The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [107]
Even better then. This way Clay can help and it'll be a complete surprise, Eddie says. He's already pushing the box through the tiled entryway into the family room.
“A new television,” Eddie says as he rips sealing tape from the flap.
“Plasma!” Clay says, hobbling around to read the side of the box.
“Yeah. A forty-inch. Top of the line.”
“Sweet.” Clay watches.
“Got a knife?” he grunts, stymied by the tightly packed Styrofoam. Irritated, panic rising.
“No. Not on me.” Clay's sarcasm angers him.
Kneeling, he glances up. “Just get me one, okay?”
Clay seems to be gone for a long time.
“Hey! What's the holdup? I'm waiting!” he yells, propping the box upright. Hearing footsteps from the kitchen, he calls back over his shoulder. “Took you long enough. Where the hell'd you go?”
“I don't want that,” Robin says in the doorway. She's wearing a fuzzy pink bathrobe with a red towel turbanned around her head.
“It's for you. And the kids.” Even from here he can smell her freshly washed nakedness.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“But I bought it for you.”
“I can't accept it.”
“Can't accept it. What the hell're you talking about? Your TV's broken. It's a TV, that's all.”
“No! I don't want it. Take it out of here. Please.”
“You need it!”
“No, I don't. We're … we're getting one. A new one. It's coming tomorrow,” she says, clutching the front of her robe.
He feels foolish, used. The rich boyfriend, that's what this is about. “Hammond's buying his way back in, huh? What the hell's wrong with you? Don't you get it? He's just using you, that's all.”
“What I do or don't do is my business, not yours.”
“Yes it is!” he yells. Bad move, he knows from her stricken look. “Because I'm your friend,” he quickly adds, mind racing. “I worry about you. Here all alone, you and the kids. That's all.”
“Well, don't.” She speaks so coldly, snidely that he wants to slap her. “Bob's coming home tonight, so we'll be fine.”
Insulted, he speeds off with the television in the open box teetering behind him, angrier with its every thump against the seat. He doesn't believe her. Lying bitch. Got what she needed, then threw him out. Like he's nothing. To her or anyone.
Nora underlines another mistake in the copy, the third time Franklin Memorial Hospital's president is referred to as its superintendent.
“I'm sorry,” Jessica Bond says. She keeps biting her lip. This is her first postcollege job after backpacking around Europe for a year. Her writing is terrible, but she is Bibbi and Hank Bond's daughter, credentials enough for Ken. After her abysmally juvenile middle school science fair story for the local page, Ken begged Nora to take her on. Just until he can find a place for her. Ordinarily, she would have refused, but this is one less struggle she needs right now, especially with Ken. And especially here at the paper. It's painfully apparent that the staff, with Stephen's instigation, has little faith in Ken's management skills. Yesterday Clement, the city editor, threatened to quit when Ken killed another CraneCopley story. Stephen called in a rage late last night, demanding that the three of them meet this afternoon. She knows how that will go. Stephen will get indignant, angry, or depressed, and Ken will pretend to appease them while continuing to do exactly what he wants.
“It's that way all the way through.” Turning the page, she highlights superintendent four more times.
“I thought that's what it was.”
“It didn't occur to you to check?”
“I know.”
“But you didn't. Why?”
“I know,” Jessica sighs.
Nora catches the young woman rolling her eyes. “Am I annoying you?”
“No! God, no!”
Nora looks at her pretty face. “Working at the paper, whose idea was it?”
“Mine.” But her flat tone says it all. She doesn't want to be here, or at least not working for Nora.
“This is the real world, Jess. Your parents might have helped you get the job, but it's up to you to keep it. Right now, there are