Current Affairs

by Raskin, Barbara;

  “Marcia, it’s Nat Karavan Myers. I just got your message.”

  “Oh, boy. You did good, Nat.” She gives a war whoop and a laugh. “You really stuck it to ’em. Listen. I know you’re probably crazy busy right now, but we’re finally getting our shit together. Mitch brought over four groups besides his own to the meeting Thursday and we formed a steering committee and laid out some plans for putting pressure on Human Resources. I think we’re finally in business. And we voted you in as cochair in absentia. Will you take it? We really need you.”

  “Will I ever! Oh, that’s great, Marcia. I’m so excited. Now we’ll have enough muscle to make some waves. Look, I’ll probably have to go to New York to do the talk shows—there’s a million messages—but I should be back in a week. Then we’ll really dig in and show our stuff. Okay?”

  “You got it.”

  Next I call Barney.

  “Jesus, Natalie,” he laughs. “You’re spread all over every newspaper in the country.”

  “I know. Isn’t it wild? You should hear the messages on my machine. The New York Times, Newsweek, People, Peter Jennings …”

  “You did a great job, babe. Really great: This story isn’t going to go away. We can really stick it to them now.”

  “They want me on the Today show Monday.

  “Go.”

  “But then I can’t do Good Morning America; I’ll have to choose.”

  “Check it out. You want the largest exposure possible on a story like this.”

  “I can probably get enough New York appearances to stay there for a week.”

  “Don’t miss a beat, babe. But, listen, the jury went out yesterday afternoon and came back in at midnight with an acquittal, so I’m high as a kite. I also had a long talk with Steven late last night. He’s real uncomfortable about Shay moving Amelia to New York. He isn’t too comfortable with me keeping her either, since Vicky works full-time and I work double time. So he wondered what you might think about—”

  “Oh, Barney, you think he’ll let her stay with me for a while?”

  “Could happen. She’d still spend holidays and weekends with me.”

  My heart is unfurling with joy. I can’t even respond.

  “Okay, champ, I’ll phone you later,” Barney says softly before disconnecting.

  Champ, I think.

  Actually I feel a little bit like Rocky. Like all the push-ups, all the miles jogged and logged, all the workouts, have finally paid off. I will probably have to start a scrapbook. I will probably have to start cutting and pasting and gluing my own news clips and photos and outstanding quotes. Or maybe I’ll just send the stuff to Marge and let her catalog my clippings along with Shay’s.

  Maybe I’ll even become an answer in a crossword puzzle.

  #1 Down: “Nickname of citizen who leaked Fawn Hall story”:

  N

  A

  T

  #50 Across: “Big sister of formerly famous New York housewife known as Shay”:

  NAT

  When I finally dial my mother’s 612 number, Shay answers the telephone.

  “Hold the line,” she says. “I want to take this in the study.”

  Picking up the extension, she yells for someone to replace the receiver in the dining room. Then I can hear her lips making their familiar initial dry-air kiss as she lights a fresh cigarette.

  “Well, you must be pretty pleased with yourself this morning,” she says fiercely. “You made NBC and CBS news. Not bad for a little sneak. You really have a lot of balls, Natalie, stealing my story like that.”

  “I didn’t steal your story, Shay. You dumped it on me. I only stole your thunder. And that’s fair, since you’ve been raining on my parade—”

  “Oh, please, don’t get weird on me now. I just can’t believe you didn’t return the papers like you said. What a liar you are. And do you realize the kind of danger you’ve just put us in?”

  “Wrong. No one’s in danger anymore. Bo’s men picked up Ocheros and his two main guys yesterday; he booked them on B and E.”

  “B and E?”

  “Breaking and entering. They broke into my house again, Shay. No—they didn’t break in; they drove in. They drove right through the glass-brick wall in my kitchen. Then they chased me, on foot, down to the zoo, Shay. This hasn’t been a lot of fun for me.”

  “Well, it seems to have come out all right. In fact, you’ve done pretty well for yourself. They definitely made you out to be a heroine on CBS.” She falters on the word “heroine,” suddenly uncertain whether it is pronounced like the drug or not. “I mean you’re getting a lot of mileage off of it.”

  “That’s true, and I’m going to use it for a good purpose. I’m gonna—”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something. This whole thing is making Mickey crazy. I honestly thought he was going to break off our engagement because of this. I mean, he really went berserk this morning.” She pauses and adopts a more speculative tone of voice. “But maybe that’s what you’ve been trying to accomplish.”

  “Whaddaya talking about, Shay?”

  “You know, Mickey lives in a different world than we do. He can’t afford to—”

  “There’s nothing he can’t afford.”

  “Nat, you told Mickey you were returning the papers and then you just decided not to. You gambled with the only chip we had to guarantee our safety. You’ve really compromised us now, and Mickey’s furious. I mean, he almost got kidnapped once, and he doesn’t need this.”

  “You know what? I’d like to know the real reason Mickey wanted to keep all this stuff out of the newspapers. I mean, he’s right up there with Michael Milken, jerking the market around and—”

  “Oh, Natalie. Please don’t talk about things you don’t understand. Just tell me why. Why did you do it?”

  “I thought it was important, Shay. You didn’t.”

  “Of course I did. Otherwise I wouldn’t have stolen it in the first place. Risked my neck—”

  “No. You risked my neck and then you dropped it the minute it didn’t fit into the Duke’s campaign plans. You’re just a Democratic party girl, Shay. Whoever blows in your ear—or up your nose—last, gets you. For whatever that’s worth.”

  “Up yours, Natalie. You’re really something. One minute you’re all sweet and nice and the next minute you stab me in the back like we’re not even related. You’re a vindictive little slut, that’s what you are.”

  “You don’t have any principles, Shay. You don’t have any politics. You pretend you’re politically committed but you’re—”

  “You’re jealous of me, Natalie. You’ve always been jealous of me. All your life you’ve wanted to be me.”

  “Which you?”

  Long silence. Maybe she’s trying to decide.

  “Now I suppose you’ll want to become a free-lance journalist and—”

  “No. I’ve got a job, Shay. I’m a social worker. I know that’s not glamorous enough for you, but that’s what I do. It’s a real thing that I do. And for years the money that should have come to our programs got wasted by the government. So I just blew the whistle. That’s all. It wasn’t any of your phony photo-ops or Dukakis shticks. This might actually make a difference. It might actually stop some other Colonel North from doing whatever the hell he wants to do with our hostages and our money and our foreign policy …”

  “Save me,” Shay groans. “Oh, please, save me. Listen, where’s Eli?”

  “You know, I really wasn’t going to say anything about this, Shay, but Amelia is suffering because of you. You come and you go, you leave her with other people’s housekeepers and nannies and maids and—”

  “God, you are such a jealous person; it’s sickening.”

  “Maybe I am jealous about Amelia—I really love her. But you should have told Steven you were going to Atlanta and—”

  “Say, would you get off my back? Maybe I wasn’t a perfect mother according to your standards. And maybe I don’t meet all your specifications for a doting grandmot
her, but right now you’re hardly a paragon of virtue yourself, you know.”

  “Is that why you told Mom about my abortion? Because you were afraid she maybe thought I was a model daughter?”

  “Oh, this is too sick for me, Natalie. Really, I don’t think I can deal with it anymore. Look, let’s just forget about seeing each other for a while. How ’bout that? Just get out of my life. Forget my wedding. Forget about being my matron of honor.…”

  “I’ve already been your matron of honor twice, Shay. I’m not going to be your handmaiden ever again. It’s getting boring.”

  “Look.” Her voice thins out, becomes weaker. “Every morning I have to make myself up. I don’t mean put on makeup. I have to … invent myself.”

  “Oh, you’ve got so much style, Shay, that can’t be too hard for you.”

  “That’s not style. That’s panic. Plus a little imagination.”

  I have to laugh. She’s witty, my sister.

  For a few seconds, she laughs along with me before she continues.

  “At least you had Eli. You had stability, financial security. That nice house … I always had to play it by ear. Every day. I’ve never even owned my own sofa; I never got to pick out one I really liked. I was always out there on a limb, all alone.”

  “You were never alone, Shay.”

  “I was so alone I couldn’t bear to be by myself for a minute. I was too scared.”

  Scared?

  “You think it was fun being a single parent and having to run around the world just to keep my name out there so I could get my next assignment? That was white-knuckle living.…”

  “Shay, you’ve been married to Christopher for the last eight years. That’s hardly roughing it.”

  “Aren’t you ever going to hear me, Nat? Listen, you don’t even know what it means to look for a job. For years I never knew where our next meal was coming from. Eli was always there for you.”

  “Shay, you never—”

  “But how could you not know?” she wails. “You’re my sister.”

  Jesus. My hump, my burden … appealing for sympathy.

  “I mean, I am marrying Mickey and he is rich, but he’s making me sign a prenuptial agreement. How’s that for romantic?”

  “You had Steven, Shay. And now you’ve got Amelia.”

  “Well, Steven is talking about Amelia maybe staying with you.”

  “Yeah!” I say bitterly. “Now, when I don’t even have a house anymore, thanks to you.”

  “I apologize about your house. And don’t worry. I’ll be able to help you out financially with whatever you need. But if you had stuck by our plan, so that Mickey could’ve returned the papers to Jerry up in Southampton like we planned, nothing would have happened to your house. But no, you had to futz around with that black cop and let him call all the shots.”

  “Is it Bo that’s bugging you, Shay? Are you threatened by people like Bo who still care about real things? That must really shake you up. You’re a cokehead, Shay. I think all the coke you’ve done has fried your brains.”

  “You’re still angry about your abortion, Natalie, something bad that happened twenty-one years ago. Anyway, you could have adopted some kids, you know. There’re plenty of children who need homes. For a big liberal, you really dragged your ass about adopting.…”

  “I just can’t believe you told Mom. I mean, did you tell Daddy too, before he died?”

  An unnervingly long silence.

  “Oh, God,” I wail.

  “Maybe she feels better … knowing …” Shay sniffles. “So is that why you stole my story? To get even with me for telling Mother?”

  “No, that’s not quite the reason. Anyway, Shay, I gotta go. I’ve got a million calls to return. Good Morning America and the Today show and … The New York Times and the L.A. Times …”

  “Oh, fuck off, Natalie! Listen, does Eli know what you did? Is he still in Atlanta?”

  “No. No, he’s back in Washington.”

  “Is he there? I really want to talk to him. And so does Mickey.”

  Then I begin to cry.

  Sitting in Bo’s tidy little kitchen, at his little butcher-block table with its two ice cream–parlor chairs, I begin to sob. And then wail. Like a banshee. I start to lose it. I’m out of control. Completely out of control. There is a long silence on Shay’s end of the line, a thick, cottony silence.

  “What’s the matter?” she finally asks.

  But I can’t speak. Wet gasps keep rising to the surface like waves upon the shore.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks again, more gently now, reading my sobs as real.

  “It’s … Eli, Shay. He … wants us to separate.…”

  “Oh, Natalie. Oh, honey.” There is both shock and fear in her voice. “Was it because of the house, because of everything that happened?”

  “No, no. He just said it wasn’t working out.”

  “I can’t believe this. What a bastard. You should be mad as hell at him. Well, I’m just going to tell Mickey to go on back to New York alone.”

  “Oh no. Don’t do that, Shay.”

  “Why not? Amelia and I will fly back to Washington this afternoon and then we can all be together. Maybe she’ll sleep on the plane and I’ll be able to work on my article.”

  “You don’t have to come back, Shay. I’m all right.”

  “I know I don’t have to, I want to. We can all stay at Christopher’s. I have a few things I’d like to discuss with Eli. What the hell bit his ass, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m going to find out, that’s for sure.”

  “Really, Shaysie, it’s not necessary. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Don’t bother—”

  “Bother? Hey! Nat! What’s a sister for?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For their help and friendship, I would like to thank Charlotte Sheedy, Joni Evans, Julie Grau, Amy Edelman, Sarah Bloom, Julianne Fanning-Halberstein, Mina Mazaheri, Bethany Weidner and Helen Hopps.

  About the Author

  Barbara Raskin (1936–1999) was a Washington, DC–based journalist and author best known for her novel Hot Flashes. Capturing the feelings of the generation of women born during the Great Depression as they faced middle age, the novel spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list. Raskin wrote four other novels, Current Affairs, Loose Ends, Out of Order, and The National Anthem, as well as articles for numerous publications, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. She received a fiction award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Raskin is survived by Erika, Keith, Jamie, Sarah, Noah, Heather, Emily, Jason, Zachary, Maggie, Asa, Gray, Hannah, Tommy, Tabitha, Mariah, Boman, Daisy, Bobbie, Jedd, Sarah, Eden and Brandon—all of whom wish she didn’t have to leave the party so early.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1990 by Barbara Ruskin

  Cover design by Mimi Bark

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3837-9

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  Raskin, Barbara;, Current Affairs