Mine, usually.
Suddenly I feel-sad? Out of balance. I help people. I track down criminals and confront corrupt politicians. Make the world a better place. I’ve devoted the last twenty-some years to being a good guy.
But tonight I’m alone in a cookie-cutter hotel room. Josh is cozy at home with his beloved daughter. Is that where I should be? What would I be giving up? What would I be getting? How do I know if it’s the real thing?
Back to reality. And I’m still holding the pillow. I plop it back in its place, shake off the memories. And the phone rings.
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.” All thoughts of Josh have vanished. Franklin, also at home, is spilling the latest from the newsroom. And the latest stinks. My voice rises to a squeak as I interrupt. “Susannah is changing our fake-purse story-to what?”
“Like I said, Charlotte. It’s not about you. It’s not about journalism. You know it’s about the ratings. The all-important November sweeps. You’re familiar with that, of course.” Franklin is using his Charlotte-calm-down voice, even pulling out his Mississippi drawl, which he knows I think is irresistible. He only uses it when he’s stressed. Or when he’s trying to charm his partner, the adorable Stephen. Or when he’s trying to get me to relax. It sometimes works on Stephen. It hardly ever works on me.
“Listen, Franko, Susannah’s a glitz-addled, glam-loving, ratings-addicted Chanel-worshipping…um, um, um…consultant.” I finally spit out the word. “Are we not reporters? Did we not go to journalism school in order to enrich, enlighten and inform? Would Edward R. Murrow do a story about how to tell if the purse you’re buying is fake?”
“Technically, I was the only one of us who went to journalism school.” Franklin’s voice has a smile in it now. “You majored in Shakespeare, if I remember correctly. And as I said, we offered to give them the inside scoop about where the fake bags come from. A big investigation. But they want-”
“They want shopping!” I stand, phone in one hand, pacing back and forth on the fake oriental rug, pointing one finger accusingly at no one. “This summer we got an innocent woman out of prison. Last fall, we broke the story of a mammoth insider-trading conspiracy. And now they want us to follow those with a story on how to tell whether your Fendi is really a Fakey? It’s pitiful.”
“It’s the demos,” Franklin replies. “Women aged eighteen to forty-nine want-”
“I’m eighteen to forty-nine,” I retort. For three more years, at least. Two, actually. I keep forgetting my intentionally ignored August birthday. “And what I want is a real story. So here’s what we’re going to do.”
By the time the room-service cart arrives with my grilled chicken salad with no onions or croutons and balsamic vinaigrette on the side, two Diet Cokes, a white wine and a pot of tea, Franklin and I have cooked up our scheme. We’re going to pretend to do the story about counterfeit designer bags Susannah Smith-Bagley and news director Kevin O’Bannon want for the November ratings sweeps. But we’re also going to work on a different story. The investigative story about phony bags we want to do. And then when our bigger and better story turns out to be an investigative blockbuster, they’ll forget about their wimpy little feature. It’s a gamble, we agree. And it could be somewhat professionally risky, we agree. But we both agree it must be done. And we have a month or so to pull it off.
“And, Franko, let me tell you what’s going to make it all possible.” I fill him in on Regine and her Designer Doubles luggage.
When I finish, he’s silent.
“Franko?” I prod him. “Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that just a gift from the journalism gods? I mean, if I hadn’t gotten off the plane, I never would have met her. Never gotten the lead on the purse parties. And now all we have to do is check out the Web site on the Designer Doubles card, and then plan our next moves.”
“Charlotte, one more thing,” Franklin says.
I hear the drawl again, which makes me put down my Diet Coke. And frown. What does he have to calm me down about now? I wait.
“Speaking of suitcases. I went to baggage claim to pick up yours, you know? When I went to pick up mine?”
I knew it. “Yeah?”
“Well, yours…didn’t arrive. It’s lost.”
I knew it. “What are the odds,” I begin, clipping each word. Bitter. “What are the chances that Every. Single. Time. I take an airplane, my luggage gets lost?”
“Well, according to the latest Department of Transportation statistics I checked,” Franklin replies, “on the airline we flew, an average of one out of every-”
Of course Franklin knows the real answer. I don’t want the real answer. I want my suitcase. Which has my-I won’t even think about what’s in it. The airlines always lose my suitcases. But I always put my name inside and I always get them back. This time will be no different.
“What did you bring me, Charlie Mac?” Penny’s scampering in front of me, then behind me, then trying to peer into my tote bag as we make our way up the walk to Josh’s front door. The last of the fiery dahlias lining the path are struggling to flower, the ancient sugar maples in his yard beginning to promise their fall intensity. Tradition has it they were planted by the blueblood Bexter family themselves when they founded their namesake academy just outside Boston more than a hundred years ago. Now faculty housing, which looks more like a cozy Cotswolds village, winds through the narrow streets. Josh, on the Bexter board and head of the English Department, lives at number 6. At Bexter, the lower the number, the higher the prestige.
“And how are you, Pen?” I ask with a smile. “I missed you, too.”
Penny ignores my mild attempt at sarcasm. Or maybe nine-year-olds are immune to comments or criticism from the girlfriend-of-their-divorced-father. Penny and I had a rocky start. I was invisible for a while. Next she went through a phase of referring to me as “Um.” As in, “Um, Mom always lets me stay up till ten.” That was followed by a month or so of territory-marking, consisting of her jockeying for position next to Josh in restaurants and movies, as well as her insistence on wearing Josh’s T-shirts as “dresses” at every possible moment. Then one day this summer, out of nowhere, she called me “Charlie Mac.” And that’s who I’ve been since then.
But although Penny now sees me, she doesn’t always hear me.
“And Aunt Maysie says the baby’s coming in three months. Like a Christmas present.”
Penny’s oversized Bexter sweatshirt, of course, belongs to Josh. The sleeves are rolled into doughnuts around her slender wrists. Her stick-straight brown hair is held back, unsuccessfully, with two pink butterfly barrettes. As always, she needs her bangs trimmed. She’s still in her beloved pink-flowered flip-flops, hanging on to summer.
“And she says the baby can be like my sister, too. Like my pretend sister. So she’ll be Molly’s real sister, and my pretend sister. And she says you’re going to do her radio show when she has the baby. It’s so cool your best friend is on the radio. And on TV, too. Like you. Are you going to be on the radio? Can I be on the radio with you? Molly says…”
“My flight was fine, thanks.” I continue my side of our separate conversations. “Crack of dawn. I came right here from the airport. Haven’t even had breakfast. I’ve got to get to the station soon and then back to the airport, but your Dad left me a phone message, saying to come right over.”
Then, I give up.
“And of course I brought you something,” I say. Defeated by a nine-year-old. As we reach the front door, I put down my bag, and give Penny a hug, feeling her little head burrow into my chest, smelling the shampoo in her tangle of nut-brown hair. I also pick up a faint scent of…chocolate? Could this be my new life? A daughter to greet me? A house in a neighborhood?