Riverside Drive. Laura Wormer Van

you suppose the Marshalls will get home?”

      “They won’t call, Mom, so don’t wait up for them.”

      After a moment Cassy patted Henry’s knee and he scooted over so she could sit next to him on the twin bed. It was a tight fit, but a well-practiced maneuver. They drank their hot chocolate, both looking across the room at the window.

      “Tug?” Cassy asked.

      “Police boat,” he said. Henry knew all the boats on the river at night.

      “Oh, yes.”

      Silence.

      “Mom,” Henry said, “do you ever get scared for no particular reason?”

      She swallowed. “Sometimes. Usually when I’m wondering what’s going to happen. Life always seems like an unlikely proposition when I try to figure out how everything’s going to turn out.”

      Pause.

      “What are you going to do, Mom?”

      “Talk to Mrs. Marshall.”

      Long pause. “I meant about Dad. He’s really getting—you know, like that summer in Newport.”

      Cassy looked at her son. How much did he know? “What do you mean?”

      Henry was uncomfortable. “You know, that woman. He’s acting like that again.”

      So he did know. Probably more than Cassy herself knew. If she hadn’t wanted to know for sure about Michael’s affairs, she supposed she was about to find out.

      “Mom—why don’t you do something?” This was delivered in a whisper.

      Where the energy came from she wasn’t sure. But it came. She put her cup down on the night table and put her arm around Henry. She sighed. “Sweetheart, Henry, your father and I, no matter what our troubles—we both love you more than anything else in the world.”

      Silence.

      “Mom, he humiliates you. He humiliates me. Is he sleeping with that woman who was here tonight? If he is, why doesn’t he do like other guys and at least hide it?”

      Cassy felt nauseous.

      “He just throws it in your face. Rosanne knows it, I know it, half the station knows it. Why don’t you do something?”

      Cassy vowed not to cry. Quietly, “What do you think I should do?”

      “I don’t know. Talk to him.” And then, blurting it out, “Make him love you again.”

      “Oh, sweetheart.” Cassy was close to breaking down. What to say, God, what to say? Did her son not think she had tried?

      The pain was centered right there, right on that. I have not tried and we both know it.

      Cassy raised her head and saw that Henry was not angry with her; he was trying to comfort her. Tell her he was on her side.

      When did he start needing to shave? was her next thought. When did that happen?

      The doorbell was ringing. Cassy kissed Henry on the cheek, got up and slipped on her shoes. The doorbell was persistent. She leaned over and kissed Henry again. “It’s probably Mrs. Marshall,” she said.

      Cassy was hardly in any shape to deal with Deidre Marshall, but, she thought, anything was an improvement over continuing that talk with Henry. She swung open the front door just as she thought she should have peered through the peephole first.

      It was Alexandra Waring.

      Rubbing her eye, Cassy had to laugh to herself.

      Alexandra shifted her stance slightly. “I told them I was tired,” she said.

      “You came to the right place, then,” Cassy said. “We always are here.”

      The brilliant eyes were asking for mercy and it threw Cassy. What was up?

      “May I come in for five minutes? There was something I wanted to say to you.”

      “To me?”

      Alexandra nodded.

      “Well,” Cassy said, stepping back and waving her in, “I suppose you’d better come in and say it then. Let’s go in the living room.”

      It fascinated Cassy how nervous the girl was. Offered a chair, she declined, choosing instead to pace the floor with her hands jammed into the pockets of her raincoat. Cassy sat down on the couch and watched her. Alexandra looked over at her once or twice but continued to pace.

      This was to be the woman to launch a thousand broadcasts? Tell of earthquakes? Assassinations? Terrorism? Fatal diseases? This was Michael’s Wonder Woman? Well, Cassy would be kind. She would assume that Alexandra could do better sitting behind a desk.

      The girl finally said, “I want to apologize and I’m not exactly sure what I’m apologizing for, since I haven’t done anything wrong.”

      Cassy lofted her eyebrows.

      The girl started to pace again, stopped, and suddenly threw herself down on the end of the couch, to which Cassy reacted by crossing her legs in the opposite direction.

      “There’s no other way to say it, so I’ll just say it. I’m terrified of your husband, of offending him, because I desperately want this assignment to work.” She ran her hand through her hair and dropped it in her lap. “Tonight was a nightmare and I couldn’t stand watching what was happening, but I couldn’t do anything either—can you understand that?”

      Somewhere, perhaps between the words “terrified” and “desperately,” a gray veil had dropped over Cassy’s head, shielding her from any sense that this conversation was actually taking place.

      Alexandra sighed, lowering her head for a moment. Cassy noted how gorgeous her hair was. No gray. Nothing but black, thick, wonderful young hair. How crazy it must make Michael.

      “Are you having an affair with my husband?”

      Alexandra’s head kicked up. “God, no,” she whispered. “Never. I wouldn’t do that—”

      Cassy shrugged. “Thought I might as well ask.”

      “I’m very fond of your husband,” the girl said. “I’m also very loyal to him. You of all people must realize the enormity of the opportunity he’s giving me.”

      Cassy nodded. “Yes, I do.”

      “So you can understand how difficult my situation is.”

      Cassy sighed, looking past her to the window. A barge was making its way down the river.

      “Tonight, when I saw you—” Alexandra said, voice hesitant. “I’ve heard about you, your career—people told me how beautiful you are—”

      Cassy winced slightly. If you think I’m beautiful now, you should have seen me before.

      “So when I saw you tonight,” Alexandra rushed on, “I knew at once that something had to be terribly wrong if he—” She cut herself off. “Oh, God, I’m sorry—this is coming out all wrong—”

      Cassy held a hand up for her to stop. “Look, Alexandra, I appreciate what it is you’re trying to do—”

      “But I can’t do anything, that’s the point—”

      “Please, listen to me for a minute, will you?” The girl leaned back against the arm of the couch. It was a good move, Cassy noted, the way she had posed herself. The way Alexandra looked at this moment was enough to make Cassy want to slash her wrists to put an end to this curse of middle age once and for all. “In my day, if you got anywhere in news—really, anywhere in almost any profession, women were always accused of sleeping their way there.” She laughed slightly. “And I did—I was married to Michael and he was my boss. Did you know that?”

      “He’s told me