Tangled Vines Read online

That had been the beginning of her friendship with Hugh Townsend. She had come to trust his judgment and his instincts. Through him, she had met the right people and made the right contacts. Vital in a city like New York and in an industry as competitive as television.

  It was the second time in her life she had had a male friend, someone to share her dreams with, someone to talk to – even if she had never been able to bring herself to confide to him the pain of her past.

  The sommelier returned to the table with the bottle of wine Hugh has chosen to accompany their meal. Many times Kelly had observed the wine-tasting ritual, but she never ceased to watch, always both amused and fascinated by the rite.

  First the wine steward presented the bottle, label to the front, for Hugh’s inspection. At Hugh’s confirming nod that the wine was as he had ordered, the bottle was uncorked with a subtle bit of flourish.

  A small amount was poured in Hugh’s wineglass, a snow white serviette wrapped around the bottle neck to absorb any stray drop. Kelly watched as Hugh picked up the glass by its base, a forefinger curled under it and a thumb on top, the mark of a true expert and a technique that Kelly hadn’t mastered. He held the glass against the white of the tablecloth, assessing the depth of the wine’s ruby red color.

  Satisfied, he lifted the glass and swirled the wine with a cunning flick of the wrist, watching it ride up and seep down the sides of the glass, judging its viscosity – legs. Raising the glass, he thrust his aquiline nose into the glass and inhaled the wine’s aroma – bouquet. Then he tasted it, slowly, rolling it in his mouth and letting it glide over the surface of his tongue into his throat. Finally he set his glass down, nodding his approval to the sommelier.

  “Very good.”

  The steward bowed at his pronouncement. “Shall I let it breathe and serve it later?”

  Hugh shook his head. “Pour it now. It will open up in the glass.”

  “As you wish.” He filled both glasses and left the bottle on the table, withdrawing with another retreating bow.

  Hugh fingered the base of his goblet and quoted softly, “‘And when I depart from the earth to appear before my beloved Lord to account for my sins, which have been scarlet, I shall say to Him: “I cannot remember the name of the village; I do not even recollect the name of the girl, but the wine, my God, was Chambertin!’“ Hilaire Belloc,” he added, crediting the source.

  “That is not very flattering, Hugh,” Kelly chided.

  Rousing himself, he smiled. “Then I will offer other. ‘What though youth gave love and roses, age still leaves us friends and wine.’ Thomas Moore, I believe.”

  “Much better,” Kelly declared. “Although I still say you have memorized every reference to wine in Bartlett’s.”

  He laid a hand across his heart in a mock oath. “I shall never tell.”

  “I didn’t think you would.” She glanced at the bottle. “A Burgundy. What happened to the Bordeaux? An ‘eighty Margaux, wasn’t it?”

  “Very astute.” His dark head dipped in brief acknowledgement “You have not only an eye, but an ear, for detail. I had thought a Margaux, but I decided a Chambertin would better complement the roast duck.”

  “Of course.” Kelly smiled, then sighed, suddenly feeling weary.

  “Tired?”

  She nodded. “It’s been a long day. I had forgotten the pressure, the stress, and the exhilaration there is in the field when you’re covering a breaking story. Basically I’ve spent the last two years as a newsreader and interviewer, doing the odd special series on rape or drugs or AIDS.” She remembered the sheaf of work notes and the book, weighting her shoulder bag. “I really should have gone straight home tonight. I have an interview tomorrow with an economics professor who has written a book that I still have to prepare for. Plus one with a heart-and-lung specialist on Melcher’s condition.”

  “I am glad you mentioned interviews. I meant to tell you Robert Mondavi will be attending the wine auction next week.”

  “That’s wonderful.” The wine auction, held every July to benefit charity, was a pet project of Hugh’s. His efforts for this year’s event had been directed at persuading as many as possible of the world’s most renowned vintners to attend. Few names in California wine carried the elan of Robert Mondavi.

  “More than that, Mondavi has agreed to appear on Friday’s ‘Live at Five’ report to promote the auction on Saturday.”

  “Really. Maybe I’ll get assigned to interview him,” she said, not really caring.

  “You will,” Hugh informed her. “I’ve already arranged it.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes. He has also agreed to come to the private reception Friday evening at my place. You haven’t forgotten about the party, have you?”

  “I have it on my calendar. Written in red.”

  “I expect you to come.”

  “With the list of luminaries you have coming, I wouldn’t miss it. Besides, Friday’s ‘Live at Five’ will be my last newscast for the station. I’ll be ready to kick up my heels a bit.”

  “And let your hair down as well?” His glance flicked to the glossy coil of her hair, a few tendrils escaping to curl softly about her face and neck. “That is a combination I would like to see. You work too much and play too little, Kelly.”

  “Probably.” Smiling, she lifted a shoulder, shrugging off his observation. “But what can I do? It’s the old Iowa work ethic coming through, make hay while the sun shines and all that,” Kelly joked, then added, “Besides who has time to play in this business?”

  Her day seldom varied. She was up by seven to catch the three networks’ morning shows and the CNN coverage on the four television sets in her living room, and to scan the morning editions of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Daily News, all of which were delivered to her door. Three times a week she was at the fitness center by ten for a torture session with her personal trainer, followed by a much-needed hour with the masseuse.

  By two in the afternoon, she was in her office at the station, handling any phone calls or correspondence and preparing for a three o’clock meeting with the producers, editors, director, writers, their ranking assistants, and her co-anchor on the newscast to go over the day’s stories, the lineup for the show, and the length of the reports. Then she returned to her desk to write her copy, then back for a final meeting before airtime, the five o’clock newscast. The process was repeated all over again for the news at eleven. Rarely did she return to her Gramercy Park apartment before midnight.

  Sandwiched in between all that were business luncheons with her agent, special assignments that took her out of the studio, as well as various political, social, or media functions the station wanted her to attend.

  She had a woman come in once a week to clean her apartment, but there were always clothes to drop off or pick up at the cleaners, hand-washing to do, groceries to pick up, monthly bills to write, dishes to wash, trash to take out, and a myriad of other tasks.

  Her weekends were invariably filled with the things she had planned to do during the week and hadn’t found time for. Any free hours she managed to squeeze out of her schedule, she usually spent trying to raise money and public awareness for neglected and abused children, the one thing outside her work she was passionate about.

  Except for an occasional evening with Hugh, her social life was virtually nonexistent. A fact that didn’t bother her very much.

  Once, a few months ago, she had walked into the studio and caught the crew in the midst of a discussion about sexual habits. Sex and sports seemed to be the favorite topics of every crew she’d worked with.

  “Hey, Kelly. Come on, tell us yours,” the light man, Andy Grabowski, had urged, to a chorus of hooted agreement from the others.

  If their hope had been to make her blush, she had disappointed them. Instead Kelly had thrown them a frown of mock reproval and said
, “Are you kidding? My only sexual habit is abstinence.”

  They had laughed, but she had meant it.

  “You need to schedule some playtime for yourself, Kelly,” Hugh stated.

  “Speaks the man who scheduled a meeting bright and early on my first Monday morning I’ve had free in months.”

  “We have a show to produce, stories to line out, future subjects to be considered.”

  “I know.” She wasn’t objecting. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem real that I’m actually going to do ‘People and Places.’ I honestly thought Linda James would get it.”

  “As did a great many people.”

  “With cause.” The waiter arrived with their entrees. Kelly withdrew her hands from the table, giving him room to set the plate in front of her. “When she signed on as the West Coast correspondent for NBC, I heard they planned to develop a prime-time news-magazine show around her.”

  “Plans change.” Hugh nodded to the waiter as the man retreated.

  “Obviously.”

  Hugh lifted his glass in a toast. “To your exclusive news-breaking story.”

  Kelly raised her wineglass, making sure to hold it by the stem as wine etiquette demanded. “And to the show ‘People and Places.”’

  They touched glasses, then sipped. As always, Hugh savored his a little more, then nodded approvingly. “It has softened, mellowed perfectly.”

  “Shall I offend you totally by saying it’s very nice?” Kelly grinned at him wickedly.

  “Please.” He feigned a shudder. “It is big and racy, with marvelous balance and a long finish. Never, but never, call it nice.”

  “I stand corrected,” she said, still grinning. After a bite of wine-roasted chicken, Kelly returned to their previous subject. “I don’t know what favor you called in or whose arm you twisted to get me on the show, Hugh, but thanks.”

  “I did nothing more than put your name on the table. Your brief stint as guest host on the ‘Today’ show, when Katie Couric was off on maternity leave, did the rest.” He lifted his wineglass and eyed her over its rim. “You do realize that by the end of the third show, the ratings had gone up almost a half point. And the credit for that certainly didn’t belong to the guests on the show. The lineup was deplorable.”

  “It was,” she agreed with a slight roll of her eyes in remembrance. “It’s funny, but I hoped my exposure on the ‘Today’ show might land me a position as a national correspondent. But a prime-time magazine show never-even though I knew yours was in development.” Kelly lowered her fork. “Seriously, Hugh, why did they pick me when Linda James has more experience and more national exposure?”

  “Careful,” he chided. “Your insecurity is showing.”

  But he knew few people in this business who weren’t a mass of insecurities. In Kelly’s case, however, she had an inferiority complex a mite wide. He doubted that anyone else had seen it but him. To the world Kelly projected an image of easy calm, an image totally at odds with the intense, organized, ambitious woman she was. A woman who rarely slept more than six hours a night and lived on the run. A woman hungry for recognition, desperate for approval, and emotionally starved. But she hid that well, under about three feet of steel.

  She laughed, the sound coming from low in her throat, and lifted her wineglass, wagging it briefly. “Then be kind and stroke my ego a little.”

  “Very well.” He liked those flashes of total honesty. “The format of our show is basically one of entertainment interesting people, interesting places. Linda’s reputation for asking the so-called tough question actually goes against her. She lacks your warmth, your ability to put people at ease. You achieve the same results of getting them to talk, but without grilling them. And, you are a new face. Which is precisely what the powers-that-be decided they wanted.”

  “I won’t disappoint them.” It was almost a vow.

  Hugh concealed a smile and covertly studied her. Wholesome was an adjective he would never use to describe her. Her features, taken together or separately, had a strong, earthy quality that was non-threatening. She was not the girl-next-door. More like a young Mother Nature with the red of the sun in her hair and the green of the grass in her eyes. The more Hugh thought about it, the more he liked the analogy.

  “I had an idea for the show that I wanted to run by you before Monday’s meeting.” Kelly speared a green bean from its bed of mixed vegetables. “A profile on Harry Connick, Jr., the singer who does those old Cole Porter songs and ones from the Big Band era. He’s becoming quite popular.... . .

  He listened to her expound on the idea, paying more attention to her voice than her words. More than once Hugh had fantasized about what it would be like to have Kelly whispering in his ear.

  During the first few months he’d known her, he had taken her out with every intention of ultimately taking her to bed. When he hadn’t met with early success, he hadn’t minded. Being British, he knew the chase was often more exciting than the kill.

  One night he had made his move. Kelly had stopped him with a simple and well-placed “No,” and pulled back to the outer edge of his arms.

  “As much as I like you, Hugh, I don’t want to become intimately involved with you. Lovers I can get. Friends are rare. Besides, an affair would be too tacky, don’t you agree?”

  With any other woman, Hugh would have dismissed the words as a token protest, made so that he would talk and kiss her into agreement to prove how much he wanted her.

  Not Kelly. The determined look in her eyes, the firm lift of her chin, a dozen other things in her body language informed him that she meant every word. He laughed and released her, then lit a cigarette.

  “I wouldn’t call it tacky, precisely.” He smiled.

  “A mistake certainly. We both know it isn’t wise to get involved with anyone in the business. It was a mistake I made once.”

  “Let me guess – your lover was a cameraman,” Hugh said and smiled wryly when he saw her startled look. “Nearly every female in television has a cameraman somewhere in her past. I’ve never understood the attraction, but obviously there is one. Care to tell good old Hugh about it?” he joked.

  “There isn’t much to tell. It didn’t work. He thought his career was more important than mine. One day I woke up and realized I was in a destructive relationship. I broke off with him, which made things very awkward at the station.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Iowa. A couple months later I was offered a job in St. Louis and I left. So. . .” She took a deep breath and smiled at him. “I would rather have you as a friend, Hugh.”

  “Friend.”

  They had shaken hands on it.

  At the time he had thought he wouldn’t be seeing her again. What would be the point if he couldn’t bed her? And for a while he hadn’t. Then he had begun phoning her now and again, taking a vaguely proprietorial interest in her progress, regarding her as his discovery. He admired her drive, her intelligence and determination.

  Hugh also suspected that if they had had an affair, he would never have suggested Kelly for the show. Which would have been a pity because she was perfect for it.

  “...do you think of the idea?” she finished.

  “Sounds like it could be interesting. Present it at the meeting.”

  The sommelier returned to the table to top their wineglasses. Kelly covered hers, as usual limiting herself to one glass of wine. Hugh had never known her to consume more than two. She exercised equally strict control over her food intake, he noticed, glancing at the chicken she pushed around on her plate, barely half of it gone.

  There was still half left when the waiter came to clear their plates. Kelly assured him the coq au vin had been delicious.

  Over coffee they talked more about the new show, bandying about various ideas. Finally Hugh called for the check and the car.

  It was two in the morning when Kelly wa
lked into her apartment, a one-bedroom that she had furnished slowly, meticulously, and, most important, personally. She paused a moment, breathing in the faint scent of lemon oil and pine that told her Audrey had been in to clean. There was no smell of stale cigarettes, no sickly sweet odor of empty whiskey bottles. She had escaped that forever.

  Turning, Kelly set to work on the door’s trio of locks. When her fingers touched the last, a simple sliding bolt, they lingered. She stared at its shiny brass surface, seeing it and seeing another that had been very similar to it.

  Suddenly she was ten years old again, confidently if ineptly – gripping a screwdriver in her right hand and struggling to attach the simple lock to her bedroom door.....

  The point of the screwdriver slipped off the head of the screw, gouging a nick in the door’s painted wood. She breathed in sharply at the mark it left, the breath hissing through clenched teeth. Hurriedly she fitted the screw driver back in the slotted head and began turning the grooved handle, leaning all her weight against it to drive the brass screw into the wood.

  With one ear tuned for the sound of a car in the drive, she worked frantically to get the lock fastened in place. She had to get it done before he came back. She had to.

  Finished, she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork, not with satisfaction, but with relief. Her bedroom had become a refuge now, a place where she could go, bolt the door, and be safe. She released a long shaky breath and smiled. She was safe now. Safe from his drunken rages . .

  Or so she had thought, Kelly remembered and closed her eyes, hearing again the pounding on her bedroom door, the rattling of the doorknob, the bellow of anger when the door wouldn’t budge, then the horrifying sound of a body throwing its entire weight against the door...

  She sat all hunched up in the farthest corner of the bed, the covers pulled protectively around her as she stared at the small brass bolt, willing it to hold. Her mouth was dry, her throat tight, too tight to let a sound out, a breath out.

  Again he rammed his body against the door. This time she heard the splintering sound of wood tearing and giving. She knew at once she shouldn’t have done it – she shouldn’t have put that lock on the door. Now he was mad and it was her fault. Another crash, and the door gave, sagging on its lower hinge. A well-placed kick and it swung drunkenly open, then clattered to the floor.