The Submission - Amy Waldman [78]
“This isn’t about the Palestinians,” someone said, overhearing.
“Always, this attempt to disentangle,” eye-rolled Mariam Said.
Rosie O’Donnell laughed behind him. Sean Penn was drunk.
I’m dreaming, Mo thought. Dreaming this is all happening to me. It was not unlike how he had imagined Frank Gehry’s or Richard Meier’s life to be, or his own if he reached their level. Except here was Meier now, waiting, like an acolyte, to have a word with him. The world was upside down. He was half god, half freak. He reached for Laila’s hand, then remembered not to. Russell Simmons squeezed by and jostled him against her. She smiled without turning to look at him. He imagined them home, lacing fingers in bed.
Green ribbons curled vivaciously from dresses and lapels. Mo drank more champagne and struggled toward the windows overlooking the courtyard. Admirers checkmated him to offer inexact praise or overdone sympathy. A woman displaying biceps to rival Madonna’s asked if anyone had bought the rights to his life.
“I didn’t know they were for sale,” he tried to banter. He was more than a little drunk.
“I know Shah Rukh Khan, a bit,” her companion said. “Cousin—?”
“Brother,” Mo said.
“He’s kidding,” Laila interrupted. “Khan is a very common name in India. And elsewhere.”
In the cab on the way home, Laila looked at him and said, “No jokes, Mo. Those people are on your side, even if you don’t like them. And you can’t complain about being misrepresented, then misrepresent yourself.”
His buzz was fading. “I wasn’t myself in there, in a good way,” he said wearily. “I was actually having fun. Every day I’m different, Laila. I’m not the person you met three weeks ago. If this keeps up, in two weeks I won’t be the person you know now. You can’t misrepresent an object in motion.”
Her gaze roamed from his mouth to his eyes. “You’re underestimating your own solidity. I saw it in that first meeting. It’s what drew me to you, and probably what will drive me crazy in the end. The edges of you may be changed by this. But Mohammad Khan is intact. You’re like your steel trees.”
Steel breaks, steel melts, he wanted to say—we all know that now. Instead he took her hand.
On the way to her newsroom cubicle, Alyssa decided to detour by her editor’s desk. Chaz would be there by ten, sleeves rolled up, barking orders, berating reporters, mocking rival papers, downing black coffee, his immunity to hangovers as legendary as his benders.
He had been avoiding her lately, and in those eyes that wouldn’t meet hers, she saw her demotion scheduled. The initial column had been provocative enough to land her two more, but they lacked exclusives, lacked bombs. The most recent had been so deadening that it had drawn a yawn, literally, from Chaz, who then killed it. Her currency was devaluing. That first column had earned her an appearance on Bill O’Reilly, a clip she replayed often enough to memorize.
“Are Muslims a fifth column, Alyssa?” O’Reilly had asked.
“I think that’s too strong, Bill,” she replied, his first name a lozenge on her tongue. “Maybe fourth and a half.” He laughed hard and said afterward that he would invite her back to the show. But he hadn’t.
Now Chaz ducked his head and picked up his phone when he saw her coming, then put it down when he thought she had passed. There it was, her dimmed luster confirmed. Like a junkie’s, her addiction had progressed from reading the news, to reporting it, to breaking it, then—the crack cocaine of her business—to shaping it. Being it. The prospect of her supply being cut off triggered a cold sweat.
No one greeted her as she finished circumnavigating the newsroom, which was no surprise. She hadn’t bonded with her new colleagues; they resented her, as she likely would resent them if the positions were reversed. Rare was the newsroom that celebrated anyone’s ascent, especially a newcomer’s. The energy instead went to spinning elaborate theories about why her success was undeserved, with any subsequent fall only proof of the notion. Never had she felt so friendless.
From her purse she extracted and fingered,