Once More With Feeling (16 page)

She chewed her sandwich in silence while
Perry cleared dishes from the table. Perry took Gypsy's plate when
she had finished. "I'll be shopping for food tomorrow. You tell me
what you like, and I'll see if I can get it."

Gypsy stared at her reflection. "It's an
awful kitchen. I don't know how anybody can cook in it."

"I can manage, or we can order. A million
possibilities outside that door."

"I don't know what I like. You choose."

"I make a mean shrimp creole. I'll fix it
for you and Casey sometime."

"Are you sure you want to go to that kind of
trouble? I don't think it's in your job description."

"Job, shmob." Perry shrugged. "I just want
to see you get better fast, and it'll be a lot more fun if I cook
something good."

Gypsy stood and reached for her crutches. "I
guess I'd better tackle the messages."

"I'll be around if you need me."

In the library she settled herself in a
comfortable chair by the desk. The library had no theme. It was
simple, almost cozy. Gypsy supposed she and her decorator just
hadn't gotten to it yet. It took her a few minutes to figure out
the answering machine. She and Owen had never owned one. His staff
and an answering service had taken care of their messages when she
hadn't been there to do it herself.

Who would take care of them now? Anna?

She jabbed the play button harder than she
needed to.

Perry hadn't exaggerated about the number of
messages. She took notes as complete strangers left their best
wishes. Near the end of the tape another unfamiliar voice
began.

"The Lord's given you another chance, Gypsy
Dugan. Well, his love may be limitless, but his patience isn't.
Repent or the next time you may not be so lucky." There was a
click, signaling the message's end.

Gypsy pushed the pause button. "Perry?"

Perry, wiping her hands on a dish towel,
came to the doorway. "You doing okay?"

"Will you listen to this?" She studied the
machine a moment, then punched what she hoped was the correct
button to rewind the tape. After a few seconds she punched another
button.

She had gone too far back. "Wait a minute.
It's the next one that's interesting."

There was a brief pause, and the voice
repeated the message. It was a man speaking, a man with a vocal
range hovering between tenor and baritone. The South flavored his
words, but just a little, as if he had carefully exorcised all but
a touch.

She paused the machine again. "What do you
think?"

"I'd say that's a threat."

"My thought, too. I wonder what I'm supposed
to repent for?"

"You can't remember, I'm sure not going to
be the one to guess."

"I'm going to save this tape so Casey can
hear it." She opened the drawer beside the answering machine and
took out another tape to replace it with. "You don't think this guy
had anything to do with the accident, do you?" She realized her
hand had paused in midair. She lowered it and the tape to the
desk.

"Do you?"

Gypsy thought about it. "No, the accident's
one of the few things . . . I remember. Nobody was to blame except
me and . . . Elisabeth."

"Don't eat yourself up about it, sugar."

The intercom squawked. Perry hung the dish
towel over her arm. "I'll go see who that is. Want me to tell them
you're asleep?"

Gypsy already had a long night ahead of her.
She didn't want to make it longer. She welcomed the distraction.
"No. If it's legit, I'll see them."

"Good for you to get back into things. But
take it easy."

Gypsy realized she should comb her hair and
do something about makeup. She hobbled into the bathroom and took
her first really good look at herself.

She was young. She was passably gorgeous.
And she was as pale as a ghost.

She leaned toward the mirror and examined
herself more fully. This was not the glamorous anchorwoman staring
back at her. The Gypsy Dugan of television fame had flawless skin,
flashing green eyes, and enviable black hair. This Gypsy had
bruises, enlarged pores and split ends. She needed a facial and her
hairdresser, stat.

She was certainly less of a perfect specimen
than poor Elisabeth had ever fantasized.

She brushed her teeth and suspected that one
of the front ones was capped. The teeth were strong and white
though, and she had probably never needed a root canal in her life.
Her skin would glow again once she was completely recovered and the
hair could be trimmed. She washed her face and smoothed moisturizer
over it, combed her hair and applied some lipstick.

She looked better, felt better.

Felt better, but not like Gypsy Dugan.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.
"Gypsy, Nan Simmonds is here to see you. Nan, from your show."

Gypsy stared at her reflection and wondered
if she could pull this off. In the hospital she had smiled and
nodded while visitors talked to her. She had asked questions. No
one had expected more of her.

This was Nan Simmonds, and intuition told
her that more, much more, was going to be expected.

"I'll be there in a moment." She retied the
sash of her robe and unfastened the top button of her gown. Then as
gracefully as she could wielding crutches, she swung her way
through her bedroom--narrowly avoiding the lion to the east--and
made her way into the living room.

She recognized Nan immediately, from hours
of watching
The Whole Truth
. She was smaller than Gypsy had
expected her to be, with abundant golden hair, a thin, pinched-off
nose and Kewpie doll lips. She was dressed in a pink suit
guaranteed to make Barbie trill with delight. Tears filled her eyes
as Gypsy made her way into the room.

"Oh, Gypsy, you poor baby. This is just so,
so awful. It's terrible to see you this way." Nan wrung her hands
like a heroine in an old-fashioned melodrama. "Poor, poor baby,"
she said with feeling. "You don't look like yourself at all."

There were no words truer. Gypsy waved her
fingertips toward the sofa. "Sit down. I don't know if there's
anything in the kitchen to offer you, but I can find out."

"Do not trouble yourself! You take a seat. I
just won't have you relapsing on account of me."

Gypsy had the strangest feeling that Nan
would like nothing better than to provoke a little relapse--except
possibly a big relapse. She lowered herself carefully to a chair
that was really no more than a large drum covered in what appeared
to be goat hide. "It was good of you to come, Nan," she said,
knowing by now that it wasn't good at all. Her best instincts
signaled trouble, even without Casey's warning.

"I brought you daisies. Your maid has
them."

"Perry's my nurse, not my maid. Actually,
she's more a friend than anything."

Nan seated herself on the sofa and folded
her hands primly in her lap. "Well, I tried to come to the
hospital, you know, but Casey would not let me in to see you. He's
much too proprietary, Gypsy. You really must rein that man in."

"I'd sooner rope and brand a wild
stallion."

"Well, he's been over the top since you left
the show."

Gypsy held up her hand. "I didn't exactly
leave the show. It's more like the show went on without me for a
while."

"Then you really do intend to come back?"
Nan batted her baby blues. "I thought maybe your priorities had
changed."

"What priorities are those?"

"When life smacks some people in the face,
they adjust to . . . a different life. They paint. They become
organic farmers. They travel. I thought maybe. . ."

"Well, I had thought a little about joining
a Himalayan monastery, but I was too tall for the robes."

"Now you're making fun of me. You always do
that."

You always do that. For some reason the
words gave Gypsy a warm glow. Maybe she was part Elisabeth
Whitfield, a large part Elisabeth even, but there was still some
Gypsy Dugan in the old girl yet.

"I'm planning to rejoin the show as soon as
I can." Gypsy hadn't even realized that decision was made. But
there it was. She had wanted to be Gypsy Dugan, and she was going
to be. She had given up a lot for this. An unfaithful husband, a
stultifying social whirl, newspaper articles for wealthy
suburbanites. A whole heck of a lot.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? Have you
really thought this through, Gypsy? Sure, some of the viewers have
missed you, but the show did go on, if you know what I mean. And
they've gotten used to a different look now."

Gypsy had watched
The Whole Truth
while she was in the hospital, avidly watched it, in fact. The show
certainly did have a different look. Nan sat behind the anchor desk
now, and apparently she liked her seat. "I've given it the gravest
consideration," she said. "And I plan to do everything I can to
restore order, as soon as I get back."

"Order?"

"Of course. That's what you're talking
about, right? Sloppy direction. Maudlin scripts. And who's
supplying your wardrobe these days? The Madison Avenue Salvation
Army? I just don't know how you stood it so long without my help.
But I'm back." She dimpled. "In one solid piece again and raring to
go."

Nan stood. "Well, I think you may be making
a mistake. It won't be easy for you to just take over after such a
long absence."

"I've seen the ratings, Nan. Des showed them
to me. He's dying for me to take over. Maybe you just didn't
notice." She got to her feet.

Nan dropped all pretenses. "I'm going to be
standing right in your way. Right smack dab in your way. I'm not
going to make it easy for you. You're going to have to fight me
every step. And you don't look too steady on your feet."

Without giving it a thought Gypsy swung a
crutch forward and used the tip to lift the hem of Nan's linen
skirt. It was a most un-Elisabeth response.

Nan pushed the crutch away. "You might be
surprised what this poor, crippled baby can still do," Gypsy
said.

Gypsy was standing in the same spot minutes
later when Perry found her. Nan had left with a flourish.

"She told me to put those daisies in water,
so I put them down the disposal. Used lots of water to do it."
Perry cocked her head. "You all right?"

Gypsy wasn't sure. But she thought there was
a chance, just the smallest possibility, that she might be all
right someday.

There wasn't much in the apartment to help
Gypsy determine facts about the woman she had become. The decor was
a clue. She liked fantasy and flash and wasn't afraid to expose
that part of herself for everyone to see. She was a sensual woman,
who liked fur and satin, long soaks in the huge whirlpool, the feel
of Egyptian cotton sheets against her naked skin--there was a
not-so-surprising lack of nightwear in her wardrobe.

She was not a fan of subtlety. One wall of
her bedroom was nearly covered by a painting of a mighty Arabian
stallion mounting a terror-stricken mare. Her closet was filled
with designer clothes that screamed both her flamboyant style and
personal success. She liked heavy-handed oriental scents and
lingerie that left nothing to the imagination.

There were no cookbooks to point the way to
her eating habits. There were delivery menus. She seemed to prefer
cheap Chinese and expensive pizza. Her appointment book was so
crowded that notes ran up and down the borders of each page.
Obviously she was an extrovert who spent as little time alone as
possible.

Her collection of videotapes was
surprisingly eclectic. She liked everything from Casablanca to
something suspiciously titled Sleeping With Seattle. There was a
collection of Disney's greatest cartoon hits, a dozen unfamiliar
but noteworthy foreign films, and a wide selection of Hollywood's
greatest blockbusters past and recent. But the bulk of her
collection consisted of segments of
The Whole Truth
. The
tapes were carefully labeled and comprised a complete five year
history of the show and her two year rise to anchor.

She watched the tapes of her arrival on the
show, hoping to find more clues. The first one captured Gypsy, the
reporter. She had investigated three mysterious deaths in a small
Missouri town, as well as its sheriff, who was known to distill and
distribute a powerful brand of white lightning. Some people in the
town swore that the sheriff had tainted his latest batch and made
sure it went to opponents of his reelection, all now conveniently
dead.

Gypsy had searched out every one of the
sheriff's detractors. The barber straight out of Mainstreet
Mayberry, the church organist, the rival bootlegger. She'd wheedled
and flirted, and by the time she was finished, the sheriff had been
tried and convicted by anyone watching.

He wasn't guilty, which was briefly pointed
out at the end of a show that aired weeks later. Sophisticated
tests had proved that the three deaths were unrelated, victims of
coincidence. The town was a victim, too. After the first show the
sheriff had packed his bags and left town for good, and not a speed
limit or stop sign was being heeded while the town fathers searched
for someone to replace him.

But Gypsy had triumphed. Her debut was
splashy enough to grab some media attention. She photographed like
a dream, she was witty, sassy, and not afraid to boldly go where no
reporter with an ounce of conscience had gone before.

The public loved her.

Gypsy projected none of the self-righteous
belligerence that passed for style on competing shows. She was
utterly female, shrewdly using every feminine wile outlawed by the
women's movement. She quickly perfected her walk, her dimpled
smile, her clothes and jewelry. After the first month she learned
to cock her head and bat her lashes when she confronted
particularly reticent subjects. She learned to lean closer, and
sometimes she touched the men she interviewed with one provocative
finger. She promised everything with her eyes and body language,
and she delivered sensation and half-truths with such a flair that
she was quickly promoted up
The Whole Truth
food chain.