Some Nerve

by Jane Heller

  I won’t gross you out with all the gory details, but the plane was a Cessna Skyhawk, the same model as you know who’s. It had been flying south of Los Angeles the previous afternoon, making its descent into the Fullerton airport in crystal-clear weather when it struck a radio tower, killing its two occupants, who’d been torched after the plane burst into flames. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating.

  I let the paper slip out of my hand, onto the floor, and sat there with my mouth hanging open, my mind reeling. My thoughts veered dangerously beyond what-if. They were now haunted by what-was. Two poor, unsuspecting people had gone up in that plane on a bright, sunny day, and now they were—

  You’re right to be afraid, I told myself, feeling no further inclination to cling to the positive probables, leaving me with my aviophobia as well as the conviction that flying really wasn’t safe. Those stupid little planes did fall out of the sky, and Malcolm Goddard was a bastard for forcing me to become a casualty of his recklessness.

  I bolted up from the table, paced around my combination living room/ dining room, and called Tuscany on her cell phone. She’d had a date the night before with a guy she’d met at the dry cleaner’s and I had no idea if they’d ended up at his place or hers.

  “Did you see the paper this morning?” I said when she answered.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I thought of you right away. It’s a good thing you’re getting Goddard before he goes out of the country.”

  “Getting—What are you talking about?” I said, as puzzled as I was frantic.

  “It was in the Calendar section,” she said, referring to the entertainment section of the L.A. Times. “There was an item saying that Malcolm Goddard is leaving for Canada after the Oscars. I guess he’s shooting a movie there.”

  “Tuscany,” I said. “I meant the front page of the paper.” It wasn’t that she was callous about real news. It was just that she always went for the lighter stuff first. “There was a crash of a Cessna yesterday. The two people onboard were killed.”

  She expressed the appropriate outrage, then paused. “I just realized that if the virtual reality doctor you went to had her numbers straight, you’re totally in the clear now.”

  “What?”

  “She told you the odds were one in eight million that you’d crash. Well, those people in Fullerton were your ‘one.’ You’re off the hook, Ann. Everything will go great.”

  I didn’t see it that way. Not at all. I hung up feeling worse than before I’d called her. No matter how many times I replayed the audiotape of the positive probables, I just couldn’t shake the image of that wreckage or the sympathy I felt for the victims. As the clock ticked, I grew increasingly anxious and became the epitome of a catastrophizer. In my mind, there was no question whatsoever that if I went up in Goddard’s plane, I wouldn’t make it down alive.

  Nevertheless, with a sense of doom and inevitability, I showered and applied two coats of moisturizer to my skin (I thought maybe a little lubrication would make it more fire resistant). And I dressed in blue jeans, a beige turtleneck, and sneakers (I wanted to look casual when they found my body, as if I were the sort of nervy, adventurous person who not only flew on small planes but climbed mountains and rode horses bareback). And I gathered my tape recorder and yellow legal pad and reams of notes and put them in my tote bag (I hoped that the investigators picking through the debris would find my interview questions and decide I must have been a killer journalist who did whatever it took to get a story). I left the apartment about one-fifteen, got into my car, and drove west to the Santa Monica airport.

  I don’t remember much about the drive except that my hands shook so forcefully that it was difficult to steer. And, of course, the wheel was soaking wet from my clamminess. Still, I made it to the airport. Early as usual, right to the end. I had twenty minutes to spare, in fact—twenty minutes to pull myself together and then die with dignity.

  THE SANTA MONICA airport is a small facility for private planes. With its low-rise buildings and quaint little runways, it has the feel of an era when air travel wasn’t about mammoth structures and jumbo jets and security pat-downs. It should have made me less anxious, given its “relaxed” atmosphere, but it didn’t. From my perspective, it was as terrifying as LAX.

  I parked where Peggy Merchant had told me to park, in the lot next to Typhoon. I turned the ignition off and hunkered down in the Honda for ten minutes, psyching myself up. You can do this, Ann, I coached myself. You have to do this. You have no choice.

  After another five minutes of psyching, plus an additional two of vilifying Goddard, I grabbed my tote bag, got out of the car, and locked it. As my feet met the ground, I couldn’t feel them. I was that numb with fear.

  I managed to walk toward the cluster of wood-frame buildings in front of me. One was Typhoon; another was the observation deck and pilots’ lounge. I felt myself moving forward but I wasn’t in control of my body. Somewhere between West Hollywood and Santa Monica, I had lost the ability to tell it what to do.

  I stepped up onto the observation deck and took in a huge gulp of air as I regarded the lineup of planes only yards away. One of them had to belong to Goddard, that son of a bitch. If it weren’t for him, I’d—

  I felt dizzy then—a true vertigo, where every turn of my head produced an uncontrollable whirling of my surroundings—and my stomach seemed to have lodged itself in my neck. I started to weave as my legs buckled, but I remained upright. Upright and sweating profusely. My face and hair must have looked like I’d been out in a torrential rain.

  I tried to snap myself out of what was quickly becoming the most monstrous panic attack I’d ever had. Come on, Ann. Go die and get it over with already, I repeated to myself over the course of several minutes. No, it wasn’t a positive probable, but at some point everything finally stopped spinning.

  I looked at my watch. Two o’clock on the nose. Time to make my rubbery legs carry me into that pilots’ lounge.

  As I turned toward the door, two men emerged from the building.

  “I hear they smashed right into that radio tower down in Fullerton. Never saw it coming,” said one of them.

  I stopped in my tracks and listened, my heart thumping so hard I thought it would poke through my chest. They were talking about the dead people, the poor casualties of the crash I’d read about that very morning.

  “Clear skies like today’s can be the toughest,” said the other.

  “Especially for weekend pilots,” said the first. “Not enough flying time. Not enough experience.”

  “Bad scene all around,” said the second. “That couple got crushed and fried.”

  Okay, that did it. That did it! We all have our breaking points and “crushed and fried” was mine!

  I staggered back and flattened myself against the wall of the building, trying desperately not to catastrophize but doing it anyway. I had totally lost what little nerve I had. I was done, finished, wiped out emotionally. No matter how much I wanted to hang on to my job, no matter how badly I wanted to prove to Harvey that I was a killer, no matter how ferociously I wanted to show Goddard that I was not someone to be toyed with and kissed off like every other reporter he’d managed to scare away, I was helpless, out of control, incapable of doing what I’d come here to do. My fear had won. I was officially not conducting the interview in an airplane. No more vacillating. No more torturing myself. No more scrambling to accommodate a man who didn’t deserve accommodating. I simply couldn’t do it. If you’ve ever suffered from panic and phobia disorder, you get this. I’d been a happy, productive grown-up who’d just been reduced to a big, stupid baby.

  As the two men disappeared into the parking lot, I lingered where I stood, just forcing myself to breathe. Yes, of course I would love to have marched into the pilots’ lounge and given Goddard a piece of my mind, loved to have confronted him for putting me through hell for his own perverse amusement, but I wasn’t doing any marching. I couldn’t even talk. My lips were
stuck together in a bizarre seal of terror-induced dryness.

  Besides, what was the point of confronting him? So he could taunt me again about being a parasite? Make me feel even more beaten down than I already did? No. I would be lucky just to make it out of that airport without falling to the ground in a heap.

  Tears dribbled down my cheeks then—tears of anger and frustration and self-flagellation—as I took a last look at the planes and then trudged to my car. When I passed one of those large metal trash bins, I stopped and dumped my entire tote bag into it—interview notes, tape recorder, and all. The bag landed at the bottom of the garbage bin with a thud, which was all too reminiscent of my once promising career.

  Fine, Malcolm, I thought as I pressed on toward the parking lot, my eyes flooded and my chin quivering. You were victorious in your battle against this reporter, but someday you’ll get yours. And if there’s any justice in the world, I’ll be right there to see it.

  Chapter Eight

  I awakened early on Monday morning with a sense of unfinished business, a powerful need to rebound from my collapse at the airport and strike back at Goddard. But since he was chronically unavailable to me, I decided that Peggy Merchant was the next best target. I would speak to her face-to-face, get everything off my chest, tell her what I really thought of her client, and maybe give myself a boost of confidence, a feeling of vindication, before having to deal with Harvey.

  At nine o’clock, Peggy was to be the keynote speaker at the annual Women in Media breakfast in one of the ballrooms at the Beverly Wilshire. I scowled as I sipped my coffee and fingered the invitation. The topic was: “How Hollywood Publicists and Entertainment Journalists Can Improve Their Relationship.” I wasn’t interested in improving my relationship with Peggy. Not anymore. I was interested in giving her a piece of my mind.

  I had originally intended to skip the event, because it sounded like a waste of time, plus the eggs are always cold at breakfasts for five hundred people, but I dressed quickly and left my apartment in plenty of time to get to Beverly Hills.

  There were considerably more than five hundred women in the ballroom, I estimated when I arrived. An excellent turnout. I felt a twinge of anxiety as I stepped between the tables in search of an empty seat, and prayed I wouldn’t have another panic attack. Crowded spaces seemed to trigger them. Focus on the conversation you’ll have with Peggy, I told myself. Remember why you came.

  I did find a seat just as the cold eggs were being served. I picked at them and made polite conversation with the women on either side of me, neither of whom I’d met before. They were assistants who’d been sent in their bosses’ stead, either as a perk or a punishment.

  “Good morning, ladies, and thank you all for coming,” said Kristen Charney, the president of the organization. Everybody yelled, “Louder!” so she adjusted the microphone that had been set up at the front of the room, on the podium. “Is this better?” Everybody yelled, “Yes!” The program was under way. She welcomed us again and said she was thrilled to be a member of such a wonderful, caring, supportive community of women. I tried not to choke on my ice water during her lavish introduction of Peggy, whom she described as the most caring and supportive of all. “When a reporter needs a story, Peggy Merchant has been and continues to be our go-to gal. None of us would be able to do our jobs without her leadership and her”—pause—“love.”

  I did choke on my ice water. People turned to look.

  “Thanks for those special, special words, Kristen,” said Peggy after settling in at the podium. She assumed an expression of humility as the audience applauded. She was the angelic Peggy, not the barracuda. She should have been an actress instead of a publicist, I decided.

  The gist of her speech was that given the overheated celebrity culture in which we were living, there was a new frenzy about getting the big get, and that we all needed to take a deep breath and cooperate with each other.

  Yeah, right, I thought as I zoned out and replayed my conversations with her about Goddard. Had she been cooperative? Had he? Hardly.

  I replayed the cheesecake incident, practically feeling the sensation of the cream and the crumbs against my cheek. It was still that vivid for me. And then I replayed what Goddard had said to me at the restaurant and what I’d said back to him; how Peggy had tipped him off about my fear of flying and how he’d used it to rid himself of me and my inquiring mind. And the more I replayed these events, the more emotion bubbled up to the surface—the more anguish and humiliation and rage—and before I could stop myself, I leaped up from my seat. She was talking about the role of a good publicist when I stuck my hand in the air and said, “Here’s a question for you, Peggy. Is it possible to be both a good publicist and a good person, or are they mutually exclusive?”

  I had planned to have a showdown with her after the breakfast, without an audience of five hundred plus, but something, some powerful force, overtook me. Necks were craned and all eyes had turned in my direction, including Peggy’s.

  “Ann Roth?” she said, peering into the audience. “Is that you?”

  “Yes,” I said, determined not to let my voice crack even the slightest bit. It was suddenly imperative that I defend my honor to her (and, by proxy, to Goddard), and I no longer cared who heard me. I actually hoped she would respect me more if I spoke my piece. At the very least, maybe I’d respect me more. “I think it’s very touching that as a ‘good publicist’ you try to protect your clients from an overzealous media. But who protects us from your clients? Don’t you have a responsibility there too?”

  There was a lot of murmuring now and many puzzled glances. “I don’t know what you mean, dear,” she said, fingering her pearls.

  “Let’s take one of your clients as an example,” I said. “Malcolm Goddard.” Even uttering his name sort of made me sick. “He treats reporters badly, Peggy, and yet instead of reining him in, you coddle him, encourage him, pretend he can do no wrong. Is that really what a good publicist should do?” I was amazed by my own boldness. Apparently, fear of public speaking wasn’t one of my phobias.

  She chuckled, but Kristen Charney looked on nervously.

  “Ann, dear,” she said, indulging me. “Wouldn’t you rather discuss this later? When it’s just the two of us?”

  “Nope,” I said and continued to stand. The other women at my table stared up at me as if I might be psychotic. “Malcolm should apologize to me for taking advantage of my personal problem. I’d like you to tell him that instead of letting him off the hook.”

  Peggy sighed heavily and said, not to me, but to the audience at large, to fill them in, “Ann was granted an interview with Malcolm for Famous. They arranged to do the interview on his plane yesterday, but Ann was a no-show. He waited at the Santa Monica airport for well over an hour, but she never came. She’s the one who owes him an apology.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I said, my voice rising. “Malcolm knew I wouldn’t be able to fly on his plane. Or at least he was willing to bet that I wouldn’t be able to. He was testing me, goading me, using my fear to see how badly I wanted the interview, but all he did was prove what a nasty, self-important jerk he is.” Yes, I had just admitted to everyone within earshot that I had blown my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview America’s biggest get, but it seemed more important to expose Goddard for the dirtbag he was.

  “Now that’s ridiculous,” said Peggy, whose expression had hardened. What’s more, Kristen was leaning over and whispering something to the person next to her, and that person waved to the security guard stationed off to the side of the room. “What Malcolm proved was that you didn’t want the interview badly enough.”

  “Oh, I wanted it,” I said. “I just didn’t realize the kind of man I was dealing with, the kind who has his own warped code of ethics.”

  “Ann, Ann. You’re taking this so personally,” said Peggy as the security guard moved toward my table. “I told you once before. He doesn’t hate you. He hates the media. If he can find a way to elude report
ers, he will.”

  I shook my head. She made what he did sound so benign, like a friendly game of cat and mouse. “He’s a talented actor, Peggy, but he needs a course in humanity. There will come a time when even you won’t be able to spin his behavior.”

  “Perhaps the real issue,” she said, “is that you don’t have what it takes to do your job.”

  “That’s not true,” I said defiantly. “And just so you know, Peggy? This business doesn’t have to be cutthroat. It’s ‘good publicists’ like you who’ve helped make it that way.”

  I had just completed the sentence when the guard took hold of my arm and said, “Please come with me, miss.”

  I smiled at him. “I wasn’t planning on staying. I’m finished now.”

  As the room buzzed with the unexpected drama of my outburst (you would have thought a gun-wielding nut had busted into the ballroom and held these women hostage), I walked out on my own, making sure not to slouch or otherwise look shriveled or defeated. But I couldn’t deny that what I’d told the guard was true. I was finished now.

  “I DIDN’T DO the interview yesterday,” I told Harvey as he hovered over me. He had summoned me to his office at ten-thirty, expecting details of how well everything had gone between Goddard and me. So I gave it to him straight. I didn’t have much choice. He would have found out anyway.

  “What?” He stepped back to look at me, as if to determine whether I was kidding.

  “I have a phobia about flying,” I said, hoping that maybe all his crystals and candles and singing bowls weren’t merely an affectation, that maybe he did have a spiritual side, a forgiving side. “When I got to the airport, I lost my nerve and came home. I just couldn’t make myself get on that plane.”

  “You let Malcolm Goddard slip through your fingers because you were scared of his plane?” he yelled, his right fist colliding with a photograph that hung on his wall—the one of him embracing the Dalai Lama. Nope. No spiritual side. No forgiving side either.