collection that spoke to that as well-Helen Reddy’s poignant “You and Me Against the World.” And now, driving eastward on I-10 and in heavy traffic, it was true again. But with Chris grown-in another two months, he’d be graduating from college-this might well be the last road trip they’d take together, riding along and listening to Aunt Evie’s music. She wondered if, as Chris grew older, hearing some of these old familiar songs would bring him back to this long sad trip.
They drove onto the 10 at the beginning of rush-hour traffic, so it took them the better part of three hours to make it to Palm Springs. They had just passed Rancho Mirage, Ali mindlessly humming along with “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls, when her cell rang. She saw at a glance it was Paul.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded the moment she answered. “How come you’re talking to an attorney? I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t start any proceedings against the station.”
There was no mention of what had happened to Reenie. No explanation of why it had taken him so long to get back to her. No, just an instant all-out verbal attack.
“I don’t remember any such agreement,” Ali returned.
“Come on, Ali,” he said. “I told you very clearly the other night that, with me as a network exec, we couldn’t afford to get mixed up in any kind of legal dust-up. We just have to take our lumps and move on.”
“Our lumps?” she asked. “What do you mean our? I’m the one who got fired, not you.”
“And you sure as hell better hope it isn’t catching. What if you piss them off and they end up firing me, too? Then we’d be in a hell of a mess. We can get by without what you make, but we can’t get by without what I bring home. Now tomorrow, I want you to go see that attorney and give him…”
“Her,” Ali corrected.
“Her then,” he conceded. “Give her whatever she needs to drop the case. If you just talked to her to day, she can’t have done very much. If she wants to keep the retainer, fine. Let her. Just be sure the case gets dropped. I don’t want it to go any further than it already has, understand?”
Ali understood all right. Paul was handing down orders, and he expected unquestioning obedience. That’s what he required of all his underlings, and the salary comment made his wife’s standing pretty clear-it was in the lower echelon of the chain of command. Why did he have to be such an overbearing jerk at times?
“I can’t,” she said quietly.
“Can’t?” Paul shouted into her ear. “What do you mean you can’t?”
Ali looked at her son. Chris seemed intent on the road and traffic, but she knew he was listening.
“Just what I said. I can’t,” she told him. “Chris and I are on our way to Sedona. Reenie died over the weekend-in a traffic accident. I want to be there to help Howie and the kids.”
If Ali expected a word of sympathy about what had happened to her friend, none was forthcoming.
“Call the damned attorney from Sedona, then. You can do it over the phone if you have to. I just want to be sure it’s stopped before there’s any more damage.”
“As in damage to your career?” Ali put in.
“Yes,” Paul said. “Of course. What did you think I meant?”
“What?” Ali said. “What did you say? I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up. Hello? Hello?” She closed the phone and slipped it back in her pocket.
Chris gave her a sidelong glance. “That call wasn’t really breaking up,” he observed. “I checked the last time I drove through here. There was good service with plenty of signal from here all the way to and from. What’s going on?”
Chris and Paul had never gotten along. Paul had disapproved of almost everything his stepson did, from the clothing he wore to his choice of school. He had been particularly offended by Chris’s stated intention of squandering his fine arts training by hoping to become a teacher. Paul Grayson wasn’t the least bit altruistic and had no patience with people who were. Ali, on the other hand, had been inordinately proud.
“Your stepfather doesn’t like it that I consulted with an attorney about filing a wrongful dismissal suit against the station,” Ali admitted quietly. “He thinks I should just shut up and take my lumps.”
“Are you going to?” Chris asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m not. No matter what Paul wants, I’m going to take them on, and it won’t just be for me, either. It’ll be for every woman in the television news business who’s in danger of being put out to pasture because she’s past forty and isn’t interested in joining the Botox nation. Meanwhile the guys can stay on the air until they’re doddering old men and need guide dogs to drag ’em around. No one says a word to them. They’re still viewable.”
“Good,” Chris said. “And what about Paul?”
“What about him?”
“He’s a jerk. And with everything else that’s going on…”
At first Ali thought Chris meant everything that was going on with Reenie, but then she looked at the grim set to her son’s jaw and realized there had to be something more.
“What everything else?” she asked.
Chris shook his head. “Come on, Mom. You know what I mean. There’s no point in talking about it.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have any idea. Tell me.”
Not wanting to answer, Chris compressed his lips and shook his head. “Why do you let him treat you like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like crap.”
Ali wasn’t thrilled to be discussing her troubled marriage with her son-or with anyone else, for that matter. After seven years of playing peace maker and running interference between Paul and Chris, Ali’s first ingrained response was to attempt to minimize whatever had been said, in both directions.
“He’s opinionated,” she commented. “And he’s upset that I’m going ahead with the wrongful dismissal suit. You know Paul. He’s used to having people jump to do whatever he says.”
Chris drove in silence for several miles before saying anything more. “You do know he’s screwing around on you, don’t you?” he said at last.
“He’s what?” Ali demanded. She felt as though a bucket of icy water had been flung in her face.
“He’s got a girlfriend. More than one actually.”
Ali could hardly believe her ears. Chris was her son. Surely she couldn’t be having this conversation with him.
“I don’t know,” Ali managed stiffly. “And if you do, maybe you should let me in on it.”
Chris gave his mother a questioning look. With his attention momentarily diverted, a gust of wind, blowing through the mountains behind them, sent the Cayenne wandering across the lane-edge warning bumps along the shoulder of the freeway.
“You really don’t know?” Chris returned.
Years of sitting in front of a camera reporting on all kinds of catastrophes had taught Ali Reynolds how to master her own emotions and maintain control. She did that now.
“Tell me,” she said.
“April Gaddis, Paul’s new administrative assistant, is the older sister of a friend of a friend,” Chris explained. “That’s how I heard about it, sitting around having a beer with the guys after a basket ball game. The brother asked me if it was true you and Paul were getting a divorce. According to him, April is telling all her friends that they’ll be married by the end of the year.”
There was a long pause. At last Ali found her voice. “Well,” she said, “if that’s the case, he’ll have to get a move on, won’t he. From what I hear, there’s no such thing as an instant divorce in California.”
“Don’t joke about this, Mom,” Chris said, his voice tight with concern. “It isn’t funny. And then there’s Charmaine.”
“Charmaine?” Ali repeated stupidly. “You mean my Charmaine?”
Charmaine Holbrook, an intently cheerful young woman, had been Ali’s personal assistant for the past three years. She had come through a temporary staffing agency and had turned into a permanent employee. Ali would have trusted Charmaine with her life.
Chris nodded miserably.
“What about her?”
“One Friday night, I had a few too many beers and one of my buddies gave me a lift home. I went inside to
