Woke Up Lonely A Novel - By Fiona Maazel Page 0,58

wasn’t. Got home and prepared a tray. Coffee and tea, plus an origami flower, because I knew how to make exactly one origami gift, and it was this.

A breeze lilted across my room. I found Esme dressed and framed in the window, which was open. She bent the morning light. And as I watched her jump the sill and tear down the road, I was returned to the work that has been my life’s thrill and challenge ever since.

Thurlow’s cell phone rang; it was Norman. He’d been in touch with the FBI negotiator, who said it was now or never for the ransom tape. Seriously. Now or never. Dean had found a new chair that pleased him well enough, so they were all set.

“Any calls come in that weren’t FBI?” Thurlow’s ear sweat into the phone.

“The press.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

He went to the kitchen. Put a saucepan on the range. Added sugar, water, gelatin, lemon juice, grenadine, coconut. Heated it up, let it sit. Coated the result with silver luster dust, wrapped it in edible foil, and voilà: pink-lemonade coconut jellies for the playing of his last card.

It was almost four. He walked the central artery of the residence but was in no hurry. The house was quiet, though he bet the TV networks were in a tizzy. They awaited the ransom tape and were ready to preempt whatever was on air the second they got it, never mind that if you were watching Oprah at the very moment she disclosed the secret to painless and permanent weight loss, the last thing you cared about was some guy who just wanted everyone to get along.

He lumbered, dawdled, dragged ass. Heavy is the crown of self-disgust. It was true what Norman had said: Everyone would see the tape. And they would be appalled. To be sold out by the man in charge? Just so he could have a family of his own? Wasn’t the Helix family enough? Wasn’t it?

Outside the commissary door, he stood with an ear pressed to the wood. His plan was not to listen but to rest, only he heard what he heard, which added a new dread to the one already fixed in his mind. He swung the door open. No Dean, no film crew or even Norman. Just the four hostages on the floor—cuffed but unguarded and each staring up at him with the cow faces of kids in freshman comp, day one—and Vicki plus former TC Charlotte, screaming at each other.

The women verged on physical contact, so Thurlow took Charlotte by the arm.

She wanted to be on the ransom video. He said, Okay, just go get changed, because she was wearing boy shorts and a tank top. She debated whether it was wise to abandon the room, knowing he might lock her out. He swore up and down that he would not lock her out. She left, and he locked her out.

Meanwhile, Vicki was reapplying lip liner and Bare Escentuals foundation, which she had bought with the gift certificate he had given her. She was adamant he understand this was his gift, and began to tout the boons of mineral makeup and how well it looked on-screen.

He cleared his throat and said, “Vicki, you are not getting on TV, and you don’t belong here, so get out.”

She looked at him through the mirror. He had demoted TCs for less, and she knew it. He sat on the chair from which he would be making his demands, and stood her between his legs. He said, “Okay, Vick, tell me something: how did you even know we were filming today?”

She swiveled between his thighs. “Everyone knows.”

“I see. And what is it you hope to accomplish by imposing yourself on proceedings that do not concern you?”

“Exposure.” And then, because she had rehearsed this part, “So that everyone can see we’re happy and that our way is good.”

He didn’t want to demote Vicki, but she was not leaving him much choice. She doffed her newsboy cap, which was black leather, and smiled, so that whatever was in her mouth reflected light from the overhead. It took him a second to register that it was not a filling or a crown and that she’d been slurring a little, lisping a little, because there were ears in her teeth. A little mic. That traitor.

He sprang off the chair and backed away. Reached for the blanket Dean had folded on a shelf—“Think fireside chat,” he’d said—and threw it over