Chapter Thirty-Four #2
“Please, Quinn. I was with Thomas for twenty-five years. Thomas and the boys and hell, even Sacramento, have been my life. I was with Thomas longer than I have been without him.”
“I know. I believe that you loved Thomas for many of those years, but I think you have always carried Porter in your heart. Like I have with Charles. And as much as I want you here, I have to admit something.” Quinn’s buttery fingers reach for mine, and her mouth turns down with a touch of sadness.
“Unlike me, you could love like that again. And maybe that means it would be worth staying in California.”
“Lizzy Mason?” I ask loudly, confused, as a sixtyish, long-legged woman with a flawless salt-and-pepper bob strides toward me in black leather high-heeled boots and a matching leather dress.
Pure chic greets me less than a minute after the receptionist on the eighteenth floor announced to Elizabeth Mason that her 11:00 a.m. was in the lobby.
“Well, I’ll be damned, Calliope Steele. I would recognize you anywhere!”
“You two know each other?” Quinn asks, a bit dumbfounded.
This morning, Quinn had the courage to say out loud what has been clouding my judgment since the night at The Firehouse Restaurant and through the repetition of every one of Porter’s voicemails.
Is fate intervening in the life I am trying to wrestle back for myself?
Thirty years ago, I had a perfectly laid-out plan to become a journalist, live in New York, marry Porter, and vacation and raise our kids alongside Charles and Quinn’s.
I expected to live my life with the loves of my life.
I held on to that vision tightly—too tightly, I now realize—because none of it came to be, and I dimmed my own light rather than embracing the unexpectedly beautiful life in front of me.
When my constructed plan failed, I saw myself as a failure.
But I wasn’t. I’d had more love in my life than most people ever experience.
Romantic love, friendship love, and the unconditional love of my boys.
Though long overdue, self-love was taking root too.
I was now equally at home in California as I ever was in New York, even if admitting it felt like betraying myself.
If the point of life is to love and be loved .
. . well, then, the only toss-up for me is geography.
In New York, I have Quinn and Alice, old friends to become reacquainted with and new professional possibilities to explore.
In California, I have John and Andrew; and Lisa, Maureen, Daphne, Chap, and my mother.
I could also have Porter. Again. The person I had always wanted to be with from the beginning.
At least that’s the feeling I get from the almost two hours of voicemails Porter has left me.
Since arriving in Sacramento, I was convinced I could pack up and move back to New York in less than twenty-four hours, leaving everything behind on the West Coast without a second thought. Now I’m not so sure.
“Do you mind if we just sit and chat here?” Elizabeth points to the pair of pristine black leather couches to the far right of reception with nary a butt dent in them.
“All my furniture is piled in the middle of my office to accommodate the painters coming later today, and I’m trying to impress you, not frighten you away by the mess.
” Having fought mightily and won the opportunity to hand-deliver me to my interview, Quinn makes zero moves to leave and follows Elizabeth and me over to the office living room.
“Anyway, I know Calliope because she was the best producer I ever trained back when we were both at CNN. She worked for me for, what, six, seven years? And just when she was ready to make the next big career leap, she left me! The guy who replaced you was the network president’s son and a total idiot.
But I was stuck with him for the next three years until he went to rehab in Cabo. ”
“So you knew Callie back when she was going by her full name professionally, is that right, Calliope?” Settled into her seat, Quinn reveals one of my many attempts at shape-shifting when I was forced to resurrect and redefine myself after college and heartbreak.
If I wasn’t standing in one of the most prestigious office settings in the city, focused on making a positive impression, I would pettily remind Quinn that using my new moniker was also about the same time she decided to bleach her dark hair.
I was no more a Calliope than Quinn was a platinum blonde.
“And back when you were Lizzy.” I move the focus off me. It feels good to know that my old life, my contributions, are still recognizable.
“I haven’t been called Lizzy since I met Leslie and she insisted that her girlfriend, now wife, sounds like the grown-up I was, running the CNN newsroom.
Plus, Lizzy and Leslie, the lipstick lesbians?
Sounds like a downtown cabaret act.” We all laugh together, more familiarity than formality, reflecting back on the versions of ourselves that didn’t endure.
“Speaking of old times, I’m having lunch with Royce downstairs in an hour.
You want to join after we’re done catching up? ”
Quinn too eagerly answers for me. “Of course she does!” Though this morning Quinn was sympathetic to my torn bicoastal heart, law partner Quinn is ready to throw me back in with the wolves of journalism to find out if I still can hold my own.
“All these years later, Elizabeth”—I have to concentrate on not saying Lizzy—“I doubt he will remember who I am, and I certainly don’t want to crash your lunch.
I might not be as eloquent as you remember.
” Quinn elbows me hard. On her list of not-to-dos in interviews, self-deprecating commentary is at the top.
“He doesn’t have to remember who you are. I can introduce you as the newest member of Juice, or Invisible XX or the Forward at Fifty team; we haven’t landed on the final moniker yet. We like all three. And Royce is one of our early investors, so it would be strategic for the two of you to remeet.”
“Wait!” My jaw drops in disbelief. “I came up with those names!” Any humility I had has now given way to shock. My off-the-cuff wit is boomeranging back to me as brilliant branding.
“I know. Quinn shared them with us, and Leslie and I love them. Just like we love your writing. After reading your Christmas essay, I made Leslie rip up our own holiday letter and start over. With our truth.”
“What did you like so much about my writing?” After it’s out, I realize my question may come across as starved for a compliment.
It’s another Quinn no-no, but, well, I am desperate, and I genuinely want feedback, because if I don’t get this job, at least I have the résumé and writing samples to go for another. Here or in California.
“You seem to minister from the middle. And by ‘middle,’ I don’t mean politically.
I mean squarely in the middle of life that we all have to contend with and muddle through.
No one is immune. You are invested in the tenuous survival of democracy in the United States and abroad, and you are equally immersed in the day-to-day management of your mother’s care.
You follow the stock market, housing market, and commodities markets, but your biggest investment, your most important investment, is your children, whom you wouldn’t trade for anything.
You follow with distress the extreme weather patterns that climate change is creating, from severe flooding in the South to summers in the West being a devastating game of wildfire Whac-A-Mole. ”
I add to Elizabeth’s critique of my points of view: “Ah, yes. The only thing I don’t blame on climate change are my hot flashes.”
“Exactly. Leslie and I are looking to bring forward the voices of Americans who have followed the rules of society, worked hard, paid their taxes, kept their side of the street tidy, yet feel like extremists have drowned them out. We want to find our undiscovered diamond in the rough, where life experience meets common sense. An intelligent everywoman. Leslie and I think you, and hopefully other women as we build the company, may be just what we’re looking for.
And now that I know you are also the most detail-oriented and uplifting producer I ever worked with, what more could I, or we, ask for?
You are a rare but valued combo in the news. At least, we believe so.”
I have felt so ordinary for so long that to be called a rarity seems like a paradox.
“Plus, now that I know Callie Kingman is Calliope Steele, I don’t need to know any more. Because if you were that good in your twenties, I can only imagine how fabulous you are in your fifties.”
Imagine that. My age being my greatest asset.