Destiny Lingers (5 page)

I scream in terror and disbelief as the room explodes with a flood of police officers and SWAT teams from every direction. All I hear is Malakhai’s high-pitched screams and cries for “Da-da-a-a-a!” and the stomp-stomp-stomping of the troopers’ boots across the creaky wooden floor as they storm in and take over. One, a gruff-looking Asian woman, takes a quick glance at me from beneath her helmet and then swoops up little Malakhai under her jacket and into her bosom. She darts off through the sea of officers and disappears out the door.

“Malakhai!” I scream as I feel a set of strong-gloved fists wrap around my upper arms and lift me off the ground. They rush me out of the door and down the darkened stairwell behind their big plastic bulletproof shields that clank and clap against each other loudly. The SWAT team, protected underneath bulletproof gear, maneuvers me out of what they have determined is harm’s way.

I felt much safer with Thomas.

“No-o-o-o!” I scream as the officers manhandle me through the lobby and hurry me out the building. “You shot him! I can’t believe they shot Thomas! He wasn’t doing anything! He didn’t even have a weapon!” I cry, desperately grabbing the shirtsleeves of officers and paramedics scrambling by, but no one is listening. They are sweeping me out of the building and onto the front sidewalk, where they leave me in the hands of street cops who hustle me to a waiting ambulance. Everything has gone crazy.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” a Puerto Rican paramedic with a long braided ponytail keeps asking me, but I look at her in a daze. My whole world is falling apart. Everything around me seems to be dying—or on the verge of it: Thomas … my marriage … even pieces of me.

“She’s fine.”

I turn and see Fred and Butch rushing up to the ambulance.

“She’s our reporter, and she’s got a live shot to do.” Fred proudly smiles my way. “If we hustle, we can still make the top of the five. Here’s that lead story you always wanted.” Fred takes off toward the van. “I’ll get on the horn and tell ’em what we got.”

I am still dazed.

I pray those cops don’t kill poor Thomas. Although he took drastic actions, he was just trying to keep his now-motherless children and distraught family together. Maybe he should be punished, but Thomas shouldn’t have to die. I feel a powerful rush of tears coming, and I try hard to control my emotions.
A reporter is not supposed to get emotionally involved
, I remind my Columbia University-ed self, but the human being in me does not want to hear it.

Despite the whirling confusion in my head and heart, I still have to make the lead live shot at the top of the evening newscast. I have to break this story, burying myself so deep inside it that the howling in my head will go away.

“Where the hell have you sons of bitches been?” Grossman is screaming over the radio when I get back to the truck.

“What an asshole.” Fred shakes his head and then flicks on the radio mic. “Uh, yeah, we’ve been negotiating a hostage situation, man.” Fred almost laughs at of the absurdity of it all.

“Well, it better be a damn good one, or all of you people are fired. We’ve been trying to reach you for three fucking hours!”

“Can’t this motherfucker get fined by the FCC talkin’ like that over the radio?” Fred asks us and then flicks on the mic. “Roger,” he replies. Then again to us: “What an ass.”

While the guys set up the live shot, I take out my reporter’s notebook and scribble out my dramatic lead story of how a father of five on the edge took his own baby son hostage and is tonight clinging to life after police officers shot him three times in the back. I track the voice-overs that will lead in to some of the most compelling sound bites we videotaped from our many exclusive hours of negotiations. Butch will then feed the information back to the newsroom via satellite, where an editor will take the material and chop it all down into action-packed two-minute packages for the top of the five, six, and eleven o’clock news broadcasts and then rehash fresh stuff for the early morning network news breaks. We are sure to beat every other station across the nation on this story. And it comes right on time for the crucial May sweeps, when the networks eat their young for that almighty advertising dollar.

I will wrap our pieces live from Harlem all night and stay on the horn, trying to find out if Thomas, my marriage, and my soul will survive.

Chapter
Five

T
he phone rings, and I am startled awake in the midst of a dream that Thomas is entering the gates of heaven and city officials have deemed me Malakhai’s new mother.

I wake up in a sweat, panting. It is a new day. The sun’s not even up yet.

I fumble in the darkness to answer the phone, and it’s Garrett on the line, calling from his overnight job. I worked so late last night that I missed him before he left for his overnight shift. We figure it’s a small price we have to pay for such great opportunities straight out of grad school.

“Wake up, babe. You are
every
where!” Garrett sounds ecstatic. “You made the front page of every local newspaper—the
Daily News
and the
New York Post
. Way to go, babe. You really nailed ’em in the ratings with that one.”

“What?” My brain is mush. I am struggling to shake myself awake and make sense of Garrett’s exuberance.

“NBC should be kissing you in the
mouth
today,” he continues. “Look, gotta go. Hey, I’m really proud of you, babe.”

And with that, Garrett is gone.

I am still trying to bust out of my fog of exhaustion, worn to shreds from the dramatic and terrifying events from the night before. I am so tired that my eyes feel like they’re peppered with sand. My whole body aches. My head is pounding. My heart’s racing. I desperately need a glass of water or my husband’s proud voice again, telling me he wants to come home, hold me close, and reassure me that everything, including our marriage, is going to be okay.

The phone rings again. Could it be Garrett calling back? I grab the phone. Instead, it’s my news director’s executive assistant. In a nervous and harried voice, she tells me that Grossman, my boss, wants to see me in his office—pronto. It is twenty minutes before six o’clock in the morning, and big, bad Barry is already barking out intimidating orders. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to fall off his shit list today after my big “get” last night.

Then again, maybe not.

A sudden rush of shame and loathing overcomes me as I have a flashback of my emotional live shots during last night’s newscasts. Burned out after several hours of negotiating on my knees and still freaked out from my hostage-situation-turned-shooting and the fear that my marriage has turned mirage, I lost it, bursting into tears and uncontrollable sobs during my eleven o’clock live report on Thomas. I had gotten through the five and six o’clock newscasts with all the professionalism I could muster, but by the eleven, I was an emotional wreck, and it showed. It was as if every distressing thing I had ever experienced in my life suddenly came rushing in on me all at once. The dam that held back years of pain opened up like a thundercloud, and the tears came running down my cheeks like rivers.

I am in severe emotional overload. For the first time in my life, I am weak.

I flick on the television for the latest at the top of the six o’clock morning news. I am eager to see how our early morning producers will spin my story.

Da-dadadada—Da-dadadada … The urgent and majestic sound of the six o’clock morning newscast theme snaps me out of my sleepy haze, and the camera zooms in on a very serious anchorw
oman.

“
Good morning, everyone. A father of five is clinging to his life this morning after police shot him three times in the back during a dramatic hostage situation in Harlem. Our reporter was th
ere …”

I suddenly feel sick to my stomach as I hear my shaky voice broadcast over the morning airwaves. I recall the horrid image of Thomas’s face slamming down on that dusty hard wooden floor.
Please, dear God, let Thomas live
, I pray, knowing that while Thomas made a bad decision, he is not a bad person. Thomas deserves to live.

The anchorwoman wraps my news report with an update on Thomas’s condition: he is still clinging to life.

My phone rings again. Garrett must have just seen my news report and is calling me back.

“Yo!” I blare into the receiver.

“Is that how you answer your phone?”

It’s my mother. Mrs. Barbara Codrington Newell, the glory and bane of my existence.

“Hi,” I say, startled. “You’re up early. What’s up?”

“‘What’s up?’ Really, Dee. You tell me. You were the one all over the news this morning. You even made the
network news
, my dear. Something about a hostage situation and a shooting up there. Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” I try to sound strong because I know Mother is listening carefully in hopes of reading any tone of weakness in my voice.

“Your father and I are just worried sick about you. Why in the world didn’t you call us, for heaven’s sake?”

“Well, I’ve been rather bus—”

“Destiny, this is your father.” Daddy’s deep voice booms through the line.

“Hi, Daddy.” I try to sound cheerful, suddenly feeling like his little girl again.

“What’s this about a shooting and you talking to some deranged man—in
Harlem
of all places? I have tried to tell you how dangerous that area is, Dee. It’s a
ghetto,
after all! And I swear I don’t know for the life of me why that deranged husband of yours still insists on the two of you living there. ‘Getting back to your roots,’ he says—pshaw! I’m telling you, it is dangerous up there, Dee.”

“Daddy—”

“No, Dee, your daddy is right,” Mother chimes in. “Your husband
is
deranged!”

“
Mo
ther
!”

I cannot believe that I am a grown woman with a big New York City job, covering news stories that can change peoples’ lives, maybe even save some. Yet here I am, standing in my underwear, getting blessed out by my parents like I’m seventeen and stayed out past curfew. Some things never change.

Daddy tries to lighten the conversation, now that he’s assured his baby girl is okay. “We’re just worried about you, Diddle-Dee, that’s all, honey.”

“Be proud of me too, Daddy?” I ask, in desperate need of more support and less scolding right now.

“Oh, we’re proud of you all right,” Mother interjects. “Just promise us you won’t get yourself killed up there. Why don’t you come home this weekend anyway? It’s Memorial Day. We’re heading to the island. Your aunt Joy has been asking about you an awful lot. She’s getting older, you know, and she thinks you forgot all about her and the beach house since you got married to that lunatic.”

Mother is conjuring up her feel-guilty brew, but I do love my aunt Joy and hold some of the most sacred life memories from spending summers with her at Tranquility, our family beach house on Topsail Island, North Carolina. Now, well into her eighties, those same memories and spending time with her only niece may mean even more to Aunt Joy today. Maybe I should start going home more often—but it’s always so problematic.

“Now, DeeDee.” Daddy clears his throat. “I want you to make it down to Topsail this weekend, like your mother says. We’re counting on you.”

“But, Daddy,” I try to reason, “you know that you guys and Garrett don’t get along. He’s never been crazy about the beach anyway. It’s just not that easy.”

“Well,
make
it easy, for goodness’ sake!” Mother snaps. “Can’t you control your husband? Can’t we all just make a special effort this time and stop all the fussing?” Mother’s offering is quite surprising, particularly since she’s usually the one doing most of the fussing. “Life is too short. Your aunt Joy is not going to be around forever, Dee. Plus, we all miss you desperately. We’re worried stiff!”

“And it’s a holiday, sweet pea,” Daddy coos.

“Daddy, news knows no holiday. But I’ll talk to Garrett and see how he feels.”

“Well, just don’t let him talk you out of it, Dee,” warns Mother. “You know what an ass he can be.”

“Okay,” I sigh. I don’t have the energy to get into it with her this morning. “I love you.”

“Love you back, and be careful!”

“I will.”

“Go get ’em, Tiger!” I can hear Daddy’s pride beaming through the phone.

I take a quick shower and race to get dressed, noticing for the first time in a long time that I have not even thought about scoping out my home for another red hair. Life-or-death situations have an uncanny way of putting everything into perspective. In the greater scheme of things, the thought of another red hair seems, at least at this moment, trivial and minute. Another day of work, no matter how hard I have to push, is probably the best move I can make right now to keep my mind busy and off red hairs and lying lovers. It’s also better than staying home alone in this apartment, where apparently both have been.

The long walk across the WNBC newsroom through the sea of reporter cubicles to Grossman’s glass office on the other side of the room seems to take forever. Along the way, several of my colleagues give me a pat on the back for a job well done last night, but I can still feel a bit of tension in the newsroom air and wonder if it relates to my embarrassing emotional outburst that did not get past Grossman—or is it Garrett’s infidelity that did not get past me?

I can see Barry’s face turning red the moment he sees me through his glass walls. He motions for me to come in.

“Yeah, so what’s this with the fucking tears—lead story—live shot—last night’s eleven o’clock newscast? What we gotta do, huh? Send your ass outta here with a big box of Kleenex?” Grossman’s collar looks like it’s about to explode from all the pressure bulging out of his fat neck.

“I … I was just really touched by the story, Barry. I’d spent a lot of really intense time with the guy and … and … the ba-baby … and I’m still freaking out over him getting shot like that—and right in front of me.”

“Fuck that shit! You see reporters covering death and destruction every fucking day, and you don’t see ’em boo-hooing like fucking sissies—
not on
my
news, you don’t
! Take the long Memorial Day weekend to get your head together.”

“Barry, I appreciate that, but … I really don’t want to lose my story. I just—”

“Just
one
day. You’re not going to lose your story. City Hall’s not making a decision over the holiday, and the perp’s in a fuckin’ coma anyways. You need it. You just saw a guy get shot, remember? Go get yourself together and then get back here.”

“Okay … Okay … I will. Thank you … thank you, Barry.”

By the end of the day, our news team has covered every possible angle of Thomas’s follow-up story as city officials begin the grueling process of determining Thomas’s fate. I sit here at my cubicle, my head and heart still buzzing, and I’m not sure whether I’ve lost my job or lost my marriage, and I pray I don’t lose my mind.

My phone rings.
Please be Garrett, calling to see if I’m okay and to say he loves me and is
taking the day off to stay home and hold me, so we can finally talk—so we can finally work things out, put my suspicions to bed, and save our marr
iage.

“Hello,” I say with a voice full of emotion and hope.

“Thank God we gotchu! It’s us, girl—you okay?” It’s my best girlfriends, Kat McCullough and Hope Linton, on a three-way call with an avalanche of questions. “Are you all right? You didn’t get hurt, did you? You haven’t answered any of our calls!”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Still in a daze, that’s all. My news director just told me to take some time off. And y’all, I really think I need it. There’s so much going on right now. I don’t think I can keep it together much longer.”

Hope’s voice trembles into the phone. “Girl, we heard the news and freaked out when we saw you right there in the middle of it. Everybody’s talking about it. You poor thing.”

“Were you actually there when they shot that man?” Kat asks. “You saw the blood and that baby and everything?”

“Yeah … yeah … I was … it was a trip.”

“Jesus,” Hope whispers.

“Where’s Garrett?” Kat asks. “Has he been home long enough to take care of you?”

“No,” I whisper into the phone. “To tell you the truth, I think he’s taking care of somebody else these days.”

The phone goes dead silent for a moment, and then …

“Say
what
?” Kat and Hope spurt out at the same time. “Whoa, now. Wait a minute, Dee. What are you talking about? How do you know this? Oh my God … Are you sure?”

“Yeah … I … I’m pretty sure. I think he is. No, I know Garrett’s having an affair. I just know he is.”

“They say a woman always knows deep in her gut when it’s happening,” says Hope. “But, honey, please be wrong.”

“I don’t think so, Hopey,” I sadly admit. “I think I have enough proof. There’re lots of things that make me wonder.”

“Proof? Proof like what?” demands Kat. “Who is this bitch? Do you know her?”

How am I ever going to tell my girls that I suspect “this bitch” is one of our closest friends?

“Well, look, y’all, I’m at work. I can’t talk right now. We’ll talk about it later.”

“You need a martini and your girlfriends, girlfriend. That’s what you need! Meet us after work at Hurlihey’s for happy hour.”

“I just might do that,” I surrender. “I could sure use a happy hour ’round about now. I don’t know what to do.”