Chapter 12
THE CHRISTMAS THAT Blaise, Simon, and Salima shared was perfect. They all loved their presents, and opened them on Christmas Eve after a delicious dinner. They went to midnight mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and as she always did when she went to church now, Salima lit a candle for Abby. It was hard to believe she’d been gone for almost three months. Salima knew she’d never forget her, but so much had changed in Salima’s life since she died. It made it seem like much longer.
They stayed up late that night, and Blaise put Salima to bed. And afterward she found Simon already waiting in her bedroom. He thanked her for the beautiful Christmas and the lovely presents. And he had given Blaise a narrow gold bangle to wear with the one she always wore now, from Dubai. She loved Simon’s more. He had had a message engraved inside: “Merry Christmas, I love you, S.” And she had given him a watch. It was a Rolex he could wear every day, and he loved it. And she loved the ivory bangle from Salima too. And Salima loved all her gifts. Simon had recorded some wonderful music for her, and made a number of CDs, compiled from his own music collection.
The next morning Simon made them an enormous breakfast, including the homemade whole wheat waffles Salima loved, with the diabetic maple syrup. He had given her her own waffle iron for Christmas along with a stack of books in Braille that she wanted to read.
They were just finishing breakfast when Simon’s cell phone rang. He grabbed it from where it was sitting on the counter, and Blaise saw him frown as he answered. She knew instantly it was Megan. He sounded tense when he told her they were eating, and then he paused for a long time as he listened, and as he did, he left the kitchen and stayed on the phone and walked back to his room.
Blaise made idle chitchat with Salima after he left and tried not to sound as distracted as she was. She could tell that whatever Megan was saying, she must have been upset about something, and Simon had looked worried when he left the room.
“Something wrong, Mom?” Salima asked her. She could hear the tension in her mother’s voice, and Blaise didn’t want her to know that she was upset, nor that Simon had been involved with a teacher at school. He didn’t want Salima to know, and Blaise had promised him she wouldn’t tell her. His affair with Megan was a breach of school rules, and he was embarrassed by their situation. Romances among faculty members were frowned on, but inevitably some occurred. But he didn’t want Salima to know he had spent three years with a married woman. He was ashamed.
“No, I’m fine,” Blaise lied to her as they talked about what to do that afternoon. Christmas was always a casual day for them, usually spent in pajamas, watching old movies or football, and Simon had promised to make them his famous turkey hash, from turkey left over from the night before.
It was a full twenty minutes before Simon walked back into the room, and he pretended to be cheerful, and said nothing about the phone call until Blaise was alone with him.
“What happened?” She couldn’t wait to ask him, she was nervous about the call and how long it had been.
“Nothing. She just wanted to wish me a merry Christmas, and she was upset because her middle son broke his arm.” Simon sounded concerned and had already told Blaise he loved her sons. They hadn’t lied to him. She had.
“Did his father hurt him?” Blaise asked, looking worried about a child she didn’t know.
“No, he fell off his new bike,” Simon said, and seemed uncomfortable. Blaise had the distinct impression that he didn’t want to discuss Megan with her.
“Anything else?” She didn’t know why, but she had the feeling there was more, and he took a moment to answer.
“No, it was fine,” he said vaguely, and loaded the dishwasher. Blaise walked over to him and kissed him then. The look on his face reminded her of when Andrew called her. She could see the pain in Simon’s eyes.
“I love you,” she said simply, and put her arms around him.
“I love you too,” he said sadly, and then he kissed her, and she thought she saw tears in his eyes. But he said nothing more about Megan, and they spent the rest of the afternoon reading the paper, relaxing, and watching football on TV, until Simon went to start dinner and produced the promised hash. And he was in better spirits by then, and had recovered from Megan’s call. She was the ghost of Christmas past, or at least Blaise hoped so. The three of them had a good time at dinner. They were still being circumspect around Salima, and didn’t want to shock her. She had no idea that Simon spent every night in her mother’s room, and Blaise didn’t tell her. She didn’t need to know.
When she and Simon went to bed that night, they agreed that it had been a lovely Christmas, their first. She said something about it, and he was quick to correct her.
“The first of many.”
“I hope so,” she said softly. He slept in her arms that night, and all she could hope was that he wasn’t dreaming of Megan.
Blaise was off for the week between Christmas and New Year, and she spent time with Salima and Simon. They went to concerts and out to dinner, and took Salima skating in Central Park. She loved it. The three of them had a great time together, and Salima went to two recitals at Juilliard with Lucianna and met some of the students. She came back more excited than ever about the school and could hardly wait to audition. The time flew by, and Blaise’s vacation ended all too quickly.
The first two weeks of January were totally crazy for Blaise once she went back to work. She had three major trips planned, one to California and two to Europe, and each of them only for a few days. And as always now, Teresa stayed at the apartment to help Simon with Salima, and each time Blaise returned, he was thrilled to see her. And by midmonth she was exhausted. She was traveling too much, but the interviews she was doing were important. All of her recent ones had already been aired, and had done well. And the night she got home from her last trip, Susie Quentin’s live special was on, with her interview with the first lady. It had been the talk of the network for weeks. Blaise sat down to watch it with trepidation, and Simon joined her a few minutes later right before it came on. He didn’t want to miss it either. He knew how nervous Blaise was about it. Andrew had sent Blaise a text about it, as though she wouldn’t know it would be on. She particularly wanted to see it to see how stiff her competition was. This was the big opportunity the network had given Susie to shine, and Blaise knew that if Susie did well with it, her own future could be impacted. A star could be born that night, if Susie knocked their socks off. Blaise knew she would be fighting for her position at the network every day from then on. It was tough enough as it was, without adding more pressure. Blaise looked intent and tense as Susie and the first lady came on, from a sitting room at the White House.
The interview opened with Susie explaining who she was, and saying how happy she was to be at the White House with the first lady, which Blaise told Simon she thought was hokey. No one cared who the reporter was, she explained, especially at Susie’s stage of the game, they were just a vehicle to draw out their subjects, and ask the questions everyone wanted to know. She was the mouthpiece for the viewing public, their alter ego. But she had a massive ego of her own, and it leaped at the viewers right through the TV. She was all about Susie, and eventually addressed the first lady. Her first question was inane. Her second one was worse. And for her third one, she made a blunder and asked the first lady how she had liked living in Virginia before the White House, and what that time had meant to her. The question was only interesting because the first lady had never lived there, her predecessor had. Susie was an administration late.
“Oh my God,” Blaise said, wincing, “how did she manage to screw that up, and who the hell did the research?” The first lady looked confused on the air. Simon was amused by the flow of editorial comments from Blaise.
Susie then went on to ask her if she thought her husband had ever had an affair. Blaise nearly choked and stared at the TV in disbelief. She had done nothing to warm up her subject and put her at ease. So far she had bored her, made a ridiculous mistake about her living in Virginia, and had just embarrassed her on prime-time national TV in front of millions of people. The first lady did not look pleased, to say the least. She looked poised but pissed. And Susie was clueless, as she waited for an answer to her question.
The current president was a seriously religious man, who was known for his moral standards and puritanical values. He might have been a hypocrite, but Blaise didn’t think so, and his wife sure as hell wouldn’t admit it if he was. He was a very straitlaced man, and all Susie had accomplished was seriously angering the president’s wife, who looked stunned after Susie asked the question and quietly answered, “No.”
“I’ll say one thing, she’s got balls,” Blaise said about her rival. She was beginning to look seriously foolish, and Blaise nearly fell off the couch when she asked the first lady if she’d ever had an affair herself. She was turning her special into tabloid TV and had copied Blaise’s occasional harsher, controversial edge without the judgment, brains, and charm.
“Oh my God,” Blaise groaned with both hands on her head. “She belongs in an institution. Is she nuts?” The first lady was sealed up tight as a drum after answering no to that question too, and the interview might as well have ended there. From then on, she answered in monosyllables, and fielded every question as she’d been taught to do by experts.
The questions droned on after that, and Blaise wondered how much more the first lady would take. Susie had the guts to ask her if she had smoked dope in college, to which she answered no again, and then, looking at her sympathetically, Susie asked if her husband left her and she was suddenly no longer the first lady, what would she do? The first lady responded that the question was irrelevant and waited for the next one, with the look of someone who has been publicly betrayed.
Susie then outdid herself on the next one, as Blaise held her breath and waited. Susie said she understood that the first lady had a gay brother, and how did she feel about same-sex marriage? And with that, the first lady smiled at her graciously, carefully unclipped her mike off the lapel of her stylish black suit, stood up, and walked off the set, as Susie stared at her in amazement. It had never occurred to her that that could happen, and it never had before. It was a first, and had never happened to Blaise once in her career, with any subject. She always respected them, even when she asked tough questions. But Blaise’s were questions in the context of their politics and careers, not about their spouses’ extramarital affairs or gay relations, geared to the sensational, with no useful purpose. She never went too far. Unlike Susie, who had burned all her bridges and torched her career in just under twelve minutes. Blaise burst out laughing. She was grinning from ear to ear and could just imagine pandemonium at the network, as Susie burbled incoherently, paddling desperately to cover what had happened, and they cut to commercial. During the break, Blaise tried to explain to Simon that he had just seen television history at its best. Blaise was thrilled at Susie’s monumental stupidity, and even more so when the first lady did not return to the set after the break. There had obviously been a rapid conference with Charlie and maybe even Zack, and Susie made a brief statement about how sorry she was to have offended the first lady, and how grateful she was for the interview, while she looked like she was about to cry. They cut to commercial again, and then acted as though the interview had run its expected amount of time, which was not the case. It was supposed to run an hour, and the next thing Blaise saw was a taped interview she had done the previous week with a granddaughter of Bobby Kennedy who was running for a congressional seat in Massachusetts and was said to be a presidential hopeful. She was a terrific young woman, and with enough commercials, they managed to fill the hour. And unexpectedly, with the taped Kennedy piece not yet aired, Blaise had saved the day. Her star in the network heavens was assured, and Charlie called her at the end of the show. He sounded like he was ready to have a stroke, and Blaise managed not to laugh, as Simon smiled. It had been quite an evening, and thanks to Blaise a terrific show, though not the one they’d planned. It had been Charlie’s idea to run the young Kennedy piece to fill the time and save their ass, and it had.
“Holy shit, did you watch that?” Charlie asked in a shaken voice. “I damn near had a heart attack.”
“I loved it,” Blaise admitted honestly, as Charlie groaned.
“You would, you bitch.” And then he laughed. “I would too, in your shoes. She submitted a whole different list of questions to programming, and started ad-libbing on the air. You do too, but you never asked a first lady about her husband cheating on her, even when they had, or about her gay brother.”
“I’ll bet Zack loved it,” she said evilly.
“I think he’ll drive Susie back to Miami himself, or her lifeless body after he kills her. Thank God we had your Kennedy piece in the can, or I’d have been on the air singing songs from The King and I or Sound of Music. Shit, Blaise, I’m too old for this job. Tonight nearly killed me. You saved our ass,” he said again with fervor.
“I hope Zack gets that,” she said seriously, but they both knew that the first lady walking out on Susie’s interview would be top of the news the next day, and all over YouTube on the Internet for months to come. Susie Q had committed a cardinal sin that had ended her career: “Thou shalt not cause a first lady to walk off the set.”
“Tomorrow should be fun at work, for a change,” Blaise said gleefully.
“For you maybe. If I hadn’t had that piece of yours to run, my ass would be out the door too. Zack must have called me fifteen times.”
“Don’t worry. The ratings will be through the roof on this.” He knew she was right. The ratings loved television disasters.
“So is my blood pressure,” he said mournfully, and a few minutes later they hung up. Mark called her after that, and he was thrilled for her. Susie Q was history. And Blaise was safe.
She and Simon talked about it for hours afterward and Salima came in to comment. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Nor could the entire country as they watched it replayed again and again. It was breaking news.
Blaise managed to look serious and dignified the next day at work, although she was laughing inside. Susie appeared briefly to pack up her things and disappeared without saying goodbye. The whole station talked of nothing else, and Charlie looked like he had survived electric shock therapy. He met with Zack for an hour, who now understood that live interviews of sensitive major subjects, like presidents or their wives, were not a good idea, and why.
Blaise went quietly about her work throughout the day, doing research in her office, and offering no comment about Susie. Blaise had dodged a bullet yet again.
She was in great spirits that night, telling Simon everything that had happened that day at the network, when the phone rang. She could tell by the way Simon spoke that it was work related, and it sounded important. It took her a few minutes to figure out that it was Eric, the head of the school.
“What did Eric say?” Blaise asked, looking relaxed, after a great day at work. It had been a total victory for her, and her first stress-free day in months. The heat would be on her again sooner or later, but for now she had a major reprieve that would last a while, until the next Susie Quentin came along.
Simon’s face was pale when he answered her question. “They’re reopening next Monday. I have to go back this weekend.” He looked devastated.
“So soon?” She felt like she’d been punched in the stomach and was suddenly panicked. Her joy over Susie Q’s demise was short-lived. “You’re going back?” She had been hoping he’d stay in New York with her and Salima. It was what Salima wanted too. Blaise knew he had a contract he had to honor, but she hadn’t wanted to think about his leaving, and hoped they could figure out something so he could stay, or come back very quickly.
“I have to,” he said simply. “My contract doesn’t end till May. What about Salima?”
“She wants to stay here. And she was hoping you’d stay with us.”
“I can’t,” he said, looking miserable, and Blaise was thinking it would be a long time till he returned in May. And now Salima wouldn’t be at the school, so she had no excuse to go up there to see him. She wished there was some way for Simon to stay, but knew there wasn’t.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said sadly, as his eyes met hers.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Simon said slowly.
“How’s that?” She could see something more in his eyes, but she didn’t know what it was.
“I didn’t want to tell you and ruin Christmas.” He swallowed before he spoke again. He could hardly get the words out. “Megan left her husband on Christmas Day. She finally did it.” Blaise nearly felt her heart stop at his words.
“What does that mean for us?” Blaise held her breath as she waited for his answer.
“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “I want to see her when I go back, and talk about it. I have to finish it cleanly and figure out what I’m doing.”
“I thought we knew what we were doing,” she said with a devastated expression. She had trusted him and given him her heart, and now he no longer sounded sure.
“I love you, Blaise. But I spent three years waiting for her to do this. She did it for me. I have a responsibility here, to her and her children.” He looked agonized as he said it, and Blaise as if he’d hit her.
“And she wants to have your baby, of course,” Blaise said with sudden irony in her voice. It was a tone he’d never heard her use, of defeat and bitterness. She could already see what was going to happen. He would go back to Meg, marry her, and have kids. She knew it was what she should have expected him to do at his age. But neither of them had believed that Meg would finally get free, after three years of empty promises. Her husband had finally crossed the line once too often, and her fear of losing Simon forever had given her the courage she’d never had before. “Do you love her?” Blaise asked him in a pained tone. She had expected better than this from him, or hoped for it at least. He had been so sure that he wanted a life with Blaise, no matter how unusual, and he had convinced her. But there was no fighting the fact that he still had feelings for Megan. He had waited three years for her, and she had been everything he wanted then. Now, torn between two women, he was confused.
“I just need to figure this out,” he said with a look of desperation. “I don’t want to lose you. I love you.” She could see that he meant it, but as he had said, it was complicated. She could see now that he didn’t want to lose Meg either. He wasn’t ready. He had waited so long for this, and she had finally left her husband.
“And what am I supposed to do here in the meantime?” He was going back to school, and now possibly to Megan. Blaise felt as though her life had just fallen apart. Her situation at the network was secure. And now her love life was disintegrating. Again. It had come apart in an instant.
“Give me the time I need to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, and end it cleanly with Meg, if it’s right for me to be with you. I need some time to sort this out.”
“I thought we already knew that it’s right for us,” she said unhappily. But now nothing was clear, and Simon looked confused. He had known about Megan leaving her husband since Christmas. And his confusion was the difference between being thirty-two and being forty-seven. Blaise knew what she wanted now, but he was torn. “What do I do with Salima, if you have to leave this weekend?” She had to deal with the practical aspects too now. She had no one to help her, and she was going to Lebanon for two days the following week. But the real problem was not Salima, it was them.
“Eric thought I’d be bringing her with me. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow.” It was the least of their problems. Blaise couldn’t believe what had just happened. Not only was he leaving almost immediately, but Megan was suddenly front and center again. She was angry he hadn’t told her sooner.
She sat looking at him for a long moment and said nothing. There were tears bulging in her eyes, but she didn’t want him to see her crying. She refused to be pathetic. She was too proud to beg him to choose her, and she knew she couldn’t. He had to make the decision on his own and follow his heart, wherever it led him.
“Let me see if I understand this clearly,” she said, sounding like the woman he saw on television, not the woman he had come to love. “You want time to talk to Meg and figure out if you still love her, and who you want to spend your life with. Does that pretty much sum it up? And during that time, you’d like me to wait here, hoping that you pick me, with no idea of what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” he said, looking acutely unhappy. He hated hurting her, but he didn’t want to make a mistake. He had to be sure he was making the right decision. “I never thought she’d leave him. I honestly thought it was over, Blaise. I swear. She rocked my world when she told me she left him. And she did it for me.”
“What if she’s lying to you again, or to him? Or what if she goes back to him after you lose me?” She was trying to be calm, but all she wanted to do was lie on the floor and scream. How could she have done this to herself again? She realized now that they had gotten involved prematurely. He wasn’t ready. And maybe he never would be. Or he’d wind up marrying Megan. She felt like a total loser.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said clearly again. “I’m in love with you, Blaise.” But he had three years of history with Megan, a sense of responsibility to her, and the possibility of having a baby, none of which he had with Blaise. And their relationship was brand new.
“I think that’s the same thing Andrew said when I left him, that he loved me and didn’t want to lose me,” Blaise said coldly, and Simon could see clearly just how hurt she was, and he hated being the one to do it this time. “You can’t have it both ways, at least not for long. Go figure out what you want,” she said, and stood up, but she didn’t approach him. “And I’ve got some serious thinking to do in the meantime. Maybe fifteen years really does make a difference. You have a right to be with the woman you want, Simon. I was just hoping that woman was me. Apparently, that’s not the case.”
“I don’t know that. I don’t know anything right now. I’m confused. She threw me a curve here. She left him after I told her it was over.”
“She sounds like a prime manipulator to me.” That was one thing Blaise wasn’t, and he knew that. He didn’t blame her for being upset or even angry with him. But he couldn’t tell her something he didn’t know for sure. He knew he needed to see Meg again and clear the air before he could go any further with Blaise. It wasn’t finished with Megan.
“You talked to Andrew for four years after it was over,” he reminded her gently. “You still do. You said it was unfinished business. So is this for me. I need to see her, and either cut the cord completely or make it work. I don’t want to wonder about this in five or ten years. I need to know that this is where I want to be, with you. You lead a big life, Blaise. You’re a big person. You have a gigantic career. And if we’re together, we’re going to be in the press. You have Salima. I have to figure out if I’m big enough to take this on, and that I can bring enough to the table. And part of that is knowing if Meg is past history for me, or if there’s something left. I can’t come to you cleanly until I know where I stand with her.”
“That all makes sense,” Blaise said quietly, feeling as though her heart had turned to stone inside her. “I just don’t want to live through that. I’ve been there. It’s not a good situation for me.” And she thought it unlikely that he’d choose a woman fifteen years older instead of one his own age. She was fighting a losing battle, and she knew it. And she’d rather bow out gracefully than wait for him to reject her later. She didn’t feel like she could win against Megan. She was sixteen years younger, and willing to have kids. And he had loved her for three years.
“I’m sorry to do this to you. You don’t deserve it,” he said miserably.
“No, I don’t,” she agreed with him. “And neither do you. You deserve to be with a woman who really loves you. Just make sure she does, before you take on a woman who lied to everyone for three years and has three kids by someone else. That doesn’t sound like a good situation to me.”
“I’ve never been happier in my life than I’ve been with you for the past three months. I wanted it to go on forever.” He looked heartbroken as he said it, and so did she.
“So did I. I was beginning to think it would. I thought we had it all figured out, but I guess we didn’t.” She had already resigned herself to the idea that he was going back to Meg. She was sure he would, and stay there. He had been loyal to Meg for three years before he left, to the point of obsession. How could she compete with that? And their relationship was healthy and sane, despite the age difference, not obsessed. And then she thought of something. “If you’re really leaving, and planning to work it out with Meg, don’t wait until the weekend. Have Eric send someone immediately. I don’t want to drag this out any longer than we have to. If you’re going to break my heart, and that appears to be the plan, make it quick. Don’t linger. It’ll just make it worse for both of us,” and particularly for her. He had someone else waiting for him, she didn’t. And knowing that Megan was back in his life was agony for her.
“Blaise, I told you I need time. I’m not telling you I’m going back to her for sure. I need to see her and be sure of what I want. If I didn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair to you, or to me.”
“I understand. I’m just not as optimistic as you are. And to be honest, this is humiliating. I don’t want to stand around, while you figure it out, sample the merchandise, and decide who you love better. I have to compete every day at work and fight for my life. I don’t want to do that with you too. If you’re unclear enough to want to check it out with her again, I doubt very much that you’ll be coming back to me. And you probably shouldn’t. She can offer you a much more normal situation, with a house full of kids, hers and your own. That’s pretty hard to resist, particularly at your age. All I can offer you is my very grown-up life and Salima.”
“I love you both, you and Salima.” He looked honest as he said it.
“I’m grateful for everything you did for us for the past three months. It was amazing, particularly for Salima, and for me too,” she said sadly. She had never been as happy in her life. And now she had to pay the piper. She had been a fool to think their ages didn’t make a difference, and she knew it. They did. She was trying to be reasonable, but she was hurt and angry, and sounded bitter.
“I’ll call Eric in the morning,” he said quietly, and stood up to go back to his room. He wanted to spend the night with her, now more than ever, but he sensed that she wouldn’t let him. She didn’t say another word to him and walked back to her suite. And when she got there, she lay on the bed and sobbed. Her worst fears had just come true.