Once More With Feeling (22 page)

"I would never have used that as
evidence."

"Say it."

"Marguerite . . ."

"Say it."

Gypsy lowered her voice. "You have a child
living somewhere in Europe. You got pregnant your first year of
college, and you went to Paris to have the baby that summer.
Everyone thought you had gone to perfect your already-perfect
French. I was the only one you told. I went to stay with you on the
Left Bank for those last weeks of your pregnancy. And I was with
you when you gave your son to his new parents. You came home in the
fall, thinner and quieter, and picked up your life as if nothing
had happened."

"He is nearly thirty now. I have never
contacted him."

"And we haven't talked about this since the
day you put him in his new mother's arms."

"Do you know how I have regretted giving him
away?"

"I've guessed."

Marguerite looked at her. "Either you are
Elisabeth, or you are the most despicable, devious snoop and liar
on the face of the earth."

"I'm neither and somewhere in between. I'm
part Elisabeth Whitfield and part Gypsy Dugan. I have Gypsy's
impulses and Elisabeth's memories. You were right the other day
when you said that Elisabeth envied Gypsy. My life was a mess,
Marg. I was sinking fast. I'd watch Gypsy's show and I'd think:
'Why didn't I try harder to be all the things I wanted? Why did I
settle for so little . . .'"

"I cannot absorb this. It's simply
impossible."

"I know."

"Why . . . Why did you tell me?"

"Because I need your help."

"What could I possibly do for you?"

"I'm going to be Gypsy Dugan. I . . .
realized last night that I've been given a miraculous chance, a
chance most people can't even imagine. But there's a part of me
that can't let go of Elisabeth and her life. Not completely. I have
to know what's happening. I have to know about Grant and my
friends--"

"And Owen?"

Gypsy was silent.

"He is devastated, Elisabeth."

"Gypsy. You have to call me Gypsy, because
that's who I am now. And Owen didn't look too devastated that last
day in the hospital. He looked as if he were getting all the
comfort one man could handle."

Marguerite sighed. "Anna."

"I don't want to know about Anna. Nothing
about her. And I don't want to know about Owen, either. Or I won't
be able to do this, Marg. I can't live this life if I'm always
thinking about him."

"All right."

"Will you do it? Will you help me? Will you
be my eyes and ears?"

"I think I am in the midst of a very bad
dream."

"I felt that way. But it's not a dream. It's
an opportunity."

"Pardon me, but you sound like an
advertisement for the afterlife."

"I don't think this is the afterlife. I
think it's . . . something else, something that's not supposed to
happen and did. I think Gypsy Dugan . . . the other Gypsy Dugan,
could sell heaven with a lot more assurance than I can."

"Then you don't think she . . . that part of
her . . . is in Elisabeth's body?"

"No. I think she died. Period. Whatever that
means."

"Why is Elisabeth still alive?"

"You're asking me? I'm not the expert. I've
just been caught up in the whirlwind."

"I'm going home, and when I wake up, it will
still be early morning, and none of this will have happened."

"Good luck." Gypsy took Marguerite's hand
and squeezed it. "Be with me on this, Marg. Please. Help me. You're
the only person I could tell."

Marguerite didn't respond.

"Will you answer my calls?" Gypsy asked.

"I suppose I should be grateful you only
want a little information. You came back from the dead. You could
have asked me to help you found a new religion."

"Then you'll help?"

Marguerite withdrew her hand. "Let me go
now. Let me think." She walked away, her back straight, her head
high. But the woman who stood and watched, the woman who knew her
better than anyone in the world, could tell from the way Marguerite
held her shoulders that she wanted to cry.

The Whole Truth
's studios were
located in a red brick building on the Upper East Side, in a
neighborhood with enough bars to keep the hard-drinking reporters
happy and enough churches to give them a fair chance at repentance.
Rockefeller Center, with its tourist charm and broadcasting elite,
had little in common with the rough-hewn city block where "nothing
but the truth" was supposed to flourish.

Gypsy, with one of the Billy Boys keeping
careful watch over her, stood in front of the studio and indulged
in her own moment of truth. "Well, it looks . . ." She was speaking
to Perry, so there was no need to pretend. "Like a building," she
finished.

"Try, 'nothing much has changed, has it?'
That ought to be as good as anything else once you get inside."

"I'm going to be the mistress of vague by
the time today is over."

"You're going to do fine, sugar lump. No
reason to think any different. You're going to walk on in there and
they're all going to throw themselves at your feet."

Gypsy practiced her smile, but it was a
strained version at best. "Thanks for agreeing to come with
me."

"They're going to figure out right off that
you don't need a nurse," Perry warned. "They're going to wonder why
I'm there."

Perry was there to help Gypsy pick up clues.
The two women had discussed her role at length. Perry, who seemed
in no hurry to get to her next nursing assignment, had promised
that she would stay on for a few more days. Then she was moving out
and on.

"Just take my pulse every once in a while,
or warn me I ought to sit down and rest a little if someone starts
grilling me too closely."

"Kind of business you're in, there's always
someone grilling you. High pressure all the way. By the end of the
day your pulse'll be beating time faster than the Sick Puppies'
drummer."

Gypsy was already later than she'd planned.
She hadn't realized how much time it would take the Billy Boy in
attendance, a young man named Dan who was interchangeable with all
the other young men who guarded her, to take one of a thousand long
routes to the studio. He had informed her that the direct route was
too predictable.

She took a deep breath and six steps to the
front door. The chaos began the instant she stepped into the
lobby.

Security waved her through with a smile.

"Miss Dugan." The receptionist at a desk by
the elevators rose to her feet. "No one told me you were coming
back today." She gave a wary smile, as if she wasn't sure to cheer
or stick out her tongue. "You look wonderful."

Gypsy guessed that this plain-featured woman
in the no-nonsense blue suit had hoped that she wouldn't look
wonderful at all. She wondered how many of the other people she was
about to encounter would be filled with the same kind of
ambivalence. "Thank you. . ." Her eyes flicked to the woman's
badge. "Carol."

Carol had seen the slight movement of her
eyes. She smiled almost smugly. "It's so brave of you to come back
after such a serious injury."

"Not serious enough for some people, I
suspect." Gypsy dimpled, to take the sting out of her words. "How's
your husband?" She had noted the wedding ring on Carol's finger.
"And the kids?"

Carol's eyes widened. "Great. Thanks for
asking. I brought my oldest daughter in to spend the day here a
couple of weeks ago. You know. To see what I do."

"I'm sorry I missed her. Next year bring her
in and she can spend the day in the studio with me."

If Carol's eyes had widened any farther,
they would have taken up most of her face. "That's so kind."

Gypsy smiled her good bye and started toward
the elevators. "How'd you remember she has kids?" Perry asked.

"I didn't. But she has a crayon smudge on
her blouse."

"Good detective work. Keep it up."

The elevator doors opened and a small army
stepped off. Gypsy was immediately enveloped in hugs and coos. By
the time she and Perry got on and the doors closed again, she had
learned a few important points. The men who knew Gypsy Dugan were
genuinely happy to see her back at work. The women weren't quite so
sure.

"I don't think I'd be at the top of an
in-house popularity poll," Gypsy said as the elevator squawked its
way from floor to floor.

"Oh, I don't know. The older guy was trying
to look down your blouse, and the younger one was resting his hand
on your butt like he owned it."

"He did not."

"Maybe you didn't feel it, baby doll, but it
was there."

"I think the women were hoping I'd turned
into a slobbering idiot."

"Any of them familiar?"

"Two." Gypsy had recognized the oldest man,
Kevin O'Flynn from her hours of viewing. He was a regular reporter,
usually off on location in some Kansas cornfield looking for U.F.O.
landing sites or haunted Indian burial grounds. Kevin was the
leader of a rat pack of roguish Irishmen, one of Tito Callahan's
homeboys who was reputedly quick with his fists and razor sharp
comebacks.

One of the women, Loretta Somebody-Or-Other,
had been familiar, too. Along with some other staff, she had made a
brief visit to the hospital.

All hell enveloped Gypsy when she stepped
off the elevator. She hadn't really known what to expect, but she
hadn't expected chaos. The newsroom was a free-for-all. What passed
for desks looked as if they had been strewn around the huge room at
random. A table in the far corner was being used as a cot. A black
man of Sumo wrestler proportions lay sprawled across its surface,
arms and legs dangling. His snores were audible over the hubbub.
The desks were as likely to be used for chairs as surfaces to write
or store papers. People, most in casual dress, wandered from desk
to desk, using the closest telephone or pencil sharpener, as if the
concept of ownership was a bourgeois dialectic they had
rejected.

She was immediately scooped up, pummeled,
and crowed over. She looked over her shoulder to see how Perry was
faring. She had been swamped by the newsroom horde, but she was
holding her own, introducing herself and making her way to Gypsy's
side with single-minded tenacity.

"Hello everybody," Gypsy managed. Some of
the horde looked familiar, either from telecasts or as hospital
well-wishers-- although in the confusion she wouldn't have been
able to say exactly which was which. "Look, I'm thrilled to be
back, but you're going to have to give me a little air here, or I'm
going right straight back to the hospital."

The seas parted. She was surprised by the
fervor of the greeting. The people who had surrounded her seemed
genuinely pleased to see her. Male and female alike.

A vaguely familiar-looking brunette with
tortoiseshell glasses and a Dutch boy bob took her arm. "Do you
need to sit down? Can we get anything for you?" She popped a wad of
gum in emphasis.

Gypsy measured the question. She couldn't
detect a trace of malice in the woman's voice. "Nope. Listen
everyone. Thanks a lot for the welcome. Really. But I just want to
get back to work. That's all. I'll need your help, because frankly,
I'm not a hundred percent yet. But I know I can count on everyone
here." And strangely enough that seemed to be true.

The brunette squeezed her arm, then dropped
it. "Let's get you to your desk." And as naturally as if she had
always escorted Gypsy there, she steered her to the wall lined with
large cubicles separated by dark paneling and giant panes of glass.
Gypsy's, it seemed, was in the corner.

The woman stepped back at the doorway, then
followed her in, with Perry trailing behind. "I visited you in the
hospital for a few minutes just before you were discharged. I'm
Kendra Scott," she said. "And Desmond told me you're still having
problems with your memory. We're not going to tell everyone exactly
how much trouble unless it seems absolutely essential. I'll hover
for a while, if that's all right with you, and help you get
reacquainted."

"I can't thank you enough." Gypsy wandered
the small office, lifting a blown glass vase off the desk. "What's
your job here, Kendra?"

"Research. Token head of the snoop
department. That means I get to give the newbies the jobs I'm not
interested in. But everyone on staff does whatever they have to.
They need someone to hop a plane and set up a shoot in Rangoon, and
I'm the only one that's not already off in Timbuktu, then I do
that, too."

"I don't remember everything being so . . .
uncontrolled."

"Hey, this is controlled. It's still early.
Wait until it's time to ride the bird, and Des finds out that his
lead story's a minute short because the legal suits say we have to
cut the best part."

"That happens often?"

"That or something worse. We're glad you're
back, Gypsy. There are people in this room who would cheerfully
have taken your place in that wreck."

Gypsy looked up. Someone
had
taken
her place, but she knew better than to go into that. "Why?"

"You can be a real bitch," Kendra said
cheerfully, popping gum with every other word. "But everyone knows
where they stand with you. And you've gone to bat for us more times
than I can say."

"I have?"

"Oh, the self-serving lies I could get away
with today. My integrity's in for a big test, isn't it?" Kendra
grinned. "But that was the truth. See, the way you play it is this.
You have a hierarchy . . ." She paused. "Do you remember this?"

"Go on. You're doing fine."

"Well, you have people on lists. The people
you compete with directly, you know, Nan, in particular, hate your
guts and you hate theirs. That's list number one. There there are
the people you tolerate, but you watch your back with them. People
like Kevin and Loretta--"