“Yes.” She turned tired eyes to the man removing the reel. “So?”
“I just thought it might make an interesting special for you, Mel. Follow her for a while, see what you can set up. What doctors here would be willing to see Pattie Lou.”
“Oh, for chrissake, Jack … Why does that have to fall on me? What am I, some kind of new welfare bureau for kids?” Suddenly she looked tired and annoyed, and the tiny lines beside her eyes were beginning to show. It had been a hell of a long day, and she had left her house at six o'clock that morning.
“Listen”—he looked every bit as tired as she—“this could be a hot piece. We get the station to help Pattie Lou's parents find a doctor for her, we follow her through the transplant. Hell, Mel, this is news.”
She nodded slowly. It was news. But it was ghoulish too. “Have you talked to the family about it?”
“No, but I'm sure they'd be thrilled.”
“You never know. Sometimes people like taking care of their own problems. They might not be so crazy about serving Pattie Lou up to the evening news.”
“Why not? They talked to us today.” Mel nodded again. “Why don't you check out some of the big-wheel heart surgeons tomorrow and see what they say? Some of them like being in the public eye, and then you could call the parents of that kid.”
“I'll see what I can do, Jack. I have to tie up my child-abuse piece.”
“I thought you finished that today.” He scowled instantly.
“I did. But I want to watch them edit some of it at least.”
“Bullshit. That's not your job. Just get to work on this. It'll be a much tougher piece than even the child-abuse thing.” Tougher than burning a two-year-old child with matches? Cutting off a four-year-old's ear? There were still times when the business of news made her sick. “See what you can do, Mel.”
“Okay, Jack. Okay. I'll see what I can do.” … Hello, Doctor, my name is Melanie Adams and I was wondering if you'd like to perform a heart transplant on a nine-year-old girl … possibly for free … and then we could come and watch you do it, and blast you and the little girl all over the news … She walked hurriedly back to her office, with her head down, her mind full, and collided almost instantly with a tall dark-haired man.
“My, don't you look happy today. Being on the news must be fun.” The deep voice, trained long ago as a radio announcer, brought her eyes up from the floor and smiled when she saw her old friend.
“Hi, Grant. What are you doing here at this hour?” Grant Buckley had a talk show that went on every night after the late news, and he was one of the most controversial personalities on the air, but he was deeply fond of Mel, and she considered him one of her closest friends, and had for years.
“I had to come in and check out some tapes I want to use on the show. What about you? It's a little late for you, isn't it, kid?” She was usually gone by then, but the story of Pattie Lou Jones had kept her around for an extra half hour.
“They saved an extra treat for me today. They want me to set up a heart transplant for some kid. The usual, no big deal.” Some of the clouds lifted from her face as she looked into his eyes. He was incredibly bright, a good friend, an attractive man, and women all over the network envied the obvious friendship they shared. They had never been more than just friends, although there were numerous rumors from time to time, but none of them true. They only amused Grant and Mel, as they would talk about it over drinks.
“So what else is new? How'd the special on child abuse go?”
Her eyes were serious as they met his. “It was a killer to do, but it was a good piece.”
“You have a way of picking the heavy ones, kid.”
“Either that, or they pick me, like this heart transplant I'm supposed to arrange.”
“Are you serious?” He had thought she was kidding at first.
“I'm not, but apparently Jack Owens is. You got any bright ideas?”
He frowned for a minute as he thought. “I did a show on that last year, there were some interesting people on. I'll look at my files and check the names. Two of them suddenly come to mind, but there were two more. I'll see, Mel. How soon do you need the stuff?”
She smiled. “Yesterday.”
He ruffled her hair, knowing she wasn't going back on the air. “Want to go out for a hamburger before you go home?”
“I'd better not. I should be getting home to the girls.”
“Those two.” He rolled his eyes, knowing them well. He had three daughters of his own, from three different wives, but none of them twins, or quite as adventurous as Mel's two girls. “What are they up to these days?”
“The usual. Val has been in love four times this week, and Jess is working on straight A's. Their combined efforts are defying all my efforts to remain a redhead, and giving me gray hair.” She had just turned thirty-five, but she looked as though a decade of that had gotten lost somewhere. She looked nowhere near her age, despite the responsibilities she bore, the job which weighed heavily on her at times, but which she loved, and the assorted crises that had come through her life over the years. Grant knew most of them, and she had cried on his shoulder more than once, about a disappointment at work, or a shattered love affair. There hadn't been too many of those, she was cautious about whom she saw, and careful too about keeping her private life out of the public eye, but more than that she was gun-shy about getting involved after being abandoned by the twins' father before they were born. He had told her he hadn't wanted kids, and he had meant every word he said. They had married right out of high school and gone to Columbia at the same time, but when she told him she was pregnant, he didn't want to hear.
“Get rid of it.” His face had been rock hard, and Mel still remembered his tone.
“I won't. It's our child … that's wrong …”
“It's a lot more wrong to screw up our lives.” So instead he had tried to screw up hers. He had gone to Mexico on vacation with another girl, and when he came back he announced that they were divorced. He had forged her signature on the forms, and she was so shocked that she didn't know what to say. Her parents wanted her to fight back, but she didn't think that she could. She was too hurt by what he'd done, and too overwhelmed at the prospect of being alone for the birth of her child … which then turned out to be two. Her parents had helped her for a while, and then she had gone out on her own, struggled to find a job, and done everything she could from secretarial work to door-to-door sales for a vitamin firm. At last she had wound up as a receptionist for a television network, and eventually she had wound up in a pool of secretaries typing up pieces for the news.
The twins had thrived through it all, though Mel's climb hadn't been easy or quick, but day after day, typing what other people wrote, she knew what she wanted to do. The political pieces were the ones that interested her most, reminiscent of her college days before her whole life had changed. And what she wanted was to become a writer for the news. She applied countless times for the job, and eventually understood that it wouldn't happen for her in New York. She went first to Buffalo, then Chicago, and at last back to New York, finally getting work as a writer for the news. Until a major strike, when suddenly management looked at her and someone jerked a thumb toward the set. She was horrified, but she had no choice. It was either do what they said, or get her ass canned, and she couldn't afford that. She had two little girls to support, their father had never contributed ten cents and had gone on his merry way, leaving Mel to cope alone. And she had. But all she wanted was enough for them, she had no dreams of glory, no aching desire to deliver the stories she wrote herself, and yet suddenly there she was, on TV, and the funny thing was, it felt good.