Accidental prophet, p.7
Accidental Prophet, page 7
The regular Senate correspondent I’d temporarily replaced suddenly announced his family emergency miraculously resolved itself, and he rushed back to his beat the next morning. Loren called and offered me the assignment, but it felt obligatory on his part. I didn’t want the job anyway. He sounded relieved when I said I’d rather return to New York.
“But you’re not coming back just yet,” he said. “We want you to be one of the panelists this Sunday on The Press Report.”
Writing this more than forty-five years later, it’s difficult to remember the prestige and influence of the Sunday morning news discussion programs. Skilled partisans gave their points of view, but policy details dominated in the most informative shows on television. If a conspiracy theorist or an obvious liar got past the gates, the producer would have been given a warning and the guest exiled. The decline of these important public service programs into horn-honking, screeching propaganda circuses alarmed me for years, until I realized the situation was hopeless, and I stopped watching.
I told Loren I lacked the detailed policy background to be a sophisticated voice on an important program like The Press Report, hosted by journalism grandee Parker Elston, who’d been on television for as long as I remembered.
“Just relate your experience in getting the information first. We don’t want to bang our own drum too loudly, but we were the first to have the news and we’d like to make sure our viewers understand that.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, I can handle that.”
He chuckled. “If Parker Elston gives you any trouble, just mention the JFK funeral. He spent five minutes going on about the anguish of Rose Kennedy when the camera was showing Queen Frederica of Greece. He goes crazy when anyone mentions it. Besides, he’s retiring soon anyway.”
“Why would he give me trouble?” I guessed the answer. A veteran journalist like Parker Elston might resent a rookie national correspondent on his panel.
“He’s a traditionalist, which is another way of saying he’s an old cuss.” I felt a tug of alarm. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d heard a man who resented professional women described benignly as “traditional.” Loren dropped his voice. “And what about that other matter? Were you able to identify anyone in the photo?”
“I have someone in the DC area who might be able to tell me more. I promise to try before I return to New York.”
“Thank you,” he said with evident relief.
I searched the newsroom background files to study the senators on the Armed Services Committee. When I felt confident about delivering a few insightful points on The Press Report, I asked around for Bebe Bellingham’s contact information. One of the reporters knew a society editor at The Washington Post who gave me her phone number.
Bebe’s assistant answered. After I gave my name, I heard a muffled conversation before she returned. “Are you the reporter who broke the story about Vietnam funding?”
I replied with a startled, “Yes,” and asked if Bebe was available to discuss a personal matter regarding the gala for the Met. “I’ll be returning to New York on Sunday afternoon, which only gives us tonight and tomorrow, but I’d appreciate even just a few minutes of her time.”
After another consultation behind her hand, the assistant invited me to visit the next day.
I took a cab to the address in a leafy, tony Georgetown neighborhood. Stately Federal-style mansions lined the streets, as perfectly presented as gifts from Tiffany’s. I could imagine people strolling past these elegant brick homes in the flouncy fashions of the nineteenth century.
Bebe lived in a three-story town house, her front door a few steps up from the sidewalk. Her assistant answered the door. She was a younger, exceedingly polite woman who led me upstairs. “She’s very curious about meeting you.”
Bebe sat in a front parlor that overlooked the street, and I recognized her from the photo. She wore a flowing pink afternoon gown that draped dramatically about a high-backed chair, her dark hair a curving slope that fell to her shoulders where it swooped into a tight curl. Her makeup looked like it was applied as more of a lifetime habit than an attempt at beauty or to conceal her age. I guessed she was around sixty.
She invited me to sit with a wave of her hand. “My son is a senior manager for one of your rival networks. He told me about you, how an unknown reporter cracked the Senate and broke the week’s biggest story. I was very surprised and curious to get your call. You wished to ask about the fundraising gala for the Met?”
“Yes.” I removed the photo from the envelope and handed it to her. “I was wondering if you could identify the man next to you in this picture.”
“Why?” she said, even before glancing at it.
“There seems to be some confusion about his identity. I know it sounds like an uninspired lie, but I’m asking for a friend who would very much like to know his name.”
“I’d never met him before, but he claimed to be a professor of history at Columbia.”
“Do you recall his name?”
“Arthur Brittany, as in the French province. Despite his name, he was British. Old school British, it seemed to me.”
I scribbled into a narrow reporter’s notebook. “What do you mean by old school?”
“He was very cultured, very refined, and extremely well-spoken. I’m certain he has an aristocratic background but has the self-possession to refrain from saying so, which I applaud. There’s nothing more tiresome than a duke who won’t stop talking about how his grandfather squandered the family fortune on dance hall floozies and racing cars.”
“Did he say where in England he came from?”
“No.”
“His age?”
She shook her head.
“How about where he lives now?”
“No.” She returned the photo to me. “He did say something odd. I asked his favorite historical period, the sort of silly question one asks an historian since there’s nothing else to talk about. He replied he was particularly fascinated with the Plantagenet dynasty. When I asked why, he said he’d experienced it for himself.” She flipped her hand. “I asked him to clarify, but of course he only gave me an enigmatic smile, as if it were a riddle, which I had no interest in pursuing. It was a momentary thing.”
“He’d experienced it for himself?”
“It made no sense to me, either. That’s why it stuck with me.”
I vaguely remembered the name Plantagenet from grade school history books, mostly for how strange it looked on the page. “Do you know anything about the Plantagenets?”
“Not a thing.”
I wrote the name down and made a mental note to go to the library.
The next morning after the makeup artist finished with me, I arrived on the set of The Press Report. You might imagine the host sat down with the media panel before the show to go over the topics and hash out important details. You might imagine we compared notes, identified conflicting accounts, and anticipated areas of disagreement. You’d be wrong. I arrived on set without the slightest idea of what we were going to discuss in front of millions of Americans.
I took my spot in a modish red chair, shaped like something out of The Jetsons. The other two panelists, both men, worked for The New York Times and U.S. News & World Report. We faced Parker Elston himself, who looked much older in person. He gave me a skeptical look as the others congratulated me on my scoop.
“I’m afraid I’m no expert on the Senate,” I explained to Parker. “I got lucky my first day, but I’ve studied a lot about this issue and the senators involved, so I think I can manage a few insightful remarks.”
“You’re here for your tits, honey,” Parker said. The other panelists laughed with the nervous quality I recognized from interviewing countless people after tragedies. Tornado victims especially can’t seem to stop giggling.
I froze, resisting an urge to flee. I studied Parker’s face, the one I’d trusted for so many years to analyze the news from DC. I never imagined such grotesque comments delivered with his gravelly, melodic voice.
As the show began, I felt my anger rise in equal measure with my resolve. Parker introduced us to the audience. I looked into my camera, smiling and nodding when he said my name. We were off.
Parker spent the first fifteen minutes discussing the Armed Services votes with the men. I listened, feeling like a decoration, adding an occasional comment greeted with polite nods. I felt useless, and no matter how much I distrusted Parker, I worried he was disappointed with my contributions.
During the commercial break, he said, “Don’t interrupt the discussion. I’ll mention your scoop near the end of the show and give you a minute to talk about it. By your own admission, you know nothing about the Senate, so leave it to people who do.” The other panelists squirmed.
I kept my anger in check. “I didn’t say I don’t know anything. I have some insights to share.”
“Just show your legs.” Soon we were back on the air.
Another seven minutes passed, and the stage manager gave us the three-minute signal. Parker was deep into a talk with the others about the impending fall of Saigon, and I felt my one minute at the end of the show slipping away. Parker avoided my eyes, and a sense of disgust and contempt overtook me.
I thought of the girls watching, eager to hear from the woman on the panel. They’d be bitterly frustrated I had so little to say.
Parker said to the men, “I’d imagine that Senator Glenn on the Armed Services Committee would be anxious to help the South Vietnamese forces.”
I saw my chance. “Actually, it’s the other Ohio senator, Robert Taft, who sits on the committee. He voted in favor of the funding.”
“I see.” He gave a grim smile. “Well, I apologize for getting Ohio’s senators confused.”
I laughed as if he’d said something witty. “It’s a bit like mixing up Rose Kennedy and,” I pretended to pick a name at random, “Queen Frederica of Greece.” Parker’s face went a disbelieving ashen. The other panelists froze. “But I’ve known Senator Taft for years, and I’m not surprised by his vote.” I went on to explain the senator’s long history of supporting military operations, moving right into the story of how I rushed outside to share the news with the public, filling the final two minutes.
The print journalists listened politely, and when I finished, the reporter from The New York Times said, “You were way ahead of all of us,” with a note of admiration.
“Well, that’s all the time we have for today,” Parker said into his camera and closed the show.
The key lights in the studio went dark, turning us into shadows as the credits rolled and we pretended to talk.
As soon as the stage manager gave the all clear, Parker rose and stalked off in a huff. He announced his retirement a short time later, but for years, women at the network told me how they cheered.
9
After dinner, Drew drove Tom to Armstrong Woods, a redwood grove of startling beauty and serenity, preserved as a state park. Tom had never seen it, and Drew promised he’d be awed.
After the fiery hallucination and discovering Althea’s theft, he’d considered canceling with Tom, but a surprising and welcome sense of calm soon overtook him. In an unexpected way, the afternoon’s events smoothed his mental turbulence. It confirmed the existence of a strange reality into which he could slot the visions, diminishing his concerns about psychosis. It gave him space.
With the park closing in a few hours, the parking lot was almost empty. As they set out on the path beneath the towering redwoods, dusk claimed the sky. The dirt trails skirted massive trunks and climbed the slopes, and a hush blanketed the forest.
“Redwood forests are always quiet,” said Drew. “Almost nothing can grow in the shade, except for a few ferns, so you don’t get much wildlife.”
“It feels like we have the place all to ourselves.”
Tom reached out with a grin, and Drew took his hand. They walked until they came across a toppled redwood trunk carved into a bench in the spot where it fell, worn to a smooth, inviting gloss.
As they sat, Tom said, “How are you doing, by the way? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seemed really distracted when I got to your house, and it still feels like your mind is somewhere else.”
Your house. Drew pondered the merciless flow of life. Tom only ever knew Grandma’s house as belonging to Drew. It was surreal that something as substantial as a house could morph so quickly with a new identity.
“I have a million things on my mind.”
Tom seemed like an honest and sincere man, and Drew counted his casual disregard for things like fancy clothes as among the most desirable masculine traits, especially since it matched his own. They could focus their attention on supporting each other, building a life, planning for the future, things that mattered. Drew warned himself to be cautious, but he could still dream.
Yet Tom had come along at exactly the wrong time. Drew needed to discuss the strange events since Grandma’s death, and he wasn’t comfortable sharing with anyone, least of all on the second date with a guy he barely knew. The only person who would give him a fair hearing died two days ago. Why start a relationship with so much to conceal?
“I remember when my parents died,” Tom said softly. “It was a few years apart, but both times, it was weeks before my emotions started feeling normal again, like a haze lifting. I didn’t realize I’d been in shock. I think you’re in shock and you don’t know it.”
“That’s a rough story,” Drew said. “Who raised you after your parents died?”
“A whole lot of people.”
A shaft of rose-colored sunset speared the branches and deepened to a rich caramel glow on Tom’s face. Drew held back an urge to surprise him with a kiss as Tom said, “I grew up outside of Detroit. Went to Michigan State, both for undergrad and my master’s.”
“Did you say you work in marketing?”
Tom nodded but averted his eyes in a guilty way that raised Drew’s suspicions. “Got an offer in San Francisco, and I’ve lived here ever since, for two years. My career’s pretty standard. I work for a tech firm that’s beyond the start-up stage but still struggling. My love life is pretty standard, too, what there is of it. I’ve never dated a guy for longer than a couple of weeks, and before you ask why not, it’s because I’m an all-at-once guy.”
“All at once?”
“Rip the bandage off. Yank the sliver out. Jump into the freezing water. Get it over with all at once. Life’s just too short to drag things out, right? The hard stuff, I mean.”
Drew noted the unguarded hope and trust glinting in the deep green of Tom’s eyes. He felt an orbital pull intensified by a giddy optimism. All too soon, he felt the familiar grip of certainty that a man like Tom could only desire him at the initial, superficial stage of physical attraction.
Regardless of sexuality, most men measure other men by their visible accumulations: money, status, possessions. Drew knew when he’d hit thirty years a few months ago, the standards instantly became more demanding and would increase exponentially in the coming years. By the time a man hits forty, he’d best have something to show for his life if he values the respect of other men. Drew always felt immune to that game, both in judging men and caring for the approval of those who do, no matter their numbers.
Right up until that moment. The opinion of a man he could imagine sharing his life with was substantially different.
By San Francisco’s standards, Drew was clinging to the middle class. He could only afford to rent an apartment with a roommate, and he’d severely depleted his savings to care for Grandma. Thanks to her, he now owned a small house, and the stocks amounted to a hefty chunk of cash. And while the method of acquiring things was regarded as inconsequential, an intellectually honest man could never see it that way. Inheriting from Grandma didn’t demonstrate his worth to a romantic interest. He was suddenly convinced what he saw in Tom’s eyes wasn’t real.
Tom wasn’t the fittest of men, nor the best looking, but he carried himself in a way that suggested firm purpose, solid character, just-the-facts. He was math and science instead of drama, and in recent years Drew had discovered the value of facts and figures.
The sun dipped behind the hills. They locked eyes, their breath going shallow and hard. In a replay of last night, their faces marbled with lust in an instant, no need for words. Drew’s heart pounded, and his throat tightened. A primal pulse burst into shivers in his chest and shoulders. His dick kicked and swelled, and they gripped each other and leaned in, mouth-to-mouth.
With the first sloppy, sensual kisses, Drew understood last night hadn’t been a rare moment of passion but a glimpse of possibility. He explored Tom’s lips with his own, running his tongue along his gums and stabbing deep into his mouth. Tom groaned with a dizzying tonal balance of approval and rage, and his tongue responded with the demand to explore where it willed, as deep as it wanted.
Drew felt Tom searching for and finding the steel in his crotch. He felt around between Tom’s legs until he found the concrete-hard shape.
Piercing feminine shrieks filled his mind. Drew gasped and pulled back. Out on a street, a row of uniformed men pointing rifles descended on a young man. Even from behind, Drew knew it was Tom in the crosshairs, wearing a suit. With his hands high in surrender, Tom went facedown on the ground.
Drew disentangled from Tom and shot off the bench. The dusk in the forest descended with a swift chill, the temperature seeming to drop by the second.
“What’s wrong?”
Drew turned away, his heavy breaths going ragged.
“Hey.” From behind, Tom gently caressed Drew’s shoulders and arms. “Is it still too soon after losing your Grandma?”
Seizing the excuse, he nodded.
“I get it.” Tom gave a grunt of frustration and leaned back, pressing his crotch against Drew’s ass, releasing his unspent lust into the trees with a roar, after which he molded to Drew’s back, embracing him around the chest while resting his head on his shoulder. “Can I spend the night? I promise to behave.”
