The beach at Race Point is crowded with color, humming with motion, dappled with sun and shadow. It’s windy, as always, but that just makes the waves sparkle and dance. One of those days you get a glimpse of where Monet was coming from. I glance back at Penny. And she’s suddenly too far away. Too far out in the water.
“Penny,” I yell, running after her. “Come back this way.” I don’t want to spook her and I’m not sure if I’m being overcautious. But how can you be overcautious when there’s an eight-year-old in the Atlantic Ocean? My feet splash into the cool salt water, sticking into the sandy bottom, my progress instantly slowed by the pull of the waves. I don’t take my eyes off her. Or the wave that seems to be coming too close.
In an instant, Penny is engulfed.
Running as best I can, I don’t take my eyes from the spot I last saw her. I know she wasn’t anywhere near over her head. The water was only knee-deep. But I caught the glimmer of fear and surprise in her eyes as the water unexpectedly knocked her legs out from under her. I plunge toward her, seeing only an arm and a flailing leg.
We arrive at the surface together, sitting on the sand, the water all around us, the waves receding as if the moment never happened. Penny’s clinging to me, red faced, gasping, wiping the water out of her eyes, her hair in dank strands, dripping into her face. Her pale green T-shirt floats into puffs, billowing around her, and she looks like a waterlogged little flower. She’s fine, but afraid.
“I thought…I was…I didn’t know…” Penny gulps, trying to breathe and talk and hold back tears at the same time.
“You’re all right now, sweetheart,” I say, pushing her dark curls away from her sand-streaked cheeks. “I was watching you the whole time. That wave just took you by surprise, didn’t it?”
The water is calm now, peaceful and unthreatening. To anyone watching, nothing happened. I smile at her, reassuring, not letting go. “Nothing is going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”
I take her by the hand and help her to her feet. The water, so clear we can see the tweedy sand underneath, is just up to her knees. “Ready to go back to the blanket? Or want to stay in a while?”
“Um,” she says. “Let’s walk back.” She keeps my hand as we slosh to the shore. “I wasn’t scared,” she insists.
“Well, hey,” I say, slowly. “It’s okay to be a little bit scared. The ocean is big, right? And kind of unpredictable. That’s why you always swim with a pal.”
She’s quiet for a moment as we walk. “Like you?” she asks.
“Yup.” I say, not letting on that my heart is so full I can barely talk. “Like me.”
I take a few steps through the water, then as we amble slowly back to our blanket, decide to go for it. “Penny, honey. You know, you could call me Charlie, if you like.”
She purses her lips, kicking the water as she walks. “Yeah, that’s what Dad told me, too.” She stops and turns to me, the water now tickling her ankles. She looks like she’s going to cry. What just happened?
“I don’t want two moms,” she says. Her voice quavers. Her mouth is frowning so deeply it must be wrenched from the depths of her little soul. “I don’t.”
I crouch down to her height, keeping her hand and taking the other. She looks at me, dejected little face, hair still dripping, soggy T-shirt drooping off one thin shoulder. “Penny Gelston,” I say. “You only have one mom. You’ll always only have one mom.”
Penny blinks, silent. A droplet, maybe a tear, traces down her cheek.
“Everyone has just one mom,” I continue. “And she’ll always be special, no matter what.” I swallow, holding back my own tears a bit. I guess the watery incident with Penny was more frightening than I had admitted. Or maybe it’s something else. “You know, my own mom is getting married this summer. My dad died a while ago. There’ll be someone new in my life, too. But I’ll always love my real dad. That doesn’t change.”
“So,” Penny begins, slowly, as if I’ve given her another kind of lifeline. “We could be like friends? But my mom is still my only mom?”
“Of course,” I say. “Exactly right.” I stand up, and we begin to walk together, back to our place on the sand. A familiar figure carrying a brown paper bag comes into view across the beach and waves to us as he comes nearer. “Here’s the secret.” I lean down, and whisper in her ear, “A heart always has room for more love.”
CHAPTER 17
The moment I step across the threshold of the news director’s office, every shred of remaining weekend warmth and contentment gets sucked away into a black hole of apprehension. It all seemed so promising-Josh, loving, attentive, and breathtakingly male. Penny, beginning to open up. Even Mom. We spent Sunday together, and even though she’s still sometimes woozy with painkillers, we actually had a real conversation. Tonight, I’m going back for dinner. If I live. Because now, Kevin O’Bannon’s chrome and glass domain might as well be a crime scene in progress. With me as the victim.
Kevin, barricaded behind yellow-stickied stacks of Broadcasting Magazine and black-boxed résumé tapes, motions me to come in. He flips two fingers in a gesture that I’m supposed to translate as “and close the door.” Susannah’s skulking on the couch, punctuating the tension by tapping an expensive-looking pen on her ever-present folder.
The back of my neck goes clammy. My hands can’t find a place to go. Kevin’s sitting. Susannah’s sitting. I’m standing. They ain’t planning to give me a raise. Or tell me I’ve been nominated for another Emmy.
“Charlie,” Kevin says. His voice is full of foreboding. “May I play something for you? And you see what you think of it. It’s a voice mail message. I saved it for you to hear.”
Like I have a choice. “Of course,” I say. “Franklin and I tried to call you over the weekend, but-”
“I got your messages, too.” he says. Kevin swivels to his telephone, and punches on the speaker.
“This is Oscar…” I hear. In those four syllables, my already shaky Dorinda story begins to wobble like a dying top. Ortega’s terse words continue to spit through the phone.
“Your Charlie McNally,” his voice booms, “has lost her objectivity. She’s clearly in league with those ultraliberal misguided do-gooders, all of them, soft on crime. And you’re allowing it to happen. Perhaps even encouraging this conspiracy to derail my candidacy for governor.”
Ortega’s basso is so profundo, the tiny speaker actually shudders, struggling to transmit Darth Vader through a plastic box on Kevin’s desk. If voice mail could breathe fire, this one is doing it.
“I won’t have it, O’Bannon. You pull that woman and her sidekick off this so-called story,” the disembodied voice demands. “Or your next message will be from the FCC.”
His slam of the receiver must have rocked the Richter scale. Kevin looks at Susannah and she points her pen at him. He looks at me.
“How on God’s green earth,” Kevin begins. His voice is softer than usual, and he sounds like he’s straining to stay under control. He clamps his lips together, making a thin white line across his reddening face.
“F. C. Freaking C?” His voice rises with each letter, and he stands, palms on his desk, and shooting lasers. “You told us this was a sure thing,” he says. “You told us there was no problem.”
I frantically search for equilibrium. I never, ever, told them it was a sure thing. Quite the contrary. How many times did I warn Susannah? I look at the queen of lies, sitting in smug silence on Kevin’s couch. She heard the message from Oz, then threw me under the bus. But wailing “I did not” is not going to save me. Or the story.