Page 57 of Prime Time

“Will I? I don’t think so.”

“I know so. It’s in your blood, Andy. You’re good. The best. And you love it. It’s your life.”

“No, Les,” she said loudly. “It’s your life. I want more out of mine.” She wanted to go to this man who had been her friend. To take hold of his shoulders. To shake him. To make him understand. But she knew that was impossible. He’d never understand. “Thank you for the compliment. I know I have the talent, but I don’t have the drive.” She clutched her fist in front of her stomach. “I don’t want to reach the top of the heap by sacrificing everything else.

“My father decided, Robert decided, you decided that this is what I wanted for myself. No one consulted me. I’ve loved what I’ve done, but it’s all I’ve got. I have nothing more. I’m thirty now. In ten years I’ll be forty, and I may be no further along in my career

or I may be the sweetheart of the network, but that’s still all I’ll have. And eventually someone younger, and prettier, and more talented will come along to replace me, and then where will I be? Left with what? Forgive me, Les, for letting you down, but I want out. A rest. My own life.”

“That all sounds real pretty, but it’s crap and you know it. You’ve just fallen hard for a guy and you’re wanting to protect him. What happened out there this morning? Did he kick you out?”

“Yes, because he saw the announcement about the interviews being shown on the network news tonight.”

“So? Why was he so bent out of shape? He knew the interviews were being sold to the network. In any case, they would have been televised sometime. Why—” He cocked his head to one side and the lid of one eye lowered as he studied her nervous fidgeting. “Wait a minute. You found out something. Didn’t you?” When she didn’t answer, he encircled her arm with bruising fingers and brought his face to within an inch of hers. “Didn’t you?”

She stared up at him fearlessly. He didn’t have the power to intimidate or humiliate or hurt her now. All her feelings were lying at Lyon’s feet, just as the tapes were. She couldn’t be hurt any more. Nor did she see any point in gloating over a secret that would go with her to her grave. Les couldn’t be any angrier. He had been her friend for a long time. Looking at it from his point of view, she could see how he would consider this a betrayal.

“No,” she said calmly, and looked pointedly at the hand that was squeezing the life from her arm. Slowly it relaxed and then fell away. She looked back up at him. “No, Les. There never was any big secret. Maybe that’s why I got so turned off by this project. You go for the jugular. I don’t. You see people as potential stories to further your own career. I was coming to think in those terms too, and didn’t like myself for it. Now, I see people as human beings, with human frailties and the right to keep those frailties private.”

She raised on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I love you. You’ve been a good friend. I hope you continue to be. But I don’t want to see you for a while. Good-bye.”

She went out of the room and to her rental car. She had already started the engine when he came to the door. “Andy,” he called, “where are you going?” There was a defeated aspect about him that she’d never seen before. It tugged at her heart, but she’d made her decision and she was going to stick by it.

When she answered, it was in an unstable, gravelly voice. “I don’t know.”

She went first to San Antonio and checked into the Palacio del Rio located on the city’s famous Riverwalk. At the check-in desk she picked up several travel brochures. A week spent in anonymity sounded wonderful. She’d go somewhere and lie on the beach, eat rich food, and be extremely lazy until she felt like coming home and picking up the pieces of her life and rebuilding them. Mexico? The Caribbean?

What did it matter?

In the long run she would still be alone. Not only had she lost Lyon, she had lost her friend and her job. Never in her life had she been at such loose ends. Somewhere she had read that one’s character didn’t grow in times of stability, but in times of adversity. If that were so, she should have a character a mile high.

Shaking off the desire to lie in solitary confinement in her hotel room, she forced herself to dress in a cool cotton dress and repair her makeup. She left the hotel on the river side and strolled down the Riverwalk, finally choosing a sidewalk café in which to eat a lonely dinner.

She was admired by many who passed her table, especially men, but she averted her eyes in a way that said a silent, but irrevocable “no” to anything they might have had in mind. Some who walked by her stared, trying to place her. She was accustomed to that. People sometimes recognized her immediately. Others would look at her with perplexity, trying to decide where they knew her from. She often wondered when realization struck them. Maybe not until they saw her again on television. Then they would smack their forehead and exclaim, “Of course, Andy Malone! That’s who that was.”

She toyed with her salad, but only ate the slices of cantaloupe. The cheeseburger she’d ordered was thick and juicy, but it reminded her of the cheeseburger basket Lyon had ordered at Gabe’s, and she could barely swallow the first large bite she took. Besides it wasn’t cooked enough to suit her. Or at least that’s what she gave herself as an excuse for leaving it virtually untouched on her plate.

Having taken up the time necessary to eat dinner, though she really hadn’t eaten it, she wandered down the Riverwalk, which was thronged with conventioneers and tourists. How would she fill up the long hours of the evening?

She paused to listen to the mariachi band. She bought an ice-cream cone and immediately threw it into the nearest trash can. She paused in the doorway of a gallery, but lacked the interest or energy to go in and examine the artwork on display.

One of the barges that carried forty or so tourists on a half-hour excursion down the river was boarding at the dock. She purchased a ticket and was helped aboard by a youth dressed in bleached muslin with a bright Mexican belt wrapped around his waist.

“Go all the way to the front, please,” he said in a bored monotone.

She sat on the hard wooden bench and stared out over the water of the San Antonio River. Colored lights, discreetly positioned in the lush foliage bordering the Riverwalk, reflected wavering ribbons on the surface. She paid no attention to the other boarding passengers other than to the little girl, about two years old with blond pigtails, who sat next to her.

Andy smiled at the child’s young mother and father. She was fresh and pretty. He had a camera hanging around his neck. A young, attractive family out for an excursion. The poignancy of it was painful.

She turned slightly when she heard the revving of the barge’s motor, then did a double take when she saw the last passenger who stepped aboard.

Her heart slammed against her ribs and she whipped her head around to stare unseeingly at the water. She heard the muttered objections as he stepped over other people to get to the front of the launch.

“Sir, sir, there’s no more room up front,” the young man said. “Would you please take a seat back here?”

“I’m not a very good sailor. I’d hate to throw up on anybody,” the low-timbred, hoarse voice said. Andy heard the rustling of clothes and the scurrying of feet as everyone made room for the rude passenger who insisted on sitting at the front of the barge.

The young pilot sounded aggravated as he began his spiel in a monosyllabic drone. The barge pulled away from the dock. A cool breeze taunted Andy’s hot cheeks as the boat chugged through the water. The river was shrouded overhead with the mammoth branches of oak and pecan.

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