by Lee Winter
“You should see her in her tractor cap.” Ayers smirked.
“A farm girl?” Redwell laughed mercilessly. “I’m not about to get a lecture about real America am I?”
Lauren shot Ayers a stung look. But instead of defending Lauren, she lifted her champagne to her lips and sipped as Redwell watched the scene smugly.
Lauren took a step backward. “Well,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry for intruding. I’ll leave you to—your people. One of us has work to do.” She lifted her glass, and her hurt gaze met Ayers’s. “Cheers to getting what you deserve.”
She spun on heel and strode away before the sting behind her eyes turned to tears.
Lauren found a small alley which backed onto the kitchen unloading area. In the shadows, she let the tears fall. She couldn’t stop them. Her brain repeated on a loop the pain and irritation she felt with herself for caring for a woman with no heart.
Oh, they’d warned her. Nearly every person at the Daily Sentinel had joked at some time or other about how vicious Ayers could be. But, no, Lauren had assumed since she’d undergone the initial baptism of fire, she’d already survived the worst. An amateur mistake. She thought she was fireproof to the dragon.
She’d never been more wrong in her life.
Lauren felt exhausted. She was tired of all of it—the story, the nightmares, the thing with Ayers, the stress, and the unrelenting adrenalin. She needed a break. She rummaged around her clutch, found her cell, and rang Frank.
“What the hell, King?” he barked. “It’s almost eleven! Where’s the fire?”
“In my head,” she muttered.
“Say again?”
“Would it be a disaster if I took a few days off next week,” she asked. “I’m sorry to spring it on you, but I’m having a bit of a-a situation I have to deal with. And you know I haven’t had a day off all year and—”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“I said okay. You’ve had a big story that’s gone global now, and that knocks people around in different ways. You’re overdue for a break, too. Take the whole week. We’ll start you on Daley’s round when you’re back. I already have a new kid lined up for the parties circuit anyway.”
“Thanks Frank. That’s generous. Much appreciated.”
“Yeah well, don’t spread it around. Night.”
“Bye,” she said, hearing the click in her ear before she’d finished speaking.
She stared at her cell, feeling desolate. She needed to talk to someone normal. Someone who didn’t know what the words Catherine Ayers meant to her.
Dear, uncomplicated Max didn’t question why her clubbing buddy had turned up after eleven on her doorstep unannounced. Instead she gave her an in-depth critique of the Star Trek marathon she was indulging in, leading her enthusiastically back to her TV.
“Kirk or Picard?” Lauren asked by rote, when Max finally stopped to draw breath.
“Pfft! Janeway.”
Lauren gave a watery smile as she arranged herself beside her friend on the vivid green sofa. She remembered asking Ayers the same thing once. At the thought of the other woman she began to silently cry.
Max skidded to a halt, mid-sentence. “Hey, kiddo, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” Lauren said, shocked she’d seemed to have lost the ability to keep her shit together.
“No, my friend, you definitely are not fine.”
Lauren exhaled. “I may have gone AWOL from a big event tonight.”
Max was silent for a moment. “Okay. Musta been pretty crappy guest list then,” she joked.
Lauren gave a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Robert Redford.”
Max grinned back. “Exactly. So some C-list hack no one’s ever heard of.” She passed her a box of tissues.
Lauren’s phone beeped, and she pulled it out to find the screen lit with “Ayers.” She resisted the urge to snarl as she debated whether to even open the text. She wasn’t really up for any more of Ayers’s blow-hot, blow-cold, blow-nuclear-winter shit.
She considered the name for a full minute, and then finally tapped the message, opening it.
Where ARE you?
Lauren growled. What the hell did she care? And no way did she want to deal with Ayers, her snide date, or that bitchy tongue for round two. She angrily turned her phone off and slammed it back in her clutch.
Max, wisely, said not a word, instead changing the subject to dissect the artistic merits of Star Trek: Voyager’s captain in a tank top fleeing super-sized bugs.
Sunday, June 30—a week later
9:23 p.m.
Last Day
Max had been a saint. When Lauren had first arrived at her tiny apartment, she’d been dying to wallow, but the burly security guard somehow seemed to realize that. Max had earnestly explained how she had some “projects kicking me in the ovaries” and wondered if Lauren might want to spend her week off staying with her and giving her a hand?
So, with nothing better to do, and not liking the dark places her mind kept meandering to, Lauren began to help on Max’s projects. She tuned up her Hummer so it purred like a kitten. She upgraded her terrarium so her tiny turtle had more legroom. She found herself up a ladder installing some ceiling lighting in her living room that needed two sets of hands and a blind eye to ridiculous ’70s decor. It was like a waterfall of glass cubes.
“That is seriously trippy,” Lauren said as they both stared up in awe when Max finally hit the light switch. Every shimmering cube radiated a different color.
“An actual friggin’ rainbow,” Max agreed happily and clapped her hands. “I’m such a cliché.”
Lauren gave a small smile, wishing she could muster more enthusiasm for the riot of glass.
“Hey,” Max said kindly. “I don’t want to intrude or anything, but whoever she is, she’s not worth it.”
Lauren looked at her, blinking back the tears that suddenly threatened to fall again.
“Shit,” she snapped, wiping them viciously with her hand. “I’m so pathetic. We hadn’t ever been on a single date. And we only had one night together. But I’m a mess.”
“Mm,” Max said, and led her to the sofa, and patted her arm. “Stay there, I’ll get the reinforcements.”
She returned moments later with a six-pack of beer and some leftover pizza. “Okay,” she said, “It might have been only one night, but I’m thinking it meant a lot more to you than that, am I right?”
Lauren reached for a beer. “I’m so stupid actually thinking it could go anywhere.”
“And you know for sure she doesn’t feel the same way?”
Lauren shrugged. “I don’t think she feels much of anything. She was so cold the morning after; then she barely spoke to me for the next two weeks. The night I first came here, she’d tag-teamed with some stuck-up TV bitch and mocked me for my old tractor cap.” She sniffed. “God, listen to me. Look, I know just how pathetic that sounds.”
“Well,” Max said sliding a plate and a large slice of pizza over to her. “First, I like your tractor cap. It’s you, you know?”
“Old and falling apart?” Lauren suggested dryly.
“Nah, kiddo. It says you’re not afraid to be yourself in a place where everyone is fake as hell.”
Lauren gave a wan smile. “Thanks.”
“Second, there’s a lot of effort from your one-night-stand lady just to make you feel bad. I’d say she feels something at least.”
Lauren paused.
“So whoever she is, that’s a lot of game-playing just to tell you she doesn’t care,” Max concluded.
“Or she’s a total bitch and really doesn’t care that she hurt me,” Lauren said.
“That is also a valid option. So there’s only one solution.”
“What?”
“We need a Janeway/Seven marathon with a drinking game
. Every time Janeway checks out her pet Borg we take a drink.”
“And how does this help?”
“Two ways. First you get reminded you’re a strong, kick-butt woman, too. And sure, okay, maybe some random bitch may have stomped on your bits when you were down, but you get up again, right?”
“And the second way it helps?”
“Alcohol cures all.”
“Pretty sure that’s not true.”
Max grinned. “It’s true tonight. Oh, hey, before we start, can I borrow your cell? I want to see if I’m winning my eBay auction. Original ABBA Arrival vinyl LP. My battery died and I can’t figure out where I stashed the charger.”
“Should I mention you don’t actually have a record player?” Lauren asked as she pointed to the bag which held her phone. It was the same clutch she’d used the night she’d run from the ballroom. She’d gone near it just once since she’d been staying with Max—when she’d grabbed her car keys to pick up a few essentials from home and ask Josh to grab her mail for the week.
Max gave her a sheepish grin and grabbed her phone. “I know. Thanks,” she said as she turned it on.
It lit up and began to immediately vibrate with message after message notifying about missed calls, voicemails, and texts. “Whoa!” Max said, eyes bugging out, and tossed it to Lauren as though it was a live grenade.
They both stared at it, impressed as it continued to twitch and spit out message alerts.
“It seems Lady Ayers is not as indifferent to you as you think,” Max said.
Lauren froze in surprise. She’d never named her.
“I had my suspicions,” Max shrugged. “There’s just something about the way you two are around each other. But come on,” she pointed at the cell, “I can see a bunch of messages with her name on them. Tell ya what, I’m gonna pick up some milk for breakfast tomorrow from the all-night store down the street. Why don’t you work your way through the messages and, hell, I dunno, maybe call her?”
Lauren said nothing, staring at her phone as her friend left. Once the door clicked shut and locked, she began to replay the voice messages.
The first one was dated the night of Lauren’s meltdown.
Saturday, June 22, 11:12 p.m. “Well? Where are you? Some people here have concerns for your welfare given your dramatic exit.”
11:51 p.m. “Security says no bodies have been found, so I must presume yours is still breathing. Call me.”
Sunday, June 23, 12:07 a.m. “I know what you’re doing. Fine—I regret certain things said earlier. All right? Now call me.”
12:34 a.m. “This is ridiculous, Lauren. Just text me if you don’t want to talk. That’s fine. Two letters. ‘OK’. Send me that.”
1:47 a.m. “To clarify, I actually like your silly cap by the way. It’s you.”
2:54 a.m. “Joshua is out god knows where with Tad. He’s no help. You… This is…this is not okay. Just let me know you’re alive.”
4:21 a.m. “Well sleeping proved a waste of time. Did you know my home is much emptier without you in it? Why is that? I just noticed.”
6:06 a.m. “It’ll be a beautiful sunrise. I know you’re not a morning person. Remember Topaz Lake? It took three coffees for you to not look asleep. But you’d enjoy this sunrise.”
4:07 p.m. “Your father is concerned. He hasn’t heard from you, either. Contact one of us at least.”
4:08 p.m. “Lauren? It’s Dad. I just had a weird call from your colleague, Kathleen Hairs. Laur, I have to ask, are you two, ah, you know? She seems more concerned than you would be over just a friend. Call us when you can. Love ya, girl.”
7:04 p.m. “Sweetie? It’s Mari. What have you done to Ayers? She seems slightly insane. Three messages! I suspect you’re hiding out with Max, in which case, good. Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. That’s good advice for airplanes and life. Lunch soon? Call me!”
8:10 p.m. “I’ve finally gotten hold of Joshua. He tells me you came by to ask him to collect your mail and that you’re decompressing for a week and are fine. I’m delighted someone finally had the decency to tell me this. By the way he seems to think I’m a heel. Care to share how he formed that conclusion?”
8:27 p.m. “Never mind. Joshua coughed up your insights on the matter for the price of a pair of scarlet cashmere socks. You think I would actually date Cynthia Redwell? After you and I… What do you take me for?”
8:31 p.m. “Um, Lauren, it’s Josh. I may have accidentally accepted a bribe and told your wife-to-be that you possibly think she’s a heel. She’s still trying to get out of me exactly where you are. It’s not my place to tell her, so I won’t. Tad tells me I’m a cruel bastard. Tad is now sleeping on the sofa.”
Wednesday, June 26, 7:07 a.m. “Another day and where are you? Well? By the way Frank’s found a new girl for me to train on the fine art of party reporting. Her name is Candy Summers. Apparently her résumé lists her hobbies as fashion, tap dancing, and acting. I dislike her intensely already.”
Thursday, June 27, 10:45 p.m. “Summers is hopeless. I wanted to pick her up by her unironic side ponytail and toss her into the Ritz-Carlton’s atrium. Mariella, who is equally unimpressed, informs me she’ll look the other way if I do so. I had no idea social events were this dreary without you around to torment and be tormented by.”
Friday, June 28, 2:22 p.m. “My nephew has finally cracked. Tad tells me he has it on good authority that you’re living with that security guard from work. That human donut-mountain with the ABBA fetish. Well. I hope you two will be very happy together.”
4.20 p.m. “That was unnecessary. I apologize. Look I’m leaving soon for DC. My contract’s up at the end of this weekend. I regret we couldn’t part on good terms. I am sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Goodbye, Lauren. Be well.”
Lauren exited her voicemail. The last message—she could hear concern, regret, and something else. She stared at the ceiling. So it was Ayers’s last day under contract to the Sentinel?
Lauren could just let things slide. And one day, years down the road, they’d maybe bump into each other at a media convention or awards night or something. And then what? Talk about weather and politics and that time they’d written a world-famous scoop together?
Or she could go over to Ayers’s place. Demand to know what they meant to each other. Because her messages were not what you leave for someone you’re indifferent to.
On the other hand, she could be opening herself up for more ridicule and heart stomping.
She was still debating when the door unlocked and Max reappeared juggling some grocery bags. More than could possibly just hold milk. “They, ah, had a four-for-the-price-of-three special on the corn chips aisle,” she explained sheepishly, holding her bags up.
As Lauren made up her mind, she watched Max squeeze her corn chip haul into her tiny kitchen cupboard.
“I have to go,” she said, sitting up. “Really appreciate you letting me stay. You’re the best.”
“Sure thing,” Max said, as she moved to put her milk in the fridge. “Glad you’re making up with her.”
“No, we’re not. I don’t think—I mean, we were never together,” Lauren said with a frown.
Max laughed. “Sure kiddo. Just keep saying it and maybe you’ll both believe it.”
Lauren was met at Ayers’s gate by a formidable security guard. He examined her suspiciously and then his shoulders relaxed, recognition lighting his eyes.
“Ms. King, a pleasure to see you again,” he said.
“I know I’m not expected but…”
“You’re on the white list, ma’am, it’s fine.”
“White list?”
“Go right through. I’ll let Ms. Ayers know you’re here. Good evening, ma’am.”
She gave him a nod and the door rolled open. She drove down the curling drive and she parked in her
old spot beside the Saab.
As she stepped out and locked up she felt someone watching her. Ayers was leaning against the door frame to her house, arms crossed, expression hooded.
“Never do that again,” she said, straightening.
“What?”
“Disappear. I looked everywhere. Called everyone I could think of. I sounded like your damned stalker.” Her gaze burned into Lauren’s.
“I’m surprised you’d even notice with Cynthia Redwell to keep you amused,” Lauren countered.
“She was trying to headhunt me. My future is in television apparently.”
“Oh.” Lauren said, taken aback. “It is?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Come in,” she said. “I’m not doing this standing in my garage.”
She led Lauren to the now-familiar sofa where they’d written their story together. “Stay there. Don’t move. I’ll get us drinks.”
“Yes ma’am,” Lauren muttered under her breath, taken aback. If anything, she was the only one here with a right to have an attitude after she’d been tossed aside like three-day-old leftovers. She watched as Ayers busied herself in the kitchen, locating a wine bottle, corkscrew, and glasses.
“Why didn’t you take the job?” she asked, unsettled by the deepening silence.
“And drown in the mediocrity of cable news? Not to mention the use-by date on women in television. No thanks.”
“So why spend two weeks with her hanging off you if you weren’t taking the job?”
“I was humoring her. We go back a long way, and she has a vast DC contact list. She’s also not an enemy you’d ever want. Even my formidable reputation is not as ruthless as hers. Although the choice words I left her with that night—about where she could stick her insults about you and her job offer—will probably come back to haunt me.”
“You actually defended me?” Lauren could hardly believe it.
“Yes. Well. It turns out I have a soft spot for real America after all. Who knew?”
“You mocked me, too,” Lauren accused. “I couldn’t care less about what she said. But you…after everything we’ve been through together…that stung.”