by Tory Cates
Meredith was on the verge of laughing, sure that Archer was joking with her. But the grim set of his jaw killed her mirth. Meredith didn’t answer. She’d honored other requests for selective silence from other subjects, provided that they hadn’t interfered with her telling of a larger story.
“Believe me,” Archer said, straining for a lightly self-deprecating tone, “the heart of the Archer Hanson story does not beat in Antonito, New Mexico.”
“Archer, you must realize the position you’re putting me in.”
“Vis-a-vis your professional ethics, I presume,” he asked drily.
“I am still bound by those obligations,” she reminded him.
“Funny, I’d thought that you might be feeling the bonds of some new obligations. I guess I was wrong.”
“Archer, you’re not being fair about this.”
He looked out the windshield, focusing on the Sandia Mountains to the east. A ruff of clouds ringed the peaks. He let his overhasty emotions drain away. He was unused to being at the mercy of his heart rather than controlling his every word and action with his head. “You’re right,” he admitted solemnly. “I was out of line. Let’s forget I ever mentioned it. Work hard and I’ll see you late tomorrow night. Deal?”
“Deal,” Meredith answered, fighting down both the journalist’s questions that were rising in her and her own sadness at even this brief separation.
“Gotta run,” he announced, releasing her hand.
She turned to open the door, feeling oddly disturbed and bereft at his abrupt departure. Then a pair of strong hands recaptured her.
“Meredith.”
Her name on his lips had the quality of an anguished question. He rotated her toward him. His kiss tasted of breakfast coffee. For the time-shattering seconds that their lips fused, the distressing buzz that was again gathering force within Meredith was silenced. As she stood on the street corner flagging a limp good-bye, though, it started anew.
She tried to shake the sense of foreboding loose by diving into work on the article. She reviewed the notes she had made so far. As she listened to the recordings she’d made only yesterday, the caressing magic of Archer’s voice transported her back twenty-four hours in time. She relived yesterday, a day that had transformed her, from the moment she opened her eyes to see Archer Hanson here, in her tiny apartment, until he drove off. Notes lay forgotten as she was immersed in the wonderment of their long day of discovery. The memory chased away the dark clouds of doubt that had begun forming and subdued the ominous buzzing long enough for her to get down to work.
A couple of hours later she had her material roughly organized, enough so that she knew what research she still had to do. She arranged interviews with some of Archer’s early business associates. Archer had happily supplied the names of both friends and competitors alike. His willingness to allow her access to those who might be detractors puzzled Meredith. Right from the start Archer had been completely open with her. He was fully aware that she was not writing a puff piece on him. That the profile came with no guarantee that she was going to present him in a favorable light. He knew that she wanted to take him apart and look at all the pieces, not just the ones that would glitter nicely in the public eye. So why was he so secretive about the mine?
Thor bounded up onto Meredith’s desk. She stroked the cat absentmindedly as she went over what she knew about Archer’s uranium operation. It was obvious from his financial reports that the mine was not a major consideration in the overall scope of his holdings. Maybe she could simply ignore it.
Thor began yowling and hopped off the desk. Meredith followed him into the kitchen to check his food and water bowls. As the dried chunks of food clinked into his bowl, she remembered that it had been four hours since breakfast. She also recalled how she’d merely toyed with the meal and that she’d eaten virtually nothing the day before. Worse, though, was the fact that she still had no appetite.
Methodically, she prepared herself a sandwich on whole wheat bread. It looked too formidable. She cut it into halves, then quarters, then eighths, hoping to reduce it to manageable segments. The act of slicing it up brought back an image of herself during the worst days of her illness, when she would allot herself one apple for a day’s ration of food, then slice the fruit into dozens of paper-thin wafers. She tried to make them last the whole day by stingily doling them out to herself and then sucking on them until they’d disappeared in her mouth.
The memory was terribly unsettling. Meredith forced the sandwich to her lips and made herself bite into it. She was choking down the third small section when she was saved by the clock. She had to be at her first interview in less than an hour.
Quickly she showered, then faced her closet. She’d scheduled two interviews, one with a bank president who’d gotten his start financing Hanson Development. The other was with Archer’s first partner, a former oilfield roughneck. Meredith shuffled through her wardrobe, trying to come up with an outfit that would span the gap between the two men. She’d learned early in her career that it paid to look as much like her subject as possible so that they would perceive her as an ally rather than an inquisitive enemy.
She finally settled on a pair of well-cut navy trousers and a cream-colored, cotton blouse. She topped the outfit with a softly tailored blazer in heather tones that would look right at home in an executive suite. Then, when she met with the former oil field worker, she could slip off the blazer for a more casual look.
It was late by the time she finally returned home. Meredith was pleased; her interviewees had been extremely forthcoming. Perhaps because it was obvious from her remarks that Archer had already shared a great deal of himself with her. Whatever the reason, she’d collected some terrific anecdotes from the retired roughneck about Archer’s flamboyant wheeling and dealing back in the early days. From the banker she’d gotten a sharper overview of Hanson Development and the major role it had played in much of New Mexico’s growth.
Just as she was wishing that Archer would call, her phone started ringing. Swallowing back the excitement that tightened her vocal cords, she answered.
“Where have you been? Your father and I have been worried sick.”
The voice was more familiar to her than any other on earth. “What are you talking about, Mother?” Meredith asked as calmly as she could.
“Meredith, we’re so worried about you,” she wailed. “We saw you on TV this morning on that program with Matthew Lowry. Why didn’t you tell us your problem was starting again?”
“My ‘problem’?” Meredith echoed archly, fighting to rein in the anger that had flared in her at her mother’s accusation. “You can say anorexia to me, Mother. I won’t wither at the sound of the word.” Immediately Meredith was swept by remorse. How had it happened so quickly? How in an exchange of only a few seconds had they fallen so unerringly back into the old patterns of sniping followed by her guilt and her mother’s hurt martyrdom.
“Well, excuse a mother’s concern,” Julianna Tolliver sniffed in the tone of noble hurt Meredith knew so well. “You just looked awfully thin. Terribly, painfully thin.”
“I did?” Meredith asked. Her breathing had become shallow and her pulse was skyrocketing. She felt her moorings slipping away. Her hand raced over her wrists, her pelvic bones. Were they jutting out too far? She steadied herself and tried to act like an adult rather than the bungling child her mother somehow always made her feel she was. “I can understand your concern, Mother,” she answered in tones of calm rationality, “but I don’t think I’m underweight.”
“Meredith, darling, isn’t that one of . . .” She stumbled. “One of anorexia’s most devastating symptoms? Don’t you remember? Even when you were so thin that there was a gap at the top of your thighs, you still thought that you were obese. Don’t you remember how you resisted treatment?”
“But, Mother, I don’t think I’m ‘obese’ now. I think I’m normal. Mealtimes have been somewhat erratic over the past week, but that will settle down.”
“Promise
s, the endless promises you made to us that you could, you would deal with this . . . this anorexia. And you just got progressively worse. Meredith, dear, do you think it wise not to seek qualified help? You know the dreadful statistics as well as I do. People die from anorexia. Why, only last year there was that famous model. She thought she was doing fine too.”
“Mother, do you need to bring this all up?” Meredith asked with a forced patience.
“Yes. Yes I do,” Julianna Tolliver protested with a feeble, yet somehow shrill stridency. “I just can’t go through that ordeal again.” Her voice collapsed. Sobbing, she choked out, “It almost killed me, going through all that the last time.”
“Mother, calm down. Nothing—”
She was interrupted by her father’s deep, authoritative voice. “Meredith, I don’t care how you do it, but I want you back here,” he ordered. “Your mother’s right, you looked like hell. You’re wasting away again and I won’t stand by and let that happen again. We’ve already been in touch with your therapist and he says he can work you in. I’m sorry if I sound gruff . . .”
No, you aren’t sorry, Meredith thought. She knew her father was never more comfortable than when he was intervening in people’s lives and rearranging them in an order that suited him.
“. . . but it’s only because we’re concerned. We don’t want this anorexia thing to get out of hand again like it did last time. Your therapist says that if we can catch it now and nip it in the bud, treatment will be a lot easier.”
“Dad, I don’t need treatment,” she protested, but her voice was neither strong nor sure.
“Okay, baby, you just get on back here and we’ll talk it all over. You were a shrewd investor, Meredith, when you were working with the firm. You must still know that it’s always a sound strategy to cut your losses when a gamble doesn’t pay off. This Albuquerque move obviously isn’t a high-yield proposition, so cut your losses and come on home.”
“We love you and just want what’s best for you,” her mother chimed in reedily on an extension line. “You do know that, don’t you, dear?”
Meredith bit back the bitter words that swarmed to her lips and instead spoke the truth. It was a truth that both bound the three of them together and tore them apart. “I know you do and I love both of you too.”
Her hands were quaking by the time she hung up, her father’s admonition to catch the earliest flight back to Chicago still ringing in her ears. Only in a remote corner of her mind did the vague questions form: Why didn’t they ask about the crash landing? About how my writing is going? About anything other than my weight? Almost as if he sensed his mistress’s distress, Thor sprang lightly into her lap and nudged gently against her hand until she started petting him.
The simple motion of comfort did little to calm Meredith’s inner turmoil. A debate raged within her. She listened, stupefied, as one side of her argued for her to totally ignore her parents. Then another side came back with a stinging rebuttal, pointing out the validity in what they’d said. This side reminded her that she had wanted to ignore her parents when she was at her sickest. That she’d firmly believed the skeletal figure she saw in the mirror was an overweight blimp.
She dumped Thor off her lap and hurried into her bedroom, tearing off her clothes as she went. By the time she stood in front of the vanity mirror, she was as naked as she’d been the day before when Archer had forced her to see, to touch, to know herself. As she traced a finger over her belly, trying to judge if it was too sunken in, she wished desperately that Archer were at her side guiding her hand again. She’d felt so sure about herself yesterday, viewing her body through his eyes. Now she didn’t know. Were her pelvic bones jutting out too far? Were the corrugations of her ribs too prominent?
Then her hand found the womanly swells of her hips and the buzzing voices chorused out: How could you have let Archer see them? How could anyone think you too thin? You’re fat.
She reeled from the room, grabbing a thick flannel nightgown to hide under. It was starting again. It was. She’d lost touch once again with her own physical reality.
Meredith sat huddled in a chair waiting for the pounding of her heart to quiet enough that she could hear the voice of reason within herself. She wished with every fiber of her being that Archer were with her.
She jumped when the phone rang. She prayed it would be Archer. That he would know what to say, how to chase this nightmare away. Of course, it had to be Archer. Who else besides her parents would call at this time of night?
“Archer, I’m so glad you called,” she blurted out in the same instant that she remembered there was one other person who would call.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Mer. It’s just me, your alleged fiancé.”
“Chad, I . . . I was expecting someone else.”
“The balloon hero, I take it. Saw you two on the telly this morning. Nice way to find out that the engagement is off.”
“Chad, the engagement was off before I ever left Chicago. I told you that I didn’t plan on ever coming back.”
“Yes, but nothing was ever formalized.”
“Chad,” Meredith said wearily, “there was never anything between us that wasn’t formalized.”
“And whose fault was that?” he dug in caustically.
“I’m not ascribing blame, Chad. I realize that a lot of what was wrong with our relationship was my fault. But it’s over now, so let’s try and remember the good times.”
“Over?” Chad echoed belligerently. “After I stood by and nursed you through your crazy period? What other man would have put up with that? You think your balloon hero is going to be there waiting for you to make up your mind whether you want to starve yourself to death or not?”
“Chad—” Meredith tried to interrupt, but he was on a heated roll and not about to slow down for her.
“Because it’s starting again, Mer. Your parents and I, we all saw it this morning. It’s starting again.”
“Archer doesn’t think I’m too thin.” Her protest sounded weak and shakily defensive. “He says I look fine,” she ended lamely.
“Archer? Your father told me that Charlie Wendler mentioned to him that you were working on a piece for Enterprise on this Archer Hanson. What do you expect? That the subject of a profile is going to tell the writer that she looks like something out of a concentration camp?”
“Archer isn’t the type of man who would play up to anyone, no matter what he stood to gain,” Meredith boldly asserted. Still, Chad’s words had stung, ripping as they did at her ever-shaky self-confidence. “He likes me for myself,” she added weakly.
“Has he seen your ‘self’?” Chad asked archly, making an oblique reference to Meredith’s refusal to ever allow him to see her unclothed. A refusal he had not tried to override.
“Though it’s none of your business, yes, he has.” Meredith regretted that Chad had managed to worm the confession out of her. The long silence that followed betrayed his injured pride.
“Lucky Mr. Hanson,” he sniped.
“Chad, I’m sorry. Sorry about the way things were between us and the way things worked out. I hope you meet someone else.”
“Someone else?” Chad hooted. “Meredith, darling, don’t think that you’re the only one who’s able to make new friends. You didn’t really believe that you were my sole source of feminine solace, did you? That your frigid, repressed favors were enough to satisfy any man?” Chad’s voice rose to progressively higher pitches.
“I think we’ve said enough, Chad. I’m going to hang up now.”
“Oh, so the Ice Princess is withdrawing again,” Chad mocked. “Well, you’re not pulling the plug on me until you get the full picture here, sweetie. Your father set me up with you from the start. Told me all about your disease. He thought that a boyfriend might bring you around. Hinted about needing a son-in-law to take his dead son’s place in the company. That’s why I put up with all your crazy obsessions. Your frigidity.”
“I’m hanging up, Chad. Don’t c
all again. Ever.”
As she was putting the receiver down Chad screamed out his parting shot. “No man could ever want you unless he had an ulterior motive.”
Meredith hugged her knees to her chest, gripping her elbows until the convulsive trembling that shook her body had stopped. She felt lost on a midnight sea. She was adrift in an infinity of doubt with no compass, no star, to guide her back to shore.
Questions batted about in her mind like a swarm of mad moths searching for a light that had gone out: Was the anorexia starting again? If it was, should she go back to Chicago for treatment? Why wasn’t she strong enough to simply ignore her parents and Chad and carry on, secure in the knowledge that there was nothing wrong with her?
And finally, most devastating of all: Why can’t I just be normal? she wondered forlornly. That was what was worst of all. That all her pain seemed so self-indulgent. To the world it looked like something she inflicted on herself, something she could easily stop if she’d simply put her mind to it. If only, she wished desperately, it were that easy.
For long hours into the night, Meredith attacked those questions. She repeatedly attempted to dispel all her fears through the simple act of eating. But the sight, smell, and taste of food repelled her. Each time an attempt failed, she was plunged anew into a spinning vortex of doubt. Her hope that Archer would call flickered out as the clock ticked past the last two-digit number on the dial and started in on the wee hours.
With an heroic effort, Meredith calmed herself and brought her stampeding thoughts back from the edge of panic. She bullied herself into listening to reason: No, she was not anorexic. But, yes, it was within her to become that way again. Building on that foundation, she spent the next hours constructing a plan of action.
The sight of dawn streaking in her window startled Meredith. The night had slipped away as she’d grappled with her internal tormentors. The sun redeeming a sleeping world from darkness illuminated the inevitable course she would have to follow.
She pulled on her parka, eager to be outside, away from the stale air she’d been breathing. The crisp newness of the unfolding day cleared her head. Everything was still except for the chattering of waking birds. The sun was reddening the sky above the Sandia Mountains. Meredith thought of how those defiant peaks had looked that morning just over a week ago when she’d first glimpsed Cloud Waltzer battling the sun and the moon for supremacy of the sky. That day seemed a lifetime ago. Or more accurately, like time completely removed from her life, a time untainted by it.