Chapter 31.
Marianne paced to the door, which had a small window of reinforced glass set at eye-level, and stood on tiptoe to peer out into the hall. Javier watched. She paced to the coat rack, back to the door, sighed, crossed and uncrossed her arms, and finally said, "Why'd they put us in a storage closet? Shouldn't we be in the green room? Drinking expensive mineral water? Meeting celebrities and eating snacks?"
"I don't know why."
"I thought you knew this producer guy, whatsisface, Isaac." Marianne turned. She'd stuffed the knit hat in her pocket, but even so, she should have looked ridiculous in the leopard print coat and the sequined slippers. She didn't, though. She looked shrewd. "Did you know him-know him? In the intimate sense?"
Of course he did. Once he'd moved to New York, he'd wasted no time familiarizing himself with the predilections and kinks of every gay anchor, reporter and producer he could hook up with. What better way to network? But since he'd never pressured Marianne for any details about her unborn child's absent father, he saw no need to confirm or deny her speculations about his own sex life.
And now, with his ruined face, those days of "networking" were far behind him, anyway.
"So how come he sent an intern to greet us at the door-and hide us in this closet?"
"He was probably in a meeting." Maybe. "That's all they do, all day long. Talk."
"Where did they take Nelson?"
"To meet with the other producers, and then, assuming he can convince them he knows what he's talking about, to makeup."
"He's been gone a really long time."
"You'd be surprised how many hurdles you need to jump to get a story on the air." A story that accused a major, multinational corporation of tinkering with the food supply, anyway. No doubt a smear piece on a pop star or a liberal politician would have been fast tracked on a right-wing show like Manhattan Minute.
Javier would have preferred any other show to this one...but Isaac had been the only producer to take his call. Javier didn't bring up the hospital in Israel. Isaac didn't either. Still, it hung heavily between them. So much so that Javier was surprised when Isaac invited him to come on down to the studio-and bring his scientist with him. People would talk-seeing Isaac and Javier together after everything that had happened. Although it wasn't as if they didn't already know about the shell in Gaza. The news media clique was nothing if not well-informed.
"So, about Tim," Marianne said, and Javier was glad to focus on something other than the man he used to be. "He really is...who you said he is?"
"That's the only reason I met him. I'd exhausted any other contacts who might want to work on the Canaan Products story, even with that recording, so I decided to check out some bloggers. Tim and I...clicked."
"If I'd known...geez. I probably said some really dumb things."
"Nothing bad. You might have made him blush a time or two."
"I went on and on. And then Randy, goading me on about it." She looked through the window into the hall again. "I hope they're okay."
Javier hoped so too.
Marianne wrapped her arms around herself for a moment, and then said, "If we were in the green room, I bet there'd be someplace to pee."
"Is the door locked? I'm sure there's a restroom nearby."
Marianne tried the door. It opened. "I don't want to get us in trouble."
"If you need to go, you need to go."
Marianne slipped into the hall, while Javier leaned back in his folding chair, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. He couldn't recall the last time he'd slept. Even so, running on his last reserves, there was an aliveness to the past few days he'd thought he had experienced so many other times...the tang of another man's tongue sliding into his mouth for the first time. The moment he stepped off the plane in LaGuardia. The dull thunk of his passport getting stamped in Palestine....
He thought he'd been alive in those moments. But it was a pale imitation of a life, screened by a mask of arrogance and privilege. The way Javier felt at that very moment: taut and exposed, and strikingly authentic. This must be what it was like to live.
"Javier?"
He opened his eyes. Marianne had poked her head into the room. That seemed awfully fast. Had he drifted off? Or was the restroom right across the hall?
"Come quick." Marianne disappeared from the doorway in a flurry of leopard spots. Immediately, aliveness hummed through Javier's veins as he leapt up to follow. Marianne was at the end of the hall when he got through the doorway. She gestured impatiently for him to hurry, then disappeared around the corner.
Behind-the-scenes newsroom sounds carried down the hall. Phones rang. Interns chatted. An editor barked orders. But Javier had been tucked away in a quiet corner, and the desks and kiosks they passed were empty. Most of the computers were dark, as if the employees who spent their time at those desks had decided it wasn't worth braving the riots to come to work. But a few of them had screen-savers running. And the monitor that Marianne stopped and pointed to was actually on-and it was streaming a live broadcast.
Nelson's face filled the monitor.
"He's on air?" Javier said-and immediately sensed that something was wrong. It was Javier's story. He should have been in the green room, or the newsroom, or the studio. Not a coat closet.
The sound was low, but it didn't matter. It was the video that struck Javier as being subtly off-kilter.
Yes, lighting for video did tend to be harsh, but the lights on Nelson were angled directly in his eyes-and they'd been pushed so close that a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He looked both pasty and damp at the same time. He squinted harder as the anchor asked him a question. His eye twitched. The words Nelson Oliver, rejected Canaan Products job applicant, claims tainted food supply to blame for cannibal children.
"It should be Dr. Oliver," Marianne said. "Or Nelson Oliver, PhD. Or Food Science Specialist. Why are they calling him 'rejected job applicant'?"
Why? Because it created such compelling spin. Javier's stomach sank. Discredit Nelson, paint him as the untrustworthy, ridiculous, Leftist crackpot out to scam some money from "the system," and Canaan Products would take the role as the martyr who, after all, sends boatloads of plain, nutritious manna to developing third-world nations, and who donates generously to various small and nonthreatening local charities. A still, calm portion of Javier's brain saw exactly how this "reporting" would take place, while the rest of him decided that maybe he did want to see Isaac face to face, after all. Immediately.
He strode toward the newsroom. People stared. Of course they stared. They always stared; he had an eye patch. They stared, but none of them comprehended...none but the intern, a gangly boy barely out of his teens, who jumped out of his seat, but thought twice of it before he moved to intercept Javier.
Javier scanned the room for Isaac's hair, an unmanageable tangle of curls that stood out from a crowd. He wasn't there. Or maybe he'd cut it. Or maybe Javier was remembering him wrong...though that was doubtful. Javier scanned again, missing his full eyesight in the utilitarian way he did when he was feeling too practical to stop and be maudlin. But then, on the second pass, he saw the familiar silhouette of Isaac's hair in the windowed wall of the gallery.
The control room door was unlocked, and despite the elaborate soundproofing, it banged open with a very satisfying crash. Engineers, technicians and producers flinched away from the door, but they held their stations. They were live, after all. Dozens of monitors lit the room in a retro cathode-ray glow, most showing Nelson, waxy-skinned, with a strand of long hair now slipped from his ponytail, and the rest showing the anchor, or stills from the riot, or stock footage of a manna production plant. "Javier," Isaac said with forced cheer. "It looks like your wound healed well-"
"What are you doing?" Javier snapped.
"C...camera one," a director said, and the engineer switched.
Isaac looked as if he might be tempted to deny the smear they were in the midst of perpetrating, live, on-air. But they knew each other well enough that neither assumed the other was stupid. "It's a great story. This guy is great."
Javier backed Isaac into a wall and made a lunge for him, and Isaac's blitheness evaporated as he flinched away. Javier wasn't aiming to strike him, though. He snatched the headset off Isaac's head, pulling out a few curly hairs in the process, and put it on himself.
He heard the news anchor's voice as her face appeared on the switcher monitor, blonde, composed, and properly-lit. "If we were to test the manna, we'd find it laced with hormones?"
Nelson sighed, almost a groan, as if the question were profoundly stupid. "That's not what I said at all. There is a hydrogen-carbon chain that's been introduced to the manna that prevents the uptake of leptin in the receptors-"
"Teleprompter," the director said, "Hydrogen in water."
"Hydrogen," the anchor said, "which is also found in water, correct? H2O. That's the formula for water. So you're saying there's water in the manna?"
The switcher was focused on the anchor, who had her "I'm just trying to understand" act down pat. Nelson, on the other monitors, though not visible to the viewing public, was working his mouth as if he'd not only fallen for her affected ignorance-he was choking on it.
"Stock three," the director said, and a shot of glistening off-white bricks of manna rolling down a conveyor belt through a mist of water appeared on the switcher monitor.
"The hydrogen-carbon chain is not water," Nelson said. "And leptin is the hormone that controls app-"
"Aren't we carbon-based?" The switcher monitor went split screen, at the order of the director, to Nelson and the anchor. He was a wreck. She looked completely sincere. "Isn't that what they scan for in the science fiction movies?" she said. "Carbon-based life forms?"
Javier searched Isaac's face in dismay. "This thing with the manna is really happening. This is true. Why are you making a farce of it?"
"Oh, come on." Isaac reached for his headphones, and pulled them off Javier's ears. He tilted his head to one side and looked into Javier's uncovered eye with a mixture of empathy and pity. "This is Manhattan Minute. You know it's the party line around here to cater to big business. If this tainted manna story is accurate, it'll shake out in the end. But right now we need to compete with the exclusive footage of the riot ABC's been running every quarter-hour."
The director said, "There goes the eye-twitch again. Pan up so it's centered."
"Think about it," Isaac said. "This could be big for you, too. Sure, your on-camera days are through. But I can do better for you than that fact-checker gig at the Daily."
Javier leaned in closer. "You're making a fool of him."
"It's nothing personal."
"Since when does the truth matter so little to you? Can they really pay you enough to make you throw away your scruples-"
"That, coming from you, after you ditched your wife and kid in Costa Rica-"
"How dare you? I didn't 'ditch' them. I'm divorced. It happens."
"I'm just saying, there isn't a halo floating above either of our heads."
The switcher focused on Nelson, and now the sweat on his upper lip had formed distinct, glistening beads. He looked like a junkie. Javier lowered his voice and said to Isaac, "But don't you believe in anything? Don't you even want to try to do what's right?"
"Grow up, Javier. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame, whether it's flattering or not. He'll bounce back."
"That 'rejected applicant' business-"
"Hey, it's what he told our producers, that he was at that employment event looking for work. And now some grass-roots consumer protection group will probably scoop him right up. It might sting right this minute, but in the long haul, this will probably be one of the best things that's ever happened to him."
Maybe that would turn out to be true, maybe not, but this idea that Isaac was actually doing Nelson a favor was just the fairy tale Isaac was telling himself. Why? So he could sleep at night after he cashed his Manhattan Minute paycheck. Javier wasn't sure why he felt compelled to find a kernel of decency in Isaac. Maybe the thought of a decent man leaving him in his time of direst need-because he deserved no better-was the fairy tale Javier had been telling himself. Maybe, in reality, Isaac had abandoned him outside Gaza with shrapnel in his face simply because Isaac had no conscience.
"Tell me," Javier said. "You've spoken to Nelson. You get that he's onto something. Knowing what you know now, would you willingly eat Canaan Products manna yourself?"
"I never touch the stuff anyway. It's cheap."
"Besides, you prefer the flavor of Park Avenue." The memory of Isaac tonguing a smear of Bittersweet Macadamia Mocha from his chest made Javier's gorge rise.
"So?"
Javier glared at Isaac-and maybe it had felt more satisfying to stare someone down with two eyes, but in this instance, the discomfort his one-eyed glare caused was palpable-and entirely well-deserved. He let Isaac squirm for a long, extended pause, then said, "Since we last saw each other, you've put on a double chin." He took a step back, and for his parting shot, said, "Where do you think Park Avenue manna is made?"
He turned. Marianne stood in the control room doorway, watching and waiting, saying nothing. A single ally, a single decent person, amid everyone who'd sold their souls to the conservative media. Javier wanted to throw his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. But he wasn't about to indulge himself in a show of weakness-especially not in front of Isaac. He adjusted his stride so Marianne could fall into step beside him without needing to scurry, and he marched out of the control room without looking back.
Nelson's segment had almost wrapped. Nobody stopped Javier and Marianne as they made their way toward the studio floor. As they passed the dressing rooms, they saw a man in a workman's uniform having his hair styled while a producer said, "...and that's the main reason the phones stayed down so long? Because repair crew couldn't get through the rioting?"
"It's possible," he said noncommittally. "There should have been someone on call, but maybe they were stuck behind one of those barriers...."
Sure.
They kept walking until they neared the edge of the news set, and stopped behind at a strip of yellow and black tape on the floor. Marianne whispered, "You have a child?"
"A daughter. Sofia. She's almost seven."
A pause, and then, "You must miss her a lot."
"More than you can imagine."
The anchor thanked Nelson for sharing his "interesting theory" with a subtle hint of condescension, and they cut to a commercial. A tech unhooked Nelson's microphone as Nelson mopped his brow with the sleeve of his borrowed blazer. He left a smear of pasty, oily pancake makeup on it.
He wove slightly as he walked toward Javier and Marianne. "Man, I'm glad that's over. It's so hot in here."
A slightly nervous intern told them to clear the set. He kept a careful distance from Javier-who wondered if he'd now have a reputation in the industry for being dangerous.
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
They filed out into the hallway and Nelson loosened his tie, stripped off his coat, and ran his hand through his hair, most of which had fallen out of the loose ponytail-which had been tight before he'd made his way to makeup. "Can you believe how dumb that newslady was? Like I'd be announcing this big, crazy theory that Manna's made of water? And she kept interrupting me, too. It was like, I kept losing my train of thought." He stopped at a water fountain and drank deeply, then cupped some water in his palm and splashed it on his face, and raked it through his hair with his damp fingers. He sighed, turned to Javier, and said, "I don't think it went very well."
Javier reached out and cupped Nelson's jaw, looked deep into his eyes, and said, "You were wonderful."
Chapter 32.
"But you have to let us see him," Tim said. "We're family." Even as the words came out of his mouth, he realized what a dumb choice of words they were. No one looked anything like Nelson. Especially his actual son. "Well...Bao is. And he was in that explosion in Chinatown-"
"I don't care who you are," the guard said. He looked a lot better-rested than the wardens at The Tombs, and although there was no gun at his hip, a flashlight that looked like it could do some serious damage hung from his belt. "If you don't have a Manhattan Minute pass, you don't get in. Period."
"At least tell us if he'll be coming out this door," Randy said.
The guard glared at him-at all of them-but then he said, "It's the only way in or out of the building other than the fire exits."
Was that supposed to be a yes? Or was it a hint that maybe Nelson would slip out the back? Because the news crews that had gathered around the building's entrance looked like they'd scented blood.
"Maybe we should wait in the truck," Tim told Randy. He didn't like the look of the crowd. Yes, it was mostly comprised of reporters and camera crews and their expensive equipment, but the memory of cars getting toppled on Astor was fresh in his mind.
They were working their way past a cable TV truck and a group of construction workers that was watching the crowd grow outside the station when somebody yelled, "Tim? Tim Foster? Hey, Tim! Over here!"
"You might want to tell that loudmouth to stop yelling your name and waving at you," Randy said, "given the little social call we got at the trailer yesterday from the boys in blue."
Tim spotted a lesbian activist named Joni he'd met at a recent AIDS-walk, waving at him from beside the National Public Radio van. Joni had a crew cut that might have looked interesting-on someone with a smaller nose. "Tim?" she repeated.
He waved sheepishly. Joni gestured for them to join her-not just her, but a ragtag group of LGBT neo-hippies and activists Tim recognized by face, if not by name.
"We might as well go over there," Randy said. "They have a pretty good view of the door. Besides, she's gonna keep yelling your damn name if you don't."