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“I don’t really need eggs,” I say. “I’m not even hungry.”
Chapter 56
It’s still dark when I wake on Friday morning with a stomach full of dread. I rest my hand on James’s chest, soothe myself with his even breathing and solidity. No matter how the interviews turn out, I have him. It may take a while, but as long as I’m with James I know everything will sort itself out eventually.
“You’re watching me again,” he says groggily.
“No, I’m not,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
“What time is it?”
“Not even 6:00,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
He pulls me into him, kissing my forehead. “Why are you up?”
“Nervous,” I sigh.
He rolls toward me, completely awake now, and pushes my hair back from my face. “I think it’s going to be okay,” he says. “I really do.”
I nod, wishing I felt as confident as he does.
“And worst case, we both drop out of school and go live in a cabin in the woods and forage for food until it all dies down,” he suggests. “And you’ll probably get pregnant because we have nothing to do in the cabin but have sex all day, and we end up staying there like that hillbilly family on The Simpsons.”
“And here I was thinking the worst case was divided public opinion.”
He reaches over to the nightstand and grabs his laptop. I wait, my heart pounding so hard that I swear I can feel it echo. My very best-case scenario here is that the article is relatively balanced. That it weighs my accusations against Edward and his against me equally. But as he pulls the article up, I feel increasingly convinced that my mother was right. That I just gave the reporter a chance to twist my words and reveal me to the world as an opportunistic slut.
He scans the article briefly before he slides the laptop over with a small smile. And from the very first line, where she describes me as a four-year-old spinning in Edward’s chair while I wait for my father, the world begins to right itself.
She’s relayed the story like I did, following chronologically a little girl who believes herself surrounded by trustworthy adults, who continues to believe it long after it ceases to be true. And she follows by describing a system in which celebrities evade restraining orders and a whole network conspires to keep their big money-maker free from harm.
It doesn’t just skewer Edward – it takes down the whole show, the network, even the justice system for failing to protect a citizen when there’s a celebrity involved.
If anything, Edward is almost unfairly vilified – he sounds like a pedophile who’s been targeting me since childhood.
Tears well up in my eyes as I finish the article.
“Why are you crying?” James asks, mystified.
“I don’t know,” I laugh. “It’s just … I’d stopped believing that things would ever be fair, that any part of the system still worked. And I’m so happy that it still does.”
Max makes us all breakfast and we wait impatiently for my segment to air on Rona’s show. Of course, they repeatedly promise the segment is “coming up” and instead we are forced to watch hard-hitting features about a Jurassic Park-themed wedding, an 80-year-old completing her high school degree, and a fashion show with babies dressing up like historic figures.
Rona does a live intro, putting on her Very Serious Face to let the viewers know this is important. “By now the whole country is familiar with the tale of Edward Ferris,” she intones, “accused of having an affair with Eleanor Grayson, daughter of journalist Andrew Grayson. Ferris acknowledged that he pursued Ms. Grayson. What he failed to admit was that he harassed and stalked her to the point that she feared for her life. What you’re about to hear next may shock you.”
I snort a laugh at this. “Personally, I’m shocked to hear that I feared for my life.”
Then the voicemails begin playing, the words transcribed on the screen in case anyone has missed a single crazy-on-top-of-crazy word.
I wish I hadn’t had to release them. It was necessary, but I could do without having the whole world know the things he thought about.
“Jesus. I can’t believe he was saying that shit to you,” says Ginny quietly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I raise a brow and she nods. “I guess I wouldn’t have told me either.” She pushes James’s arm off of me and puts hers in its place. “I’m so sorry.”
My portion of the interview airs, the camera going back-and-forth from me to Rona making her Very Serious Face and nodding a lot. All in all, it appears to be a slam dunk in my favor, even without Tommy’s new album playing in the background.
“That guy is so fucked,” says Max.
