Chapter 1 #2
And that’s how we’ve ended up the only two people here in the still of the night, me looking into the mirror near the news desk, my features surrounded by hair that isn’t my own, using the pointy end of a wig comb to try to make every synthetic strand lie just right while I wonder what Kevin and Patrick have to talk about at this hour. They live together, after all.
When I realize it doesn’t actually matter what the wig looks like right now, I retreat from the mirror, ditch the comb, and take my old seat behind the desk.
Already I hate how I feel in the wig, both mentally and physically, but I ignore that as the beams of spotlights Kevin turned on before I arrived blast over me.
I fire up the computer tablet mounted on the desk, then study the words displayed on the teleprompter near the camera—random copy from a recent newscast.
“I know, I know,” Kevin is saying to Patrick now, making me worry something’s wrong.
But rather than eavesdrop, I refocus on where I am and how it feels to be sitting here again.
The wig is hot that fast. The lights are making it hotter.
But I belong here. I belong here and I’m eager for Kev to hang up so we can get going.
The conversation stretches on, though. Long enough that I’m starting to sweat. I’m sporting a sleeveless dress I sometimes wear on the news, and I’m hoping I don’t have to send it to the cleaners after what I thought would be just a few minutes of “getting back on the horse.”
“Seriously, honey, go home and get some rest, okay?” Kev says into the phone. “I won’t be long.”
When he hangs up, rather than insist we go plowing ahead, possibly tipping my hand, I ask, “How is your better half anyway?” For a while I was seeing them both a lot, but recovery has brought more distance. Which is actually a good thing—being needy is not my strong suit.
Kevin’s sigh tells me what I already suspected, that something is amiss in Patrickland. “He’s ... well, he’s amazing, that’s what he is,” Kev says, sounding bizarrely disheartened.
I blink, confused. “And you’re upset about that why?”
He blows out a big breath. “Because sometimes I think he’s too good for me.”
“What?” I practically screech. “What are you talking about?” Whatever’s going on here is entirely new, and so jarring that I’m pretty sure it’s making me hotter than I already am.
“Have you seen him, Jess?” he asks matter-of-factly.
I lower my chin. “Yes, he’s incredibly handsome, I know, but ...” I stop and shake my head, needing more to go on and desperately trying to ignore my growing discomfort.
“Oh, it was all good and fine to date a younger guy when I was a fairly fit thirty-eight and he was twenty-nine,” Kev says. “But look at me now.”
It’s true he’s put on some weight and, as I just noticed, has developed a few wrinkles, but so what?
“Okay, so you don’t look like a youngster anymore.
” I sigh. “None of us do. At least you still have your hair.” I point at my wig ironically as I raise still-thin eyebrows.
“You’re being ridiculous. You know that, right? ”
But he balks. “Am I? Because not only is the man I want to marry wildly attractive and almost ten years my junior, he’s also the most loving person I’ve ever met.
You know how caring and compassionate he is.
He should have been a nurse. I tell him that all the time.
” That’s all a hundred percent true. Yet Kevin is edging toward full-on ranting now, and my head is starting to feel like it’s on fire.
“Okay, what on earth does that have to do with anything?” I ask, still attempting to get to the bottom of this and also unwilling to admit I’m roasting alive. I intend to appear cool as a cucumber, no matter what. “He loves you just as much as you love him, so what’s brought this on?”
He looks down at himself. “The last five pounds, I suppose.” He blows out one more sigh. “And I guess some days I have to wonder ... what I bring to the table for him, you know?”
I’ve never heard Kevin sound this way, and it bothers me. “No, actually, I don’t.” I try to ignore the sweat beginning to run down my temples under my fake locks. I’m perspiring under my breasts, too, and on my stomach.
“Okay, example,” he says. “Right now Patrick’s Nana’s health is in decline, and no one in his family is lifting a finger to help besides him.
He’s spending every spare moment at Nana’s house trying to take care of her, making sure things are where she can get to them when he leaves, making sure her bills are paid—not to mention getting her groceries and mowing the lawn.
The situation is running him ragged. He’s just now heading home at this hour, if that’s any indication.
And I’m doing almost nothing to help. I mean, I try to pitch in a little here and there, but you know how busy this place keeps me. ”
I can’t deny that. And it’s hitting me for the first time that, despite his heavy workload, Kevin insisted on taking me to my chemo treatments, and staying with me after, and holding my hair while I vomited—until it fell out—and that he and my BFF, Sydney, and sometimes Patrick, took turns watching over me each time until I regained my strength.
I want, in this moment, to acknowledge that.
I mean, I thanked them all profusely when it was happening, but I was pretty caught up in my own problems at the time, and it never occurred to me how challenging it must have been for him to do all that in addition to running the newsroom.
Though Kevin isn’t one to seek a bunch of thanks, and it’s only in rare moments that he and I indulge in talking about how much we mean to each other—so I hold back and instead give him what I think he really needs right now.
“Listen to me,” I say. “You and Patrick are great together. I guarantee you’re the only person he wants to come home to at night.
Especially when he’s going through a difficult time. He loves you.”
Kev looks at least slightly comforted, or maybe he’s just feeling for me what I’m feeling for him right now: silent appreciation.
“Thanks, Jess.” And indeed, when our eyes meet, I see our longstanding friendship resting in his gaze—until he silently affirms our mutual aversion to mushiness by moving on. “You ready?”
“More than,” I say. More than because the spotlights now officially feel like the white-hot light of a thousand suns. More than because I’m pretty sure my face is melting off. But I’ll still be damned if I let Kevin see it.
He steps up to a small stand near the camera to operate the teleprompter, then points a finger my way, directing me to begin.
It’s all I can do not to wipe the sweat from my forehead as I say, “Good evening, and let’s start with a traffic update.
If your commute involves Columbia Parkway, you’ll want to consider an alternate route home this evening.
Today’s heavy rain caused a mudslide near Torrence, blocking both east- and westbound lanes.
Crews are working in the area, but there’s no indication as to when they expect the road to reopen.
” The words come out of me, but all I can think is: Rain sounds nice, cool.
I would love some rain dumped on me right now. My whole body is slimy with sweat.
“Seventy-one southbound is at a crawl all the way from Pfeiffer to downtown due to an accident near Ridge Road and another near Gilbert, and the cut in the hill in Covington is slow in both directions.”
How red are my cheeks at this point? How wet from sweat is the artificial hair around my face? I just began the fake newscast seconds ago, but already I’m struggling. My voice isn’t normal; it sounds labored, like I’ve been on a long run.
But I can do this. I can get into a groove.
“Breaking news out of Newport, where this afternoon, just before two o’clock, a bank robbery suspect led police on a high-speed chase up Monmouth Street before finally speeding onto Interstate 471 in Southgate.
Police caught up with the suspect when he apparently ran out of gas on the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge leading into downtown, and you better believe that created a traffic snarl. ”
Okay, my whole brain is beginning to feel snarled. I’m forcing out the words, but they sound pained, tortured. Though I’m determined to persist. “Now let’s go to Monique for a quick check on the weather. Now that the rain is ending, Monique, I hear things are going to start heating up out there?”
And that’s suddenly it—all I can stand. My brain has left the station, shooting out words nowhere on the teleprompter.
“Because they’re definitely heating up in here!
Oh my God, what the hell is happening?” With that, I rip off my wig and fling it across the desk to land in a blond heap at Kevin’s feet. It looks like a dead animal.
We both stay quiet and go still, the fresh silence deafening. In that moment, even with just Kev, I feel naked, exposed, in more ways than one, and wish my fedora were within reach.
Finally, he speaks, using the same gentle tone as he did with Patrick. “Jess. Honey.”
“It’s the lights,” I say, exasperated, embarrassed. “I never realized how hot they were before.”
He nods. “I know. They are hot.” He casts a compassionate gaze as he takes a step toward me around the equipment and the dead wig. “But I think ... you’re not quite ready for this yet.”
Even now, though, I can’t accept it. I try not to grit my teeth as I reply in open desperation, “Kev, I need this. I need something more than ... what my life has been for the last eight months.”
“Jess, what if we’d been live?”
“But we weren’t.”
“And that’s why I wanted a dress rehearsal to see how things went. Now we’ve both seen. If this had happened on the air, you’d be mortified.”