A Ruling Passion

by Judith Michael

  "But in Yugoslavia I talked about American fashion—in English; my Yugoslav consists of'hello' and 'goodbye' and 'thank you'—and I used my own sketches. That was the best of all. Tell me about you. Where are you living in Washington?"

  "The Watergate."

  "Oh, one of my favorite buildings."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Ifs so curious, don't you think? All those sharks' teeth on the balconies."

  "Shark's teeth?" Almost furtively, Sybille looked behind her, at the balcony facing the city. Rows of decorative concrete outlined its railing, as they did every railing in the four buildings of the complex: tall, tapering, pointed. Shark's teeth. That bitch, she fumed; she has to make ftm of everything she doesn't have. But then she thought about it again. What was wrong with sharks? They were smart and fast and almost always won their fights. I could do worse, she thought.

  "Do you like it?" Valerie was asking.

  'Ifs fine."

  "Did you sell the apartment in New York?"

  "No, we'll use it if we go back to visit."

  "And Chad.> Has he visited you there yet?"

  "Not yet." Thafs why she called. She wants to hear about Nick. She has to come to me for that. But what does she care? No one could possibly be interested in someone after all this time...

  There was a long silence.

  "Oh, Sybille," Valerie sighed, her voice amused but also faintly reproachful. "I thought you could tell me about Nick. I just saw Newsweek and Time and there he was on both covers, and you're the only one I know who knows him. He must be feeling wonderful."

  "Of course, he's all excited. We had a long talk about it the other dav. It was Chad's birthday part' and I just couldn't be there so I called to talk to him and of course I talked to Nick too. He said he feels vindicated; so manv people thought he couldn't do it."

  "^indicated? What an odd word for Nick. I'd never have thought he'd use it."

  "Whv not?" Sybille asked sharply.

  "Because he never feels—felt, anyway—he has to prove himself to anvone but himself. That's a word an insecure person would use; someone who feels misunderstood or mistreated."

  "I was married to him," Sybille said furiously, aware of Enderbys scowl. "I know what he's like."

  "Of course," Valerie said. "And I suppose"—her voice grew doubtful—"people do change."

  "No. Not much." Sybille's fingers were clenched around the telephone. I just pulled that word out of nowhere, she thought, to have something to sav; she couldn't know whether Nick would use it or not. She's faking to impress me. How would she know that much about him? She knew him for a few months six years ago.

  "Well, it's amazing," Valerie said lighdy, "how many things happen when I'm out of the countr)'. I always feel I've been gone for years instead of months. I hope you have a great success in Washington; call me when vou're coming to New York and we'll see each other."

  "Are vou coming back to stay?"

  "Probabh' not; I'm feeling so resdess lately I don't know what I'll do. I'm realiv tired of traveling, but it's better than staying home and I haven't exhausted mv list of places I haven't seen. I met some people last week who are going trekking in Nepal; remember I talked about that once? But call when you're in New York, Sybille; my secretary

  always knows where I am, and she knows my schedule, as long as I have one."

  "And you call, when you're going to be in Washington."

  "I can't imagine what would bring me there, but I'll remember. Good luck, Sybille; I hope everything works out the way you want."

  The way you want. Sybille thought about it after she hung up. En-derby was behind his newspaper; the den where they sat was wood-paneled and solid. On one side of their apartment was the dark ribbon of the Potomac, with the lights of Virginia on its opposite bank; on the other side was Washington, with its broad boulevards and white marble buildings. To a New Yorker, it was an unbelievably clean city, with an air of timeless serenity that withstood modern traffic, the pace of government, and the rush of office seekers looking for whatever they could get. The way you want.

  I don't know what that is anymore.

  She was learning a new business, driving herself as she did every time she had something new to learn, but she hated it and she hated Enderby for dragging her to Washington and thrusting her into a kind of television that seemed to have nothing to do with the kind she had spent years in mastering. He had taught her the basic system, then named her assistant manager of the network, renamed EBN for En-derby Broadcasting Network. "And you'll be manager by the end of the year," he said. "So pay attention."

  EBN was small and easily squeezed out by larger networks. "But we'll get bigger," Enderby said to Sybille at dinner as they sat near the fireplace at La Chaumiere in Georgetown. They had just moved to Washington and already Sybille felt she might have made a mistake. At least in New York she knew what she was doing and they had a power-fiil, profitable station. Here they had an infant barely able to stay alive. "Cable's just about to burst," Enderby went on, waving away the waiter; he was in no hurry to order. "Ifs about to be one big beautiftil babe of a booming bonanza. And the networks that make it the biggest will be the ones who put together programs that grab people— clever, ftinny, maybe pornographic—"

  'Tou can't do that," Sybille said. "You know it's not allowed on the air."

  "It's allowed on cable. Nobody tells anybody what can be on cable. One hundred percent unregulated. You like that.> I like that." He looked around. "We need wine."

  'Tou told the waiter to leave."

  He thrust up an imperious arm and ordered a bottle of Montrachet.

  "So this is what happens. A network like EBN can buy shows from independent producers or we can produce our own in our own studios. We'll buy most of it; lots of httle companies putting out half-hour, hour shows, cheap. We'll produce our own news shows; can't buy those. So we buy shows or produce them; sell time to advertisers and cram as many commercials as we can get away with in each show; then string a bunch of shows together to make a whole day's programming—quiz shows, soaps, whatever. That's what we sell to cable operators. They pay us so much, a couple of bucks, for each subscriber they've got. You following this?"

  Sybille watched the waiter fill her glass. She nodded.

  "The operators are the ones who string wires—cables, to you—to homes and apartments everywhere in the country and send programs over the cables to subscribers. The subscribers pay a monthly fee to get the programs. Very simple."

  "So all you have to do is put together some shows, and cable operators will be knocking down your door to buy them."

  He gave her a sharp look. "Don't make fun of it, babe, it'll make you a hell of a lot richer than you are now."

  "How.>"

  "Damn it, you're not listening. I told you: this is big business. You want to hear my prediction? Here it is. If you're as good as you were in New York, we might get twenty-five to thirty million homes buying our powerhouse package of prime programs from cable operators. Since the operators will pay us two to three bucks a subscriber, that's fifty to ninety million a year. Then there's advertising revenue—figure sixty to seventy-five, maybe more—minus a few expenses, and we could expect a tidy profit somewhere around ten to fifteen percent."

  Sybille's eyes were narrowed; she sat very still. He was talking about a minimum profit of eleven million dollars a year. "How solid are those figures?"

  "Solid enough for me to buy the kit and caboodle from Durham."

  She toyed with her glass. "What did you mean: if I'm as good as I was in New York?"

  "You know damn well what I mean. You'll be the manager. Or president, director, chief honcho; whatever you want to call yourself I'll be looking over your shoulder and talking to people who need talking to, but at my age I'm not going to spend my days in the trenches."

  She gazed past him at the flames in the open-sided fireplace. All that money; a huge national audience; her husband leaving her alone—

&nbs
p; and, more often than not these days, leaving her alone at night too. Why didn't she feel happier?

  Because the humiliation of New York hung over her like a cloud, darkening everi:hing, and the passing months only made it worse, as if the farther back it was in time the more vivid it grew in her memory.

  "Syb? Come back, babe, you're wandering off somewhere."

  She sat straight. "Of course you wouldn't be in the trenches. I'll take care of that. What are the problems.^ Just getting the right programs?"

  "That's the biggest. Then we have to get assigned the right channels. The cable operators—nasty, narrow-minded, nattering Napoleons—decide which channel goes to which network, and so far ours has always been stuck with Channel Thirty or above. Known in the trade as Siberia. Nobody wants to be there. Audiences sit in their comfy armchairs pushing buttons on their remote controls and you can bet they never start at ninety-nine; they start low and work up, and most every time they'U setde down with something before they get to fifteen. So if we're higher, who sees us?"

  "So we buy a lower channel."

  He chuckled. "Little Syb; she always cuts right to the heart. The official word is they're not for sale, but I'll be looking into it. If we can, we will. What number do you like?"

  "Twelve."

  "Why?"

  "Because people don't like to quit searching too soon—they think they might miss something. But if they've searched from two to twelve and like what they find they'll probably stay put."

  "Sounds about right. Lefs order, for God's sake; I'm starved."

  From that night, Sybille took over the network. Once again she kept notebooks filled with what she read and learned on the job, her impressions, her ideas. She worked from early morning until midnight or later, often in planning sessions with Enderby in her office or his. They ate dinner together at a restaurant and then he went home while Sybille went back to work. He was frequendy asleep when she got home; if she saw his light as she came in, and knew he was waiting for her, she drooped in the doorway, too tired to do more than touch her lips to his forehead and disappear into her bedroom.

  But, at work, they were getting along better than ever before. En-derby never saw the rage that had become part of her fiber; she hid it beneath cool efficiency and ambition, and the more they got done, the more content Enderby thought she was.

  "We need a name for what we do," Sybille said when they were

  beginning to buy taped programs from independent producers. They were sitting in her office in the building that housed the EBN offices and studios in Fairfax, on the Virginia side of the Potomac. "A kind of slogan that makes us diffisrent from other networks."

  He scowled. "Slogans are for advertising."

  "Of course. We're advertising ourselves. The New York Times says, 'All the News That's Fit to Print.' The Chicapfo Tribune says, 'The Greatest Newspaper in the World.' One of the networks says, 'Home of the Stars.' What are we going to say about us? It has to be simple, so people can remember it."

  His scowl deepened. "'Television for Everybody,' How's that?"

  "No. No punch to it. 'Television for You.' That's better."

  "That has punch? I don't like it. How about 'Television for Dogs, Debs and Doddering Dads'?"

  "Quentin, I'm serious."

  "Well, then, what about something to make 'em switch from the doom-and-gloom netw^orks? 'Happy Television.'"

  Sybiile's look sharpened. "That's not a bad idea."

  "What? It was a joke."

  "I know. I'm thinking about the idea. Concentrate on one special kind of programming and be famous for it. Like MTV and the Weather Channel. People would know in advance what kind of shows they'll see. No tragedies or worries, no dire predictions about the ozone layer or nuclear plants; they can get that anywhere and they're probably sick and tired of always being told what they should be worrying about. We'd be upbeat, optimistic, heavy on entertainment—it would all be entertainment; even the news. There shouldn't be any noticeable difference between news and other shows; they'd all show the bright side, the good side. Lots of moments —stories about little people doing good things, celebrating a seventy-fifth anniversary, saving kids from drowning in swimming pools, helping old people get new ftirnaces, making Thanksgiving dinner for two hundred homeless people..."

  They looked at each other. "Litde Syb," said Enderby finally. "I knew I could count on you."

  "We'll call it 'Television of Joy.' Or 'Hope.' Or Television on the Bright Side.' Something like that. And we'll need news anchors who can handle it; most of the old ones couldn't make the switch. I think I'U caU Morton Case."

  "Who's that?"

  "He was one of the interrogators on my first show, in San Jose. You saw the tape before you hired me."

  "Don't remember. Which show?"

  "The Hot Seat.'"

  "That show? That guy? He's a rattlesnake. Damned good, but a rattlesnake. What the hell does he have to do with joy or hope or whatever?"

  "You need a snake to make bad news sound happy. He's very smart, Quentin. Trust me."

  He nodded, suddenly feeling exhausted. "Lots of work in my office; better get there. See you later."

  "Do you need help getting diere?"

  "No! Getting where?"

  "Your office. You said you had a lot of work to do."

  "I know what I said, damn it!" He went to the door, leaning slighdy to the side. "See you at... at..."

  "Dinner," Sybille said. She had not moved from her chair. He never forgot things or flimbled for words when he was rested; it was only when he got tired. He needs to do more work, she decided caimiy. He's the chairman; he has to hold up his end. She knew he had gone to his office to take a two-hour nap on his couch. She rang for her secretary. "Call Mr. Enderby in half an hour and remind him of the meeting at four-thirty. And when you've done that, take him the letters I dictated this morning; I want him to review them before they go out."

  That became the pattern of their days: they worked all morning, had a quick lunch at Sybille's or Enderby's desk, or with others in the conference room, and tlien Enderby went to take his nap. Every day Sybille had him awakened half an hour later. To escape, he began going home after lunch, taking work with him. Sybille stayed at her desk.

  Through the gray winter months, through March when Chad's birthday party came and went and Valerie called from Hawaii, through April and May when tourists arrived in Washington by busloads and Nick brought Chad for four days, she worked. In those months she created what they were already advertising in newspapers and magazines as EBN's "Television of Joy." And when the new format was ready to premiere, it was all hers, and everyone knew it.

  That day, she sat in a control room and watched her staff put on live newscasts, sports segments ten minutes long, and national weather

  reports. Between the live programs were movies and taped shows: cooking shows, children's shows, a dance-contest hour, and dramatic features on people and animals around the world. All the programming, live and taped, was sent out via satellite to cable operators who had bought the package in response to the heavy promotion Sybille and Enderby had been doing. Only a small number had signed up, with a combined audience of a million and a half homes, but everyone was sure more would come. And only a small percentage of time for commercials had been sold, but everyone was sure that would change, too.

  The first day, Sybille sat in the control room, almost unmoving, for the eleven hours they were on the air. From seven in the morning to six at night, she watched what she had created unfold before her. Afterward, there were congratulations in the control room and telegrams and telephone calls from around the country. There were criticisms that the programs were shallow, the whole effect unreal. But she was more interested in the praise.

  That night, Enderby gave a dinner party at Le Pavilion for the twenty people who were the executive staff of EBN. Wearing black tie, feeling rested from his nap, he escorted Sybille from the Watergate to their limousine. "You deserve a party," he said as
grandly as an emperor. "The best little producer in the—"

  A spasm of pain pinched his face.

  "In the—"

  He crumpled, sprawling on the sidewalk. Someone screamed. Sybille took a step backward and stood frozen. The doorman rushed up and knelt beside him. "Mr. Enderby!" He lifted Enderby's head and looked wildly at the people gathering around.

  "A doctor!" someone said, "Police!" "Ambulance!" "He alone or with somebody?"

  Sybille knelt beside Enderby. His face was colorless and slack. He did not seem real to her; his prone figure seemed far away, and unfamiliar, as if she was watching a film about someone who had died. She looked up at the strange faces clustered above her. "Call an ambulance," she ordered. "And he can't stay here, on the sidewalk; get him inside."

  "Somebody help me," said the doorman. "There's a couch in the lobby. I'll get an ambulance—"

  "He must not be moved," said a deep voice. It rolled through the crowd Uke a rumble of thunder. Sybille looked up into a narrow face with hollow cheeks and deep-set eyes as gray and flat as the surface of

  a lake at dawn. The man towered above her. "May I oflfer my help," he said. "My name is Rudy Dominus. I am a preacher. And this is my assistant." He drew forward a young woman with white-blond hair, delicate features and a small, slender figure. She seemed quite ordinary, but Sybille could not take her eyes off her. The eyes, perhaps, or her sorrowfully curved mouth... Everyone else was looking at her, too, she saw. They couldn't take their eyes off her.

  "My assistant," Dominus repeated. "Lilith Grace."

  Chapter 13

  ■ M / he was small and thin, with gray eyes beneath pale V_^K^ brows and silky white-blond hair, and it was her

  ^1 ^m fragile face Enderby first saw when he woke in the

  ^ ^^F hospital. He had no idea who she was, but some-

  thing about her made him feel almost happy in the midst of the confiision in his mind. 'Welcome," she said sofdy, smiling at him. 'We've been waiting for you. I'm so glad you've come back to us."

  She seemed to be with him the whole time he was in the hospital. Sybille came occasionally, and Rudy Dominus was there most of the time, but Lilith Grace was always there: when Enderby woke and when he went to sleep and when he finally went home in an ambulance.