The Book of Fate

16

But you can’t tell anyone I told you,” the woman whispered through the receiver.

Brushing a stray strand of red hair behind her ear, Lisbeth reached for the tiny tape recorder on her desk, double-checked it was plugged into the phone, and hit Record. “You have my word,” Lisbeth promised. “Our secret.”

As a reporter for the Palm Beach Post, Lisbeth was well aware that Florida law made it illegal to record private conversations unless the person recording first asked the other party. But as the gossip columnist for Below the Fold — the Post’s most popular section of the paper — Lisbeth also knew that the moment she asked permission, her source would freeze and fall silent. Plus she had to get the quote right. Plus she had to have proof for when the paper’s lawyers gave her their usual libel thumbwrestle. It’s the same reason why she had a mini-refrigerator stocked with wine and beer in the corner of her tiny beige cubicle, and a fresh bowl of peanuts on the corner of her desk. Whether it was her fellow reporters coming by to chat or a stranger calling on the phone, it was the sacred rule she learned when she took over the column six years ago: Always keep ’em talking.

“So about your story, Mrs… ?”

“I’m just passing this along,” the woman insisted. “Free of charge.”

Making a note to herself, Lisbeth wrote the word Pro? in her spiral notepad. Most people fall for the name trap.

“Again, you didn’t hear it from me…” the woman continued.

“I promise, Mrs… ”

“… and I’m not falling for your little trick the second time either,” the woman said.

Lisbeth crossed out the question mark, leaving only Pro.

Excited by the challenge, Lisbeth started spinning her phone cord like a mini-jump rope. As the cord picked up speed, the sheets of paper thumbtacked to the right-hand wall of her cubicle began to flutter. When Lisbeth was seventeen, her dad’s clothing store had shut down, forcing her family into bankruptcy. But when her local newspaper in Battle Creek, Michigan, reported the story, the smart-ass reporter who wrote it up threw in the words alleged poor sales, implying a certain disingenuousness to her dad’s account. In response, Lisbeth wrote an op-ed about it for her school newspaper. The local paper picked it up and ran it with an apology. Then the Detroit News picked it up from there. By the time it was done, she got seventy-two responses from readers all across Michigan. Those seventy-two letters were the ones that lined every inch of her cubicle walls, a daily reminder of the power of the pen — and a current reminder that the best stories are the ones you never see coming.

“Regardless,” the woman said, “I just thought you’d want to know that although it won’t officially be announced until later this afternoon, Alexander John — eldest son of the Philadelphia Main Line Johns, of course — will be awarded a Gold Key in the National Scholastic Art Awards.”

Lisbeth was writing the words National Schola- when she lifted her pen from the page. “How old is Alexander again?”

“Of course — seventeen — seventeen on September ninth.”

“So… this is a high school award?”

“And national — not just statewide. Gold Key.”

Lisbeth scratched at her freckled neck. She was slightly overweight, which she tried to offset with lime-green statement glasses that a rail-thin salesclerk promised would also shave some time off her thirty-one years. Lisbeth didn’t believe the clerk. But she did buy the glasses. As she continued to scratch, a strand of red hair sagged from its ear perch and dangled in front of her face. “Ma’am, do you happen to be related to young Alexander?”

“What? Of course not,” the woman insisted.

“You’re sure?”

“Are you suggesting—? Young lady, this award is an honor that is—”

“Or are you in the employ of young Alexander’s family?”

The woman paused. “Not full-time, of course, but—”

Lisbeth hit the Stop button on her tape recorder and chucked her pen against her desk. Only in Palm Beach would a mother hire a publicist for her eleventh grader’s elbow macaroni art masterpiece. “It’s a national award,” Lisbeth muttered to herself, ripping the sheet of paper from her notepad. But as she crumpled it up, she still didn’t hang up the phone. Sacred Rule #2: A crappy source today might be a great one tomorrow. Sacred Rule #3: See Sacred Rule #2.

“If I have space, I’ll definitely try to get it in,” Lisbeth added. “We’re pretty full, though.” It was an even bigger lie than the thinning and de-aging effects of her lime-green glasses. But as Lisbeth hung up the phone and tossed the crumpled paper into the trash, she couldn’t help but notice the near-empty three-column grid on her computer screen.

Twenty inches. About eight hundred words. That’s what it took every day to fill Below the Fold. Plus a photo, of course. So far, she had five inches on a local socialite’s daughter marrying a professional pool player (B+, Lisbeth thought to herself), and four inches on a week-old cursing match between some teenager and the head of the DMV (C- at best). Eyeing the balled-up paper in the plastic garbage can, Lisbeth glanced back at her still mostly empty screen. No, she told herself. It was still too early in the day to be desperate. She hadn’t even gotten the—

“Mail!” a voice called out as a hand reached over the top edge of the cubicle, wagging a short pile of envelopes in the air. Looking up, Lisbeth knew that if she reached for the stack, he’d just pull it away, so she waited for the hand… and its owner… to turn the corner. “Morning, Vincent,” she said before he even appeared.

“Tell me you got something good today,” Vincent said, his salt-and-pepper mustache squirming like a caterpillar on his lip. He tossed the pile of mail on Lisbeth’s already oversubscribed desk. It wasn’t until it fanned out accordion-style in front of her that Lisbeth saw the tear in each envelope.

“You opened my mail?” she asked.

“I’m your editor. That’s my job.”

“Your job is opening my mail?”

“No, my job is to make sure your column is the best it can be. And when it is, and when every person in this town is whispering to their neighbors about whatever scandal you so cleverly unearthed, we usually get about twenty to thirty letters a day, plus the usual press releases and invitations. Know what you got this morning? Six. And that’s including the invites.” Peering over her shoulder and reading from the mostly empty grid on Lisbeth’s computer screen, Vincent added, “You spelled DMV wrong.”

Lisbeth squinted toward the screen.

“Made you look,” Vincent added, laughing his little huffing laugh. With his navy and red Polo-knockoff suspenders and matching bow tie, Vincent dressed like Palm Beach royalty on an editor’s salary.

Annoyed, Lisbeth pulled his left suspender back like a bowstring and let it snap against his chest.

“Ow… that… that actually hurt,” he whined, rubbing his chest. “I was making a point.”

“Really? And what was that? That I should find more stories about handjobs in hot tubs?”

“Listen, missy, that was a fun story.”

“Fun? I don’t want fun. I want good.”

“Like what? Like your supposed top-secret source who whispered all those promises in your ear, then jumped off the face of the earth? What was her name again? Lily?”

“Iris.” As Lisbeth said the word, she could feel the blood rush to her ears. Four months ago, a woman identifying herself only as Iris cold-called Lisbeth on the office’s main line. From the shakiness in Iris’s voice, Lisbeth could hear the tears. And from the hesitation… she knew what fear sounded like. For twenty minutes, Iris told her the story: about how, years ago, she used to do Thai massages at a local bathhouse… that it was there she first met the man she called Byron… and the thrill of secretly dating one of Palm Beach’s most powerful men. But what got Lisbeth’s attention was Iris’s graphic detail of how, on a number of occasions, he lashed out physically, eventually breaking her collarbone and jaw. For Lisbeth, that was a story that mattered. And that was what the letters on her wall were there for. But when she asked for Byron’s real name — and Iris’s, for that matter — the line went dead.

“She was yanking your ya-ya,” Vincent said.

“Maybe she was scared.”

“Or maybe she just wanted some attention.”

“Or maybe she’s now married, and therefore terrified her husband will dump her the instant he finds out his lovely wife used to be a bathhouse girl. Think, Vincent. Sources only stay quiet when they have something to lose.”

“Y’mean like their job? Or their career? Or their supposedly well read gossip column?”

Lisbeth stabbed him with a cold, piercing stare. Vincent stabbed her right back.

“Six,” he said as he turned to leave. “Six letters in the stack.”

“I don’t care if it’s one.”

“Yes, you do. You’re a great writer but a terrible liar, sweetie.”

For once, Lisbeth stayed silent.

“By the way,” Vincent added, “if a publicist calls for some art award for the John family… don’t be such a snob. Think Page Six. Good bold names are good bold names.”

“But if the story’s crap—”

“I hate to break it to you, pumpkin,” Vincent called out, already halfway down the hallway, “but there’s no Pulitzer for gossip.”

Alone in her cubicle, Lisbeth studied the empty grid on her screen, then looked down at the crumpled sheet of paper in her trash. She bent down below her desk to pull it from the garbage, and the phone rang above her. At the noise, she bolted upward, smashing the back of her head against the corner of her desk.

“Aaahh,” she yelled, rubbing her head fiercely as she reached for the phone. “Below the Fold. This is Lisbeth.”

“Hi, I… uh… I work over at the Four Seasons,” a male voice began. “Is this the place you call for—?”

“Only if it’s a good one,” Lisbeth said, still rubbing, but all too aware what he was asking. It was the deal she made with all local hotel employees. A hundred bucks for any tip she used in the column.

“Well… uh… I was serving some of President Manning’s old employees,” he said. “And… I don’t know if they count as celebrities, but if you’re interested…”

“No, I’m definitely interested.” She hit the Record button and scrambled for a pen. Even on her best days, there was no bigger bold name than Manning. “Those’re exactly the type of people we love to write about.”