Flattered, she laughed.
“Well, I’m not sure. Honestly, I don’t go to the high school games, not even to see my former elementary school students. Not my cup of tea, really.”
She told Lou that over the last few years she made regular appearances at the NRC and ALLPower meetings. They had come to know her and seemed to cringe at her vocal wrath but always treated her with respect. He listened with one half of his brain while the other half took her in. She wore a small jade ring on her pinky.
But his deadline was fast approaching, and he already knew the story would be anything but brief. It was always harder to write short.
“Can I call you for names of people in your group?” he asked, signaling the end of the interview although it was hard to break away. He could talk to this lady forever.
“Sure. Anytime.” She quickly got a card out of her skirt pocket, handed it to him and extended her slender hand. Her grip was firm, and he held her hand without shaking it.
“Nice to meet you, Diana. Hope we speak again. Soon.”
As they parted Diana smiled to herself. Not a bad guy, even though he was undressing me with his eyes.
Chapter 10
“This isn’t a brief!” Owen chastised Lou when he filed his ALLPower story. “I didn’t need a full news story, just a tiny mention. Revise it. Pronto!”
The two men were the only ones working late in the newsroom.
“Just what do you expect me to cut?” said Lou.
“Cut the Chase woman. We don’t need her whining.”
Lou flinched. “Her voice balances the article. She stays in.”
Owen squinted. “Balance? How ethical! But not now, not for a quickie brief. Tomorrow’s paper is full. This is a filler, get it? If you can’t cut it by half, I’ll do it.”
“This is news, Owen. You can make it fit, and you know it.”
“You’re not listening. I have all the news I need. Besides, from what I understand, it’s just a small leak—no biggy. Don’t play hero.”
“Fine,” Lou spat out.
Owen stomped away. Lou reached for a Styrofoam cup that held the cold dregs of his morning coffee and slurped it down. Reluctantly he started chipping away at the copy, grumbling to himself for getting involved in a story where he had no business. What did he really care about the damn plant anyway?
He kept in one quote by O’Brien and one from the NRC inspector. He was already over the allotted four hundred words. He cut Diana entirely, felt guilty, reworked her in as an entrée to get together, deleted her again. What’s the problem here? Finally, he kept her short sound bite as the kicker, the walk-away quote that cautioned radioactivity was leaking into the river. Seeing her name in print should put a smile on the lady’s lovely face, he thought.
Chapter 11
The headline editor got carried away, and the large, bold letters dwarfed Lou’s three-paragraph story, which curiously found its way to the lower right-hand corner of the front page, an unusual place for a brief.
Furious, Bob gripped the paper, his knuckles white. How could a wimpy little sportswriter dare to write such rubbish! He’d get his.
Hours later Lou’s story was picked up by the Associated Press, who called Bob and pummeled him with questions. As an international newswire, any story the AP ran was scooped up by news outlets worldwide. In hours, the story of the ALLPower leak hit a broad band of media, including the Internet.
Who was this Padera guy? Bob searched the Internet and got some background. Oh yes. A poor boy, ace basketball player, didn’t quite make the cut for the big leagues. Luckily, it wasn’t ALLPower who gave him a scholarship. Could his failure to make the big time give him ammunition for some kind of misplaced vendetta? And now he was retaliating by attacking a utility company? Or just corporate America in general?
For days the stress mounted. Bob came in to work early and stayed late to catch the press calls as they came in, staying on top of things, in control. O’Brien got sick of Bob running in and out of his office, priming him for on-camera TV interviews, feeding him upbeat answers to live-radio talk-show hosts on the phone.
It was exhausting. Bob requested updates from the inspectors twice a day. Was the leak radioactive? Where was it coming from?
At the end of the day, weary and haggard, Bob would drive home, dreading another spat with Morgan, who was anything but sympathetic.
“You’re spending too much time at work, Bob,” she’d say without looking up from the TV.
“Have you watched the news? Don’t you know what’s going on?”
“You don’t have to be there 24/7. Get an assistant to do some of the work.”
“I’m the key guy when we have a big-time problem like this, Honey.”
“The big time problem is here, at home. You’re not married to me; you’re married to that plant.”
“That plant is the reason you’re living in the style you wanted. Now lay off. Cut me some slack.”
“Cut you some slack? Let me tell you something, Mr. ALLPower, this house isn’t a pit stop where you eat, sleep, dress, and leave. This keeps up, I’m outta here.”
Another empty threat he shrugged off like all the rest. He usually gulped down the cold dinner without heating it in the microwave. He’d crawl into the king-size bed and hug the edge. When was the last time he even desired her? Was she thinking divorce? No way, he thought.
He always woke before dawn to sneak out, avoiding Morgan’s recriminating glares. If he was lucky she’d still be asleep and he could skip the obligatory kiss good-bye. For Morgan, waking up in an empty bed started the day with rejection, followed by anger. She and Bob were more like roommates than a couple married for five years. She refused to touch stuff on his dresser or in his home office. If he forgot a cup of coffee near his computer, she’d leave it there to grow its skuzzy mold. His absences made her crankier and insecure, and she repeatedly called his office. She became a nuisance to Bob’s staff, especially when they were in crisis mode. His pat answer when she called: “Take a message.”
As frenzied as work was, the plant was a place of solace for Bob, an orderly run office with no room for emotional outbursts.
The final blow was the forgotten fifth wedding anniversary. The day passed unremarked. Morgan knew it was time to move on.
It was a Friday night when Bob pulled up to a darkened house. He opened the door to stark emptiness punctuated only by his sleek-lined reclining chair in the shadowy living room. A note from his wife was taped on the wall in the entryway, it said: “Hope you and your nuclear bride have a radiating honeymoon. See you in court.”
He stared at the note stoically. “You won’t see me anytime too soon, Babe.”
He surveyed the stripped-down space, vaguely aware of the distant hum of the refrigerator. He sauntered down the hall to the kitchen where flatware for a single place setting sat eerily on the counter. He moved past empty walls into the bedroom, trying to conjure up memories of fun, passion. Weren’t they in love at one time? Wasn’t it forever, no matter what happened?
Something deep down begged for an emotional catharsis, a burst of sorrow. He waited for it to surface, but… nothing. He reenvisioned a candlelight dinner in the now-empty dining room, when they toasted their first meal that christened the new custom-made table, their first piece of furniture.
There must be something he could be nostalgic about. Still nothing. He didn’t understand the vacuous sense of numbness. Why didn’t he feel anything? Was he in shock? Morgan just bailed—shouldn’t he try to find her? The bed was gone. He saw only the dim outline of a lone dresser in the curtain-less bedroom. His jaw firm, Bob emptied the drawers and closets and methodically threw his clothes into a suitcase. He shuffled out, leaving Morgan’s terse denouement stuck to the wall. It floated to the floor when he slammed the front door shut.