by Claire Adams
“What the hell is with you?”
“I’m tired, Jace,” I tell him. “I am tired and I feel like my body is being pumped full of battery acid, and that doesn’t feel so good. I’m tired of having to drag you along like some kind of errant child. I’m tired of waiting to die. I’m just tired, Jace.”
“I’ll leave you alone then,” he says.
I want to tell him I’m sorry, that I’m just lashing out. I want to tell him to come back.
I don’t.
He turns and leaves the room just as swiftly as he entered it, and despite everything else, I feel a tinge of guilt as he walks away, but that’s something I don’t tell him, either.
Chapter Eighteen
Saline
Jace
“What are you doing here?” I ask as Melissa walks through my front door, almost bowling me over in the process.
“Men are fucking terrible, do you know that?” she asks.
“Trouble in Shangri-La?”
“Seriously, what is it with you people? You’d think Ty would have been thrilled that I was finally free and clear, but once I ask him when he’s going to leave his wife, he starts stuttering.”
“Melissa,” I say, “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day, but I really don’t-”
“Anyway,” she interrupts, “it got me to thinking. You and me, we weren’t such a bad thing, were we?”
“I really don’t know how to answer that in a nice way.”
“Yeah, I get that you’re pissed and everything, but I mean, come on, the way we ended things? You can’t tell me that there’s not something there,” she says.
“Melissa, you spent what I can only surmise to be a good portion of our relationship cheating on me with your boss. What makes you think that I’m eager to jump right back into that?”
“Jace,” she says, “I love you. I know you love me. Yeah, things weren’t perfect, but can you honestly tell me that you didn’t make any mistakes?”
“I made plenty of mistakes,” I tell her. “That doesn’t mean that I’m just going to forget about everything that happened.”
“Just think, though, we could go right back to where we were and just forget it ever happened. You forgive me, I forgive you. It’s really that simple. We built a pretty good life here, didn’t we?”
“Melissa, what’s this really about?” I ask. “I know you’re having a bad day because of what’s going on with you and Ty, but you said yourself that you were miserable in our relationship.”
“That’s just because I wasn’t trying. I don’t think you were, either.”
“Melissa,” I repeat, “what’s this really about?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “it’s everything. Have you ever been so sure that what you have planned for your life is going to work out, and then one day it’s just gone?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, “pretty recently, actually.”
“What happened to you?” she asks, and I give her the condensed version of what’s happening in my little slice of hell.
It’s surprisingly quick to sum it all up.
“You know what you did wrong?” she asks.
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t talk to her before you talked to Dr. Preston,” she says.
“How was I supposed to talk to her before him?” I ask. “I didn’t even know he was coming.”
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have talked to him at all, but you should have talked to Grace before you decided to nix Plan B,” Melissa says. “Have you ever bothered to consider that she may have only signed off on the trial because she thought you were protected? She would have lied to protect you. Hell, just to get into the trial, you know that she already did. All she wanted was the choice, but you took that away from her without asking.”
“I guess I never saw it that way.”
“Anyway,” she says, “I’d say the damage is done, so how about we get back to the topic at hand.”
“You don’t want to be with me,” I tell her. “You’re here because you’re used to being here. You’re used to coming to me when things aren’t going your way, but that part of our relationship is over. Even if it weren’t,” I continue, “that wouldn’t mean that you and I should get back together.”
“I know!” she shouts. She’s pacing the floor in the living room now. “I’m just sick of feeling alone. I felt alone with you because I pushed you away so I wouldn’t feel guilty about sneaking around with Ty. I felt alone with Ty because he always had to go home to his wife and that’s apparently where he wants to stay. I’m just sick of being alone,” she repeats.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I really am, but you can’t think that the two of us pretending like we’re something we’re not is going to make things better.”
She’s quiet.
“That’s not how it works,” I tell her. “If we did that, you’d feel just as lonely because you’d know that what we’d have wouldn’t be real.”
“I don’t care if it’s real. I’m just sick of always being in the background.”
“I’m not the one that put you there,” I tell her.
“Don’t you think I know that,” she says. “I’m not saying this is your fault, I’m saying that I’m sick of it being mine.”
The truth is, despite how uncomfortable the situation, a big part of me is happy to see her back in my apartment. You don’t just throw away years with someone without having some kind of residual feelings.
“Do you really think we could go back to the way things were before?” I ask. “I find that hard to imagine.”
“We really could,” she says. “The one thing that got in the way is out of the way. Maybe we just start off with a drink.”
I do feel like drinking.
“I don’t know if I have anything,” I tell her.
“I brought you a little something,” she says, opening her purse.
She pulls out a fifth of blueberry vodka. It’s my kryptonite.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Nothing’s going to change, and I don’t want you to think I’m leading you on.”
“You’re pretty conceited, you know that?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Actually, I do.”
She goes to the kitchen, and I’m having trouble getting my head straight. On the one hand, Melissa and I really did have our good times together. There were a lot of things that I wasn’t willing to live with anymore, the affair with her boss first and foremost on that list, but there’s a lot to miss.
She comes back with two shot glasses and a smile. “I know you’re not sold on it yet, but I really think this is going to be the best thing for both of us,” she says, pouring the drinks.
I don’t know, maybe she’s right. Maybe we both just lost sight of what made us work in the first place, and maybe that’s something we can fix.
I just wish Grace would return my phone calls.
Chapter Nineteen
Swan Song
Grace
Back in the chemo suite for the last day of getting pumped with liquid death: this is my bargaining chip.
The one thing that people love more than a deal that brings in a lot of money is a deal that gives them a lot of good press and makes them look like a Good Samaritan while still making some money. That’s my hope, anyway, even though I have no reason to believe in the veracity of the theory.
The truth is that the biggest bankroll will win 99 out of 100 times. The other time, someone’s got their feet to the fire.
The doctor comes in and checks my bag. It’s about empty, but he tells me it’ll be a few more minutes.
My phone rings, and I’m slow to answer it. Right now, everything’s kind of slowed down.
“This is Grace Miller,” I answer.
“Did I get this address right?” Andrew asks. “I’m out in front of a hospital.”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “My assistant Margaret should be waiting for you in the main lobby.”
“Why are we
meeting in a hospital?”
“I had a previous engagement that I couldn’t get out of.”
He knows I’m sick, so he must know what I’m planning to do. Still, he comes up to the room. When he walks in, his face tightens as he tries to override any natural reaction he may have and replace it with a smile.
“Grace,” he says, “it’s good to finally meet you face-to-face.”
“It’s good to meet you, too,” I tell him, extending the hand at the end of the arm with the needle sticking out of it.
Gingerly, Andrew shakes my hand. “I’ve got to tell you,” he says, “right now, the boss is thinking of going with one of your competitors.”
“I’m sure he is,” I tell him. “I forget, your last name is Evans, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking around at the other patients in their own recliners in the chemo suite. “Look, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but-”
“Andrew,” I tell him, “you and I have a bit of history, don’t we?”
“I guess.”
“You guess,” I scoff. “We’ve been talking for almost a year.”
“Yeah, but to be honest with you, I never really thought you’d make an offer. Speaking of which,” he says, “what is it?”
“I’m sorry, what is what?” I ask, playing the only card I have.
“What is your offer?” he asks, looking at the silver bag of chemo hooked to the other end of the tube, supplying my bloodstream with the drug.
“Ten,” I tell him. “It may not be much, but we’re going to let you hang onto a lot more of your station’s flavor than any of the bigger guys will.”
“Ten million?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe if that word started with a b,” he says, “we might be able to do something, but you have to know that we’ve been hearing numbers that make yours, well, kind of insulting.”
“It’s certainly not my intention to insult you,” I tell him. “I’m just coming to you with what I have.”
Playing the victim isn’t really my cup of tea, even when I am a victim, but it’s keeping him in the room.
“I appreciate that,” he says. “How are you doing with your treatment, by the way?”
I’ve almost got him, but the space between almost and definitely is going to be next to impossible.
“I’m still here,” I tell him. “Other than that, I’d say you might want to ask me again when I’m a little farther away from this room.”
“I have a cousin that had cancer,” he says.
Anyone who’s ever walked into a chemo suite will be able to tell you that it’s difficult knowing how to act. Over time, you learn when to smile and when to ignore, but unless Andrew here’s been through the treatment himself, I’m pretty sure he’s working without a net here.
“How did that turn out?” I ask.
Cancer stories, even when they contain the word “remission,” don’t often end well. Judging by the long pause, I’d say that would be the case with Andrew’s cousin.
“I’d rather not talk about it right now,” he finally says.
“Okay,” I tell him. “Let me tell you what our money gives you that nobody else’s will. First off, you get to keep most of your programming. Over the first year or so, we’ll slowly start to introduce more of our content, but we have no problem with you keeping your higher rated shows. Higher ratings are good for both of us here.”
“That’s great, but-”
“Hold on,” I tell him. “Along with keeping a few of the more familiar faces, you’ll also get great publicity out of it. I mean, do you really think viewers are going to be impressed if you turn their beloved station into just another face for the big six?”
“Grace, you’ve got to understand that this is business,” he says. “We’ve got to make the best profit we can so we can do the things we want to do.”
“How much are the other guys really going to let you do?”
“They said we could keep all of our programming for one year,” he says. “From there, if we make a good impression, they may syndicate a few of our shows and-”
“You really think that’s going to happen?”
I’m just killing time now. My secret weapon is running a little late.
“They’re willing to put it in writing,” he says.
“Well, that’s the ballgame then, isn’t it?”
“Grace, I’m sorry-” Andrew starts.
“Ten million isn’t a lot of money in our business; I know that,” I tell him. “You’ve got to understand that we were a lot like you guys for a long time. Hell, we’re still a lot like you guys. How long do you think it’s been since the people leaving messages for your bosses and your bosses’ bosses have been able to say that?”
“I would imagine it’s been a very long time,” he concedes. “As you know, our station hasn’t been faring very well lately, but your board has thrown us quite the life preserver.”
“I take it your mind is made up, then?” I ask.
“I’m sorry to say it is,” he answers. “After all we’ve discussed over the last year or so, I felt that I should be the one to tell you, and I wanted to be able to tell you to your face.”
“That’s a shame,” I tell him. “By the way, have you ever given a press conference?”
“No,” he laughs. “Why would I ever have given a press conference?”
“No reason,” I tell him as Mags comes through the door.
“They’re ready for the two of you,” she says.
“Give us just another minute,” I tell her. “The doc still needs to unhook me from my chemo drip.”
“Do you want me to track him down?” she asks.
“If you would, Margaret,” I answer. God, I hate calling her Margaret.
“Who’s ready and what are they ready for?” he asks.
“I took the liberty of setting up a nice press conference just off the hospital property,” I answer.
Now he has that look in his eye. He knows exactly what I’m planning.
“No,” he says. “I won’t do it.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have that much of a choice,” I tell him. “We were planning on announcing today, and I’d bet that the print reporters Mags has sitting in the waiting room are going to tell their people if you leave a poor, sick, dying woman hanging right after she’s just gone through chemo.”
“You’re trying to smear me — and by extension, KJBP,” he says, stating the obvious. I’ve always wondered why people bother stating the obvious. Isn’t it already, well, obvious?
“I’m trying to give you the opportunity to come off like a saint and KJBP a savior,” I tell him. “The fact that once you leave this room, you’re going to be answering questions from the press while someone wheeling me right behind you shouldn’t make you nervous.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, I make my move.
In preparation for this round of chemo, I went ahead and shaved my head. I find that better than waiting for it to just come out on its own. This way, I don’t have to worry about half my hair coming off my head with a stout breeze.
Andrew doesn’t know any of that, at least until I reach up and slide my fingers through the hair of the black wig I’m wearing and lift it off my head. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Just making myself more comfortable,” I tell him. “These things can get so hot after a while. They really don’t breathe.”
“So if I don’t go out there and announce that we’re taking your offer, you’re going to make me look like a monster,” he says.
He’s very astute.
“It’s not going to work,” he says. “Even if you smear me, it’s not going to change anything. You don’t have the money or the influence to strong-arm us like this.”
“You’re right about the money,” I tell him. “The influence, though — the press has enough of that on its own.”
The doctor comes into the room and checks my bag, sayi
ng, “Looks like you’re done for the day, Grace.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I tell him, feeling sicker than confident. Oddly enough, that might just work for my benefit. “Would you mind if I take a puke bag to go?”
Andrew glares at me.
“Not at all,” he says, and grabs one of the blue plastic bags with the plastic handles and gives it to me.
“Margaret!” I call.
Mags comes in the room, and I tell her to grab my chair, that Andrew and I are ready to meet the public.
“I’m not going to give a press conference,” he says. “You may get a few reporters to see me leaving, but it’s not going to be the story you’re hoping for.”
“That’s certainly your choice,” I tell him. “You really can’t make a person give a press conference when they don’t want to, so I guess I’ll have to do it myself. I just hope this doesn’t get picked up on social media. I certainly wouldn’t want our competitors to think that your public image is so radioactive they have to end up withdrawing their proposals.”
“Grace,” he says, “is this really what you want to do? We have a history. We have-”
“We’ve talked on the phone and you’ve been dragging your feet ever since our first contact,” I tell him. “If you’re trying to appeal to our longstanding friendship, I’m afraid you’ll find that only works when there’s a longstanding friendship to appeal to.”
Not my best pitch, but hey, I’m not at my best here.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he says. “I was really hoping we could work together.” With that, he turns and leaves the room.
“I think it’s our time in the spotlight,” I tell Mags, and I move to the wheelchair.
This probably isn’t the ethical thing to do here, but it’s my only shot at getting what I’ve been working for ever since I started with Memento. Is it going to work? I’m not getting my hopes up.
Mags wheels me out to the waiting room, where we find Andrew being accosted by reporters. Hospital security is trying to convince everyone to leave, but not before Mags wheels me up next to Andrew, still holding the puke bag in my hand.
“Miss Miller,” one of the reporters says, “how is your treatment going?”