands in prayer. Was it there? Yes, it was, the hint of it, the taste of the copper penny of fear.

  “One,” she whispered silently to her mind. “Two,” came a pace behind.

  25

  “I’m going to Albuquerque for Christmas,” Ellen announced. “They actually have Christmas there. Snow, the whole bit. It’s more like it is on the East Coast. Parties, people getting together to celebrate. I like that.”

  “The worst news in the world comes out of Albuquerque,” Harold Lewis said, leaning out of his cubicle. “Good art, terrible news.”

  “I don’t think so. I learned more there than anywhere I’ve ever worked. You had to do your own shooting sometimes, editing, setting up the lights. That’s the way to learn television.”

  “I think it would be a good place to end up,” Chuck Farrell commented. “Some little station in New Mexico.”

  “No money,” she said. “That’s the problem. The whole state is dirt poor. In a way, I like that too. Nobody there seems to care that much about money.”

  It was safe, this love for another place. She knew that. She didn’t have to live there again. She didn’t have to wonder how she would buy a new dress or a winter coat on a miserably low salary. She didn’t have to turn her eyes from the ugliness, the dirt, the poverty. Albuquerque was only a place she could call upon when she needed to leave town. Still, it wasn’t a bad place. She actually might go back to Albuquerque, someday, when all of this finally got to her.

  All of what? Television was the same everywhere. Like she told them, same people, different faces. To get away, you had to get out.

  “And do what? What would you do?” Chuck Farrell asked her more than once.

  “Good God, Chuck, there is life after television.”

  “Sure there is, but what would you do?”

  She didn’t know. What she did now was relatively easy, a formula. Once you figured out the formula, you could turn out stories all day long.

  “You’re wrong about something,” Jack Benton shouted out.

  “Yeah, like what?”

  “Everybody cares about money. Everybody.”

  Debbie listened to the banter. She wouldn’t be leaving town for Christmas. She wouldn’t even be able to spend the day in her apartment. She had Thanksgiving off. That’s the way it worked. She wouldn’t bother cooking for herself or anybody else. She didn’t feel that well.

  Jason had called her a few times and she kept the conversations short and cold. She saw no sense in speaking to him. He left on another trip with Richard Ferguson.

  The doctor tried talking to her between puffs of cigarettes and sips of coffee. When he tried talking about her mother and her father, she shook her head and told him there wasn’t time for that. She said that would be like starting all over again and she didn’t have the time. Instead, she told him about how Christmas carols made her cry and how the Santa Claus in the mall made her sad.

  “It’s a hard season for many people,” he assured her. “The holidays are never what we expect them to be.”

  She stared at him.

  “Is there something else bothering you?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” she said. “I will talk about it when I am sure.”

  “How soon?”

  “Soon,” she said.

  She told him one week later. She was pregnant.

  “Was that why you came to me?”

  “No. I didn’t know. I found out for sure yesterday.”

  She sat deathly still, her feet flat on the floor, her knees pressed together, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  He rubbed his forehead with the tip of his middle finger.

  “Debbie, I don’t know what to say.”

  “There is nothing you can say. I’ve already made my decision.”

  “What decision?”

  “Well,” she gave a sour laugh, “I obviously can’t have a baby. I can’t go out and do stories and be unmarried and pregnant.”

  “Perhaps you could.”

  She shook her head angrily. “Please.”

  “What about the father? Does he know?”

  “No, and I’m not telling anyone else.” She opened her hands and stared at them. “This is for me to do. I don’t want anyone to know.”

  “Debbie, I don’t think dealing with this by yourself is wise. What about your family?” He leaned forward from his chair, his palms rubbing on his thighs. “Isn’t there anyone else you can talk to?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “This is for me to do. I don’t have any problems with having an abortion. People do it all the time, don’t they?”

  She looked at him, her face now full of pain.

  “Besides,” she tried to smile, “I have you to talk to.”

  *

  One other person did know. Clifford Williams. She made the doctor’s appointment for the time of their usual lunch break between stories. She believed, whatever the news, she could handle it without letting Clifford know. Anyway, as she kept telling herself, everything was probably fine. She had missed periods before.

  “Six to eight weeks,” the doctor said. “Any decision has to be made soon. Termination is more difficult after the first trimester.”

  “How soon will I need to do it?”

  “Within the next two weeks. On the other hand, you are healthy and young and would probably carry a healthy baby to term.”

  “Do you do it here?” she asked the man with the kind eyes.

  “No. We’ll give you the information you need if that’s what you decide.”

  “But, not you?”

  “No, not me. Not me,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Okay, Debbie?” Clifford asked when she came back. She said nothing and he threw the van into reverse. When he finally spoke again it was to ask if she wanted to stop.

  “You want lunch or a soda?” he asked, the worry etched on his face.

  She shook her head and quietly began to cry.

  “I am so sorry, sorry,” she wept, “you shouldn’t have to go through this.”

  “It don’t bother me,” he said quickly, afraid of her tears.

  “It’s so stupid,” she sniffed. “I can’t do anything right anymore, nothing.”

  Leave it alone, he told himself, but had to ask, “You need some help or something?”

  “I’m pregnant,” she cried. “Pregnant.”

  Ah, man.

  “What a mess,” she said, the tears falling. “What a stupid mess.”

  “I hear that,” he nodded. It was a mess, her mess, and he sure wasn’t going to ask her anything about it. It had to be Jason. Sure, except Jason was talking a lot about DC and that girl he used to date. If it wasn’t Jason, then who?

  He shook his head. With his luck, they’d think it was him and there he was, his big black self, driving her to the doctor. Wouldn’t Brown like that.

  “It’s okay, Clifford,” she said and touched his arm. “I don’t want to put you through this. Please don’t say anything. I’ll be okay. Promise me you won’t tell anyone, promise.”

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Ain’t none of my business.”

  *

  “You’ll be in Christmas?” George checked with her. “That’s what my schedule says.” He steeled himself for an argument.

  “I’ll be here.”

  “You might have to do the Christmas dinner story,” he said. “It has to be you or Adkins and he does it all the time. That’s what he says, anyway. You’ll be on with Cappy.”

  “Ah, George, come on,” Cappy whined as he walked to the desk. He knew he was working Christmas. The schedule had been hanging in the photographers’ room for a month, but it was worth a try.

  “I got kids, George. Don’t you ever give it a rest?”

  “That’s okay,” Clifford moved in behind him. “I’ll take it. I got no plans.”

  “You mean it?” Cappy asked in surprise. “Really? You don’t have to.”
<
br />   “You can cover for me New Year’s.”

  “You got a deal,” Cappy laughed.

  George frowned. He didn’t like them changing the schedule, making their own plans. He didn’t understand why they fought him all the time. It was their job, damn it.

  “Too bad,” said Ellen when Debbie came down the cubicle row. “I think this is the first Christmas I haven’t worked in five years.”

  “When are you leaving for New Mexico?” Debbie asked.

  “Tomorrow at the crack of dawn.”

  “Do you have friends there?”

  “Debbie, I lived there for three years. Of course I have friends there.”

  “I’m sorry,” Debbie said. “You don’t talk much about things like that.”

  “Things like what?” There was a warning note in her voice.

  “Personal things, like what you do and who you see when you aren’t here.”

  “Maybe I think some things are my business.” Now her voice was tight.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Debbie nodded.

  “Debbie, do you have something on your mind?”

  “No,” she said, sitting down at her desk. “I was only thinking that you know so much about everyone but nobody knows much about you.”

  “And what is it you want to know?” Ellen asked, leaning back in her chair.

  “Nothing, I guess,” said Debbie. “Sorry, I’m just in a funny mood.”

  “So it seems,” Ellen agreed and went back to writing her story.

  SPORTS

  He tapped the script twice on the desk and laid it down. It was a signal that the next part of this newscast would be relaxed and he was the one that made that choice. He swiveled slightly in his chair to face John Devlin.

  “So, John, the hometown team looks like the one to go with this year.”

  He smiled. Tom Carter was a sportsman, a jock, and the audience knew it. And boy, there wasn’t any question about his loyalties. Hometown teams all the way.

  Jean Ann leaned forward as though to make a comment, to join in with them. Carter, sensing the movement, cut her off.

  “So, how do they look for tomorrow’s game, John?”

  They told him he had to work with her, make it look all honky-dory and friendly, but that sure as hell didn’t mean she was going to sit in on his newscast and talk about sports. He made that his rule when they first brought her on. God, he hated her.