In her hotel room, Norah laid the antique guest book on the dresser, opened it, and stood back. Not that she had anything to say to Dorothy Parker, she just needed a distraction from her misery. But nothing happened. The tough-tongued wit refused to appear.
She sat on the bed and pushed at her cuticles, replaying Ted Shriver’s anger. She wanted to believe his dismissal of her wasn’t absolute, that he had left open one small window of opportunity. But of course he hadn’t.
She lay down, refusing to cry. She would not wallow. She would not dwell on her failure to connect with him. It was just one more hard knot in her long string of disappointments. She could get over it just as she had gotten over everything else.
And why shouldn’t she? She got over losing her mother. And then her uncle. And three months ago, when Eric moved out of their Brooklyn apartment because he wanted someone “with a human fucking heart,” she got over that, too.
But what did she have left? Besides her job, nothing.
Simon Janey Live had been a career change for Norah, and everything about it felt right. At her uncle’s suggestion, Norah had majored in business with a concentration in accounting. It was the practical thing to do, a way to guarantee that she would always have work. But she hated it from the start. So two years after college, when a friend got her an interview as a production assistant for a nightly TV interview show, she grabbed it. The salary was pitiful, but a year later she was promoted, and then promoted again. She had found a great home at Simon Janey Live. And she was well aware of how it had become a surrogate family for her. Didi was her mother figure. Simon was like her father, a looming but absent presence. Jack, Harve, Cynthia, Marco, Janelle, and Eli were like the siblings she’d never had. And of course, there was the show itself—that heart-stopping excitement of live television, and Simon’s extraordinary ability to draw out guests. It was magic. These past five years were the happiest Norah had ever been.
She picked up her cell phone and stared at the staggering number of messages Didi had left for her. Twenty-three. And she had not played back a single one. Was it possible she had been fired for going AWOL?
No, she told herself. Absolutely not. Didi was too protective of her to do that. She checked the time. 10:07 p.m.—not too late to call back. She ran her fingers over the phone, wondering if she should listen to the messages.
Norah stacked the pillows behind her and sat up straighter. She pressed the speed dial for Didi’s number, put it on speaker, and laid the phone on the bed next to her.
“Where have you been?” Didi said.
“Sorry. I was—”
“I thought you were deader than roadkill. Did you get my messages?”
“I didn’t play them back.”
“Lord have mercy.”
She leaned forward, the tone of Didi’s voice making her uncomfortable. “Something wrong?”
“Yes, something’s wrong,” Didi said. “The show was canceled.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Canceled?”
“This can’t be a big surprise,” Didi said.
“I thought we had more time.”
“Have you looked at the board lately? One B-list director, a chick-lit author, an economist, for heaven’s sake.”
“But all those calls. Didn’t anyone come through?”
“Hillary Clinton’s on the schedule for next month, but we won’t make it that far.”
“Can’t you call in more favors?” Norah said, because she knew her boss had the phone number of every top publicist in Hollywood and Washington.
“What do you think I’ve been doing? Every name I pass by the network CEO, Kent, gets the same response: Not enough.”
Norah covered her eyes and took a jagged breath, trying to will away the lump in her throat. “And I can’t help,” she said.
“No luck finding Ted Shriver?”
“I found him.” She batted at some gnats hovering nearby. “And then I lost him.”
“Oh, child,” Didi said, and her disappointment seemed to take the oxygen right from the air.
“I wasn’t going to say a word about the show,” Norah said. “I was just trying to get him to warm up to me. Then he sniffed me out and all hell broke loose. I’m sorry.”
Didi went quiet for a few excruciating moments. Norah’s eyes burned and she reached for a tissue.
“Forget it, sugar,” Didi finally said. “He wouldn’t have said yes anyway.”
“He could have saved us.”
“What difference does that make?”
“What are you going to do?” Norah asked.
“My résumé is out and about. Yours should be, too. Something will come up.”
Norah felt nauseous. How long would she be able to afford her rent without a job? A couple of months? Not even. Not with Eric gone. She was barely scraping by as it was.
“What about your documentary?” Norah asked. Her boss’s pet project was an independent film about what happens to reality stars once the cameras are turned off. She had been working on it about a year.
“Out of money.”
“I’m sorry. Wish I could help.”
“If you ever meet a generous millionaire—”
“How is everyone else?” Norah asked.
“Terrible. Janelle just bought a house. And Harve’s daughter—”
“I know.”
Didi got a call-waiting beep and Norah told her to go ahead and take it. She needed to get off the phone anyway, as the fight to hold back tears was getting harder and harder.
“Just one more thing, bubbeleh,” Didi said. “I’m going to rush through the expense account for the hotel, so if you want to stay another night or two, I’ll look the other way. It’s not much. But maybe it’ll help you feel better.”
Norah thanked her and choked out a good-bye before hanging up. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. It did nothing to wash away the darkness she felt. She tried again and again.
“What the hell am I going to do?” she said to her reflection.
“You will twist Teddy’s arm until he begs to do your silly show,” came a voice from the other room.
Norah dropped her face towel and ran from the bathroom. There was Dorothy Parker, seated in the chair next to her dresser.
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
“I hover occasionally.”
Norah took the chair opposite her. She eyed Dorothy Parker, trying to detect something, anything, that wasn’t quite human. She leaned to the left and thought she saw a faint glow floating above the woman. She moved in for a closer view.
“You’re staring, my dear.”
“You’re . . . shimmering. Is it a halo?”
“Hardly.”
Norah sat back. She closed her eyes, remembering how vivid her mother had appeared in that final visit. If only she had stayed a short time longer . . . if only Norah could have one more conversation with her.
She looked at Dorothy Parker. “Can you . . . contact people on the other side?”
“I suppose you have a question for someone who’s passed?”
Norah sat up straighter. “Yes.”
“Sorry, dear. I haven’t exactly crossed over. I’m simply right here, or I’m not.”
Norah sighed. It was silly to think she might be able to get some kind of message from her mother. “And when the book is closed?” she asked.
“It’s like sleeping, except I never wake up next to a man I regret taking to bed. On the other hand, I never wake up with a hangover. Speaking of which, do you have a drink?”
Norah opened the minibar and read off the selections to Dorothy Parker, who chose gin and tonic. She made the drink and handed it to her, hoping the network would pay the whole bill, including a few outrageous minibar charges.
“You heard my whole conversation with Didi?” she asked, taking a seat.
“Your boss, I take it?”
“It sounds like you have a bit of a problem on your hands, Miss Wolfe.”
“Miss Wolfe?” It sounded so archaic Norah almost laughed.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Wolfe.”
“Please, call me Norah. And may I call you—”
“We already covered that.”
“Yes, but I thought—”
“‘Mrs. Parker’ will suffice.”
“Mrs. Parker,” Norah repeated, and discovered she liked the way it rang with the gentility of a more civilized era. “What did you mean about twisting Ted Shriver’s arm? Do you really think there’s any chance he would agree to do a live TV interview?”
“Perhaps.”
“You didn’t see how angry he was.”
“I can imagine,” Mrs. Parker said, sipping her drink. “He has a lot of bluster.”
“The gin didn’t work. The egg foo yong didn’t work. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Information is power.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, if you knew the true reason for the plagiarism, you could threaten to expose it. I’m sure he would rather tell the story himself than let the media fill in the details.”
“Except I don’t know the story behind the plagiarism.”
The inscrutable spirit picked up her drink, closed her eyes, and took a dainty sip. “But I do.”
A tingle of electricity prickled Norah’s flesh. “What is it?”
Dorothy Parker finished the last of her drink. “Make me another cocktail and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”