“It’s all part of the quick fix philosophy. Got a problem, take a pill. The whole fucking country is taking pills.”
“I got scared when he asked me that, Ellen, like something was really wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. You told him you didn’t want pills. That’s the end of it.”
“I know. I know.”
“Maybe he’s testing you, seeing if you went to him to get pills. People do.”
“That could be,” Debbie said hopefully. “That was probably it.”
“You have to trust him,” Ellen told her. “If you don’t, don’t go back.”
“I have to go back,” she cried out. “That’s the point. I won’t be better until I figure out why I feel so sad all the time.”
“Debbie, there is nothing wrong with you.”
“I know. I know. You’re right.”
Ellen was right. She was always right.
“And thank you, thank you, for being my friend.”
“Right,” Ellen said, with a long exhale.
She was lucky to have Ellen, Debbie thought as she put the phone back on the nightstand, so lucky. She pulled up the quilt her grandmother made for her own wedding night, and lay with her hands atop it.
What would happen if Ellen got tired of her the way Jason did? she wondered. What if Ellen stopped believing in her? She stared into the darkness, folding her hands in prayer. Was it there? Yes, it was, the hint of it, the taste of the copper penny of fear.
“One,” she whispered silently to her mind. “Two,” came a pace behind.
25
“I’m going to Albuquerque for Christmas,” Ellen announced. “They actually have Christmas there. Snow, the whole bit. It’s more like it is on the East Coast. Parties, people getting together to celebrate. I like that.”
“The worst news in the world comes out of Albuquerque,” Harold Lewis said, leaning out of his cubicle. “Good art, terrible news.”
“I don’t think so. I learned more there than anywhere I’ve ever worked. You had to do your own shooting sometimes, editing, setting up the lights. That’s the way to learn television.”
“I think it would be a good place to end up,” Chuck Farrell commented. “Some little station in New Mexico.”
“No money,” she said. “That’s the problem. The whole state is dirt poor. In a way, I like that too. Nobody there seems to care that much about money.”
It was safe, this love for another place. She knew that. She didn’t have to live there again. She didn’t have to wonder how she would buy a new dress or a winter coat on a miserably low salary. She didn’t have to turn her eyes from the ugliness, the dirt, the poverty. Albuquerque was only a place she could call upon when she needed to leave town. Still, it wasn’t a bad place. She actually might go back to Albuquerque, someday, when all of this finally got to her.
All of what? Television was the same everywhere. Like she told them, same people, different faces. To get away, you had to get out.
“And do what? What would you do?” Chuck Farrell asked her more than once.
“Good God, Chuck, there is life after television.”
“Sure there is, but what would you do?”
She didn’t know. What she did now was relatively easy, a formula. Once you figured out the formula, you could turn out stories all day long.
“You’re wrong about something,” Jack Benton shouted out.
“Yeah, like what?”
“Everybody cares about money. Everybody.”
Debbie listened to the banter. She wouldn’t be leaving town for Christmas. She wouldn’t even be able to spend the day in her apartment. She had Thanksgiving off. That’s the way it worked. She wouldn’t bother cooking for herself or anybody else. She didn’t feel that well.
Jason had called her a few times and she kept the conversations short and cold. She saw no sense in speaking to him. He left on another trip with Richard Ferguson.
The doctor tried talking to her between puffs of cigarettes and sips of coffee. When he tried talking about her mother and her father, she shook her head and told him there wasn’t time for that. She said that would be like starting all over again and she didn’t have the time. Instead, she told him about how Christmas carols made her cry and how the Santa Claus in the mall made her sad.
“It’s a hard season for many people,” he assured her. “The holidays are never what we expect them to be.”
She stared at him.
“Is there something else bothering you?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said. “I will talk about it when I am sure.”
“How soon?”
“Soon,” she said.
She told him one week later. She was pregnant.
“Was that why you came to me?”
“No. I didn’t know. I found out for sure yesterday.”
She sat deathly still, her feet flat on the floor, her knees pressed together, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
He rubbed his forehead with the tip of his middle finger.
“Debbie, I don’t know what to say.”
“There is nothing you can say. I’ve already made my decision.”
“What decision?”
“Well,” she gave a sour laugh, “I obviously can’t have a baby. I can’t go out and do stories and be unmarried and pregnant.”
“Perhaps you could.”
She shook her head angrily. “Please.”
“What about the father? Does he know?”
“No, and I’m not telling anyone else.” She opened her hands and stared at them. “This is for me to do. I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Debbie, I don’t think dealing with this by yourself is wise. What about your family?” He leaned forward from his chair, his palms rubbing on his thighs. “Isn’t there anyone else you can talk to?”
“No,” she said firmly. “This is for me to do. I don’t have any problems with having an abortion. People do it all the time, don’t they?”
She looked at him, her face now full of pain.
“Besides,” she tried to smile, “I have you to talk to.”
*
One other person did know. Clifford Williams. She made the doctor’s appointment for the time of their usual lunch break
