Reunion

by Therese Fowler

  “I’m trying to build a career, just like you did.”

  Blue nodded. “I know.” She raised her voice and said, “Everybody listen up: I’m going to make a statement. Are you ready?”

  She waited, letting her silence build their anticipation, hearing the rain on their umbrellas like a drumroll, and then she said, “The Blue Reynolds Show is off the air. I’ve had enough. I quit.”

  he reporters were still yelling out questions when Blue returned to the house, found her phone, and called her mother. She did it without thinking through what she would say, because if she thought too much, she might not call at all. A simple delivery of the facts was what was needed: I had a child. I lived a lie. I was scared to tell you. I’m sorry.

  Her mother’s generous reply: “I’m on my way.”

  “No, Mom, not yet. I need some time to … to just be here, okay?”

  “I love you. Call me any time. Any time.”

  “I will.”

  She called Marcy next and told her what she’d done. “Call Peter, call my lawyer, and tell them no, I wasn’t kidding.”

  Marcy said, “Can I do anything for you? Do you want me to come down?”

  “I could use a towel, and a pillow.”

  “I’m on it. Now I have to ask—because they’ll all be asking me: What are you planning to do? You know, next?”

  Blue looked out the window; most of the crowd was gone. Off to upload their photos, to write and file their stories. “It’s going to be a firestorm.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m not cutting you loose, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried about me. Do you have a plan for you?”

  “No,” she said, walking to the sliding door and looking out into the rainy garden. “But I’m hoping to find one here.”

  After hanging up, Blue listened to the rainfall for a little while, soothed by the sound, the smell. What did she want to do next? What sort of options did she have? Who was she now, besides the former host of TBRS? Who did she want to be?

  There was no rolling thunder of approval, no sign from the universe that she’d done the right thing in quitting. Only the sensation of a bit less weight now on her shoulders, and the far-off barking of a tree frog, and the steady patter of rain on the leaves.

  A few minutes later, there was a banging on the gate, a voice calling out, “Delivery!” Blue went outside, permitted a pair of men to bring to her porch a cot, linens, and four bags of supplies. “I’ll take it from here,” she said.

  When she had locked up the house and made her bed, she lay down in the dark, thinking about what would be happening at news stations and on websites while she was here in this empty house, disconnected, unplugged from all of that. The rumors. The lies. The analysis and speculation.

  The media would be telling her story in every sensational way they could construct, the way she had always let them do. When that story had been both impressive and favorable, she’d been content to stand on the sidelines, calling out the plays only once in a while. She had, in so many ways, let the media shape who she was, let it determine who she would become. It had created her reality.

  And now here she was.

  She sat up, then she got up and found her phone, to call Marcy and get the phone number of the editor-in-chief at Time. She may have walked away from TBRS but she was still of the media; it was time she created a reality of her own.

  34

  ulian avoided most opportunities for firsthand media exposure in the days afterward—as Blue was apparently doing, given that there’d been no official word from her since Friday. He kept away from the TV, the phone, and the Internet and within the confines of the house or yard. A few stubborn reporters remained camped out near the driveway even after they’d been told there would be no comment from him, or Daniel or Lynn.

  Still, he couldn’t avoid his grandparents’ ongoing discussions. From them he knew that much was made of the pictures of him and Blue together. A lot more was made of that photo of her seven months pregnant. Depending where you looked, Blue was being portrayed as a cradle-robbing incestuous slut, a liar, a hypocrite, a coward, a baby-selling criminal, and a church-shunning sinner who deserved what she was getting after trying to buy her way to the son she hadn’t bothered to keep. Daniel read the headlines aloud whenever he came across one: Daytime’s Angel Falls from Grace. Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up Like Kucharski. Take Two: One Man Is Too Few for Blue.

  Julian’s father was the Jilted Lover and he, Julian, was the Traitorous Son.

  “What a load of horseshit,” his father said, on speakerphone Tuesday evening. “I keep telling them that it’s all out of context. Why is it that now, when I have something to say, nobody wants to hear it?”

  Lynn said, “And why isn’t Blue out there defending herself? She’s shut herself in, no word to anyone.” All they knew was that supplies and furniture had been delivered to her house. She wouldn’t starve.

  “‘The Jilted Lover,’” his father snorted. Julian, knowing his own label had nearly fit, kept silent.

  “Aren’t we the notorious group now?” Daniel said, but kindly.

  Julian was pruning the climbing oleander from the side-yard fence Friday afternoon when the mail was delivered. Before bringing it in, he finished his work and got the wheelbarrow and rake, stopping outside the shed to observe a Red-bellied Woodpecker that hung from the feeder he’d built and mounted at the edge of the backyard. The design was simple; essentially a box, with a lid that was also an overhang and a base that was also a tray. He’d covered the tray with crosshatched wire to keep the squirrels out, and added a suet cage to the side, to attract woodpeckers like this one and the Red-headed and the Downy. There were Mangrove Cuckoos in the vicinity, too; he’d heard the guttural chuckle-like call several times in the past few days. He’d managed to lure a few to his feeders in years past with the fruity suet the Red-bellied was enjoying just now, and hoped he would again. It was an elusive bird; not flashy but handsome, one of the few Keys birds he hadn’t managed to photograph yet. Getting its picture was his singular goal; a man needed something to occupy him, after all.

  Scrounging up the materials to build the feeder had occupied him all day Monday. Tuesday morning was taken up with the construction itself, and Tuesday afternoon, he’d dug out the lawn mower manual and spent the remainder of the day tuning up the machine. Wednesday he’d cleaned the pool. Yesterday he and Lynn painted the two main-house bedrooms, each a different powdery pastel. In the evenings, after dinner, he’d talked some about his experience in Iraq. He gave snapshot accounts but held back most of his thoughts, said nothing at all about the email. Generously, his grandparents held back the question they were surely wondering about him, What next? He had options; Alec and Noor were off to China and said there was work, too, for him; four editors had pitched him assignments—and only one of them had been audacious enough to make the assignment Blue. He knew people everywhere, yet wanted nothing more than to just stay put right here on this four-by-two spit of sand and rock and coral.

  After he finished raking up the oleander clippings, he went to the mailbox. Amongst the letters and ads was Time magazine, on which there was a compelling photo and the headline, “Harmony, Blue?”

  He opened to the article and read it on the spot.

  Who is Blue Reynolds?

  We in the press would have you believe she’s a spoiled celebrity completely lacking a moral compass. She did, after all, give away a child it turns out she could easily have kept, then followed that with bribery and recent bed-hopping with an old lover and his son—or so the story goes. She’s been advised not to speak to the potentially criminal matter of bribery, but about the men she says, “I think it is safe to say that neither of them did or would have me.”

  “Maybe safe, but not completely accurate,” he said.

  “Julian,” Lynn called to him, “I’m off to Publix. What do you need?”

  “I need a life,” he sighed, well out of earshot
. “Lemons,” he called back. He read on.

  It looked as if she would pass the baton to an up-and-comer from a network affiliate in Miami. For now, they’d run canned shows for the last two weeks of the season, and that would truly be the end of The Blue Reynolds Show.

  Rest in peace.

  She has no idea what to do next, yet the prospect of getting out of television is not all bad. “Some people go into this business because they’re chasing a dream. In my case, the dream was chasing me, and all these years I’ve felt like I was staying barely a step ahead.” With the show derailed by her own hand, perhaps she can stop running.

  About her secret being outed, she says, “I don’t have to ask Ms. Harper what makes her believe she had the right to flay me publicly; she made that clear. I would ask, though, ‘Who did I harm?’ and I would ask, ‘How would you feel?’”

  Julian was startled to find his grandmother next to him. “Is it an interview?”

  He said, “Yes. I guess she’s having her say after all.”

  “Good for her.”

  Daniel joined them. He tilted the magazine so that he could see the cover. “Nice picture. She just gets better looking, don’t you think?” He was looking pointedly at Julian.

  Julian looked pointedly at his rake, where he’d left it propped against the fence. “Sure.”

  “So what’s the holdup?” Daniel asked.

  Lynn said, “Now, you said you weren’t going to bug him.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Julian stared at them. “You’re not suggesting—”

  Daniel said, “More like directing. Clean up your mess. Take a shower. Put on some cologne. A housewarming present is always a good excuse for dropping by.”

  35

  lue took the issue of Time from her mother and opened it to the article, scanning to make sure the copy had run as she’d approved it.

  “They did a nice job,” her mother said. “You’ve vindicated yourself. Now we can all get on with things.” She peered through the parlor windows as the crew they’d hired to transform her garden to a wedding chapel was outside putting the finishing touches on their work.

  All week long the crew had gone about their business as if there was no self-exiled celebrity in the house watching them erect an arched arbor and weave into it yards of white grandiflora vine called sky flower. Watching them string tiny white lights into her lemon tree. Watching them put a second arbor just before the gate, where they hung a series of wide white satin ribbons with shining yellow and fuchsia beads weighting the ends, to make a sort of wedding-day bead curtain.

  “How bad is it out there? Outside the gate, I mean.”

  “What, paparazzi? Five or six guys with cameras. Nice bunch. Haven’t you made friends yet?”

  “I haven’t been out.”

  “Not once?”

  Blue shook her head. “I’ve … I don’t know. I wasn’t ready. And you know, I was thinking, maybe it’ll be better for you if I don’t go to the reception tonight.”

  “Hold on, Harmony Blue. Here—I’ve brought fresh oranges and pomegranates. Did you know poms are a symbol of righteousness?” She handed Blue a mesh grocery bag. “I understand Melody’s reluctance to show up, but you’re used to the limelight. Isn’t it time to get out of the house?”

  She was used to the limelight in her talk-show-host guise. This week, knowing the Time article had yet to run, she’d felt too defense-less. She’d needed a little time to grow a thicker skin.

  “It’s not that I’m worried about me, so much; I don’t want what should be a wonderful, joyous evening for you to be a circus.” She set the bag on the counter. “In fact, it’s not too late to reschedule the whole wedding.”

  “Now I know you’ve been shut in too long.” Her mother emptied the bag, got a knife, and began slicing oranges. “Do you have a juicer?”

  “No. I barely have the basics in furniture, and I’m still working on a list for the kitchen.” She found two glasses, then began squeezing the oranges by hand, saying, “There are some really wonderful private islands in the Caribbean. It wouldn’t take too long to make new arrangements—we could have it all in order by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Her mother opened the sliding door to the patio. “I have no reason to relocate or reschedule.”

  “If you go through with it here, you and Calvin will be in every tabloid—”

  “Good! Let everyone celebrate with us! Come on outside, it’s lovely in the shade.”

  Blue followed her mother out to one of the tables that had been set up for tomorrow’s pre-wedding breakfast, watching for photographers. “Do you see anyone in the trees around here?”

  “I don’t care if they hang from them like monkeys. I have nothing to hide.”

  “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “For this minute—but then what? How will you keep hold of the reins when I leave here? When Calvin and I are on that cruise ship tomorrow night? When we’re back in Chicago and some customer comes into the store and says, ‘Hey, you’re the mother of that heathen slut, Blue Reynolds.’ How will you protect me then?”

  “I—”

  “Can you control the entire media?”

  “No.”

  “Do they say false things even when they know the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I advise you to stop worrying about it.” Her mother looked at her watch, then stood up. “Oops, you’d better give me the grand tour; I’m going to have to run soon. Calvin’s playing host to our guests over at the hotel and I’m heading back to the airport to pick up your sister. We have the most amazing menu for tonight’s meal, and there will be plenty of champagne. Music, too. It was a good idea, scheduling our dinner reception for tonight. What couple really wants to hang around after the ceremony, right?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” Blue said, following her inside.

  She took her mother around the house, pointing out its features and telling her what changes she was planning. New fixtures in the bathrooms, new appliances and skylights in the kitchen, plantation shutters, refinished floors.

  “It’s going to be marvelous,” her mother said as they stood in the parlor. “It is already. So what’s the verdict—will you be joining us?”

  “I don’t know, Mom … I hate thinking how it would distract from the party’s purpose.”

  “People will be talking about it either way.”

  “Not as much. I really want it to be your night.”

  “Without you there, it would be my incomplete night. My somewhat sad night. I want to be with all the people I love. And look, the wedding tomorrow’s not going to be any different. Don’t try to tell me you’re also thinking of missing that.”

  “No. I’m sorry. You’re right.” She sighed. “I just want it to all be perfect for you.”

  Blue followed her mother to the door, feeling so much the way she had when she was small and watching her mother head out on a date. She said, “How do you know, really know that Calvin is The One? How do you know that what you feel isn’t, say, infatuation, or a whim that will pass?”

  “We like the same things, and we want the same things.”

  Blue waited, but her mother said no more. “That’s it?”

  “Think about it. It’s not as simple as it sounds. But yes, that’s it. So: I’ll see you at eight o’clock.”

  Blue rubbed at a spot on the wood with her toe. “Yes, okay.”

  “Honey.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a gorgeous day. Get out of this house. Do something. Live. Honestly, it’s like you’re waiting for an engraved invitation from God and let me tell you, it’s not going to come.”

  After her mother left, Blue sat in the kitchen wishing she had Peep there for company. That had to wait, though, until the renovations and decorating she was planning for the house got done. A few weeks, maybe a month from now, it would be all set, and she and Peep could have exactly the summer she’d envisioned.


  She went to the windows to admire the wedding preparations. The crew had gone, and the breeze played on the beribboned arbor, making the strands sway. For just the briefest moment, she saw Julian there in the garden, the image from her dream, and then like a passing shadow it was gone.

  It really was time to get on with things.

  She went for an elastic band, bound up her hair, grabbed her sunglasses, and went outside to the carport. The old bike still sat where it had been when she first saw the house. After pulling out the bike and brushing off the cobwebs, she began walking it down the driveway toward the gate just as a FedEx truck pulled up to her curb.

  The driver waved his greeting, then climbed out carrying a business-size envelope. “Here you go,” he said, handing it over. “Take it easy.”

  Take it easy. Perfect for Key West. In Hawaii they probably all said “Hang loose.”

  Take it easy. Ha. Her heart was already racing from surprise and anxiety. Who was overnighting things to her here?

  The sender’s name was Branford.

  The truck rumbled off. Photographers called to her. Cameras flashed. She ignored it all as she parked the bike back under the carport and went inside.

  Maybe now that her secret had been outed, Branford felt free to bill her directly. Maybe instead of calling he was sending his condolences. She leaned against the counter and opened the envelope. Inside was a small white piece of paper and a rubber-banded file folder. There was a single line written on the paper, underlined for emphasis: Call me before you open the file.

  She was tempted to open it immediately, regardless. Why call first? What if he wasn’t available right now—was she supposed to wait? Besides, she didn’t have her code-word list. She’d forgotten it in Chicago, had no cause to use it in the week since.

  The folder was slight, and held closed by two pale green bands. She slid one of them off and started on the other … then, nervous, she set the folder down on the counter. Branford had a reason for his request. He never did anything without a reason. She took her phone from her shorts pocket and placed the call.