Fifteen
The call itself, as it turned out, was completely painless. There was some inkling in Rose’s mind that she was being paid attention to now. That she was somebody. But the reality was that she wasn’t particularly interested in being someone. She wanted to survive.
So someone else might have been paying attention to the press coverage she was receiving. Rose paid attention to the baby girls that had kept her as busy as she could be when she could take time away from working. The fame was something that she had, not something that she cared about.
But apparently, it came in handy when you wanted to make sure that you got out ahead of negative press. So they promised her a call during the story, which was due to air at nine-thirty. Which gave her an entire hour to prepare, and an entire hour to realize that she was completely unprepared to discuss it.
The hour itself was agony. She texted Bryce to call her. He did, eventually, after a fashion. But by then it was time that she needed to be off the phone. So it was less a conversation with her husband and mentor, and more a pep-talk. ‘You got this’ was the only thing she took away from it.
She let out a breath, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back. Sarah slapped a block into the ground. It made a racket. But she wasn’t about to complain. After all, at least she was healthy and having a good time. If she made a little noise, then at least she could talk about something she was comfortable with.
The phone rang. She let out a breath, and then let herself relax.
“You got this,” she said to herself. She looked in the mirror. She felt like she was going to throw up. But somehow, she was going to make that translate into having complete control of the situation, and there was no other option open to her. She’d drag herself kicking and screaming into success. Because she had to.
She flicked the green button. A secretarial voice said that they were going to put her on in thirty seconds, and asked if she was ready. She wanted to make sure that Rose wasn’t watching the show on television—it would create an audio problem. It was better not to. The conversation would be live, so it wasn’t like they were going to be able to edit it to humiliate her.
She said she understood, and muted the television. On it, a bunch of people in thousand-dollar suits sat around with big smiles in spite of the subject matter they’d been talking about for the past ten minutes.
The phone rang again, once, in her ear. She was already connected, of course, but it rang for the audience’s sake, at least. She waited. There was no second ring.
“Mrs. Kilpatrick? Are you there?”
She took a deep breath. “Rose, please. Just call me Rose.”
“Rose, then. How are you?”
“I was doing better yesterday,” she said. On the screen, the woman said something that Rose couldn’t hear with the audio muted.
“I bet,” the voice on the other end of the line. One of the hosts on the television laughed. She guessed that the time delay was just enough to make sure that she didn’t curse on live television, or something. “So what do you have to say about these—frankly—very serious allegations?”
“Well,” Rose said, hardening herself up as much as she could. “First, I’d have to say that it would have been nice to hear about them from someone other than my art department watching early-morning television!” She let out a laugh that sounded forced to her own ears.
“You have to admit, the evidence is fairly damning, though, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think so at all, Maria.”
“No?”
“Not the least bit. Now, I don’t know if this is common knowledge or not, but I just took control of the company.”
“Yes, we heard. Your husband gifted it to you, is that right?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Not to get off track, but when did you meet Bryce? He’s been on the show a few times, and we all thought, you know, pardon us for saying so, but we thought he was, you know… eligible.”
“It’s been about a year, Maria. But on the topic of these allegations—”
“And your girls? I’m sorry, I know we’re getting off topic. It’s just something I’ve been wondering about.”
“My girls?”
“Yeah. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But the tabloids have been talking about nothing else for weeks, so it might be nice, you know, to get that all out in the open.”
“All what?”
“You know. The father.”
“It’s not really…”
“Is there some other baby-daddy in the family that we’re not seeing?”
Rose sucked in a breath. She did have this. She could control the situation. And it was easier not to lie, for now. It would be easier still if she could just get them back on topic, but… if she couldn’t, then she would at least be able to deal with the fallout. She hoped.
“They’re my husband’s children.”
“So what you’re saying is—”
“I’m saying, reach your own conclusions. Now, can we get back onto the topic at hand, or should I be getting on the phone with CNN?”
On the screen, after a three second delay, the entire conversation played out in silence. The hosts shared scandalized looks.
“You’re right. Back to the topic at hand. We’ll get back to that later.”
She kept herself silent, and didn’t mention that they might get back to it if she didn’t hang up the phone right then and there.