by K. N. Casper
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
He watched her sip her wine almost lethargically, then resumed tearing into the lettuce as she described her private meeting with the station vice president.
His anger mounted, and he knew a confrontation with Faye couldn’t be avoided, but it would have to wait. The important person was Marlee. He blamed himself for this mess. The thing he wanted most—getting Marlee the anchor job—had become almost as much an obsession as his need to be with her.
“Do you have an agent?” he asked, when she finished.
She shook her head. “I’ve thought about getting one, but since my current contract doesn’t run out for another nine months, I figured I had time. Any recommendations?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he retrieved a fork and jabbed the two potatoes he’d put in the oven. They were done. He turned off the heat, but didn’t remove them.
“I have a couple of names I can give you,” he said, straightening and facing her. “The ultimate decision will be yours, though, and it doesn’t sound like she’s giving you much wiggle room.”
“None whatsoever. One from column A or one from column B. No substitutions. She was very emphatic.”
“Have you decided what you’ll do yet?” He didn’t want to hear her say she was going to leave, but he had no right to ask her to stay.
She lowered her head and concentrated on the task before her. “I was hoping you might help me think this through.”
She was at a critical juncture, one that could change her life, at least professionally, and she’d come to him for advice. He felt a surge of hope, only to have it crash. What right did he have to advise her? He hadn’t always made the wisest choices in his own career.
He loaded a bamboo tray with plates and silverware, which she offered to carry, while he handled the steaks and a long cooking fork. The magic light show of sunset wasn’t yet complete, so they bathed in its radiance while he attended to the gas grill. She set the glass-topped table, then returned to the kitchen for the salad, potatoes and the trimmings.
Fifteen minutes later they were cutting into juicy medium-rare T-bones. Renn had turned on the patio lights. The night was mild.
“You’re a good cook,” she noted as she raised a second piece of steak to her mouth.
“We’ve just about exhausted my repertoire, however. Steaks, chops and an occasional stir-fry. Oh, and spaghetti. I make a mean marinara sauce.”
“I’d like to try it sometime.”
He splatted a dollop of sour cream on his baked potato, his mind bewitched by the image of her sucking spaghetti between puckered lips.
“How about you?” he asked. “Do much cooking? Besides great pineapple upside-down cake, of course.”
“That’s baking, not cooking,” she corrected him. “Not a whole lot. Like you, a few favorites, but I don’t have the time to experiment, and cooking for one… Well, it’s not very motivating.”
“Would I be correct in assuming your mother doesn’t cook?”
Marlee snickered. “We always had a housekeeper-cook when I was growing up. I didn’t even learn to bake until college when Clark brought me home to meet his family.”
“You were very close to them, weren’t you?”
“Audrey is the kind of mother I always wanted, the kind I’d like to be if I ever got married and had kids. Clark was more of a positive male influence in my adult life than Anthony Reid ever was. Dad never came out and said it, but he’d wanted a son, not a daughter. Maybe if they had had another child, a boy, he would have forgiven me for being a girl and the firstborn. Maybe if I’d had brothers and sisters…”
“You wouldn’t have been so lonely growing up,” Renn finished for her. “I was an only child, too, of career-driven parents. I know what it’s like to be an inconvenience that gets in the way of adults’ plans.”
She assimilated his words. “Something we have in common.” She dotted her loaded potato with cracked black pepper. “I’m probably being unfair. My father never mistreated me. In fact, he gave me everything I ever asked for.”
“Except genuine affection.” He wanted her to know he understood. “So you tried to earn it by doing what you figured a boy would do.”
“Athletics come easily and naturally to me,” she acknowledged. “I wasn’t always the top performer, but I played volleyball and was on the swimming team in school, tennis at the country club, and I learned to ride English-style well enough to compete in three-day events. Isn’t horsemanship supposed to be the sport of kings?”
He smiled. “How did you do?”
“Never won higher than fourth place, but I really loved it. Horses and sailing.”
“But none of it ever really pleased your father, never made him genuinely proud of you.”
She shook her head. “The final straw came when I insisted on attending TUCS. He could afford to send me to Harvard or Yale—or Vassar. That’s where my mother went. Why would I choose a regional state school?”
“Why did you?” he asked. “Out of stubbornness?”
“That’s what he thought, and I suppose there was an element of rebellion in it, too. But those weren’t the main reasons. TUCS has one of the highest-rated schools of journalism in the country.”
“Choosing the best should have pleased him.”
She chuckled. “Not when I told him I wanted to major in broadcast journalism, specifically sports.”
“I suppose he considered it undignified for a woman. All that sweat and everything.” He smiled.
She nodded. “He told me if that was my choice, I was on my own.”
Renn stopped eating. “He threw you out of the house?”
Her answer was to cut into her steak with vicious determination.
“Marlee, I’m sorry.”
“I should have been devastated.” She raised her shoulders in a philosophical shrug. “It was upsetting, I’ll admit. But after I got over the shock, I realized I’d been on my own emotionally most of my life. This just confirmed it.”
“What did you do?”
She stabbed another piece of tender beef. “Moved into the dorms, which I would have done anyway.”
When he shook his head, she added, “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, Renn. He wasn’t driving me out of the house starving and naked. My grandmother had left me a small trust fund. It was enough to live on in reasonable comfort.”
“Still,” he said, “it couldn’t have been easy.”
“Actually, his washing his hands of me had a kind of liberating effect. I wasn’t doing things to please him anymore. I could do what I wanted on my own terms.”
“What about your mother? How did she feel about all this?”
“Embarrassed. Imagine, having a daughter who was attending a public university and studying to report sports on TV. She could hardly hold her head up at her bridge club.”
She was mocking, but being abandoned by the people who should have loved her unconditionally had to have hurt like hell.
“I gather Myra was never the cuddly type.”
It was a rhetorical statement, which Marlee didn’t respond to directly.
“There was a physics major in school who came from a big family,” she said a minute later. “Her grandmother knitted her a sweater. It wasn’t perfect, and it certainly wasn’t stylish. Lorna only wore it around us girls, but I envied her so much. I wanted a sweater just like it, one I could cuddle up in when I was by myself and know I wasn’t really alone.” She sipped wine. “My mother bought me all the best outfits, the kind that screamed expensive and exclusive, but they had no soul. Not like a plain, ordinary sweater that was hand-knitted with love.”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t really make any difference. “How about you? What were your folks like?”
“They were in television. My father was a reporter for the Associated Press in Europe during the Cold War. My mother did fashion reporting. Later they both got into radio and TV commercials, and Mom had a bit part in a soap
opera for a while.”
“Sound like an interesting life.”
“Interesting, yes. Stable, no. I went to six different elementary schools and three high schools. If they held reunions, I wouldn’t know which one to attend and probably wouldn’t recognize anyone when I got there.”
“Where are your folks now?”
“They divorced when I was fourteen. I lived with Mom during the school year and traveled with Dad during the summers. Mom died a few years ago in a car accident. Dad remarried. Last I heard, he and wife number three—or is it four—were living somewhere in Europe.”
“Yet with all that, you went into the same occupation they did.”
He shrugged self-consciously. “Maybe because it’s what I’m most familiar with. I really do like the profession, in spite of the downsides.”
“The downsides,” she repeated. “Is that why you’re not married?”
He scooped out baked potato. “That’s one reason.”
She looked at him over the lip of her glass. “What’s another?”
He was uncomfortable with her delving into a subject he didn’t like to explore, especially with another person. But surprisingly, he felt safe talking to Marlee about it. “I guess I never found the woman I wanted to share the life with, or one I was willing to give it up for.”
“Would you give it up for the right woman?”
He thought the matter over before answering. “If it was the only way for us to be together, yes.”
“Sacrifice,” she concluded. “Can a person who gives up what he or she truly wants be really happy?”
“I guess it comes down to priorities. If a person gives up what’s most important in his life, I don’t see how he can be happy. But if he found the other person to be the source of happiness, I think he could give up everything else and still be happy, or maybe even because he gave up so much for her.”
Marlee remained silent for some time.
“What about you?” he asked. “What’s the most important thing in your life?”
“Short-term, getting the sports director job.”
He smiled. “And long-term?”
“I don’t know,” she replied a little too glibly. She’d alluded to being a mother a few minutes earlier.
“How about marriage and family?”
“I like the idea, but—”
“You can’t see yourself sitting home and knitting sweaters. I know what you mean. This life we’ve chosen doesn’t exactly go hand in hand with good parenting.”
“Clark and Audrey made it work,” she observed.
He could hear her envy in the quiet statement. Something else they shared.
“But Audrey didn’t work in the business,” he reminded her.
“That’s true.”
They let the conversation wander, content for the moment to avoid the subject that had brought her to his house, content to relax in each other’s company.
Not until they were loading the dishwasher did he seriously tackle the subject.
“About this new contract…unless you’re determined to leave KNCS and go somewhere else,” he said, dreading the thought, “you don’t have much choice but to sign it. If you don’t, you’re not only out of the running for the anchor job, you’re unemployed.”
He hit the switch and listened as the machine began its cycle. “Legally, Faye can’t pass on negative information about your job performance to interested employers, but she can still harm your prospects by withholding positive comments. And we both know about unofficial conversations that never get documented.” Before Marlee had a chance to voice the objection he could see coming, he added, “I’m not saying it’s right, only that it happens…and is something you’ve got to face.”
Marlee conceded the point with a frown and a nod, as she leaned against the kitchen counter.
“The only advantage to refusing to sign is a bigger severance package,” he went on. “This is none of my business, but how important is the pay issue?”
“I have some money put aside. Not a lot, but combined with severance pay, it’s enough to live on for a year or so.”
“And of course you can call on your folks.”
“I could, but I won’t.” The statement brooked no compromise.
Never say never, he was tempted to tell her. Perhaps someday they’d make their peace. For her sake, he hoped they did, but at the moment it didn’t appear very likely.
“On the other hand, if you sign the new contract, you’re still eligible for the anchor job.”
“Come on, Renn. We both know I’m not going to get it, not after this.”
“It’s not likely, I admit, but until the final selection is made and accepted, there’s always a chance. Taggart might screw up big-time, or he could turn down the deal they offer. Don’t give up yet.”
She ran her tongue along her teeth as she mulled the matter over.
“Also,” he continued, “until that happens, you can apply for other jobs as an active employee of KNCS-TV. Being on the air while you’re job hunting has a definite advantage.”
She let out a sigh. “That’s what I was thinking, too. Either way, it looks like I’ll be leaving Coyote Springs.”
Friday, April 29
RENN STRODE INTO Faye’s office Tuesday morning and parked himself in the chair across from her. He hadn’t called ahead or asked for an appointment. He hadn’t knocked on her door.
“Why did you offer Marlee a new contract that cut her pay and benefits?” He leaned back unceremoniously and stretched out his long legs, prepared to stay and listen.
She eyed him critically. “Budget constraints. You know we’ve been reviewing our contracts.”
He crossed his arms and stared at her. “For new employees and when existing employees’ contracts are due for renewal.”
Faye tapped her pen on the pile of papers before her. “Actually, I’m doing her a favor and being quite generous.”
He regarded her askance. “Really? How’s that?”
Faye tossed down her pen, sat back in her throne and hung her hands loosely over the armrests, trying unsuccessfully to mimic his casual posture. “Her contract is up in nine months. If we choose not to renew it—and given all her screwups, I can assure you we won’t—she’ll be out the door without any severance. This way she can collect six months’ pay without working and spend the time seeking employment elsewhere.”
“Funny, you don’t want her here, yet you’re offering her a new contract.”
“We’re short on people. If she wants to stay around as a reporter—under the close supervision of the sports director—that’s her option.”
The sports director she had in mind, of course, was Taggart. “Yet you told her she’ll still be considered for that job.”
Faye raised an eyebrow. “Have you changed your mind? Are you no longer recommending her for the job?”
“You bet I am.”
She nodded and smiled thinly. “Then I guess she’s still in the running, isn’t she?”
This woman was slick and it frustrated the daylight out of him. “Why didn’t you confer with me about this change in employment conditions?”
“You weren’t here.”
He glared at her. “That excuse, Faye, is dishonest and beneath you.”
“I’m getting tired of your personal attacks, Renn.” She straightened. “I think you’d better leave.”
He made no move to comply. “Since you timed this coup while Sal was also away, I assume he doesn’t know anything about it, either.”
“Contracts are my responsibility and my prerogative.”
“Hiring the sports director is mine,” he reminded her. “Put off Marlee’s deadline for signing until he gets back next week.”
“No.”
She’d arranged this move perfectly. Renn had no doubt she’d gone over this very carefully with the station’s attorneys to make sure it was perfectly legal. To hell with ethics. Once the paperwork was signed—either by Marlee acceptin
g the new contract or by Faye giving notice of termination—the deal would be done. Sal could theoretically suspend either document, but he wasn’t likely to. If anything, he’d be relieved that decisive action had finally been taken. Case closed.
Renn shook his head. “You’re really desperate, aren’t you?”
She said nothing, maybe because her jaw was locked.
“I’ll be discussing this with Sal when he returns.”
“Just remember who you work for, Renn,” she advised him calmly.
“Not a chance I’ll forget.” He climbed to his feet and walked out.
Friday, May 2
MARLEE DIDN’T sign the revised contract until four o’clock on Friday. Keeping Faye guessing was a childish act of defiance, but it afforded her a little satisfaction. Marlee received a simple thank-you and a copy of the new contract.
Renn was waiting for her when she emerged from Faye’s office. “Let me treat you to dinner after your broadcast,” he said. “We’ll go somewhere and have something sinful.”
She laughed. She’d been thinking a lot about sinning lately, though it didn’t have anything to do with food.
“Haven’t got time,” she said, “but thanks for the offer. I’ll call out for a sandwich. I need to stay here and work on a few things for the late broadcast.”
“In that case,” he said easily, “I’ll get takeout for both of us. How about mu shu? The Imperial Garden also has sushi. What do you say?”
She laughed. “Sounds great.”
Ten minutes after the end of the news hour, they were sitting in Renn’s office, his desk covered with a variety of containers. On a separate disposable platter were an assortment of rice cakes.
“I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days,” Marlee said, as she used her chopsticks to pick up a curl of pickled ginger.
“About what?”