Son of Stone

58

P eter met Hattie after school, and they walked down to Second Avenue and got a cab uptown. He took her hand. “Are you still sure this is what you want to do?”

“Are you against it?” she asked, looking alarmed.

“No. If it’s what you want, I’m all for it. I just want to be sure you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” she said.

They got out at the corner nearest the clinic and walked upstairs. There was a friendly-looking waiting room with landscapes on the walls and current magazines, not all of them for women. Hattie gave the assumed name she was using to the receptionist and came and sat next to Peter.

“I’ve got the titles finished and in the movie,” he said. “It’s as good as it’s ever going to be now.” He told her this to keep her mind off where she was.

“That’s wonderful. What are you going to do with it?”

“Nothing, just yet. Dad thinks I should wait a couple of years before submitting it to anyone.”

“Why?”

“He thinks the publicity it might produce wouldn’t be a good thing for me right now.”

“I’m not sure he’s right,” Hattie said. “The Sundance festival is soon, and I think your film ought to be in it. If you wait a couple of years, someone else might do a similar film, and that would take away from yours.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Peter said.

“Anyway, you’ll be at Yale by the time the film gets released, and that’s a kind of insulation.”

“You could be right,” Peter said. “I’ll talk to Dad about it.”

“Miss Springer?” a woman’s voice said.

Hattie didn’t react until Peter squeezed her hand.

“Oh, yes,” she said, standing up.

“Please follow me.”

Hattie kissed Peter on the forehead and followed the woman from the room.

Peter sat and thought about what Hattie had said, and he realized that sending the completed film to Centurion would be an enormous relief to him. It was the natural thing to do after completing the work. He began to think about the details of doing that.

Kelli Keane arrived at the Conde Nast building and found the floor for Vanity Fair. Karen Kohler appeared in reception, shook her hand, gave her a broad smile, and took her to her office in the editorial department.

“Now,” Karen said, sitting behind her desk and waving Kelli to a seat, “here are my notes.” She handed Kelli a neatly typed sheet of paper.

Kelli read them. “I’ve no problem with any of these,” she said. “I can fix them in ten minutes.”

“Good. Now, there’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“There seems to be a discrepancy in the age of Arrington’s son, Peter. She and Vance Calder were married about seventeen years ago. How could they have an eighteen-year-old son? They hadn’t even met until she did the New Yorker profile on Vance.”

“I believe the boy is Stone Barrington’s son. They were seeing each other before she met Vance. I have a copy of the boy’s birth certificate from L.A., showing him to be eighteen, and Barrington is listed as the father.”

“Both Arrington and Stone were New Yorkers,” Karen said. “Why would she have her child in L.A.?”

“I haven’t been able to nail that down,” Kelli replied, “and believe me, I pulled out all the stops. I’d like that part of the piece to remain the same, because it reflects the information I have confirmed, not what I’m guessing. Also, I don’t want to embarrass an eighteen-year-old boy by discussing his parentage in a national magazine. To be clear, I’ll put it this way: I won’t give you the piece, if that’s what you want to do.”

Karen held up a calming hand. “Take it easy. If you feel strongly about it, we’ll leave it as it is. Knowing our readership, we may get some letters to the editor about the matter, but we can deal with that when it happens.”

“Thank you,” Kelli said, opening her laptop. “If I can use the edge of your desk, I’ll make your corrections now.”

“Great. We’re going to press tonight.”

Kelli opened her laptop and went to work.

Peter was staring blankly at a magazine when Hattie came through a door and sat beside him.

“All done?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid not. They’ve examined me and told me I can have the procedure in ten minutes. Apparently, another girl had second thoughts and canceled her appointment. If I don’t do it now, I’ll have to wait another two weeks before they have an opening, and I don’t want to do that.”

Peter thought about it for a few seconds. “That’s fine. Just call your mother and tell them you want to do dinner and a double feature with me, and you’ll be home by eleven.”

“All right,” she said. “With the rest period, this will take about four hours. Why don’t you go to a movie or something, then come back for me?”

“All right,” he replied.

“Wish me luck.”

“You’ll be fine.”

They kissed, and she went back through the door.

Peter sat, a little breathless, and planned how they were going to do this. He checked his watch, then he left and walked down to the multiplex cinema on East Eighty-sixth Street. He had half an hour’s wait before the movie he wanted to see started, so he had a snack nearby, then returned for the film.

When Peter came out of the movie it was dark, and he still had another hour before Hattie could leave the clinic, so he walked slowly back in that direction, window-shopping, taking his time.

When he arrived at the clinic he sat down in the waiting room. A woman opened a glass partition. “You’re Ms. Springer’s friend, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“I’m afraid there’s been a complication, and she’s been taken to the emergency room.”

Peter’s heart jumped into his throat. “Where?”

“She’s at Lenox Hill Hospital,” the woman replied.

Peter ran down the stairs and looked desperately for a cab. It had started to rain, and there were none.

He began to run. Lenox Hill was in the upper Seventies, he wasn’t sure which street. He alternately sprinted, jogged, and walked, and the sweat was coming through his clothes.

He asked a cop for directions and got them, then he stood and caught his breath for a minute and called home.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Peter? Where are you? I was expecting you home from school.”

“Hattie and I went to a movie, and we want to go to a double feature now, so I’ll grab a bite between movies.”

“Is that all right with her parents?”

“Yes, she’s already talked to them.”

“All right, I’ll see you later.”

Peter ended the call and began to run again. He still had two blocks to go.