Flash Point (25 page)

“Oh, Christ,” Alex said, “give me a break.”

Taunton said, “But the other three kids—”

“Not as dramatic, I admit. Cai, Tommy, and Violet were on the first floor and they were hustled out by the first wave of protestors, those nonviolent Times Be Tough people. But we still have close-ups, and Tommy especially looks terrified. An intimate reaction.”

Taunton mused, “Too bad none of them was involved with that holdout group in Room 654.
That
was dramatic.”

Myra kept her face blank. “But not as dramatic as the tunnel escape. And if—I’m just saying ‘if’—we do decide to include voting, no one will predict heroics from Waverly. I was stunned myself.”

“That’s because you see the kids as one-dimensional dolls,” Alex said. “And disposable dolls, at that.”

Myra turned on him. “You produced a porn show, Alex! The people on
that
weren’t dolls?”

“They were professional actors. These are kids who were in danger of their lives. Mr. Taunton, we can’t do this.”

Myra hid her sudden glee. James Taunton did not like to be told what he could or could not do. He said, “Do we have footage of the three emerging from the tunnel near Fenton Street?”

“Yes! Everyone up there had cell phones, and we’ve purchased some of the shots. Then I rushed in one of ours with a hand-held, in time to see the medics bring up the grandmother.”

“She didn’t die, did she? We can’t use it if she died.”

“She’s in stable condition at Memorial Hospital. Out of the ICU already.” This wasn’t strictly true, but Mrs. Whitcomb might be moved to a ward in the morning.

Taunton said nothing. Myra held her breath. Into the prolonged silence Alex said quietly, “Mr. Taunton, if you do this episode, I will quit.”

Taunton appeared to not even hear him. More silence. Finally Taunton said, “Put together a rough cut and let me see it tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have to run it right away, to keep it timely, and shorten the rest of the show so both segments fit into the hour. The PR people will need time for advance spots, and Programming will have to dump something else. You’ll need to bring in your staff right away, Myra.”

“I can do that!”

Alex said, “Mr. Taunton—”

“I know, you’re quitting. Best of luck to you, Alex. Not everybody has the guts necessary to work in television.” He rose and walked out.

Alex said to Myra, “You exploitative bitch.”

You don’t know the half of it
. But all she said to him was, “I’ll miss working with you.” And, to her own surprise, she found she meant it, although she couldn’t have said why.

Twenty-six

T
HURSDAY

THE CARILLON HOTEL
on Portman Island was set beside an expensive office park whose low buildings were nearly hidden by trees. The whole area, bright with flowers and surrounded by open fields on one side and big estates on the other, looked like something from a children’s picture book. No protestors here, no risk of attack, no city messiness. Not, Amy noticed, so much as a discarded gum wrapper.

Nonetheless, the hotel had formidable security. Amy had never seen lobby guards who were actually armed. More armed men, some with exotic headgear, moved watchfully alongside various hotel guests. “Bodyguards,” Jillian explained. “The hotel hosts many foreign businessman involved in deals at the corporate offices in the Park.”

Amy smiled faintly. Jillian was their new liaison/chaperone/jailer from Taunton Life Network. Myra, Jillian explained, was very busy with the editing side of the show. Jillian looked about twenty-five, fresh-faced without being beautiful, well-dressed without Myra’s style. She wore her hair in a bouncy ponytail. “Forty if she’s a day,” Violet breathed in Amy’s ear, “and already had face work done.”

Amy didn’t see that, but since this was the first thing Violet had said to her since they arrived, she laughed obligingly. Violet stood with arms crossed over her chest, stony-faced. The six Lab Rats and Kaylie were getting a tour of the hotel.

“And your rooms are on the top floor,” Jillian said as she pressed the elevator button for 3. “No suite this time, Amy, since your grandmother will probably be going to a nursing facility anyway. The—”

“I don’t think she’ll do that,” Amy said.

“Beg pardon?”

“My grandmother. She’ll want to stay with me.”

“But Myra said—”

“I’m telling you what my grandmother will want.” Amy heard herself sounding too shrill, and toned it down. “She’s not a person who lets herself be shuttled around to where she doesn’t want to be. And I want to be with her.”

Kaylie did not say
Me too
.

Jillian frowned. “I’ll check with Myra. Meanwhile, here we are.”

The top floor of the hotel was a sprawl of thickly carpeted hallways, open sitting rooms, and at the far end, a glassed solarium in which three veiled Arab women sat at a table playing some sort of board game. In the corridor the Lab Rats passed a man in a turban accompanied by two bodyguards and a woman in Armani carrying a briefcase. Both looked curiously at the group.

Jillian unlocked the first of six doors in a cul-de-sac at the end of a hall, facing one of the pretty sitting areas. “This is your room, Amy and Kaylie. Kaylie, Serena had to guess at your size. Violet, you’re in three seventeen, Waverly—”

Kaylie let out a whoop. Both of the double beds were piled with packages marked with their names. The room itself was nice but ordinary for a hotel room, at least from what Amy had seen in magazines and movies. She opened her packages. The contents were exact duplicates of the clothes Serena had chosen for her before, plus a small box from the hotel with toothbrush, comb, and other toiletries.

“Huh,” Kaylie said sourly, and Amy turned.

Kaylie’s clothes were nowhere near as expensive. Levi’s, not jeans from 7 For All Mankind. Tops and a skirt that might have come from Macy’s, not Prada. The colors, deep jewel tones, were good for Kaylie’s dusky beauty, but Kaylie didn’t care.

“’Cause I’m not on the show and you are,” Kaylie said. She threw a red sweater onto the floor and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door.

“Kaylie, you can wear mine!” Amy called.

“Like we’re the same size,” Kaylie yelled. The shower started.

It was true. Kaylie was taller and bustier. Amy picked up the sweater, folded it, and laid it on the bed.

She didn’t want to be here. But unless she stayed at the hospital and watched Gran sleep for the next fourteen hours, there was nowhere else to be. Well, she could sleep, too. Once Kaylie was out of the bathroom Amy would take a shower, crawl into bed, and slide into welcome oblivion.

A knock on the door. Waverly stood there, even her hair clean and shining. Amy smiled. “You look great. All recovered from the tunnel? I want to thank you again for everything you did for—”

“I came to ask about the alliance,” Waverly said, unsmiling. Her voice was cool. “I helped you, as you just pointed out. So the next time we’re in a scenario, teamed or not, can I count on your help? Instead of you giving it to Violet or Rafe?”

Amy stared at her. “Was it just tit for tat, then? You only helped save my grandmother’s life because you expected something in return?”

“I asked you a question,” Waverly said. “I’d like an answer.”

It was incredible. Waverly acted as if Amy had never seen her cry, never seen her panic, never heard her choked longing for her own grandmother (“My grandmother was the only person in my entire family who was ever kind to me”). As if this was strictly a business deal.

Amy said, “I promised Violet and Rafe—”

“Who were no help to you in a crisis. Yes or no on your first loyalty, Amy?”

“I can’t!”

Waverly’s face didn’t change. Quietly she closed the bedroom door.

Amy stood listening, but the thick hallway carpet muffled Waverly’s footsteps. Misery swamped Amy. She couldn’t break her promise to Violet—but didn’t she owe Waverly, too? Why did Waverly have to make it seem so cold, such an impersonal deal? And then came a thought that Amy really didn’t like. If Waverly had been as warm and all-girlfriend as Violet was—as Violet used to be—would Amy have answered her differently?

Bleakly Amy wondered if she’d ever understood anybody. Including herself.

* * *

The next morning, after a long and refreshing sleep, Amy took a cab to the hospital. When she left, Kaylie had not been in her bed and none of the Lab Rats was around, but the restaurant, lobby, and bellman’s stand were thronged with focused-looking people in business attire, absorbed in intense discussions. No one paid her the least attention.

She expected to find Gran in the ICU, but the nursing desk told her that Mrs. Whitcomb had been moved to a geriatric ward; the ICU was now filled with victims of a commuter-plane crash just after midnight. Gran, to Amy’s further surprise, was not lying in bed but sitting up in a deep plastic chair of hideous orange, watching TV.

“Gran!”

A newscaster said “—brought under control due to quick and efficient response by municipal police, although in Atlanta and Detroit—”

“How do you feel? Are you OK?”

“—a pointed harbinger of civil unrest due to—”

“Good morning, Amy. Let me just hear the rest of this.”

“—major legislative initiative. Tonight the president will address the nation on—”

Amy waited impatiently. When the newscast switched to the plane crash, Gran muted it and turned a bright face to Amy. “It’s going to be all right. Remember when I told you this was a flash point? It’s galvanized those idiots in Washington and they’re going to pass the Emergency Economic Restructure Act. This is radical, Amy, and in time it will—”

“I don’t care,” Amy said, more harshly than she’d ever spoken to Gran before. “How are
you
?”

“You should care about this legislation.” Although her face looked drawn and weary, Gran’s blue eyes sparkled. “This is going to save the country. With any luck, anyway. Do you realize how close we were to going up in flames? Yes, of course you do—you almost
did
. Amy, you were wonderful yesterday. You and Rafe and Waverly. Thank you.”

“The important thing is that you’re all right!”

“Well, I’m a tough old bird, as I heard someone say yesterday. Come here.”

Amy crouched beside the orange chair. Gran put a rope-veined hand on her shoulder. “Listen to me, Amy. I’ve rallied this time, but there will be more like yesterday. Not brought on by a desperate escape from fire, I hope, but just because it’s nearly my time. But I had a long talk with a doctor before you got here. My end will almost certainly come like yesterday, a simple stopping of my heart. It won’t hurt and I might not even know when it happens. I’m lucky in that such a death is easy, love. I won’t say that I’m not nervous about it, but . . . well, I don’t want you to get all emotional before it even happens. I want that today you go to your job and carry on with your life.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Well, I can’t force you, Amy, but I plan on spending the entire day watching news, witnessing what I think is going to be a genuine turnaround for this country. Do you know what the pundits are calling the legislation? The ‘Raise-Up-Everybody Act’—isn’t that wonderful? This is a historical moment. I want to learn everything about it, so don’t talk to me while the analysts are on.”

The analysts were on endlessly. Gran watched news: devoured it, Amy thought, which was more than she did to the lunch a nurse brought on a tray. Of course, Amy was glad that things were going to get better, if they were (
TIMES BE TOUGH MAN
), but why did Gran need to hear it analyzed and debated and dissected and discussed and disagreed with and predicted and disbelieved and ardently believed and doubted and prayed for and illustrated with charts, graphs, numbers?

While Gran watched, Amy checked her cell. Strange that no one had called her. She found that the phone was dead. The charger had burned with the Fairwood Hotel, along with the computer TLN had provided her. She sighed and tried to concentrate on the news analysts.

Only once was Amy’s attention fully engaged. A talking head said something about the president’s speech being followed by political analyses tonight and by quickly prepared shows about the local protests tomorrow. “Including, strangely enough, one by Taunton Life Network as part of its schlocky teen show
Who Knows People, Baby—You?
”

The second talking head shuddered. “
That’s
one I can skip.”

“I agree. But at the same hour on CBS—”

Gran looked at Amy. “You know about this?”

“No!”

“Well, maybe you should find out more. Go on, honey, call TLN. Better yet, go to work and stop fidgeting here. You’re distracting me.”

Amy kissed the top of Gran’s head—
tough old bird
didn’t even begin to describe her—and escaped the ten-millionth analysis of a speech the president hadn’t even made yet.

Back at the hotel, Jillian accosted her. “I wish you’d told me you wanted to go to the hospital!” Jillian’s ponytail bobbed aggressively.

“I’m sorry,” Amy lied. “But my phone is dead and the charger went in the fire.”

“Oh. We’ll get you a new phone. Right now everybody else is at a day spa. TLN’s treat. You could have gone, too. Anyway, a van will pick you all up at seven thirty a.m. tomorrow, so be ready. Wear jeans.”

“Okay. Jillian, what about this special report on the show about the hotel fire?”

Jillian’s voice turned guarded. “What about it?”

“Well, what will it be? How will it fit with any of the scenarios we shot? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know any more than you do. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

A phantom sprang into Amy’s mind:
a beach ball rolling down a steep slope
. Now, what the hell did that mean?

She had no idea.

* * *

The president’s speech was exactly what the entire day of newscasts had said it would be. The Lab Rats all piled into Cai’s room to watch it, but only Rafe gave the speech his whole attention. The rest watched intermittently. No one had any information on the “special edition” of the show promised for the next night, although everyone had speculations. Amy, sitting on the floor in front of the TV, tried not to look at the pair of Kaylie’s panties under Cai’s bed.

When the speech was over, Rafe said, “Perfect. It’ll work. Despite all the yelling from special interests.”

Violet said, “Thank you, Mr. Analyst. Now if you watch all the follow-up talk, you watch it alone. The rest of you, come with me. I found something terrific. Rafe isn’t the only one who explores his environment.”

Rafe glanced from the screen. “Violet, I told you this room—all our rooms—is probably bugged.”

“Which is why we’re not staying in this room. Come on!”

To Amy, Violet’s voice sounded unpleasantly shrill, but if anyone else noticed, they didn’t say anything. All six of them followed her to wherever she was taking them.