The Winners Circle (16 page)

Mang stopped the cameras.

“
What is that?” Edlow grimaced, pointing up to second floor roof.

“
It’s just a camera,” Mang said.

“
I know what it is.” Edlow nervously brushed a hand over his bald spot.

“
I want brief overheads to cut in the mix.”

“
No, no, none of that. No overheads.”

“
Shane.”

“
I’m serious.”

Mang’s shoulders dropped. He glanced to his assistant. “Break it down.”

One of the interns burst onto the set. She nearly tripped over a carton of nails in the foyer. “We’ve got an emergency.”

“
What is it now?” Mang sighed.

“
There’s been an accident in the barn.”

“
Did someone break something?”

The intern looked frazzled. “Babs cut off her finger.”

Edlow tossed his hands in the air. “Not again!”

Everyone glanced at the show’s host.

“
She did this in San Francisco four years ago. I warned you, Mang.”

Mang sighed again.

The crew funneled through the main hall and onto the lawn like a crowd exiting a movie theatre, but the real show lay ahead. Babs sat on her truck tailgate. A blood-soaked rag wrapped her left hand, and she fisted a can of Heineken in the other. The interns fussed over her. They wiped her head with a towel and brushed the hair from her eyes.

“
I’m sorry, M&M.” Babs cried while sipping beer. Foam dribbled down her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

Jerry lagged in the back, peering over everyone’s head. An open cooler sat beside Babs on the tailgate. He swore that he saw a loose finger zippered inside a plastic baggie on ice.

“
I’m bleeding like a motherfucker,” Babs said. “Fucking table saw.”

Mang looked pale. Edlow headed for his trailer to lie down. No one uttered a word.

“
Where’s the hospital around here?” Mang asked.

“
I’ll take her.” Jerry moved through the crowd. He didn’t have to push. People normally stepped aside for him.

He reached Babs and extended a hand to help her up. He prayed she didn’t offer the one with the bloody rag. “Come with me.”

“
Thanks, sweetheart.” She got to her feet, glancing at him like they’d never met. “Want a brewski?”

For the holidays, the Winners Circle met in the backroom of a tavern by the West Trenton railway station. Jerry assumed the corner seat and studied the party. Green and gold tinsel decorated the walls, intertwined with white blinking lights. He saw Arlene sneaking a smoke by the fire exit. She wore a mink stole and a dyed mink Santa hat. Tom lingered near the appetizer spread, scarfing puff pastries by the handful. Dick mingled with the two dozen guests, clasping hands and touching base. Jerry awaited the moment when Dick reached him.

“
Merry Christmas.” Dick sat beside Jerry with a plate of celery and carrot sticks and a glass of champagne. He wore a camelhair jacket and black alligator loafers.

“
Tom looks good,” Jerry said. “Has he lost a little weight?”

Dick glanced back. “Not for long.”

“
The holidays can be a killer.”

“
How’s the house coming?”

“
Good.” Jerry just assumed Dick saw it on TV like everyone else and was making small talk. “The floors should be finished by the end of January, and then I need to find furniture.”

“
Are you hiring a decorator?”

“
Only the best.”

“
It’s an awesome project.”

“
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. On Saturday, they’re showing the roof episode.”

“
I’m surprised you went through that much trouble.”

“
I know. I could have built a new house for less money.”

“
That’s part of it.”

Jerry was used to Dick’s probes. “What else?”

“
I was wondering why you chose that house.”

“
You mean my old house.”

“
The one you and Chelsea used to share. If it were me, I’d find a new place. No memories.”

Jerry fidgeted with his cocktail napkin, folding it in one hand as if performing blind origami. “I like the land.”

“
That much? Yesterday, I saw a lovely plot in Hopewell atop a hill. Twenty acres, I think it was.”

“
Sounds nice.”

“
I would have started fresh.”

“
That’s you.” Jerry grew warm beneath his cashmere collar.

“
If it were me, I’d move out.”

“
I get your point.”

Dick drained his champagne, eyeing Jerry past the stem of the glass. “You’ve been missing meetings.”

“
The house takes a lot of energy.” In truth, Jerry felt useless during the restoration process, and countless times, he’d swapped his good shoes for a pair of work boots and started swinging a hammer or carrying sheetrock.

“
You’re busy at night?”

“
I didn’t sign up for anything when I joined the Circle.”

“
No, but …”

“
You better come out and say what’s on your mind.”

Dick’s focus was searing. “What’s this house really about?”

Jerry wanted to slap Dick for bringing this up at the party. “It’s about making a dream come true. You know about dreams.”

“
Is it your dream or Chelsea’s?”

Jerry didn’t answer. Dick was only trying to help, but damn him. Jerry scanned the room. No one probably noticed how red he was getting.

“
Jerry?”

Jerry rose from the table. He walked halfway across the room, considering a glass of wine or beer, but he saw the separation in the room divider and instinctively stepped through it. A minute later, he was driving back to his penthouse at the Hyatt.

By February, construction on the farmhouse stopped, and Jerry joined the final walk-through with Mang and Edlow. Babs was back from her morning physical therapy appointment, barking orders at the carpet installers in the bedrooms upstairs. Her first weeks in AA were rough, and everyone cut a wide berth around her.

“
I remember Babs on the San Fran shoot.” Edlow walked into the remodeled kitchen. An island with a sink and European propane burners dominated the southern half of the room. A bank of circumnavigating windows offered stunning views of Jacob’s farm and the Sourland Mountains. “She was three weeks dry with a hard-on. Interns dropped off the set like lemmings.”

A loud thump shook the ceiling. Mang bristled every time Babs stomped her boots.

Jerry ignored it. He had the farmhouse within his grasp. It was Chelsea’s vision brought to fruition. Who cares what anyone else thought or did? Babs could drive ten-penny nails through the soles of his feet, and he wouldn’t care.

“
Let’s cue the lights and start filming,” Mang said, “before Babs brings the house down.”

“
I’m ready.” Jerry saw the final show taping as their ticket off his farm. The sound of birds and trees waited to assume the absence of buzzing saws and roaring equipment generators.

“
Accidents aside,” Mang said, “it’s been a pleasure working with you.”

Jerry was taken aback. He hadn’t received a genuine compliment in ages. He searched Mang’s hard-to-read face. “Thank you.”

“
You have an eye for detail. You know what you want.”

Jerry tucked the comment away in his mind.
Good deal
. Had he changed that much? He always knew what he wanted, but it was Chelsea who precipitated his ideas into reality.

Mang signaled the key grip, and the cameras began rolling.

“
Shane Edlow here. Today on Home Makers, we wrap up the Nearing farm, and it’s a beauty.”

“
Cut,” Mang said. “Let’s begin in this room and move out through the living room.”

A dark-haired woman in a pink dress wove through the production crew from the back of the room. She caught Jerry’s eye, but so many months had passed that he almost forgot who she was.

“
Gina?” Jerry said.

“
Hello, Jerry.” Gina Spagnoli looked different. Her cheeks appeared fuller, and her voice was lower and less assertive. “Your house is wonderful.”

“
What are you doing here?”

“
We need to talk.” She waddled from behind the kneeling soundman. Her body sloped backward, and her dress bulged at the waist. That extra part of her middle seemed to be directing her forward.

“
What happened to you?”

She looked down and pressed both hands gently against her waist, outlining the roundness of her belly. Her eyes rolled up with a surreptitious glance. “I’m pregnant.”

Mang heard the last part of the conversation and scooted around the island. “Is this your girlfriend?”

Jerry didn’t answer. He calculated quick numbers. How long was it? Seven months? Eight? Oh God, Gina looked ready to pop.

“
Why didn’t you mention her?” Mang’s face assumed more expression than ever before. It nearly twisted into a question mark.

Jerry’s mouth moved. “I didn’t think …”

“
This is super. Let’s get her in the shot.” Mang sent the crew into a new flurry of activity.

“
We can’t ...” Jerry’s voice was shaky. His arms and legs felt as if he’d soaked them in ice water.

“
Why not?”

“
Yes,” Gina bubbled. “Why not?”

Jerry considered a dozen reasons, none of which he cared to reveal on public television. “Let’s just go with the original.”

“
This is super.” Mang waved Gina closer. “Totally candid.”

Jerry detested Mang’s choice of words. Gina, and that thing inside of her, was as super and candid as a drive-by shooting.

“
Stop!” he yelled.

Everyone ceased moving. The room paused for an explanation. The new and improved Jerry Nearing hunted for a quick answer—a single prescience of thought that made Gina disappear from sight and satisfy the crew. He dug his hands in his pockets and released a nervous laugh, which he quickly heard and ceased mid-yuk. Then he thought of a candid response of his own.

“
Gotta go.” Jerry exited the house and property, faster than it took Cortez to vanish into the trees.

His back pressed against the Porsche’s form-fitting seat, as he raced out of the hills. He reached for his cell phone and dialed his lawyer, Ralph Tisch. He was the only man he knew who talked sense when he needed it.

“
This won’t be as easy.” Ralph Tisch sat with his feet on his desk. He’d just returned from St. Martin and sported the frankness and ease of a man disengaged from his everyday routine. “Not as easy as your divorce.”

Jerry braced himself. Nothing felt harder than his divorce. He’d been talking with Gina for days and didn’t like what he’d heard. “How do I know if Gina is carrying my child?”

“
Could it be yours?”

“
I only slept with her once.”

“
That’s all it takes.”

“
I know.”

“
We can ask for …”

Jerry’s cell phone rang. He held up a finger to silence Tisch and brought the receiver to his ear. “Yes?”

“
It’s me, Chel.”

“
Chelsea.” He’d been expecting her call.

“
I received your invitation in the mail. So you want me to see that big project of yours.”

He crossed his fingers, pulling his eyes away from the curious attorney. “It’s nothing really, just the magic of television.”

“
I bet it’s more than that. I’d like to see it.”

“
Good.” He tried not to sound excited. The invitation was just for a visit. “Hey, how about I cook dinner? We can do it any day you’d like.”

“
You want to go to the trouble?”

“
It’s no problem.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
How about Thursday, eight o’clock?” Jerry felt like a schoolboy, the one who held Chelsea’s hand beside the creek in Chesterfield.

“
I’ll try my best.”

He didn’t like the word ‘try.’ Why couldn’t she say yes or no? “We can do it another time.”

“
No, I want to come. I want to see the house.”

“
I’ll whip up something easy.”

“
You don’t have to.”

“
It’s no trouble.”

“
Alright then, I’ll see you at eight.”

He listened to the line disconnect, fighting the urge to over-analyze the conversation. When did Chelsea become so complicated? She used to come right out with whatever she had on her mind. He needed to wrench her away from Cogdon.

When Jerry folded up the phone, Tisch was flipping through the financial page in the
Wall Street Journal
. “Are you ready now?”