Thief of Words (22 page)
“Friday? You talked to her this past Friday? Look, Arthur, this is important, start from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
And that’s how Jack learned Annie’s secret. He uncovered her deepest trauma—the thing she had tried for so long to keep locked up in the stone tower of her past—from a guy wearing a frayed plaid tie with grease stains. Steinberg told Jack what he’d found out about the
Commercial-Appeal
incident, including some of the details from the
Creative Loafing
story, and described the meeting in Annie’s office.
Now Jack knew why Annie had disappeared.
“Anyway,” said Steinberg, finishing his story, “she turned me down flat. But I think we have enough people for the sidebar. Don’t you? Five should be plenty, shouldn’t it, Jack?”
“Sure. That’s great, Arthur. Look, I’ve got an important call to make. Let me talk to you later this morning, okay?”
But his second attempt to call Annie at work was stopped short, too, this time by Laura Goodbread.
“I need to talk to you. Now. It’s personal,” she said, her lips compressed into two thin lines. The tendons in her neck stood out as if she were steeling her body for a punch or about to deliver one.
“I need to talk to you, too,” said Jack. “Let’s go in the conference room. And Laura, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
This assurance didn’t seem to make Laura any happier. She looked at him as if he were a virus she didn’t want to catch and preceded him to the room with the big table and glass walls.
“Jack,” she said evenly, “you’re a fucking asshole.”
“First of all, Laura, calm down. It’s not what you think. I had no idea Steinberg was going to talk to Annie about the plagiarism story. I had no idea that Annie had even worked at a newspaper. She never told me. How was I supposed to know?” He banged a fist down on the conference table. “Laura, I don’t care what Annie did twenty years ago. You’ve got to help me get through to her. Tell her I don’t give a shit what happened at the
Charlotte Commercial-Appeal.
”
Laura’s reaction to these heartfelt words was not what Jack had expected. She didn’t smile; there was no softening of the lips. The only thing that changed was the look on her face. He was no longer a virus, but a habitual child molester being questioned by a victims’ rights activist.
“I don’t give a shit, either,” she said. “Steinberg cornered me this morning about his damned ‘Thief of Words’ story and tried to pump me about it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s ancient history. And you know damn well that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Jack stared at her. He was dumbfounded. “This
is
about Annie, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Jack, this is about Annie,” she said in staccato, pounding each word as if it were a nail. “Next time you ask me to fix you up with someone, it’d be a good idea to stop fucking Kathleen Faulkner first.”
Jack pulled back in horror. “Wh—what are you talking about?” he stammered, feeling his face grow hot.
“Oh shut up, Jack. Everybody knows your little secret. Everybody knows you’re sneaking around with her. Shit, Jack, there was even an office pool going last year, betting on who you were boinking. Faulkner was the hands-down favorite.”
Jack sat down. He felt like his head was going to explode. “Okay, Laura, maybe we had a thing. I mean, yes. We had an affair. But I swear to you, I haven’t seen Kathleen Faulkner outside of the newsroom for six months.”
“Oh? How about Friday night at the Plaza? That doesn’t count because it was in a different state?”
“No!” Jack practically shouted. A dozen reporters, sitting near the conference room’s glass walls, looked up from their desks or stopped in the middle of phone conversations. “You don’t understand…”
Laura brushed away the beginning of his explanation with a sneer.
“You know, you are a true asshole. It’s bad enough to be fucking around with two women at the same time, but to write them the same love letters is beyond despicable. It’s weak and hypocritical. How many times have I heard you on your little soapbox preaching the gospel of truth and credibility? You fucking hypocrite. No, I guess you wouldn’t care if Annie plagiarized, would you? Tell me, Mr. Snake Slayer, who’s the bigger thief of words? You or Annie? You’re pathetic. From now on, we’re no longer friends. Stay away from me and stay away from Annie.”
Laura slammed the door behind her, rattling the glass walls. Jack staggered back through the Features department red-faced, leaving behind a trail of puzzled looks and whispered conversations. He sat down at his desk, his mind fogged with confusion. Love letters? Snake slayer? Kathleen? It’s not possible. He tried to sort it out, hands covering his face. Nothing made sense. It’s not possible. It’s not possible.
“Jack. You okay?” It was Mike Gray, the Arts editor, at the adjacent desk.
“Oh, man,” said Jack. He took in and blew out a couple of deep breaths. “Yeah, Mike. I’m…I just need… Look, I’m going to walk over to Donna’s for some coffee. I’ll be back in a bit.”
He was trotting across Calvert Street, against the light, when the answer came to him. He didn’t know what had happened, exactly, but he knew how it had happened. He turned around in the middle of the street and headed back to the
Star-News
building.
It was the laptop. He’d left the laptop on.
K
athleen Faulkner was huddled with one of the cop reporters when Jack approached her desk.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
She swung around in her chair. “I’m a little busy. Give me fif-teen minutes.”
“It’s either here, in front of everyone, or in the Metro meeting room.” It sounded stupidly melodramatic when he said it, but he didn’t care.
The cop reporter coughed nervously. “I’ll come back later, Kathleen,” she said.
When they entered the meeting room, Kathleen sat down, but Jack remained standing.
“You read my e-mails, didn’t you?” he said, leaning over the table toward her.
“What do you mean?” asked Kathleen.
“When I left my room. You read my e-mails, you fucking cunt,” he said, straining to keep his voice from trembling. He wanted to lash out at her, he wanted to hurt her, but he also wanted to stay in control.
“Yes, I read them,” she said, paling. No one had ever called her that before. “I didn’t know what else to do. You shouldn’t have left, Jack. You shouldn’t have left me there alone.”
“What the fuck does that mean? I asked you to leave my room. You wouldn’t. So that gave you the right to go through my things?”
“I thought you’d come back so I stayed for a few minutes. The laptop was signed on. Yes. I read some of your e-mails. I’m sorry.”
“You’re lying,” said Jack. “You did more than that. You sent her a message, didn’t you?”
“Who?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” said Jack, his face ugly with anger. “You know who. You sent a message to Annie Hollerman.”
“No. I swear. I would never do that.”
“You’re lying,” he said again. “I know it. Tell me now or, so help me God, I will go to your house and tell your husband everything.”
Until those words came out of his mouth, it had never occurred to Jack to use their affair as leverage. Would he really have stormed over to Kathleen’s house? The answer was probably no, but the tone of his voice said yes. And that was enough.
Kathleen folded her arms against her chest. “She called,” she said, through clenched jaws.
“What?”
“The Hollerman woman. She called your room when you were gone.”
“My God. What did you say to her?”
“I told her we were there together. I told her I loved your words and I loved you. And that you loved me.”
“My God. My God.” It was all he could say. He turned away from her and looked out the glass walls of the meeting room. Half the Metro department was looking back at him. Well, he thought, there’s plenty of blood in the water today. This will keep the news-room gossip piranhas busy for weeks.
Behind him he heard Kathleen say, her voice finally beginning to break, “I didn’t want to lose you.”
He walked toward the door without looking back. “You lost me six months ago,” he said.
I
t was 11:15 when Jack finally made the phone call he’d been trying to make all morning. It was 11:l6 when that call ended.
It hadn’t been a satisfying conversation.
Fred had refused to put him through to Annie. There had been heated emotionality on Jack’s side, ruthless efficiency on Fred’s, ending in an abrupt click.
It was 11:17 when Jack made the second call.
“Fred,pleasedon’thangup,Iknowyousaidshedoesn’twanttotalkto me,butjustgivemethreeminutes—THREEMINUTES—isthat toomuchtoask?” Jack spoke as quickly as he could make his tongue move, resulting in one long, blurry sentence. To his relief, there was no click on the other end.
Then he slowed down. “Just hear me out. Okay? Let me tell you what happened. It’s not what Annie thinks. Three minutes? Okay? Just enough to tell you the whole story. Then if you think it’s bullshit, you can hang up. But if you don’t—and I know you won’t—you have to talk to Annie for me. You’ve got to get her to listen to what I have to say.”
There was still silence on the other end of the line. A blessed silence, in Jack’s mind. It meant that Fred was, at least, considering his plea.
“Okay,” said Fred, finally, “three minutes. No promises, though.”
Jack rushed through Friday night’s events like a guy qualifying for a NASCAR race. When he finished, Fred responded with a skeptical “Hmmph.” In desperation Jack played his one and only ace.
“Look, Fred,” he said, “I know this sounds ridiculous, but I can prove it. Those guys I was drinking with, I’ll have one of them call you. My boss, Steve Proctor, he was there. He’ll tell you what happened.”
“Hmmph,” Fred snorted again, skepticism intact. “Why should I believe him? You could have coached him.”
“I’d never do that.”
“Oh?” said Fred, in the voice of a schoolteacher listening to a missed homework excuse.
“If you won’t believe him, I’ll give you a list of every person I was in the bar with that night. There were at least seven. I’ll give you their phone numbers right now, before I have a chance to ‘coach’ them.”
This time Fred’s “hmmph” was higher-pitched and contained a note of surprise—but, to Jack’s ear, an entire symphonic score of hope. He plowed ahead before the note could change.
“You’ve got to believe me, Fred. If I were really the lothario-schmuck-asshole everybody thinks I am, would I be this desperate? Would I be on my knees begging?”
There was a ten-second hour before Fred responded.
“All right, Mr. DePaul. I’ll consider it. But don’t call back again and don’t come here. Let’s take a week or so for things to settle down.”
A
nnie whammed Sigourney Weaver with a left jab, followed fast by a right uppercut. Just as she snap-kicked the tall brunette into oblivion, she heard the buoyant voice of MaryJo, the fitness instructor at Dupont Sport and Health.
“Wow,” MaryJo chirped, lowering the black boxing mitt she’d been holding in front of Annie’s gloved fists. “You’ve really improved your punch. What’s going on? You angling for a part in Jackie Chan’s next movie?”
“Something like that,” Annie said, prancing in place to the beat of “Mambo Number 5.”
“Well, keep it up,” MaryJo said, moving over to the next salsa boxer in the line. “And did everyone see Annie’s last kick?” she said into her headset microphone. “That’s just how I want you all to do it.”
The face of Sigourney Weaver disappeared with MaryJo’s mitt. Now as Annie jabbed, punched, and kicked, she watched the mirrored wall in front of her as a line of women assaulted the air with varying degrees of ferocity. The Monday night salsa boxers came in all shapes and sizes. There were chubbies and skinnies and some in between. There was Deneen, the process server, who looked like she belonged in a
Playboy
spread (“Women of the Justice System”); there was a pregnant woman from Russia (Ivana?
Svetlana?) who always looked angry; there was Lala the lawyer, a short Hispanic woman with the sinewy arms of a rock climber. And there was Annie the literary agent, a slenderish redhead, with a strong desire to maim tonight.
Annie watched herself along with her sisters in salsa. Okay, so she didn’t have the smooth hip-glide thing going that MaryJo and Lala had, or Deneen’s exuberant breasts, or Svetlana/Ivana’s alabaster skin. In fact, there were plenty of things she didn’t have. But at age forty-four and three-quarters, Annie decided it was time to stop categorizing herself by her have-nots. She’d spent an awful few days thinking about Kathleen Faulkner and all the things she had that Annie didn’t: long legs, good thighs, a strong jaw, an important job, Jack. It didn’t matter that she’d never seen the woman. Laura had told her she looked like Sigourney Weaver and Annie’s imagination filled in the rest.
It’d taken Laura’s blunt words to shake her out of it. “You’re such a dope,” she’d said last night over burritos at Wrapworks. Laura had come down to D.C. to take Annie out to dinner—and to apologize for fixing her up with Jack. She’d even sworn never to mention good asses again.
“You remember the Sigourney Weaver part, but forget the turbo-bitch part,” Laura said. “Faulkner doesn’t have a friend in the newsroom, Annie. They call her Captina Queeg, for Christsakes. Plus, she’s got piano-stool legs, so you can erase
that
from your mind. Believe me, she’s not half the person you are. Would you like me to list the ways?”
“Yes,” Annie had said.
As the beat slowed down for ab work, Annie thought about Laura’s list. Funny, smart, kind, determined, small waist, great hair, willing to pee outdoors, and beautiful. She knew the last one was just a best friend’s bias (and major guilt for fixing her up with such a schmuck), but she’d let the others stand, dammit. She was measuring herself by her haves now.
Her abs began to burn and she was about to give up. But the same resolve that kicked in Saturday morning, after an hour of moldering in bed torturing herself with Kathleen’s words, kicked in now. She went into ab overdrive, clinching so hard with each rep that she felt like coiled steel. She was ready for another twenty crunches, when MaryJo popped to her feet and started swinging her fists again. “Okay, boxers,” she yelled, her amplified voice bouncing off the mirrored walls, “let’s give it all you got. You’re Mike Tyson and someone just smashed your new Mercedes. One, two—jab, punch, kick. Three-four—imagine a crumpled door— kick, punch, jab…”