A ruling passion : a novel (57 page)

don't really live here; I'm just staying for a while, until I have the money to get a decent place of my own.

But she had no idea when that would be.

Her mother was all right for a while. As soon as she found a smaller apartment and moved from Park Avenue, she could live on the money in the account Carlton had missed, and the sale of her jewelry, at least until Valerie found a way to help her.

Which meant, she had to earn more at Sybille's company, or find a different job, or... There was nothing else. And she could not face the thought of looking for another job; she hadn't handled that part very well the first time. She had a kind of security: a job, a salary. It was so tiny no one should have to try to live on it—she was sure she couldn't, for very long—but at least it came regularly, and she had not had to hunt for it: Sybille had dropped it into her lap.

But she hated it. She hated everything about work. She hated having to wake up at a set time, dressing and eating breakfast in a rush, driving to the studio in a stream of cars that made her feel she was just one of a crowd, and walking into the offices of Sybille Morgen Productions where she was still nobody: one small part of a machine controlled by someone who didn't care what she was thinking or feeling or worrying about, who cared only about getting a fiill day's work out of her. She felt she didn't have a life of her own; even in the evenings and on weekends, she couldn't forget that she really wasn't free: in a few hours she would have to go back and be answerable to someone else.

Where was the triumphant exhilaration she had felt in the Adiron-dacks? Where was the excitement and satisfaction of knowing that people were depending on her? Where was the feeling that she was better than people gave her credit for? ' '

Not in this job. Sybille's company wasn't a place for heroism. Probably most places weren't, when it came right down to it. But there had to be something she could do. Something that would make her feel in charge of her life once again.

One thing she would not do was go back to Edgar. She had thiought about it, more than once, but she knew what would happen if she did: he would magnanimously forgive her and marry her with a triumphant generosity that would set her teeth on edge and doom their marriage from the start. No, not Edgar. Another man, perhaps, someone who would have faith in what she could do. Or her money, or part of it, would be returned to her. Or... something else. Something she hadn't even thought of yet.

It could all change overnight, Valerie told herself. But the only

thing that changed in the two weeks after she moved back to Virginia was that Sterling Farms was sold.

Dan Lithigate had told her, the day before she began working for Sybille, that someone had made a good offer; he did not know who, since negotiations were handled through the buyer's attorney—but the price was excellent, and the buyer's financial statement looked solid. Valerie would soon have a large chunk of money from the sale, to help pay off Carl's debts. A week later, the sale was confirmed.

Ifs all^one. Someone else will have it now; Fll never walk through those rooms again, or ride through those fields, or cut flowers for the dinner table in the gardens and greenhouses.. .

"All sorted?" Gus Emery stood beside Valerie's desk and reached for the basket of mail.

"No," she said. "I'll do it now."

He looked at the clock on the wall behind her. "Reverend Lily expects them by eleven A.M."

'Tou didn't tell me that."

"I gave you an order. That meant now, not when you get around to it."

Valerie shot him a cold look. "Do you need to be rude to feel important around here?"

A long whistle snaked from his pursed lips. "My, my, we're very brave this morning, considering we're brand-new on the job and could be fired in a minute. You let me take care of my importance, and you take care of your job. Okay?"

"No. If we have to work together, why can't you be a gendeman, and make it more pleasant for both of us?"

"A gendeman," he repeated. "There ain't no gendemen in business, Valerie; if you'd done a day's work in your life you'd know that. Bring me the mail when you're done; I have a bunch of other stuff waiting for you."

"How do you know I haven't worked all my life?"

"Oh, come on. Newspapers, tv, your attitude, and the queen bee. See you later."

"And that bothers you? That I've never had to work?"

He looked at her over his shoulder. "I don't get bothered, except by people not taking orders. People like you don't take orders real well; you have to learn. So this is a lesson I'm teaching you: I give orders, you jump. You have to learn that, just like you have to learn everything else. Every goddam son-of-a-bitch thing else we got to teach you. That includes doing something when I tell you and not sitting around with

this fucking chitchat when you got work to do." He strode to his cubicle, fifteen feet away.

Valerie's gaze followed him. You mean, envious, slimy litde worm, she thought. You hate people with money. You hate me because I had money and you never did, and probably never will. And Sybille foisted me on you and you don't like it. Well, isn't that too damn bad. This is my job and no one's taking it away from me.

She dumped the basket of mail onto her desk and began to pull letters from envelopes, skimming them and separating them into piles. "Dearest Reverend Grace, my life is glorious now, because of you..." went on one side of the desk; "Dear Reverend Lily, I don't know what to do about my son, he's on some kind of drugs—" went on the other side.

But soon her hands slowed as she began to read the letters from beginning to end. They were intimate, passionate, even worshipful; they were written to Lily Grace as if she were mother, sister, idolized teacher, lifelong friend, and beloved; they ached with genuine feelings. Valerie read them with astonishment. The young woman who had been a passenger in Carlton's plane on that last, terrible journey had been quite ordinary. Even the brief talk she had given earlier, at Quen-tin Enderb/s funeral, though moving, had been unmemorable. What had happened to her? Maybe someday, if I have time, she thought, I'll go to her church.

"Looks like you need some help," said a light, pleasant voice at her shoulder, and a long arm reached around her to grab a stack of letters.

"No, I do not," Valerie said angrily, and then, turning, saw the arched eyebrows and open smile of Al Slavin, the other direaor for whom she worked.

"Let's finish these," he said, pulling up a chair. His beard and hair were flame-colored and as he bent over the letters Valerie saw a small bald spot at the top of his head. He gave each letter a cursory glance, put it in the proper pile, and took up the next. "Can't take too long on these; anyway, they all sound alike after a while."

"Are there always this many?" Valerie asked, skimming the letters almost as fast as he did.

"Every day. We get eight, nine hundred a week, sometimes more, and we diwy them up, a hundred or more a day. The adoring fans get an effusive thank-you; the worried ones get a written answer or they get one on television."

Valerie looked up. "How?"

He wagged a reproving finger. "You're giving yourself away. Never

admit in public that you don't watch every episode of every show produced by Sybille Morgen Productions. It means death at dawn. Just between us, Lily has a show every Wednesday night at ten, called 'At Home with Reverend Grace,' when she sits by a cozy fireplace with lilies and candles on the table, and answers some of her mail. Reads the letters aloud, no names of course, gives advice, dispenses wisdom and encouragement, smiles at the camera with love and tenderness—^"

"You don't like her."

"On the contrary. I love her. No one can't love Lily. I just don't want her managing my life or my country, and I get worried when people fall in love with an image on the screen and think it can translate to political or moral leadership."

Valerie nodded, not really paying attention. She wasn't that interested. At another time she would have been intrigued enough to learn more about Lily Grace, but now, with so much to think about, she didn't have enough energy to try to understand a young preacher who had no part in her life. "Done," she said. "Shall we get some coffee?"

"I'll get it; you ask Gus what he wants done next."

"I meant we could go to the coffee shop downstairs."

"I know what you meant. We don't take breaks. The coffee machine is in the kitchen; I'll show you later."

Valerie contemplated him. "Is this an act you two put on? He's the bad guy and you're the good? He makes people unhappy and you go around smoothing ruffled feathers?"

He grinned at her from the thicket of his red beard. "You are one smart lady. It's not an act; ifs an accommodation. He gets more work out of people, but I keep them from quitting. For a while at least."

"Do you like him?"

He shrugged, "We're a team; we're used to each other. Go on, now, find out what he wants next; I'll get some coffee."

They were like two halves of a whole person, Valerie thought, and it was Al Slavin who kept her from despair a dozen times in the next three weeks. There was a streak of cruelty in Gus Emery that puzzled her; he was so good at his job that she would have thought he could afford to relax. But he never did. He drove himself and those around him; he seemed bitter toward everyone; and with his whiplash tongue and cold cynicism, he seemed indifferent to anyone's opinion.

Except Sybille and Lily. With Sybille he was smooth, smart, cool and admiring, never deferential but never harsh. With Lily he was cautious; it was as if he tiptoed around her, careful with his vocabulary.

soft with his voice, fatherly with his directions and smiles when they were taping a sermon or "At Home with Reverend Grace." He had made himself indelibly a part of Sybille Morgen Productions; but almost no one but Sybille and Lily liked him.

It was Al Slavin whom everyone liked, and soon he was Valerie's closest friend in the company. In every spare moment, he taught her the details of production: how a rough script was transformed into a final, taped program. He taught her tape editing and the workings of the control room; he explained satellite pickups and transmissions, camera and lighting techniques. And he often called on her to help him in the studio.

The soap opera, "The Art of Love," was taped every day, following a rehearsal in the morning. A weekly game show, "The Winner's Circle," was taped before an audience every Monday. Another game show, "Top This," was taped with an audience every Thursday. "At Home with Reverend Grace" was taped on Wednesday morning for airing Wednesday night; and Lily's sermon was broadcast live, and simultaneously taped for reruns, on Sunday morning at eleven.

Al was in the control room; Valerie was in the studio. She stood to the side, wearing headphones and holding her clipboard and pencil, ready to do what she was told. They were in the final rehearsal of an episode of "The Art of Love" before taping that afternoon.

"Lola's scarf is crooked," Al said to Valerie through the headphones, and she walked onto the set to straighten Lola Montalda's scarf.

"And tell her to fasten the third button on her blouse; what is it with her? Ask her how much she had to drink at lunch."

Valerie smiled at Lola. "Al would like you to button your blouse. And he says you're looking very lovely today."

"Of course," Lola said. "I always do. My button?" She looked down. "How strange. It must have done that by itself"

"Valerie," said Al, 'Sve're all waiting."

"Lola," she said, "everyone is waiting."

"Of course," Lola said. "They always wait for me." She buttoned her blouse and took her place beside the sofa, holding a painted ceramic vase.

"Okay," said Al. "We're going to try it from 'You treat me like a slave.'"

"Lola," said the floor director as Valerie withdrew to the sidelines, 'Sve're taking it from 'You treat me like a slave.' And this time, aim for the middle of the fireplace."

"His head is higher than that," Lola said haughtily.

"Your aim is bad; if you aim at the fireplace, you'll get close to his head."

"My aim is perfecto!"

"Let's go," said the floor director.

"You treat me like a slave!' screamed Lola, and threw the vase with wild passion in the general direction of Tom Halprin's head. The vase sailed three feet above him and crashed against the top of a window in a freestanding wall, causing it to tremble and sway.

"Damn it," Al breathed. "Valerie, another vase. And see if she dented the window frame. And make sure the crew sweeps up all the pieces; we don't want it to look like a tornado went through there; only a lover's quarrel."

"Pete," said Valerie to another assistant as she crossed the set to check on the window frame, "get another vase."

"Not me," he replied. "I only take orders from Gus."

She swung on him. "Do what I tell you! Now!"

He backed away from her sharp voice. "Right," he said, surprising himself "In the prop room.>"

"On the bottom shelf Bring two."

"Right," he said and was gone.

Valerie examined the window frame and found it undented. She paused to watch the crew sweeping up broken glass, and then she returned to the sidelines. She felt better than she had in a long time; she'd given an order and it had been obeyed. Briefly, wonderfully, it had brought back the past, when staffs of servants had stood ready to carry out her orders. It's a lot better to give than receive, she thought wryly. She wondered if she had sounded like Gus Emery giving orders to her. Maybe she had; and maybe Gus felt just as good when she jumped to obey him as she had just now, when Pete went off to the prop room. We all want somebody below us, she reflected, watching Lola pout because the floor director was telling her yet again that she always aimed liigh. Even if we only have a chance to have power over one other person, we grab it. She wondered if that was why people had children. Then she wondered if she would ever have children. And that reminded her that she was single and without money, and working for someone else, and that made her aware of Al's voice in her headphones, speaking to the floor director.