Want Me (15 page)

As soon as she was alone, she brought out her phone and called Nate.

“Hey,” he said, his voice as comforting as a hug. “How you doing?”

“Fine,” she said. “Nervous.”

“You’re a natural. They’ll probably ask you to be their next anchor.”

She laughed a bit, a first for the day, and debated telling him about what had happened at work. The decision was made a second later as she really couldn’t afford to get caught up in any drama. It was disappointing, though, to realize that her pep talk had given her only a veneer of equilibrium.

“Tell me about your meetings,” she said.

“They were about as dull as meetings get.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to think about being on camera. So you need to entertain me. You’re at Molly’s, right?”

“I am. It’s packed. Everyone’s here. Even people I used to know. Mrs. Gailbraith from four doors down is here.”

“What? She never goes out. Did you thank her for all those candy bars?”

“I did. Told her she was the best Halloween house on the whole block. She seemed pleased.”

“What about the family?”

“Myles and Alice are here, so are Brady and Paula. Danny’s come with a very beautiful girl who’s far too good for him— Ow.”

Shannon was smiling now for real. She knew instantly that Nate had made that last crack within hearing range of Danny, who had proceeded to exact immediate revenge.

“Princess!” It was Danny himself on the phone now. “Ow. Jesus, Nate, take my shoulder off, why don’t you.” Danny added a muttered expletive. “Hey,” he said into the phone. “Is it true you don’t want to be called Princess anymore?”

“Yes.” She let out a happy sigh. Nate would get a bonus tonight for that. “Who’s your friend?”

“She’s a gorgeous woman of discriminating taste, and you’ll meet her when you come back to visit the little people.”

She shook her head. “As always, Danny, you’re a riot. Is Tim there?”

“Yeah. He and Brady are arm wrestling. For money.”

“Don’t let Ma catch them.”

“She’s already made ten bucks, are you kidding?”

“Give me back to Nate, you hooligan.”

It took a moment for the phone to get into Nate’s hand, and then he told her to hang on. When he spoke again, the background was much quieter. “I’m back. It’s a madhouse out here.”

“Watch, I’ll probably do something horribly embarrassing. Get the hiccups or something.”

“No, you won’t. And even if you did, we’d love you just the same.”

She knew he was talking about the family, about love in the broadest sense, but that didn’t stop the flurry that kicked up inside her. “I’m going to splurge after this and take a cab home.”

“Good. I was about to suggest that. I was worried about you on the subway.”

She wished he was there with her, not at Molly’s. “I can take care of myself, but I’m tired, and I want to be at home.”

“Tonight’s going to be rough,” he said, his voice lower, a little harder to hear. “The gang’s all staying over.”

“I figured. Maybe you can sneak in when everyone’s asleep.”

“Or maybe I could steal you away, and we could spend the weekend at a hotel.”

She sighed. “That sounds—”

Felicity opened the door. “You’re up.”

“I’ve got to go,” Shannon said, as the butterflies in her stomach suddenly grew teeth.

“Break a leg,” he said.

“Thanks. ’Bye.”

Felicity barely glanced at her as she led her through corridors, over great big cables that were strewn about on the floor. There were flashing red Silence signs all along the way, and as they got closer to where the action seemed to be, the signs changed to On Air.

There were cameras, two of them, and the cohosts’ desks. The set itself seemed incredibly smaller than it looked on television. She recognized Lisa Jenner at one desk, a very large picture of the New York skyline behind her, talking to the camera, reading from a TelePrompTer. She seemed relaxed and pretty, never once looking down at the papers that were in front of her.

Grant Yost was at the second desk, the one Shannon was escorted to. It had a swirled blue backdrop with the station’s call letters in white. To his right, out of camera range, Shannon saw herself and Grant in a very large monitor. Her hair looked okay, but she should have gone with the matte lipstick. She was seated in a chair that had a low back. Since Lisa was still speaking, no one gave her any instructions, but she assumed that would come in a moment.

Sure enough, the red light on the camera went off, and before Shannon could introduce herself to Grant, Felicity got her attention. As she fit Shannon with a tiny clip-on microphone, she said, “Look at Grant, not the camera. Seriously, looking at the camera ends up being creepy.”

Shannon took out the flyer for the Easter egg hunt. “Who should I give this to?”

Felicity looked at the paper blankly, then said, “I’ll take care of it. You’ll be on in five.”

Five didn’t mean minutes, but seconds. Grant still hadn’t looked at her when he faced the camera. “Tonight’s guest is Shannon Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald and Sons Printing. They’re famous for making trading cards for the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, to name two famous franchises. They also print textbooks and catalogues and even children’s books. What WNYC has recently discovered, however, is that Fitzgerald and Sons also prints a different type of trading card.”

A picture replaced the live shot of her and Grant. Shannon stared in mute horror at Nate’s trading card, surrounded by five other cards, all the men from the last batch she’d taken to the St. Marks lunch exchange.

“These cards aren’t keepsakes. They’re solicitations. Traded among a prominent group of women including, it appears, Rebecca Winslow Thorpe, CEO of the venerable philanthropic Winslow Foundation.”

A video of Rebecca, Bree and Katy came up in the nightmarish slide show, walking into the church, with Rebecca looking behind her as if she were doing something illegal. Shannon’s mouth opened. Inside her head she screamed for Yost to stop but she couldn’t seem to make a sound.

“The men on these cards,” Grant continued, “have no idea they’re being traded like so much chattel.”

Grant shifted his attention to Shannon. “Ms. Fitzgerald, I understand you were the person who came up with this trading scheme several months ago, and since then, over a hundred unsuspecting New Yorkers have been up for auction in the basement of St. Marks Church. Is it true that a percentage of each sale goes directly into your pocket?”

15

S
HANNON
COULDN
’
T
BREATHE
.
The room spun and she had to grab on to the desk to keep herself upright. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What about the Easter egg hunt?”

“Please, Ms. Fitzgerald. Explain to us how this trading card system works. How you’ve managed to keep the scheme quiet for so long. I was told there’s a strict confidentiality agreement among the women who sign up to be involved with the auction?”

“There’s no auction. It’s not like that. We’re friends. It’s for fun, and for connections between friends.”

“If it were for fun, then why weren’t the men who are being traded asked if they wanted to participate? If it were as innocent as you claim, why would so many of the men on the back be marketed as One Night Stands?”

Nate’s picture was still on the backdrop, but next to it now was the picture of the back of his card. One Night Stand written in bold.

Shannon felt as if she were going to be sick. “There’s no auction, no money. It was meant as something nice. Something good.”

“Tell that to the men you’ve been swapping.”

She knew she had to explain, get him to listen and stop making horrible accusations. But Nate was watching this show. Her family and everyone she knew were watching this show, and she hadn’t asked. She’d used Nate, and all the other men, and she hadn’t asked. How could she have not seen how intrusive…?

“None of this was done maliciously or for profit,” she said, trying with all her heart to be as professional as she could. The humiliation was strangling her, but she had to keep on. “We’re all friends. We share lunches. And we talk about dating and how hard it is in New York—”

“So you saw an opportunity and you ran with it. Using the printing plant. Did your family know you were printing trading cards with such personal information? One card we saw said, and I quote, ‘He’s so hot, you’ll need a fire extinguisher.’”

“You’re taking everything out of context. That’s how girls talk about potential dates. It’s not wrong.” Her voice caught, and she knew her face was red, which made her want to double over and die.

“I think you’ll find the men on these cards, and we have yet to quantify exactly how many that is, will have something to say about whether it was wrong to use their pictures, their personal information, to barter them without their express permission.” Grant turned to the camera, and Shannon caught sight of the monitor. Nate was center stage, as if he represented all kinds of horrible and salacious things done in secret basement meetings.

“We’ll have more on this story in the coming weeks as we uncover how many men have been secretly shared among this group of women under the guise of trading lunches. We’ll return in a moment.”

The red light on the camera turned off, and Grant calmly removed the microphone hidden under his tie. He didn’t look at her. Not once. He got out of his seat and walked over to some woman standing by the exit.

Shannon forced herself out of her seat. She took the microphone she’d been given, dropped it on the floor and stepped on it as hard as she could as she followed signs out of the building. Someone called her name, a man, whom she ignored.

Where had they gotten their information? She trusted every last woman at the lunch group. No one would have blabbed. Not only were they all trustworthy, but publicizing the cards ruined everything for everyone. So who…?

“Oh, God.” She braced a hand on the wall. She knew…she knew…

The day she’d been working on Nate’s card, she’d gone for coffee and when she’d come back, the picture of the abandoned printing plant had been on her screen. That’s when someone had downloaded the batch of cards.

She knew who that someone was, and that hurt almost as much as the blinding humiliation. Daphne. Shannon pressed a hand to her stomach.

Daphne had been to Shannon’s home. She knew her family. The two of them had shared more stories about dates than Shannon ever had with any member of the exchange. Daphne had been her friend.

Then again, Shannon was Nate’s friend, and what had that gotten him?

* * *

N
ATE
WAS
STILL
STARING
AT
THE
big television behind the bar at Molly’s. The packed room had gone silent, the TV muted. He was squeezing his beer glass so hard, either it would shatter or his fingers would break.
Shannon.

It had been a shock to see his picture on the screen. Trading cards? He’d always dreamed about being on a card, practically every boy he’d known had wanted that, but for sports. For being famous. Nate had no idea what to make of the card he was on. One thing he knew for certain was that Shannon hadn’t done anything wrong. That two-bit hack of a news anchor had been full of it.

The other thing he was sure about was that Shannon had been eviscerated. Tricked, shanghaied, humiliated, three days before her charity Easter egg hunt. Nate wasn’t a violent man, but he would personally strangle whomever had planted that story.

He would also call his old buddy Brent first thing in the morning. Brent was one of the best litigators in the country.

“What the hell was that?”

At Danny’s bewildered question, Nate jerked out of revenge mode. He didn’t answer, but it did get him pressing her speed dial number. Her cell rang and rang, until it went to voice mail. “Shannon. I’ll call you back. Pick up, honey. Please. It’ll be okay, but I need to know where you are.”

He hung up, hit redial. Got the same result. She hadn’t turned off the phone, then, but she wasn’t answering. The next three times he called, the number was busy. So he wasn’t the only one calling. He hoped it was friends, but for all he knew, there could be other news media trying to get in on the story. Rebecca Thorpe was involved, and that was big news. Very big.

“I can’t get through,” Mrs. Fitz said.

“Me, neither,” Nate said, swallowing hard.

Mrs. Fitz looked wild-eyed. “She’s all the way in Yonkers. She’ll be beside herself. We have to go get her.”

“She told me she was going to take a cab home,” Nate said. He would have hugged Mrs. Fitz himself if Mr. Fitz wasn’t already holding her.

Every person Nate saw looked shell-shocked. He felt the same. The accusations that bastard had flung about had been disgusting. To blindside Shannon without giving her the chance to defend herself was the worst kind of sensationalism with no regard for the truth. He didn’t give a damn if his picture ended up on every news show in America, he would not have Shannon treated like that.

He was shaking in his rage, with his worry. She was out there, an hour away at least, and if she didn’t pick up the phone, he didn’t know what he was going to do.

She had been so frightened of things going wrong. The hiccups. Jesus. The bar was too hot, too crowded, and he thrust his way out.

The night was supposedly the coldest in weeks, but he didn’t feel it. Adrenaline made his heart pound, made him want to jump in the next cab and race to her side. He had no idea how to find her. Someone could probably trace the GPS in her phone, but not anyone he knew.

“Shit,” he said, and he said it again because he could. He was going to find out where that prick Grant lived and make him sorry he was ever born. Nate dialed again, and when he got the busy signal he almost threw the cell as far as he could launch it. With an effort, he held back. Barely. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Except worry. And think the worst.

* * *

S
HANNON
WAS
ON
THE
SUBWAY
.
She wasn’t sure which train or where it was headed. She’d just used her MetroCard and climbed aboard the first open door she saw.

She’d shredded a number of tissues and stuffed the remains in her purse. There were two clean ones left. She might have to buy more because she wasn’t getting off this train. Ever.

She was sitting on a side bench, holding on to a pole, staring out the window as the tunnel flashed by. Oddly, she felt as if she’d left herself on a chair in a TV studio where the world she used to know had been crushed out of existence. She had no idea who was riding this near-empty subway car.

Thankfully, it was after eleven. Not too many people out and about at this time, not like rush hour. Still, New York never really shut down, so she wouldn’t be alone no matter what. Too bad.

She closed her eyes and just as quickly opened them again. It was the fourth time she’d tried and she wouldn’t try again. Closing her eyes didn’t provide enough distractions. Behind closed eyes she would remember not any particular word, but a tone, the way it felt when she realized exactly what he was accusing her of.

All her work, all the struggle, the effort, the calls, the nights she couldn’t sleep worrying about Fitzgerald & Sons—all of it was for nothing. They were a joke now. It didn’t matter how the story ended. Even if by some miracle the reporter apologized for his misinformation on the air, it wouldn’t be enough. People’s memories were short, and with a shocking story like this one, that’s all they’d need.

No one would think of Fitzgerald & Sons without the association of Shannon Fitzgerald running some underground man swap. She didn’t even know what that meant, except that it was salacious and filthy. That’s all her customers would think. As they canceled their orders.

How could she ever make another cold call? How could she assure the potential customers who were on the brink of signing? Credibility, gone. Self-respect, none. And they’d used Nate as the symbol of her disgrace.

Damn, now she was down to one tissue. She had money. Credit cards. She supposed she could get out at the next stop, find herself a place to hide for the night.

No, no, not a hotel. She would never sleep. At least here there were people coming and people going. All of them looked as if their world hadn’t been shredded.

God, they’d shown Rebecca. How many times had they sat outside St. Marks shooting footage, trolling, hoping to find the right person or shot? How long would it take for someone to recognize Bree as Charlie Winslow’s girlfriend then make their connection to the cards? Shannon couldn’t even imagine the backpedaling they’d have to do.

She bent over, holding her stomach, biting her lip to keep from moaning out loud. Charlie had no idea about the cards. Rebecca’s boyfriend, Jake, had been wounded in the line of duty in the NYPD, and now he’d be a laughingstock, and it was all Shannon’s fault.

At least Nate was leaving New York. Not soon enough to outrun the ridicule that would come at him from all corners. Shannon had used every weapon in her arsenal to make sure the interview was watched by everyone who had even a tangential relationship to the Fitzgerald family or the business. She’d even figured out when affiliates of the tiny independent station would rerun the piece, and had sent alternative times and channels to all her address books.

God, with every stop and start of the subway a new horror came to haunt her. The repercussions to the lunch exchange women! Their families, their coworkers, all the men they’d ever dated. The circle kept growing and growing. How was her mother ever going to walk into church again? The Easter egg hunt!

Shannon sat up, but she was breathing too fast, and if she didn’t get herself under control she was going to hyperventilate and pass out, and wouldn’t that make a lovely picture for the
Post.

It took two transfers and a dozen or more stops to finally reach Grand Central. Shannon could get tissues. Could find a train to anywhere. She’d heard rumors that people lived underground, in the station in abandoned train tunnels. That might not be so bad. Although she’d need a toothbrush. And more practical shoes.

The doors whooshed open and she stepped out. She walked. The four-faced clock was straight ahead. Shannon looked up and smiled. At last, something that made sense. The sky was backward on this ceiling. She’d come here with her fifth-grade class, and her teacher, Mr. Thomas, had made a very big deal of the backward ceiling. He’d said it was supposed to be the sky as God would see it.

According to all four faces of the clock, it was very late. She’d been riding the trains for hours, and somehow it had become 2:00 a.m.

She found her last tissue and kept on walking.

* * *

N
ATE
SAT
ON
THE
F
ITZGERALDS
’
porch steps, leaning against a post, freezing cold. They’d left the outside light on for when Shannon came home. If Shannon came home.

In all the places he’d been across the globe where people had been desperate to find loved ones, Nate’s role had been to be calm, supportive, gentle. He’d been the person they’d turned to for comfort.

Tonight he was the desperate soul, the one panicked beyond reason. The truth was the comfort he’d offered overseas had been useless. The hot coffee or the blankets had been all that mattered. His calm support had only helped him, not them.

He didn’t know how to find her. Shannon was out there, and anything could have happened. He’d run through a hundred scenarios, all of them ending in tragedy. It was torture. For hours, every moment that went by was the moment before she would appear. When Molly’s had emptied, only staff and Shannon’s family remaining, he’d been certain she’d left a message on the machine at the house, only to have Mrs. Fitz remind him that Brady and his girlfriend had gone home hours before, just in case.