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“Well,” Cassy said, clasping her hands together in front of her and composing herself slightly, “Michael has told me a great deal about you.” When the girl merely continued to smile at her, Cassy shrugged and said, “So—don’t you want to ask me how old I am?”
The girl’s smile turned to confusion on that one, and the moment was saved by Rosanne’s head appearing over Cassy’s shoulder. “I saw you in the Daily News,” she said. “Liz Smith says they’re gonna can Boxby to make room for ya.”
“I really don’t know,” Alexandra said vaguely.
“Better read Liz Smith then,” Rosanne suggested.
“Oh, brother!” cried a booming voice. It was Michael, his six-foot-two frame looming from the other end of the hallway. Cassy could already tell that he was three—no, maybe only two—sheets to the wind. “What are you doing, Cassy, introducing Alexandra to the maid?”
“I was just about to.” Cassy made the appropriate gestures. “Rosanne, this is Alexandra Waring. Alexandra, Rosanne DiSantos.”
Michael laughed, lumbering down to the group. “Who is this?” he cried, reaching around Cassy to pull Rosanne out into view. “Wooo-weee, look at you! How did you get so gorgeous?”
“Hey, watch the merchandise,” Rosanne warned him.
Alexandra turned to Cassy, smiling slightly. “Has she worked for you long?”
Cassy glanced at her. “Three years.” Her eyes swung back to Michael. “Not to be nosy, but where have you been?”
“Out,” Michael said, yanking the skirt of Rosanne’s dress.
“Yeah,” Rosanne said, yanking her dress back. “Five hours gettin’ ice. Gettin’ iced is more like it.”
“Big bad Rosanne, huh?” Michael said, putting up his dukes.
“You two—” Cassy began.
“Hey, Mr. C,” Rosanne said, sparring as best she could in the confined space, “listen, we gotta go easy on Mr. Moscow tonight. He’s the last guy they’ll send over.”
“Mr. Moscow?” Alexandra asked.
“The bartender,” Cassy said, catching the sleeve of Michael’s sweat shirt. “You better get changed.”
He stopped sparring and looked at her. “I stopped by the station,” he said.
“May I throw my things in there?” Alexandra asked, nodding toward the bedroom. “Cassy?”
“What?”
“My things—may I put them in there?”
“Stop lookin’ at me like that,” Rosanne said, swatting Michael’s arm. “I’m not gonna be a cleanin’ houses forever, ya know.”
“Rosanne,” Cassy said, “will you please get out there and pass hors d’oeuvres? And be forewarned that Amos has an animal on his head.”
“Amos,” Michael sighed, leaning heavily into the wall. “What an asshole.”
“He claims you gave him that thing for his birthday.”
“Yeah,” Michael sighed. “It’s a hyena. Looks like him, doesn’t it?”
“I’m takin’ the sponge with me then,” Rosanne said, moving down the hall, “just so ya know.”
“Cassy—” Alexandra tried again.
“Yes?”
“My things?”
“Yes. In there. On the bed.”
“And I’ll help you,” Michael said, brightening.
Cassy snatched his arm and turned him around. “You, in the kitchen—now.”
“Wait,” Michael said, turning around. Cassy pushed him backward down the hall by his stomach. “No, wait, Cass, I just want to know what Alexandra wants to drink—ALEXANDRA. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?”
“Good Lord,” Cassy sighed.
“Perrier!” came the reply.
This did not make him happy. Cranky, “WHAT?”
“Michael,” Cassy said.
“I’d like a Perrier,” Alexandra said, emerging from the bedroom.
“Oh, man,” Michael whined, turning around and walking to the kitchen of his own volition. “What is it with you guys? Get within ten feet of Cassy and suddenly everybody’s drinking Perrier. Shit.”
Cassy waited to escort Alexandra out of the hall. “What do you usually drink?” she asked, letting Alexandra pass in front of her.
“Perrier,” Alexandra said.
A nice figure, too. This is not good. “Really?”
Alexandra turned and smiled. Ratings were made on smiles like these. “Really,” she said.
Cassy’s father, Henry Littlefield, had always told her that she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Cassy’s mother, Catherine, yelled every time he said it. “If you keep telling her that, you’re going to make her a very unhappy woman!”
Cassy was twelve when her father died. Afterward, Catherine—over and over again, year in, year out—strongly advised Cassy to forget everything her father had ever told her. Her explanation ran something like this:
Catherine had been quite a beauty herself, although you couldn’t tell that now. Years of slaving on Cassy’s behalf had destroyed her looks. But the point was, you see, Catherine had been a beauty. Everyone had always told her so and Catherine had believed them. She had also believed everyone when they said that her beauty would win her the best man alive and she would marry him and live happily ever after.
But instead of going for the Miss Iowa title in 1939 (which she won hands down, don’t you know), she should have gone to college and learned something. But she didn’t and she didn’t win the Miss America title, but she did win Henry Littlefield and life went steadily downhill after that.
It wasn’t that Henry had exactly been a bad man. No, no, far from it. It was just that he was so unlucky. Catherine had never seen anyone so unlucky. His career never got off the ground and they never did manage to move out of their starter house (or pay for it) and then Cassy came along and Catherine had to stay home all the time to take care of her and then Henry went off and died on her and Catherine had to work as a receptionist at Thompson Electronics to support Cassy and—
Sigh.
“You know, sweetie, life is tough and then you’re dead and if only they hadn’t all kept telling me how beautiful I was.”
But you’ll be different, honey lamb. I won’t let that happen to you. You’re going to make something of yourself and not end up like your poor old mother.
And Cassy was different, and she did listen to her mother. She was a good girl; she did graduate at the top of her class; she did receive a full scholarship to Northwestern. She didn’t keep bad company (she didn’t really keep any company at all, frankly) and she didn’t fill her head with silly notions about boys.
That is, until Michael Cochran. Oh, but he was handsome in those days. So darkly, devastatingly handsome. (He still was, with a suntan.) And Cassy fell in love with him, despite the fact that she did not want to fall in love with him. He was too wild, too untrustworthy. (She was never quite sure, but over the years Cassy had come to suspect that her falling in love with him may have had something to do with the fact that he had never openly appeared to be in love with her—unlike almost every other man.) But Michael was always laughing, always on top of the world, and was such a good-natured, warm, fun-loving bear of a man—much like Cassy’s father had been. And Michael was so worldly! After six years of working at his home-town paper in Indiana, twenty-four-year-old Michael Cochran was an awesome entity in the journalism school. (Cassy was the second.)
They dated throughout college and Cassy agreed to marry him shortly after graduation. Catherine was horrified and refused to have anything to do with the wedding. If Cassy wanted to marry that “good-time Charlie” and throw her life away, she could go ahead and consider herself an orphan. Cassy and Michael went ahead and got married.
The Cochrans were hired as a team in the news department at a network affiliate in Chicago, Michael as a writer and Cassy as some glorified term for a secretary. They both worked very hard and Michael also played very hard. The guys in management, big drinkers themselves, loved having Michael along on their city jaunts. Michael was a kick; Michael was smart; Michael Cochran was going places.
And so was Cassy—on his coattails. When Michael was offered a producer slot in documentary, he demanded and got Cassy as his assistant producer. They worked extremely well together, Michael with his grand visions and good writing, and Cassy with her sharp technical eye and awesome organizational skills. In short, Michael would get a great idea and Cassy would see that it was carried through to completion. Michael hated details and follow-through (“DETAILS!” he would roar. “FUCK ’EM—LET’S JUST DO IT!”).
Cassy got pregnant in 1968 and miscarried in her third month. But then in 1969 she conceived again and everyone (even her mother, who had deigned to speak to her again) was thrilled when Cassy’s term progressed without any problems. She continued working up to the week Henry was born, and did not return to work full time until two years later, when the biggest documentary of Michael’s life was falling apart—all because of those insidious DETAILS. She had not stopped working since.
They made the move to New York City in 1973 when Michael was offered the job of news director at WWKK. Cassy was hired as a feature segment producer in the news department at rival independent station WST. Both did very well, Michael earning more and more money, and Cassy, in 1976, becoming managing director of news operations at WST. But then, in 1978, Cassy started doing better-well than Michael. She was made managing director of news operations and coprogramming director for the station. But since Michael was a vice-president and she wasn’t, it was okay for a while. But then in 1980 she was made vice-president and managing director, news and programming, and the situation became sticky. And then in 1982, when Cassy was promoted to vice-president and general station manager, the Cochran marriage began to rock. As some sort of unspoken compromise—in terms of work—they spoke of news and only of news, and Michael was to remain the indisputable authority.
So here were the Cochrans of 1986, ensconced in the large West Side apartment on Riverside Drive they had owned for seven years now, both with careers they adored (most of the time) and a son they always adored. They were so lucky in that department, with Henry.
So why did Michael and she have so many problems? Cassy wondered. Problems that were never out in the open, problems that were tied into everything else in such nebulous ways that it was near impossible to even isolate them as such.
Fact (or Fact?): Michael may or may not have had anywhere between fourteen and thirty-seven affairs in the last ten years. (Cassy was always sure, but never really sure, and never wanted to know for sure.)
Fact: Their relationship as husband and wife had evolved into something suspiciously similar to that between an errant student and teacher.
Fact: Cassy and Michael rarely agreed on anything anymore, except a desire not to openly fight. Even on the subject of their son, their viewpoints were so far apart that it was amazing to think they had even known each other for twenty years, much less been married to each other. Michael cast his son as a jock and booming ladies’ man; Cassy knew him as a quiet, shy, gentle young man who was perhaps a bit too smart and too sensitive for his own good. As for the ladies’ man part of Michael’s perception, that only came up when Michael was drinking—when he would attribute all of his own sexual exploits and conquests to his son, going on and on in front of other people, daring to see how far he could go before Cassy showed visible signs of distress.
Looking in the powder-room mirror, tracing the hairs slipping from the clip with her fingers, Cassy considered the amount of gray she could distinguish from the ash blond. She was an expert at this by now. Would she…? No, not yet.
She leaned over the sink and sighed, slowly. She raised her head and again looked at her face. She touched her cheek, her chin, her mouth. Yes, she was still quite beautiful, but she looked like someone else now. Maybe she was a Catherine now, like her mother, too old to be a Cassy.
Good Lord, she was fading. That was it. Just fading. From radiance to glow. Like her eyesight, her face was fading. Reading glasses she had almost resigned herself to, but when it’s your face—what do you do, wear a mask?
Yes. But you call it makeup.
Was it worth it, this life? In love with Henry in the odd moment he expressed a need for her, in love with her television station, in love with her schedules, DETAILS, in love with ignoring the passing days of her life. When, exactly, was it that she had stopped insisting they drive out every weekend to the house in Connecticut? When was it she had decided to let the garden go, and not care if the house was painted or not? When had she stopped wishing they had a dog?
When had Cassy Cochran stopped wishing for anything?
Someone was knocking on the door. “Just a minute,” she called out. And what was this singsong in her voice? Why didn’t she just gently cast flowers from a basket as she walked?
It was Rosanne, balancing a tray of hors d’oeuvres on her hip. “Henry’s on the phone. The kid sounds funny so I thought I better get you.”
Cassy’s heart skipped a beat, for Henry never sounded “funny.”
“I’ll take it in the study.” Cassy walked down the hall and opened the door to the study. It was off limits at parties because it was here that the Cochrans harbored what they did best—sift and sort through work and projects. There were three television sets, two VCRs, tons of scripts, computer printouts and magazines. There were two solid walls of video tapes; the other two walls were covered with photographs of the Cochrans with various television greats over the years and, too, there were a number of awards: Emmys, Peabodys, a Christopher, a Silver Gavel, two Duponts, and even a Clio from a free-lance job of Michael’s years ago. What a lovely mess. Pictures and papers. What they both understood completely. His chair, his desk; her chair, her desk; the old sofa they couldn’t part with, where Henry had been conceived so many years before.
“Henry?”
“Hi, Mom.”
He does sound funny.
“What’s wrong?”
Pause. “Well, Mom, I’m sort of in a situation where I’m not really sure what to do.” Pause. “Mom?”
“Yes?”
He sighed and sounded old. “I’m over at Skipper’s and the Marshalls aren’t home yet.” Pause.
Let him explain.
“Skipper was drinking beer at Shea and then here…Mom, he’s kind of getting sick all over the place and I don’t know what to do.” He hurried on. “I tried to get him to go to bed but he threw up all over the place and then started running around.” Little voice. “He just got sick in the dining room. Mom—”
“Listen, sweetheart, don’t panic, I’m coming right over. But listen to me carefully. Stay with Skipper and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“He’s sort of out of it.”
“If he starts to get sick again, make sure he’s sitting up. Don’t let him choke. Okay, sweetheart? Just hang on, I’ll be right there.”
Cassy grabbed her coat and purse and went back into the party to find Michael. Easier said than done. Where had all these people come from anyway? Some woman was playing “Hey, Look Me Over” on the piano, while Elvis was belting “Blue Suede Shoes” on the stereo.
Where the hell is Michael?
Where the hell is Alexandra Waring?
Well, at least Cassy knew who was with whom.
The Marshalls lived on Park Avenue at 84th Street. Skipper was a classmate of Henry’s, a friendship sanctioned by Michael since Roderick Marshall was the longtime president of the Mainwright Club, of which Michael yearned to be a member. (He was turned down year after year.) As for Cassy, she thought the Marshalls were stupid people. Period. And because she felt that way, she had become rather fond of Skipper for openly airing all of the family secrets (his mother had had two face lifts; his father went away on weekends with his mistress; they had paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to marry off Skipper’s hopeless sister…).
While Cassy wouldn’t have chosen Skipper as Henry’s buddy, she did appreciate one of Skipper’s attributes—he absolutely worshiped the ground Henry walked on. And he was bright; he understood all of Henry’s complicated interests; and he was loyal, not only to Henry, but to all of the Cochrans. (Whenever Cassy told the boys it was time to go to bed, Skipper always made a point of thanking her for letting him stay over. “I really like it here,” he would declare. “I would really like it if you liked my liking it—do you, Mrs. C?”
“Yes, Skipper, I do,” Cassy would say, making him grin.)
The poor kids. Cassy found Henry sitting shell-shocked on the lid of the toilet seat in the front powder room while Skipper snored on the tile floor, his arm curled around the base of the john. Lord, what a mess. Henry held Skipper up so that Cassy could at least wash the vomit off his face and take off his shirt. They took him to his room, changed him into pajamas, and then put him to bed in one of the guest rooms since his own was such a mess. With Henry’s help she found the number of the maid and Cassy called. Would she come over since no one knew where the Marshalls were, or when they could come home? She would.
Cassy stripped the sheets in Skipper’s room and, with Henry, cleaned up the worst from the carpets around the house. Aside from answering her questions about where things were, Henry hadn’t volunteered anything. Cassy checked on Skipper again; he was long gone, in a peaceful sleep now.
They sat in the kitchen and shared a Coke.
“Are you sure the Marshalls didn’t leave a number?”
Glum. “Yes.”
“Henry,” Cassy asked after a moment, “do you like to drink?”
He glared at her. “Mom.”
