“I like that. Find me a kid who crossed because they wanted to be on reality TV. Something with a twist.”
“Are you kidding?” Rose leaned forward. “That’s impossible, and strange.”
“I’m not saying that exactly. I mean something along those lines. You know what I mean, right, Jenna?”
Jenna nodded.
“What do you have for me, Rose?”
Normally, she’d have a dozen possibilities at her fingertips, but she was so addled from lack of sleep, nothing clicked in.
Tyler sat back in his chair and began orbiting, as they all liked to call it, using a small white rubber ball suspended by a thin string from the white ceiling tiles above his desk. When he got irritated, he’d fling it in wide circles around the room, catching it as it flew by him, then sending it back around. Anyone close by was forced to weave and duck to avoid getting hit.
“Have you ever heard of the Barbizon Hotel for Women?”
Every female intern and editor nodded. Rose smiled. Sylvia Plath hadn’t died in vain.
“What about it?” Tyler asked.
“Back in the day, it was the place to stay if you were a single girl in New York City. Turns out there are a dozen or so older women who still live there—they were grandfathered in after it went condo. I could do a story about what their lives are like now.”
“I’m sorry, but why does our audience care about a bunch of old ladies?” Tyler swung the ball so violently, Rose was worried it would break free of its tether.
He had a point. Why should WordMerge readers care about relics from another century who still wore white gloves to walk their dogs?
Because she recognized a kernel of her own life in theirs, and so would other women. The pitch came to her in a flash. “There’s one with a terrible scar down her face. She was stabbed by a maid in the 1950s, apparently. The maid then fell to her death from the terrace. I could talk to her, use her tragedy to draw readers into the story.”
He stopped the ball in mid-flight and looked at her with interest. “How bad’s the scar?”
“Um, I’m not sure. She always wears a veil.”
“Get her to show her face, get photos, video, and we’ll do something about the tragedy. We’ll revisit it, and then find something that’s happened today to set against it. Find that model who got slashed in the eighties. We can compare and contrast.”
A truly ghastly idea. But Rose knew better than to say so. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Excellent. And bring in Jason for visuals.”
“Jason?”
“Freelance video guy. He’ll be able to guide you so you don’t get all mushy on me. Let’s go, who’s next?”
Rose sat back, annoyed. At least he’d finally stopped flinging that ball. And she’d gotten the green light.
After Tyler gave his usual, annoying dismissal (“Back to your cubes, warriors!”), Rose went downstairs and picked up a cup of coffee from the lobby store. She headed outside, south down Tenth Avenue, and checked her phone. Nothing from Griff, not a text, not a voice message. The morning roar of the traffic was deafening, so she turned east onto a quieter cross street and dialed.
“Rose.”
She was surprised he’d picked up, after the way she’d stormed out last night, spending a few hours with Maddy at the bar before returning to a Griff-less apartment. She had to give him kudos for facing the music.
“Griff, we have to talk.” Everything she said was preprogrammed, the litany of sentences passed on through time when one person rejected another.
“I know, and we will. I am so sorry about this.”
“Why do you have to go back? I had no idea; you didn’t give me any warning you were unhappy.”
He sighed. “It’s not like that. I realized it’s not about my happiness. I am happy, happier, with you. But until the girls are more stable, I can’t leave them. We think Miranda has a serious illness.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s very possible she has bipolar disorder. We’re trying to find out more.”
“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t argue with him. Sicknesses of the mind were just as terrible as those of the body, no different from cancer. Like her father, spiraling out of control, getting worse every day. “What are you going to do?”
“We’re finding a treatment center for her. It’s complicated, and that’s why I have to be around right now.”
“Do you think, once the crisis has passed, you might come back? That we could pick up where we leave off?”
“Perhaps. If you want that. I don’t know if you’d want that by then.”
“Neither do I.”
Of course she would. Why kid herself? She’d invested three years in their relationship, and letting go wasn’t easy.
“God, Rose, this is torture. I know I keep saying this, but I’m so sorry to do this to you.”
His voice was heavy, sad. If only he’d confided in her, told her what was happening. She knew Miranda was difficult, but assumed it was typical teen drama. A passing my-parents-ruined-my-life-by-getting-divorced kind of thing.
“I just wish you’d said something sooner. I might have helped.”
“It’s not for you to fix. It’s for me and Connie.”
Rose checked her watch. She should be getting back. “Can we keep on talking?”
“Of course. I’m going to Albany with the mayor for a few days. We’ll talk when I get back.”
Back in her cubicle twenty minutes later, Rose’s phone rang. Maddy calling for an update. She whispered a quick rehash of her conversation with Griff.
“You’re out of your mind.” Maddy was never one to hold back. “You need to be getting angry, not acting like an understanding suck-up.”
That hurt. “I’m not sucking up.” Rose ducked her head down, hoping for a smidgen of privacy. “He’s going through something awful, just like me and my dad. If I’m calm and reasonable about the situation, he might come to his senses later.”
“Do you really want a man like that?”
“What, one who cares for his children? Yes, in fact, I do.”
“Plenty of men get divorced and care for their children without having to go back to their ex-wives. It’s more than that. He’s giving you the sympathetic version because he knows you’ll fall for it.”
If she were Maddy, she’d toss Griff off the nearest cliff, but his actions weren’t so cut-and-dried in Rose’s mind. Griff was a man with a sick child, desperate to make her better.
A sharp pain seared along her scalp, the beginnings of a bad headache. Maddy had a point, Griff had a point. She didn’t know what to think.
“I’m not prepared to blow it all up yet. And I don’t think he is, either.” She rubbed her temples with her thumb and ring finger. “Please, Maddy, I need your support. Neither of us has kids, so we can’t really know what’s going on in his head.”
“Touché. I have enough stress from my sweet baby stepmonsters, never mind dealing with genetic offspring. But promise me you won’t wait around for him for too long. You deserve better.”
Rose promised and hung up, then lost herself in the research for the Barbizon story, a welcome distraction from her troubles.
The apartment was as desolate as ever when Rose finally made it home. Griff’s suits, the ones he wore every day, were missing from the closet, his sock and underwear drawers empty and left half-open.
She flung herself on the bed, hoping for a good cry, but when no tears came, she got up and sat by the window. Would it be better if she tossed the rest of his suits out onto the street below?
No. She needed to bide her time, let him return to Connie and see how awful it was, then allow him back with certain provisions. They had to get married, buy furniture, see a counselor. She mentally checked off a list one by one. If only she’d hired an interior designer to furnish the damn apartment in one fell swoop. Perhaps if he’d felt more settled, or even financially invested, he’d have stuck around. At the very least, then she’d have a nice place to stay, for a while. Instead of this tomb.