Sam shrugged.
“Much as I hate to admit it,” Ron said, “it’s a great machine. Caught us by surprise, too. Not to sound arrogant, but we frankly never considered Electronika much of a threat.”
“Well,” Sam said, “the photo-electronics division has had its troubles. We were sort of in a do-or-die place with it. And it seemed, if it was ever going to find its legs, the ZT was the way to go. But we’ll wait and see.”
“I see it!” Jason yelped.
“What’s next, Mrs. Cochran?” Althea asked.
“I’m not sure,” Cassy said, flicking pages, squinting at the pictures of the sailboats. “Capitan Miranda from Uruguay, I think.”
“Jason, sweetie, you’re gonna strangle yourself with the strap.”
I saw the test machine you put in the library at Ithaca College,” Ron said. He lofted his eyebrows at Sam. “What’s your service contract like?”
Sam laughed. “Why, has it broken down?”
“Not yet, not that I know of,” Ron said. “When I was there, they were turning out full-size copies of the New York Times from microfiche.” He shook his head at the memory. “To tell you the truth, Sam,” he said, dropping his voice, “I nearly choked when I saw it.”
Sam smiled briefly and sipped his ginger ale.
“Wait a minute,” Cassy said, looking up from the magazine. “Are you talking about that machine that takes those huge rolls of paper? Cuts it any size?”
“From a postage stamp to a city newspaper,” Sam said.
“What’s it called?”
“The ZT 5000.”
“Yes,” Cassy declared, “right, Electronika. We’re getting one installed in the news department, in research.” She frowned slightly, trying to remember. “They’re linking it to our computers.... The database, retrieval and tie-line systems? Does that sound right?”
Sam said it sounded in the vicinity of being right.
“All I know,” Cassy said, taking a brief look through her binoculars, “is that it’s supposed to save us time and money.” She smiled at Ron. “That’s what I do for a living—sit around and sign anything that promises to save us time and money.”
“She runs a television station,” Sam explained.
“Really?” Ron took a second look at her. “That’s some job.”
Cassy raised her binoculars. “Not really. Not when your heart is still in news.” Pause. “I used to be in news.” She tapped Samantha on the shoulder. “Look at that green raft down there.”
“Mrs. C’s on TV all the time,” Rosanne said, tucking her legs underneath her on the carpet.
“Really?” Ron’s attention to Cassy was ever increasing.
“Editorials,” Cassy said. “Can you see it, Samantha?”
“No,” she said.
“Come here, sweetheart. Okay, look down there. Can you see? There’s a clown on the raft. See?”
“I wanna see the clown!” Jason said. Rosanne got back up on her knees to help him.
“Cassy,” Sam said, “do you ever get involved with the news department anymore?”
“I... see... it...” Samantha taunted Jason.
“Mommy!”
Cassy steered Samantha a step back and rose from her chair. She walked over and stood by the coffee table in front of Sam and Ron. “I try to, every once in a while. If a story really interests me, or sometimes when I think a certain kind of story should be done. Sid—our news producer—is nice to me that way and,” smiling, “patronizes me on occasion.” She leaned over to pick up an hors d’oeuvre. “We worked together years ago in Chicago.”
Sam was jiggling his glass, making the ice clink. “You do much in the way of investigative reporting?”
Cassy nodded, swallowing. “Sure,” she said. “In fact, since we don’t have the resources the affiliates do in town, covering the daily news, it’s really the area where we can hold our own. And sometimes,” she added, touching at her hair, “we do more than hold our own.” Her expression was brightening by the second.
“On an investigative story, usually—hopefully—you’re the only ones working on it and it gives you a little more time and control. Unless, of course, whatever it is we’re uncovering blows up before we have a chance to figure out what it is we’re uncovering.” She laughed. “Which was the case last year on the Traffic Violations Bureau bribes.” An aside to Ron. “In case you haven’t heard, our city government appears to be the official career counseling and job placement center for organized crime.”
“Upstate we hear your city government is organized crime,” Ron laughed.
“But we’ve had our share of successes, too,” Cassy continued, putting a hand on her hip. “The milk mafia story was ours; the cocaine trafficking at the Stock Exchange; the seventy-six-thousand-dollar pothole—”
“Mrs. Cochran,” Samantha called from the window.
“Yes, Samantha.”
“Come look at this boat—please.”
Cassy smiled at Sam and Ron. “Duty calls,” she said.
Sam nodded, jiggling his glass again, thinking. “Hey, Cassy,” he said a moment later.
She turned.
“Do you do any international stories?”
“If they tie in to the tri-state area,” she said, bending to follow Samantha’s line of sight.
20
AFTER THE RECEPTION
PART 1: HOWARD
As the occasion had been, Howard felt like skipping home from the Wyatts’.
Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, he sang in his mind.
He would go home, take a shower, change his clothes, have dinner with Amanda, and afterward make love to her. Grand Hotel was on television at eight o’clock. They would bring the TV into the bedroom (Howard didn’t think he knew anyone who still had a black and white TV, much less one kept in a closet) and prop themselves up on pillows on the floor in front of it. They would eat popcorn and watch the movie and Howard would gradually forget the movie and lose himself in Amanda and...
He would spend one entire, glorious night with her.
Melissa was at the house on Fishers Island with her father. (Hooray for Daddy!) She had made one last attempt that morning to force Howard into going, but he was firm about his intention to attend the memorial service.
“Oh, Howard,” Melissa had said, “even you have to admit it’s stretching a point to stay home on the Fourth of July for the cleaning woman.”
But Howard countered with the argument that it was the least they could do, seeing as they were the ones who had falsely accused the man of robbing them
“If he didn’t rob us, he robbed someone else,” Melissa had said.
Howard had lost his temper then and had really given it to Melissa, telling her that if she wanted to be heartless that was fine with him, but she shouldn’t expect him to be. And then, scaring the hell out of him, Melissa had expressed reconsideration, saying that perhaps Howard was right, maybe she should go to the service too, and that they could drive out to the house afterward. So, maneuvering around, Howard had started agreeing with her, telling her how much it would mean to Rosanne for Melissa to apologize and Melissa, getting more and more indignant, had finally exploded—He will not apologize for what was perfectly rational behavior!” And then he yelled she had to, and Melissa said to hell with that, she was leaving for the house right this minute.
After she left, Howard had gleefully danced around the apartment.
Amanda, Amanda, Amanda.
She was, quite simply, the most completely wonderful woman in the world.
Oh yes she was.
It was too good to be true, he often thought. It seemed impossible that, after all these years, a woman like Amanda could suddenly appear in his life, offering to fulfill the dreams that until now had caused him such despair. There was their sex life, certainly; if it had been unreal that first night, then it had become positively fantastical. Why didn’t their passion ebb? Why was their desire so constant, yet so different, every time? How could it be pos
sible that someone so well mannered, so obviously “well bred” (he winced, thinking that he was using a Melissa term), could be so endlessly, wildly passionate? And her books, her writing... Amanda was as much in love with the world of print as Howard was—if not more so. She was terribly excited to hear anything about Howard’s work; and vice versa, Howard was terribly excited to hear about hers. Her library, her writing room, the whole place—it was as if Amanda’s apartment had been created from the knowledge of his fantasies. Amanda herself seemed like a creation of his romantic imagination.
But... There were traces of a dark cloud in their world. There were things Amanda had said that nagged at him, made him feel jealous. She said something about Howard’s Jockey shorts making her feel as though she were molesting a minor. When Howard asked why, she laughed and said men didn’t usually wear them to the office. (How the heck did she know?)
And then, after he asked her, Amanda had told him she had an IUD. When he expressed concern about it—hadn’t Amanda read about how dangerous they were? no, Amanda had not—she said she had only had it for two years, after someone else had worried about her being on the pill.
Who was the someone who had worried about her being on the pill?
Someone who did not wear Jockey shorts to the office, obviously.
But who? She would never say anything. In fact, she talked as though there had not been anyone in her life since Christopher. But, obviously, there must have been—why else would she have been on the pill, got an IUD?
Could that someone still be around?
No. He couldn’t be.
But could he?
She had made herself accessible to Howard any time of the day or night for the past month, except—except...
On Mondays. She absolutely forbade him to come on Monday and made no excuse why. It was very strange, the look that came into her eyes, when he pressed the issue. Almost... frightened. But then, as always, she would quickly, easily distract him.
It was impossible not to be distracted by Amanda. It could very well be that he was involved with the most utterly beguiling creature to walk the face of the earth. And it was not merely sexual—though, again, God knew, Amanda’s body seemed to have been created for pleasure that way, for herself as well as for him. No, there was something about the way her mind worked that fascinated Howard. There were slides in it; she could slip through time, through eras, real and imagined, and reappear in the now with the blink of the eye, and with a joy that was contagious.
“I didn’t say she was mad,” Patricia MacMannis had said to him. Howard had passed on the pages of Catherine to her, explaining that he wasn’t exactly unbiased about this submission. Patricia had read the material and raved about it, and had, quite eagerly, met Amanda with the intent of signing her up as her own. “I said, if I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk with her, to see what a lovely person she is, how clearly gifted she is,” Patricia said, “I might have thought she was. For heaven’s sake, Howard, she appeared at the door dressed like Isadora Duncan.”
Yes, it was true. After their first night together, Amanda had started wearing, well, costumes. Not all the time, just some of the time. And when she did, she seemed so completely happy and free. Howard had seen Isadora several times by now, and he had also seen Emily Dickinson, Scarlett O’Hara, Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and—he was pretty sure—Colette (using Missy the cat as a prop). Amanda herself was always there, however, during these escapades, uttering small asides to Howard about who it was she was portraying, and, if it was not “playing” right, she would simply take whatever it was she was wearing off.
Yes, off. To reveal the body he had become obsessed with. But was it her body? Partly. It felt as though it were the means of reaching her, finding her, way, way back inside. To that beautiful, beautiful, vulnerable woman; to that vulnerable woman who looked into his eyes and into his heart, reading it, and then drawing it out and into her own, surrounding it, sealing it with hers in the warm glow of trust.
Of love.
Spirits back on high, mind envisioning Amanda in his arms, Howard asked after the elevator man’s family, asked about his state of health, and when they reached his floor, Howard made a point of telling him how very well he did his job and how much he appreciated it. (He gave him a ten dollar bill as he got off.)
He let himself into the apartment and quickly opened the panel of the alarm system. (If within thirty seconds Howard failed to punch in the proper security code, a silent alarm would go off, the security people would call the police and, Howard presumed, Daddy Collins would have him arrested for breaking in.)
The light of the alarm was not on. He hit the side of the box, wondering if the light had burned out already. No... Howard shrugged and closed the panel, tossed his keys onto the table and walked on, humming.
He turned into the living room, thinking about underwear.
“Surely the service couldn’t have been this long.”
Howard nearly jumped out of his skin.
Melissa came in from the kitchen, carrying a large vase of freshly cut flowers. “Hi,” she said, walking over to put them down on top of the television set. She was still in the green blouse, pink skirt and green sandals of the morning. It was amazing how tan she was; Howard, in comparison, was rather anemic-looking.
“Hi,” Howard managed to say. “There was a reception at the Wyatts.”
Satisfied with the way the flowers looked, Melissa turned and smiled. “You look so handsome in a suit,” she said, coming over to him. “I wish you’d wear them more often.” She picked a piece of lint off one lapel, rested her hands on his chest, and looked at him. “I came back,” she said.
“Yes, so I see.” He hesitated, kissed her on the cheek, and backed away to the kitchen. “Why did you change your mind?”
She followed him. “Oh, I started thinking about our argument this morning, and that we’ve never been apart on the Fourth of July.”
“Do you want something to drink? I’m having a beer.”
“No, thanks. Anyway, I was thinking that the Lynleys wouldn’t be much fun without you—” Howard reached into the refrigerator.
“Without me? Melissa, I hate dances, you know that—”
“I would miss you, Howard...”
He opened the bottle of beer and took a deep drink.
“I changed my mind,” she said, “I’d like a glass of wine.”
Howard nodded and went about complying with her request.
“And Daddy loves the Lynleys,” she continued, sitting down at the table and crossing her legs. “Make it a spritzer, Howard.”
“Spritzer,” Howard repeated.
“So I knew he would have a good time. I told him we’d drive out in the morning.” Pause. “You haven’t been out since Memorial Day.” She was watching Howard, intently. “Howard.” He glanced over. “I thought about watching the fireworks with you in the bedroom tonight. That’s why I turned the car around and came back.”
Eight years and tonight’s the night Melissa decides she wants sex.
“So how was the service?” she asked, crossing her legs and bending to run a hand down one.
“Oh, nice. Very nice, actually. The chapel up there’s really something. There were a lot of flowers, they played a lot of Bach, and the minister gave a good eulogy. And then people got up to say a few words.” He finished stirring the spritzer—with a Collins swizzle stick-handed it to Melissa, and retreated back to the counter and his beer.
“Thank you,” she said.
“He was a sergeant in the army, in Nam, apparently,” Howard continued. “This guy got up and told a story about how Frank had saved his life. It was very moving.”
“I’m sure,” Melissa said coolly, sipping.
“Cassy Cochran got up and read some notes from people.”
“Not from her husband, I bet,” she said, snickering.
Howard pushed at his glasses. Something was up. Melissa’s eyes rarely twinkled for nothing. “She did read a note fr
om him.”
“Sure,” Melissa said, “just like you read a note from me.”
“What are you talking about?”
She crinkled her nose. “Did you put any wine in this?”
“Yes, I put wine in it.” Pause. “Do you want me to pour some more in?”
“No, don’t bother,” she said. “Anyway, I can assure you, Michael Cochran did not write any note. He’s long gone.”
“What?”
“He ran out on her. A week after the block party.” Pause. “Gone, Howard. Scram. Vamoose. Bye-bye. Whatever you want to call it, he’s gone.” Under her breath, “Not that I blame him.”
Howard shifted his weight and stuck a hand into his pants pocket.
“I ran into Didi Rogers at the Korean market,” Melissa said, “and she told me the whole story. And it’s quite a story.” She threw her head back and laughed. It was her Daddy Collins laugh, a guttural affair that was reserved for the privacy of their home. Otherwise, Melissa expressed amusement in the same dry, passive tee-hee-hee manner of her friends.
“Howard—he threw a TV at her. And missed! It went crashing out the window and down into the street. Malcolm Rogers was nearly killed.”
“What?”
“It’s true, Howard! Malcolm was getting out of a cab and he heard this crash and looked up and saw this TV flying down out of the sky. It landed not even six feet away from him. And everyone started screaming and looking out their windows.” Melissa was getting very excited. “So then, when everybody’s outside wondering what the hell happened, Cassy came out and said the TV had accidentally fallen off a shelf or something. Well, no one believed that, but then—get this—”
“Well, it could have—” Howard began.
“No, wait, Howard, listen! So they’re standing there listening to her and who should come out but Michael, drunk as a skunk, screaming at the top of his lungs that he’s going to kill her.”
“Oh, God—”
“Wait! You haven’t even heard yet—” Melissa slapped her hand down on the table. “So Michael tries to get her, and Malcolm and the taxi driver—a taxi driver—gets in between them and Michael’s screaming and yelling and so finally Malcolm said if Michael didn’t calm down he was going to call the police. So Michael finally calmed down and apologized, and they let go of him. So then Michael walks over to Cassy, as calm as could be, and WHAM!”
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