SUMMER INTERNSHIP POSITIONS/DEPARTMENT 22 page

For the next six hours they drove from place to place, following leads—Tully, Johnny, Marah, and a cameraman who called himself Fat Bob for good reason. At every stop, they filmed a segment of Tully talking to people at the various campgrounds and communes. Several people knew who Cloud was, but no one seemed to know where to find her. They went from Issaquah to Cle Elem to Ellensburg. Marah hung on Tully's every word.

They were finishing a late night dinner in North Bend when Fred called with a report that Cloud's last monthly check had been cashed at a bank on Vashon Island.

"We could have been there in an hour," Johnny muttered.

"You think we'll find her?" Tully asked, pouring sugar into her coffee. It was the first time they'd been alone all day. Fat Bob was in the van and Marah had just gone to the restroom.

Johnny looked at her. "I think we can't make people love us."

"Including our parents?"

"Especially our parents."

She felt a hint of their old connection again. They'd had that in common, she recalled. Lonely childhoods. "What's it like, Johnny, being loved?"

"That's not the question you want to ask. You want to know what it's like to love someone." He gave her a grin that made him look like a kid again. "Besides yourself, I mean."

She leaned back. "I need new friends."

"I won't pull back, you know. You better be okay with that. You've got me on this story now. The camera will be there, seeing all of it. If you want to back out, this is the time."

"You can protect me."

"That's what I'm telling you, Tully. I won't. I'll follow the story. Like you did in Germany."

She understood what he was saying. Friendship ended when the story rolled; it was an axiom of journalism. "Just try to shoot me from the left. It's my good side."

Johnny smiled and paid the bill. "Go get Marah. If we hurry, we might be able to catch the last ferry."

In fact, they missed the last ferry and ended up sleeping in three rooms in a run-down hotel near the dock.

The next morning Tully woke with a pounding headache that no amount of aspirin could tame. Still, she got dressed and put on her makeup and ate breakfast at some greasy spoon diner that Fat Bob recommended. By nine in the morning they were on the ferry, headed to a berry-growing commune on Vashon Island.

Every step of the way, every mile driven, the camera was on Tully. As she interviewed the tellers at the bank where the last check was cashed and showed the old and creased picture of her mother—the only photo she had of her—she maintained her smile.

It wasn't until almost ten o'clock when they pulled up to the SUNSHINE FARMS sign that she began to lose her grip.

The commune was like others she'd seen: long, rolling acres covered in crops, shaggy-looking people dressed in the modern-day equivalent of sackcloth and ashes, rows of Sani-Cans. The main difference was the housing. Here, people lived in domed tents called yurts. There were at least thirty of them lining the river.

Johnny pulled into a parking stall and got out of the van. Fat Bob followed suit, sliding the van door open and then slamming it shut.

Marah said worriedly, "Are you okay, Aunt Tully?"

"Be quiet, Marah," Johnny said. "Move over here by Daddy."

Tully knew they were waiting for her; still she sat there. People waited for her all the time; it was one of the perks of celebrity.

"You can do this," she said to the scared-looking woman in the rearview mirror. She'd spent a lifetime shellacking her heart, creating this hard casing around it, and now she was purposely peeling it away, exposing her vulnerability. But what choice did she have? If she and her mother were ever going to have a chance, someone had to make the first move.

Cautiously, she opened the door and stepped out.

Fat Bob and his camera were right there.

Tully took a deep breath and smiled. "We're at the Sunshine Farms commune. We've been told that my mother has lived here for almost a week, although she hasn't yet sent this address to my attorney, so we don't know if she's planning to stay."

She walked up to the long row of tables, covered by cedar lean-tos, where tired-looking women sold their wares. Berries, jams, syrups, berry butters, and Holly Hobbie–type handicrafts.

No one seemed to care that a camera was coming their way. Or a celebrity.

"I'm Tallulah Hart, and I'm looking for this woman." She held out the picture.

Fat Bob moved to her left, stayed close. People had no idea how close cameras sometimes needed to be to capture nuances of emotion.

"Cloud," the woman said without smiling.

Tully's heart skipped a beat. "Yes."

"She's not at Sunshine anymore. Too much work for her. Last I heard she was out at the old Mulberry place. What has she done?"

"Nothing. She's my mother."

"She said she didn't have any kids."

Tully knew the camera caught her reaction to that, her flinch of pain. "That's hardly surprising. How do we get to the Mulberry place?"

As the woman gave directions, Tully felt a wave of anxiety. She walked away, went over by a fence to be alone. Johnny came up beside her, leaning close.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly enough that the camera couldn't pick up the question.

"I'm scared," she whispered, looking up at him.

"You'll be fine. She can't hurt you anymore. You're Tallulah Hart, remember?"

That was what she needed. Smiling, feeling stronger, she pulled back and broke free, looking at the camera. She didn't bother to wipe the tears from her eyes. "I guess I still want her to love me," she revealed quietly. "Let's go."

They climbed back into the van and drove out to the highway. On Mill Road they turned left and drove down a bumpy, rutted gravel road until an old beige mobile home came into view. It sat on blocks in a grassy field, surrounded by rusted, broken-down cars. A refrigerator lay on its side in the front yard; a threadbare, broken recliner beside it. Three ragged-looking pit bulls were chained to the fence. They went crazy when the van pulled into the yard, barking and snarling and jumping forward.

"It's Deliverance," Tully said, giving a weak smile as she reached for the door handle.

They all got out at once, moving forward in formation: Tully in the lead, advancing with false confidence; Fat Bob beside or in front of her, capturing every instant on tape; and Johnny behind them, holding Marah's hand, reminding her to keep quiet.

Tully went up to the front door and knocked.

No one answered.

She tried to listen for footsteps, but the barking dogs made that impossible.

She knocked again, and was just about to give in to relief and say, No luck! when the door swung open to reveal a huge, straggly-haired man in boxer shorts. A tattoo of a woman in a hula skirt covered the left half of his swollen, hairy belly.

"Yeah?" he said, scratching his underarm.

"I'm here to see Cloud."

He cocked his head to the right and stepped out of the trailer, moving past her, going toward his dogs.

Tully's eyes watered at the smell that came from the mobile home. She wanted to turn to the camera and say something witty, but she couldn't even swallow, she was so nervous. Inside, she found piles of junk and old food containers. There were flies everywhere and pizza boxes full of leftover crusts. But mostly what she saw were empty booze bottles and a bong. A huge pile of pot lay on the kitchen table.

Tully didn't point it out or make a comment.

Fat Bob mirrored every step, filmed her journey through this mobile home hell.

She went to the closed door behind the kitchen, knocked, and opened it, revealing the grossest bathroom of all time. She slammed the door shut and went to the next door. There, she knocked twice and then turned the knob. The bedroom was small, made smaller by the piles of clothes everywhere. Three empty half-gallon Monarch Gin bottles lined the bedside table.

Her mother lay curled in the fetal position on the unmade bed, with a ragged blue blanket wrapped around her body.

Tully bent close, noticing now how grayed and wrinkled her mother's skin had become. "Cloud?" She said the name three or four times, and got no response at all. Finally she reached out, touched her mother's shoulder, gently at first and then not so gently. "Cloud?"

Fat Bob got into position, pointed the camera at the woman in bed.

Slowly, her mother opened her eyes. It took her a long time to focus; she had a vague, vacant look. "Tallulah?"

"Hey, Cloud."

"Tully," she said as if just remembering the nickname her daughter preferred. "What are you doing here? And who the hell is that guy with the camera?"

"I'm here looking for you."

Cloud sat up slowly, reaching into her dirty pocket for a cigarette. When she lit up, Tully noticed how palsied her mother's hand was. It took three tries to touch the tip to the flame. "I thought you were in New York, getting rich and famous." She glanced nervously at the camera.

"I'm both," Tully said, unable to squelch the pride in her voice. She hated it that still, after all the disappointments, she craved this woman's admiration. "How long have you been living here?"

"What do you care? You live in some fancy place while I'm rotting away."

Tully looked at her mother, noticing the wild, unkempt hair now threaded with gray; the baggy, stained cargo pants with the ragged, torn hem; the worn flannel shirt that was buttoned wrong. And her face. Lined, dirty, and grayed from cigarettes and alcohol and a life poorly lived. Cloud was barely sixty and she looked fifteen years older. The fragile beauty of her youth was gone now, scrubbed away by harsh excess. "You can't want this, Cloud. Even you . . ."

"Even me, huh? Why did you come looking for me, Tully?"

"You're my mother."

"We both know better than that," Cloud cleared her throat and looked away. "I need to get away from here. Maybe I could stay with you for a few days. Take a bath. Eat something."

Tully hated the tiny lurch of emotion that followed those words. She had waited a lifetime for her mother to want to come home with her, but she knew how dangerous a moment like this could be. "Okay."

"Really?" The disbelief on Cloud's face revealed how little faith they had in each other.

"Really." And for an instant, Tully forgot the camera was even there. She dared to imagine the impossible: that they could become mother and daughter instead of strangers. "Come on, Cloud. Let me help you to the car."

Tully knew she shouldn't believe in the possibility of forging a connection with her mother, but the idea created a dizzying cocktail of hope that, once drunk, made her light-headed. Maybe she could finally have a family of her own.

The camera caught it all: Tully's hope and fear and need. On the long drive home, while Cloud slept slumped in the corner, Tully spilled her heart to the lens. She answered Johnny's questions with an unprecedented honesty, revealing at last how wounded she'd been by her distant mother.

Now, though, Tully added a new word.

Addicted.

For as long as she'd known her mother, Cloud had been hooked on drugs or booze or both.

The more Tully thought about that, the more it seemed like the cause of their problems.

If she could get her mom into rehab and help her through the program, maybe they could make a new start. So sure of this was she that she called her boss at CBS and asked for more time off so that she could be a good daughter and help her broken mother heal.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Johnny asked when she got off the phone.

They were in the sitting room of the luxurious Cascade Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle. By the window, Fat Bob sat in an overstuffed chair, capturing this whole conversation on tape. Cameras and equipment covered most of the floor; huge lights created a staging area along the couch. Marah lay curled catlike in an overstuffed chair, reading a book.

"She needs me," Tully said simply.

Johnny shrugged and said nothing more, just looked at her.

"Well." She stood up, stretching. "I think I'll hit the sack." To Fat Bob, she said, "That's it for the night. Go get a good night's sleep. We'll start again at eight."

Fat Bob nodded, packed up his gear, and headed to his room down the hall.

"Can I sleep with Aunt Tully?" Marah said, letting her book fall to the floor.

"It's okay with me," Johnny said, "if Tully doesn't mind."

"Are you kidding? A slumber party with my favorite goddaughter is a perfect end to the day."

After Johnny went to his own room, Tully played mommy to Marah—telling her to brush her teeth and wash her face and get into her jammies.

"I'm too old for jammies," Marah informed her smartly, but when she climbed into bed, she snuggled up to Tully like the little girl she'd been only a few short years ago.

"This was so awesome, Aunt Tully," she said sleepily. "I'm going to be a TV star, too, when I grow up."

"I don't doubt it."

"If my mom lets me, which she probably won't."

"What do you mean?"

"My mom won't let me do anything."

"You do know that your mom is my best friend, right?"

"Yeah," she answered grudgingly.

"Why do you think that is?"

Marah twisted around and looked at her. "Why?"

"Because your mom rocks."

Marah made a face. "My mom? She never does anything cool."

Tully shook her head. "Marah, your mother loves you no matter what and she's proud of you. Believe me, princess, that's the coolest thing in the world."

The next morning Tully got up early and went to the bedroom door across the hall. There, she paused, gathering her nerve, and knocked. When no one answered, she quietly opened it.

Her mother was still asleep.

Smiling, she left the suite and closed the door quietly behind her. At Johnny's door, she paused and knocked.

He answered quickly, dressed in one of the hotel's robes, his hair dripping wet. "I thought we were starting at eight."

"We are. I'm just going to get Cloud some clothes to take to rehab and some breakfast for all of us. Marah's still asleep."

Johnny frowned. "You're moving awfully fast, Tully. The stores aren't open yet."

"I've always been fast. You know that, Johnny. And everything is open for Tallulah Hart. It's one of the perks of my life. You have a key to my room?"

"Yeah. I'll go over there now. You be careful."

Ignoring his concern, she went to the Public Market and stocked up on croissants, beignets, and cinnamon rolls. Cloud needed to pack on a few pounds. Then she went to La Dolce, where she bought her mother jeans, tops, shoes, underwear and bras, as well as the thickest jacket she could find. She was back at the hotel by nine.

"I'm home," she called out, kicking the door shut behind her. "And wait till you see what I've got." She draped the garment bags over the sofa and set the bags on the floor.

At the small table in the sitting room, she began setting out the rolls and beignets.

Fat Bob was in the corner, shooting her entrance.

She gave him her best smile. "My mother needs to put on a few pounds. This should do it. I got practically every coffee Starbucks sells. I don't know what she likes."

Johnny sat on the sofa, looking tired.

"It's like a morgue in here." Tully went to her mother's door and knocked. "Cloud?"

There was no answer.

She knocked again. "Cloud? Are you in the shower? I'm coming in."

She opened the door.

The first thing she noticed was the smell of cigarettes and the open window. The bed was empty.

"Cloud?" She went to the bathroom, which was still damp and cloudy with steam. Thick Egyptian cotton towels lay in a heap on the floor. The washrag and hand towel were stained with dirt and lying in the sink.

Tully backed slowly out of the steamy bathroom and faced Johnny and the camera. "She left?"

"A half an hour ago," he said. "I tried to stop her."

Tully was stunned by how betrayed she felt, like that ten-year-old girl again, abandoned on the Seattle street. Worthless and unwanted.

Johnny came over to her, took her in his arms, and held her. She wanted to ask him why, ask what was wrong with her that no one ever stayed, but the question caught in her throat. She clung to him for too long, taking the comfort he offered. He stroked her head, whispered, Shhh, in her ear as if she were a child.

In time, though, she remembered where she was and pulled back, forcing a smile for the camera. "Well, there it is. The end of the documentary. I'm done, Bob." Sidestepping Johnny, she went back into her room, where she heard Marah singing in the shower. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Her mother wouldn't break her again. She'd been a fool to even think there could be a different ending than this one.

Then she noticed the empty nightstand beside her. "The bitch stole my jewelry."

She closed her eyes and sat on the end of the bed. Pulling a cell phone out of her pocket, she hit Kate's number and listened to the ringing. When her friend answered, Tully didn't even bother with hello. "There's something wrong with me, Katie," she said quietly, her voice trembling.

"She ditched you?"

"Like a thief in the night."

"Tallulah Rose Hart, you listen to me right now. You are going to hang up the phone and get down to the ferry right now. I'll take care of you. Got it? And bring my family with you."

"You don't have to yell. I'm coming. We all are. But you better have alcohol ready for me when I get there. And I'm not mixing it with that gross juice your kids drink."

Kate laughed. "It's the morning, Tully. I'll make you breakfast."

"Thanks, Kate," Tully said quietly. "I owe you one."

When she looked up she saw Fat Bob. He was filming all of this from the doorway, with Johnny standing beside him.

But it wasn't the red light on the camera or the knowledge of her public humiliation or the all-seeing lens that broke her.

It was Johnny and the sad, knowing way he looked at her that finally made her cry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The documentary aired two weeks later, and even Kate, who was used to Tully's amazing successes, was caught off guard by the public's reaction. It caused a media frenzy. For years Tully had been seen on camera as the cool, witty professional, following stories and reporting on them with her journalist's detachment.

Now the public learned how she'd been disappointed and abandoned. They saw beyond the journalist to the woman within, and they couldn't stop talking about her. The phrase heard most often was, just like me.

Before the documentary, the public respected Tully Hart. Afterward, they adored her. She graced the cover of People and Us in the same week. The documentary—and segments from it—were played and replayed on entertainment news shows. America, it seemed, couldn't get enough of Tully Hart.

But while everyone was watching Tully and the sad encounter with her estranged mother, Kate saw something else entirely on that tape, and she watched it just as obsessively.

She couldn't help noticing the way Johnny looked at Tully at the end, when Cloud's disappearance was revealed, the way he'd gone to her and taken her in his arms.

And then there was the quiet talk Tully and Johnny had had out at Sunshine Farms. They'd edited out whatever words had been exchanged and gone to an establishing shot of the commune, but Kate couldn't help wondering what they'd said to each other.

She studied their body language like a primatologist, but in the end she had only what she'd had in the beginning: two old friends working together on an emotional documentary and a wife who'd worried for a long time about them.

That should have been the end of it. If nothing else had happened, Kate would have boxed up her old jealousies and put them away again, just as she'd done dozens of times over the years.

But something had happened.

Syndiworld, the second largest syndication company in the world, had seen the documentary and offered Tully her own one-hour show, of which she would be a majority interest owner.

The idea had rocked Tully's world, offered her a way to be herself on camera, to show the world who she really was and how she really felt. No more three A.M. start times, either. The minute she heard the idea, she said it was exactly what she needed, but even so, she'd put down two conditions: first, they had to shoot in Seattle; second, John Ryan had to be her producer. Neither of these had she bothered to clear with her friends.

Kate and Johnny had been on the back porch, talking over drinks after a long day, when the first phone call had come in.

Johnny had laughed at Tully's offer, told her to find a producer who specialized in prima donnas.

Then Tully mentioned a salary in the millions.

Now, two days later, Kate sure as hell wasn't laughing. She and Johnny were in the living room, trying to keep their voices down because the kids were in bed. Tully was back in New York, no doubt sitting by the phone, waiting to see if once again she'd get her way.

"I don't know why you're fighting me on this, Katie," Johnny said, pacing in front of the window. "It will change our lives."

"What's wrong with our life now?"

"Do you understand how much money they're offering us? We could pay off this house and send the kids to Harvard for medical degrees. And I could do a few shows that mattered. Tully said I could spotlight places in the world that are in trouble. Do you know what that would mean to me?"

"Is that how you want your career to be from now on—starting everything with, Tully said?"

"Are you asking if I can work for her? The answer is hell, yes. I've worked for a lot worse people than Tully Hart."

"Maybe I'm asking if you should be working for her," Kate said softly.

He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. "You've got to be kidding me. Is that what this is about? One night a million years ago?"

"She's an incredibly beautiful woman. I just think . . ." She couldn't finish, couldn't put her old fears and insecurities into words.

The look he gave her was so hot she felt herself melting, disappearing. "I don't deserve that."

She watched him storm up the stairs, heard the bedroom door slam shut.

She sat there a long time, staring down at her wedding ring. Why was it that some memories could never be erased? Slowly, she turned off all the lights, locked all the doors, and went upstairs.

At their closed door she paused, taking a deep breath. She knew what she had to do now, what she had to say. She'd hurt his feelings and insulted him. They both knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Her insecurities and jealousy couldn't stand in the way of that.

She had to go to him, say she was sorry, and tell him she was foolish to be afraid, that she believed in his love like she believed in sunshine and rain. It was true, too. She did.

Because of all that, she should be proud of Johnny and happy for this chance and what it meant to him. That was what marriage was, a team sport, and this was her time to be cheerleader. But even knowing all that, she couldn't quite be happy.

Instead, she was afraid.

Yes, they'd be rich. Maybe even powerful.

But at what cost?

Tully finished off her contract, had an emotional, celebrity-studded last broadcast, and said goodbye to New York. She found a new penthouse in the Emerald City and spent the next month in closed-door meetings, coming up with the plans for her new show, which she was calling The Girlfriend Hour with Tully Hart in honor of the Mularkeys' holiday tradition. She and Johnny had spent long hours working together like the old days, hiring staff and designing the set and devising show concepts.

By August of 2003, much of the advance work was done and she realized that yet again she'd been so busy with work that she'd forgotten to have a life. Even with Kate just across the bay, Tully had hardly seen her. So she picked up the phone and invited her best friend and goddaughter to spend the day with her.

"Sorry," Kate said. "I can't come into the city."

"Come on," Tully pleaded. "I know I haven't called enough this summer, but Johnny and I have been working twelve-hour days."

"Tell me something I don't know. You see him more than we do."

"I've missed you."

There was a pause, then: "I've missed you, too, but today is no good for me. The boys have some friends coming over."

"How about if I take Marah off your hands? Yeah," Tully said, warming to the idea. "I could take her to Gene Juarez for a manicure and a makeup lesson. Maybe a facial. It'd be great. A girl's day out."

"She is too young for a spa, Tully." Kate laughed, but it sounded a little strained. "And you can forget the makeover. She is not allowed to wear makeup until ninth grade."

"No one is too young for a spa, Kate, and you're crazy to forbid makeup. Remember when your mom tried that? We just put it on at the bus stop. Don't you want her to learn the right way to apply it?"

"Not yet."

"Come on," Tully cajoled. "Put her on the eleven-fifteen boat. I'll meet her at McDonald's. You said you two are always fighting anyway."

"Well . . . I guess that would be okay. But no R-rated movies, no matter how much she begs."

"Okay."

"Maybe that'll put her in a good mood. Tomorrow we're going school shopping, which is only slightly less painful than a root canal without anesthesia."

"Maybe I'll take her to Nordstrom, get her something special."

"Forty dollars."

"What?"

"That's how much you can spend. Not one dollar more, and Tully, if you buy her anything that shows off her belly—"

"I know. I know. Britney Spears is the Antichrist. Got it."

"Good. I'll go tell Marah."

Exactly one hour and twelve minutes later, Tully directed her driver to pull up beside the McDonald's on Alaskan Way. She could tell by the honking that it was an illegal place to park, but what did she care?

She rolled down the window and saw Marah running toward her. "Over here," she called, getting out of the car.

Marah hugged her tightly. "Thank you so much for getting me out of the house. Mom's been ragging on me all day. What are we going to do?"

"How about makeovers at Gene Juarez?"

"Awesome."

"And after that, we can do whatever you want."

"You're so totally awesome," Marah said, gazing at Tully with the purest expression of adoration she'd ever seen.

Tully laughed. "We both are. That's why we're a perfect team."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Girlfriend Hour was a runaway success from the first day it aired. Suddenly Tully was more than a journalist or a morning news anchor; she was a bona fide star. Everything about the show had been designed to play to her strengths and highlight her talent.

What she did well—what she'd always done well—was talk to people.

And she connected, not only with the camera, but with her guests, her audience, and her viewers. In the first two weeks of the show, she became a sensation. Her picture graced the covers of People, Entertainment Weekly, Good Housekeeping, and In Style. Syndiworld had trouble keeping up with demand; that was how fast her show was growing into new markets.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 556