What's a Girl Gotta Do (23 page)

Susan Brave. Why was Griff investigating her?
Susan, Joanne – both people who had paid special attention to me
the night of the party. Now I knew why. They thought Griff had
given me something on them. Susan, Joanne, and me – the only people
I knew for sure he was investigating. What did we have in common,
aside from the fact that we were all women, roughly the same age,
single, in television, and had all, at one time or another, worked
for Greg Browner?

We had all worked for Greg Browner and it was
fair to assume Greg had sexually harassed all of us.

Perhaps Paul Mangecet did hire Griff to
investigate us, I thought, as the train lurched and staggered
through the semi-dark tunnel. Maybe he wanted control of Greg and
Greg’s stock and was trying to get the goods on him. Not only would
Mangecet get Greg’s stock, but he could get Greg’s “credibility”
and win more of the stockholders to his side. So maybe he wasn’t
investigating us so much as he was investigating Greg, and we were
just part of the web.

Who else was in the web? Madri Michaels
sprang instantly to mind. She and Greg were co-anchors for a while.
In fact, he had “found” her at an affiliates’ convention and
brought her to ANN to anchor weekends, before he elevated her to
sit on the evening news throne next to his a couple of years later.
I took it as a given he had not only put the moves on her, but that
he had succeeded.

When Greg hit on me and, in a fairly obvious
way, indicated it could help my career, I didn’t file a complaint
against him and I didn’t really talk about it. I know, I know. I
seem like the type to file a complaint, but I didn’t, and precisely
because I am that type. I have a reputation as a … bit of a
troublemaker and I didn’t think anyone would believe me, a lowly
writer with a known bad attitude – and a history of insanity in her
family – over him, a millionaire and a media force.

I have wondered since if I should have
complained, if it was, you know, my duty as a woman. But I’d been
lobbying for a reporter slot and after the stuff with Greg happened
and I was fired from his show, they plugged me into the weekend
reporting slot. I didn’t want to make waves.

This was starting to make sense to me. Griff
knew we wouldn’t complain. We were women who had been sexually
harassed in some fashion by Greg Browner and, out of our own
self-interest, kept quiet.

When I came up from the subway that night, I
had this eerie feeling I was being followed. At first it didn’t
frighten me, because it was relatively early, about eleven-thirty.
I expected to see a lot of people when I turned onto Avenue B. But
instead of the usual people hanging out on street corners,
congregating around burning trash barrels to keep warm, the streets
were deserted. The weather had turned colder and driven most people
inside. I turned around slowly and saw a tall man walking in the
shadows by an abandoned building. I couldn’t make out his features,
although when he walked beneath the streetlight I thought I caught
a glimpse of a tweed overcoat.

Damn. I’d been in such a hurry that morning
I’d forgotten to put my cologne in my bag, and I couldn’t find my
Epilady. Up ahead I saw the red-and-yellow awning of a bodega, a
little mom-and-pop Hispanic grocery, and I ran up to it and ducked
inside. Behind the counter, a fat man in a yellow T-shirt sat
leafing through a Spanish magazine. A portable black-and-white TV
was turned to a Spanish game show and all the contestants were
laughing at something the host had said.

The man looked up at me suspiciously. I acted
like a customer, walking down the shelves of Café Bustelo, dried
yucca, guava paste, and blue-and-yellow Goya cans towards the steel
and glass cooler in the back. Behind me the front door squeaked
open and a little bell rang. I froze midstep and looked up at the
round, fish-eye mirror wedged in the corner above the cooler to see
who it was. It was a kid, a teenager, maybe five feet tall. I
relaxed and let out a deep breath, then took a can of coffee and
went back to the counter.

Above me, a heating vent blew a gust of warm,
dusty air.

“Is that all?” the man asked. A tinny cheer
rose from the TV set.

“Yeah,” I said. I glanced out the window but
couldn’t see the tall man. Maybe I wasn’t being followed, I
reasoned. But in the event I was, a can of coffee in a plastic bag
could be a weapon.

Burke, after surveying my umbrella, my poison
ivy, and my spray cologne spiked with cayenne pepper, once asked me
if there was anything that couldn’t be a weapon if it fell into my
hands. The only thing I could think of was Jell-O.

“To you, the world is just full of weapons,
isn’t it?” he said.

Yep, and the world is full of reasons to use
them, I thought now, as I left the store, prepared in my heart to
bludgeon a man to death with a coffee can if necessary. But the man
had vanished.

As I approached my apartment building, I
heard footsteps and took off running and when I did the footsteps
stopped. But as I fumbled with my keys at my front door, I felt a
hand on my shoulder and a woman’s voice behind me said, “Robin? May
I talk to you?”

I wheeled around. There stood Amy Penny,
bundled up against the cold in a preppy camel-hair coat, blowing
warm air into her gloved hands.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “May I come in? It’s
really important.”

“Oh, why the hell not,” I said. I was really
aggravated now, but I wasn’t about to leave her alone on my street.
With her Upper East Side dress and affected ways, in my
neighborhood, she was a property crime just waiting to happen. “No
point freezing your ass off out here.”

I opened the door for her.

“That perfume you’re wearing,” she said as we
waited for the elevator. “Is that … “L’Heure Bleue?”

“Yes,” I said. The elevator came.

“I thought so,” she said, and started crying.
Mr. Grooper from the third floor got off as I shepherded her into
the elevator.

“Don’t cry for Christ’s sake. Please? Tell me
what’s bothering you, and then tell me why I should give a
shit.”

But Amy Penny was crying so hard she couldn’t
talk through her convulsive sobs.

“This is my floor. Come on,” I said, leading
her through the dim hallway. I opened the apartment door and waved
her in. “Don’t mind the mess. I never do. And don’t talk too
loudly. The woman downstairs …”

“I didn’t know what else to do but come
here,” she blurted.

“Have a seat,” I told her as I threw my coat
onto a pile of newspapers.

The poor girl looked helplessly at the sofa,
which was covered with magazines and clothes.

“Just brush them off onto the floor,” I said.
“Seltzer?”

“Thanks.”

“Tell me why you’re here.”

“This is really awkward,” Amy said. I handed
her a glass and she dipped her beak before resuming. It was amazing
how she could drink without getting her lips wet. She continued
nervously. “Burke has been spending a lot of time away from home
the last week and he’s been really moody too, ever since the New
Year’s party.”

“So?”

She didn’t hear me. “I just knew he was
having a change of heart,” she said, tearing up again. “And then I
realized he was cheating on me.”

“Man, he doesn’t even wait for the body to
cool off, does he?”

“It isn’t funny!” she said sharply. “I know
what’s going on. Madri Michaels called me last Friday when she saw
you and Burke at Keggers so I followed him. I saw him come in here
and I saw him leave! I beat him home, just barely, but when he
walked in he was reeking of liquor and … and … L’Heure Bleue. I
know it was L’Heure Bleue, because I went to Macy’s at lunch today
and smelled it. And then he kissed you tonight in front of people I
know at Keggers …”

It was delicious. She thought her fiancé was
cheating on her with his wife. She started to sob again and only
the pathetic sight of her tears kept me from laughing out loud at
the ridiculousness of the situation, at the two of us sniffing
around each other like dogs over a sorry piece of animal carcass
like Burke Avery.

“Robin,” she said. “Are you having an affair
with Burke?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said.

“You know what I mean. Are you?”

“No. Burke and I were discussing the Griff
case. We drank a bit and he helped me get home because I drank too
much. He probably soaked up L’Heure Bleue in the taxi.”

“But Madri said—“

“Madri is full of shit, okay? Burke and I are
not reconciling.”

“How can I believe you?” she asked, then she
turned her dewy, fresh face and looked up at me with her Bambi
brown eyes.

“It’s not me you have to believe,” I said.
“Listen, I don’t like you. So you understand that if I was a
malicious person I’d tell you I was having an affair with Burke.
I’d give you dates, times, and motel room numbers. But I’m not
sleeping with Burke. Believe me when I tell you this, Amy. He
really hurt me and embarrassed me. That jerk kicked me when I was
down. All’s fair in love and war, and people fall out of love and
it’s nobody’s fault and all that, but I’d dance naked at Sing Sing
before I’d take him back.”

“Would you really?” she asked, apparently
cheered by this thought.

“Yes.” I wanted to hate her and I would have
been ruder to her, but she was being very nice and in contrast I
felt like a bit of a bitch. “Frankly, Amy, I don’t think he’s worth
all your tears. You’d be better off with a less good-looking, less
mixed-up fellow.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Oh yes, you would.” I insisted. “Living in a
constant state of jealousy isn’t a nice way to live.”

“I know,” she said softly. Our eyes met. “But
I can’t leave him now. I’m pregnant.”

I groaned. “He didn’t mention that little
detail to me.”

“He didn’t want to tell you. He thought it
might hurt you because you can’t … you know.”

“Have children … the conventional way.”

“Yes.” She burst into tears again. “I’m sorry
you can’t. I’m sorry, Robin. I’m sorry, so so sorry.”

“Well, it’s over. Forget about it. Burke must
be really happy. He always wanted to be a daddy.” I was behaving
very reasonably, I thought, but inside I was burning: I wasn’t
humiliated enough already, now you tell me my husband has
impregnated his fertile young fiancée. What other hell lay in wait
for me?

“I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said, taking
a monogrammed handkerchief out of her purse and delicately wiping
her eyes.

“It’s all right.” She probably wasn’t such a
bad sort, I thought. I was probably biased because my heart got
broken. The image of Burke and Amy together flashed in my mind, and
for the first time it looked right to me. Well, not right, but it
didn’t make me feel sick any more.

“Did you follow me from the subway?” I
said.

“No. I waited outside for you, inside the
doorway of the video store on the corner, until I saw you come up
the block.”

“Oh.”

“I’m really sorry to bother you this way. But
I had to know. I’m carrying his baby--”

“I get the point,” I said. “Congratulations
and all that. Forgive me if I’m not completely overjoyed.”

“I’m so sorry. You know, I couldn’t help but
fall in love with him … I wasn’t trying to break anything up.”

“Yeah, he’s got a way about him, doesn’t he?”
I said. I changed the subject as I didn’t much feel like saying
nice things about Burke to salve Amy’s feelings. Besides, I just
realized Amy could be very useful to me. “Listen Amy, I understand
you shared a cab with Madri on New Year’s Eve. Who got dropped
first, you or her?”

“She lives a little closer, so I dropped her.
Why?”

“Did you see her go in to her building?”

“Yes,” Amy said.

“Hmm. But she could have gone in and come
back out after you’d left, couldn’t she?” I mused aloud.

“She had to change to go on to another party,
she told me. So when I had to leave early, she was happy to go with
me.”

“Oh. Amy, I’m sorry if I drove you away from
the party,” I said, immature enough to try to salvage some small
victory from this whole situation.

“You didn’t. Not at all,” she said. “I said
it was flu, I know, but really it was morning sickness. They call
it morning sickness, but it hits at all different times.”

“You had morning sickness that night, and you
got into a New York taxi?”

She smiled. “I’d already thrown up my dinner.
Madri brought me a glass of soda and Eric helped us get a cab.”

“You threw up in the ladies’ room?”

“Well, not in the cab,” she said.

“A lot of people throwing up that night.
Susan, for example. Did you happen to see her in the next
stall?”

“I don’t remember seeing her,” Amy said.

It didn’t matter, because I remembered now;
I’d gone into the ladies’ room, and it was empty. I made a note to
call Susan.

“Hardly anyone knows about the pregnancy yet.
You won’t tell anyone, will you? I have my image to consider and
the divorce isn’t final …”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” I said.

“This is difficult for you. But you know,
there are silver linings. You can date again,” she said. “And you
get rid of your in-laws.”

I didn’t want to let her off this easily, but
she’d managed to find our common ground here. My soon-to-be
ex-in-laws, who live in East Percy Township, New Jersey, the
preserve of pearls at lunch and the Pat Nixon hairdo.

“Have you met Eileen and H.A. yet?” I
asked.

She nodded and smiled a small, wicked smile.
“They don’t like me so much. When Burke left you, Eileen was … um
…”

“Ecstatic,” I suggested.

“Um, well, happy. But then she met me. I
don’t come from a pedigreed family, you know. I come from people
who did fifteen cents’ work for every nickel they got paid.”