by Petrova, Em
I’d have forgiven him, the Horndog, for being taken in by damned lies, but the truth? Well, that was something else entirely.
I’m a girl. And a jock. Not a philosopher, not a psychologist. I’d twist my logic to drive the knife in deeper if I wanted to.
“Fuck him.”
“You go, girl.” This from a woozy redhead in a spray painted tank dress.
Girl power. Gotta love it.
They watched me approach: Paddy with odd expression I couldn’t pin down, Rob’s gone into neutral, almost like a cop’s face when they shutter their emotions, eyes seeing everything and nothing. Judgmental, cautious.
As they say on television: I’d been made.
My coat hung on the back of the stool. I set the bag down and eased it on as best I could. Neither man moved to assist.
“You coming to Sally’s, boyo?”
The reply got lost in the background noise. I turned and wove through the packed throng, not really caring if I knocked glasses and patrons aside. I needed air, bus fumes, anything other than the burden of sadness and despair crushing the life out of me.
Disoriented, I merged with the traffic, following my nose. My safest route was the subway, still busy this time of night, the four block walk to my hovel … not so much.
The key to safe passage was not to look like a victim.
Right, good luck with that. I had VICTIM stenciled in block letters across my forehead. The temptation to call my cousin Sam to come get me and put me up for the night made a good run for my consideration, but this was my fight to win or lose. Pulling family into it wasn’t going to change anything.
Befuddled, I made a few wrong turns but eventually found the subway entrance and the correct platform, not an easy feat when my eyes leaked like a sieve and I’d given up the pretense that it was allergies.
When the doors sloughed open, someone took my elbow and guided me in. The train was still packed so my Good Samaritan and I stood gripping the pole. The metal buttons weren’t nearly so intrusive through my coat, but the warm hand cupping my own was an assault on my heart, a battle I was doomed to lose, a war I should never have started.
This was too much like Michael, this not taking no for an answer. And like a fool, I was a sucker for it.
I fell for Robert van Horn, hard and fast; and I would forever remember the exact time and place it happened: on a crowded subway train in the middle of the night with me wearing shame like a hair coat.
Love is funny that way. Sometimes you just know.
“Like a good melon.”
He squeezed my hand, his breath soft on my neck.
At my stop, he kept my hand and followed me off, up the stairwell into a no-man’s-land of poverty and violence. I was glad he was there because whatever passed between us, I’d always remember him as my protector.
Silently we walked the mean streets, him to my right, curbside, left hand to right hand, his thumb doing long, slow strokes of reassurance. A gentleman.
When we reached my place, I said, “I’ll be okay now,” but he followed me in, up the three flights and waited patiently as I fumbled for the key. “Really, I’m…”
He pushed the door open, then shoved me into the apartment, slamming the door shut, hard enough to make my heart stutter stop. In a replay from earlier, he had me against the wall and panting, terrified of his anger at my subterfuge.
“When were you going to tell me?” His voice was raw, ragged with an emotion I didn’t understand. “Taylor?”
“Tell you what? Why do I owe you an explanation?” I did, I knew that so deep down that asking it was the ultimate falsehood, the lie that would finally drive him away.
Expecting the lecture, I shut my eyes, waiting to be gutted like a fish, like I deserved. Instead his teeth nipped at my chin, following the contour until I turned away, not wanting it so badly my skin nearly cracked from the effort of denial. I was quaking like an aspen in a stiff breeze and still he invaded my space, his lips exploring everywhere with gentle flicks of his tongue, lulling me into a pathetic needy yearning.
I opened my mouth to whisper stop and my world ended in a crushing, soul-destroying invasion of such passion it took my breath away. Sound receded, even the violent pumping of my own blood ceased as he palmed my head, holding me in bondage to his sensuality and his desire, his tongue tangling with mine. He drew blood and swiped it away, pummeling my mouth with rage and aggression.
And just like that, he stepped back and spit out, “That’s why you owe me an explanation.”
“I can’t give you what you want.” It came out weak and thready, lacking conviction.
He sneered, “What I want,” and glared with those flat, ice cold blue eyes, dark as the depths of space, heartless and uncaring. He was close to shutting down.
Curling and uncurling his strong hands, the tension shot up his arms until the tendons in his neck bulged and pulsed, and I wanted nothing more than to tongue the rhythm of his heartbeat and sync it to mine.
With only enough air in my lungs to hiss, I managed, “Yes,” and clearly meant no.
“You’re a liar, Taylor Richardson.”
I cringed at my real surname, the name of the man who would have stood by me despite my disgrace.
“Let me tell you what I…” He paced in a small half circle, keeping me and my misery centered. “No. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you…” and he paused, moving in tight but not touching. He was close enough for his breath to wash over my face, scarring me with every syllable … puff, puff, puff. When he continued, each word was a slap in the face. “I’ll give you until Wednesday to get your story straight.”
My story? I didn’t need to get it straight.
What he meant was for me to get my shit together.
My shit? Why was it always my shit?
I pulled up proud and a wad of bite me, chewing on each word with venom. “And exactly what happens on Wednesday?”
“Wednesday?” he smirked like he did when the devil stole over his soul. “Wednesday I come and get you, Taylor Richardson.”
I think he left, closing the door quietly because it didn’t really register as happening, my mind blank to all possibilities except for one.
I stared down at sensible shoes, two of them.
And not a glass slipper in sight.
Chapter Eleven
Rob
The assistant director mumbled, “Do something with his hair,” which prompted me to continue messing with it, rubbing my scalp and chewing my lower lip. Trying desperately to rid myself of her taste.
“Rough night, love?”
“Rough life, Jack.”
“Jacques, hon, it’s Jacques.”
“Whatever.”
“My, testy today. Care to share?”
Yes, yes I did. But not with Jack. And not before hitting the studio with no script and very little control over a twitchy trigger finger.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have questions. Not at all. What I did have, should I find the big brass ones to actually ask them on national television, would land me on the sidewalk, on my ass, after the legal team stripped me of my rights and my ability to ever work in my chosen field again.
The cult of celebrity required homage and obeisance, and I’d learned a long time ago how to play that game without selling too much of my soul. Eventually I’d be gutted, like most everybody I knew, the ones who managed to dredge up a byline on a regular basis, making it all sound fresh and important.
That was the trick … and the gift. Sucking readers in, titillating with hints of transgressions without ever touching on the big reveal, or their heroes.
We made them down home and vulnerable, relatable, without trespassing on their bigger-than-life personas. We gave them alibis and an out. In trade we got exclusives.
It all worked just so long as you didn’t look too closely, or your hero decided to change the rules.
The assistant director floated through with an “Is that the best you can
do? Nevermind…” and vanished onto the studio floor. Me and my three cohorts followed meekly, eyes averted, dreading the next forty-five minutes of air time.
“You got anything, man?”
“Nothing, shit, piss and corruption, I got nothing.”
Daily News straightened his tie, being the dandy amongst the rest of us wearing turtlenecks and wool sports coats culled from Goodwill. I slid onto my stool, in direct line of sight of a smirk flushed with self-importance and wearing an eight hundred dollar navy wool Willis and Walker, a semi-custom job that said slumming to those of us less perfect specimens.
That particular ex-girlfriend had left a lasting impression, stopping short of turning me into a shorter version of Clinton Kelly. The fact that I knew my shit when it came to fashion thankfully went only skin deep.
Wishing there was a book in me, the one that would free me from the grind and let me wallow in a hovel pecking away at a keyboard, half drunk and high on metaphors, wasn’t getting me anywhere.
The question of the day was: would I take the next step? Would I actually go through with it, the promise and the threat? Or was I going to do the classic Robert van Horn and run like hell?
“…and we’re live in three … two…”
***
“You know, boy, they’re gonna want my head for this.”
Marge, my boss’s secretary, oozed into the room, deposited a stack of sticky notes on Jackson’s desk, crossed her arms and looked from him to me a couple times before standing at ease. She was ex-military and it still showed.
Jackson stared at the stack of papers and growled, “What’s this crap?”
“Same crap as before … sir.”
“And that would be?”
“The usual. Firing squad. Head on a platter.” She grinned and looked down at me. “Something unnatural regarding a duck. But maybe it was a goose. That Aflac goose, you know the one, kinda annoying?” She shrugged, “Guy wasn’t making much sense, ya know?”
Jackson grunted something noncommittal.
“Not sure it’s possible anyways…” Marge looked like she wanted to run back to her computer and google whatever it was I was supposed to be doing with wild fowl. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d let me know later, if there was a later.
Shifting on the seat, my body sank lower until my legs stretched out under the desk. The chair was one of those metal kinds like you might find in a church basement. It folds up, sits against a wall until it’s needed. Jackson didn’t believe in comfort so most times he didn’t trot out the amenities, but today was different. Different in that he usually made his miscreant boys stand in front of his desk, with forehead or chin or chest in direct line of fire of his spittle as he reamed us out at ear bleed volume.
Two o’clock, on a Sunday afternoon, in a half empty newsroom, with an editor who by all rights should be firing my ass… but instead was quietly rational, if not exactly understanding?
I think he actually felt sorry for me.
Everybody felt sorry for me: from the assistant director to Jacques who’d stuck his head out of the prep room in a show of solidarity, to the doorman who’d flattened himself against the wall as I barged into a sea of cameras and microphones.
News travels fast. Those who’d been in the audience, my fellow competitors anxious to watch our humiliation at being slam dunked by a third class asshole, formed the first tier, followed by whoever had been mustered after I’d lobbed my first volley five minutes into the program.
Trump cards were something you used sparingly and only under dire circumstances. I’d been keeping a few close to the vest for nearly six months, letting the ugly little secrets stew at slow simmer.
My mistake was in not peeling the onion slowly, revealing only enough to let him know I knew the dirty truth. If I hadn’t been so annoyed … hurting from sleep deprivation, too much scotch and emotions that threatened to veer out of control, there had been a chance to lob a shot over the bow without sinking my own ship in the process.
Aware that Marge and Jackson talked over me, like I wasn’t there, or I was some kind of retarded adolescent with shit for brains—not far off the mark—wasn’t penetrating the wall of … What? Disappointment?
Anxiety, maybe. The kind that made no sense. The kind you chalked up to overactive hormones, the kind that had Taylor Richardson O'Brien never far from my head or my heart.
Trying to convince myself I had no horse in that race wasn’t working. I had a starter, a promising one and he’d come out of the gate and taken a position on the outside, slowly moving up, until he’d stumbled and nearly gone down.
Thanks to Paddy.
“There’s more, boyo. But I thought maybe you might need to know this…”
This had rocked my world.
“I’ll do some digging, see if I can track down…”
Yeah, you do that, Paddy.
And I’d followed her, pulling ’tude and tasting her fear. And something else.
I’ll never forget that taste, I can’t get it out of my head, it sits there taunting me.
Lust I knew, it was that itch that demanded to be scratched, but this… This was different.
Is this what love tastes like?
My boss asked Marge to get two coffees. When she left, he reached into the bottom drawer and withdrew the Jack Daniels. She returned with two steaming mugs two-thirds full of dark sludge, and Jackson waved her off as he poured a generous dollop into both cups.
“What’s up with you. boy?”
Before I could make up an excuse, the phone buzzed and Marge stuck her head in the door and said, “You better get this one, boss,” and ducked out again.
The conversation was one-sided, Jackson nodding his head, turning a strange shade of puce before going the kind of florid that told me he’d been boxed in good and the only way out was to trim the verge. That verge being me.
With exaggerated care, he placed the phone on the cradle and shoved the leather chair against the wall, crossing his right leg over the left and sipping at the foul brew.
When he finally looked at me, I was ready for the worst. Instead he surprised me.
“You have proof.” It was both a statement and a question.
Yes meant I might have a substantiated rumor from a trusted informant, not exactly solid but traceable to the source. That moved us onto Level one. It would give Jackson a position of power while he made a better case.
Level two was hard evidence: emails, photographs, people who witnessed whatever. Willingness to whisper a secret was one thing. Willingness to testify in a credible manner, either in direct quotes or in a court of law, bumped the process to Level three.
Level three was tricky and sometimes very expensive. When it came to peddling the kinds of secrets and misdemeanors that ruined lives and careers, whistle blowers often came under uncomfortable scrutiny. The burden of proof shifted, depending on their credibility and what axes they had to grind.
Cash usually smoothed the way, but not always. And with the change in management, there were no deep pockets, even for the scoop of the century.
I wasn’t a rookie so there wasn’t a ‘No’ in this scenario.
What I had was a carefully amassed pattern of behaviors and co-incidences that I’d uncovered while researching recruiting. That’s when it all started and the school had gotten away with a cover-up that might have just raised eyebrows if the new recruit hadn’t been a number one draft pick garnering an obscene signing bonus.
Jackson waited patiently for me to make up my mind: was I going to share the largesse or would I go lone gunman and follow up as freelancer, selling my soul and my headline to the highest bidder?
It was nice to have options so I said, “Yeah, I have proof,” and let it go at that.
“I’m suspending you as of today.”
I nodded that I understood and unfolded my legs, straightening up in anticipation of Jackson’s next words.
“It might have been better to hold back.” I shrugged, t
here was no argument there. “But, I do understand the case you were trying to make.”
He set the mug down and took out a notepad and scribbled a few things down while I waited.
“This here’s a buddy of mine. He’s at State now but he still has contacts with the admin and the alumnae office.”
I reached for the slip of paper, stood, and asked, “You want me to go to Michigan?”
“Uh-huh. Everybody and their fucking Uncle Harry will be heading to Indiana. We need to come at this sideways for a bit.”
“Why State?” Why not go right to the source, even if it was swarming with newshounds?
“You don’t know everything, pup. Indiana’s where you picked up the scent. State’s where it started.”
“How so?”
“He transferred. Do you understand now?”
I did, so I asked, “When do you want me to leave?”
“If memory serves, most everyone’s gone on spring break until Tuesday. Take a day, then fly out, be there Wednesday.” He barked, “Marge?” and nodded as the woman “Yo’d” and stuck her head in the door.
“Marge’ll see to your ticket and set you up on campus.”
“Campus?”
“We’re not made of money, boy. You started this, you’ll finish it and you’ll keep your mouth shut about what you’re up to. You stay on campus, make like a sophomore, and get me proof.”
“Boss? Actually I’d rather drive. I need to stop and see my sister.”
I really needed to see my sister.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Marge held the door as I exited, my gut in a roar over getting the go ahead to follow my nose and a possible exposé to trump all exposés.
“Van Horn?”
“Sir?” Marge smiled at that.
“Suspended means no pay. Marge’ll cut you a check.” He looked down his bulbous nose at the woman and growled, “Just enough for him to get by.”
Grinning, I waited for the woman to work her magic. After a bit of swearing and two phone calls, she said, “Tank will bring it up. Fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes, huh? So, what can we do while we’re waiting?”
Spinning the monitor in my direction, she pointed to the screen and smirked.