The Separatists Read online

  “I’m excited.” Should she ask him about coming onboard as one of the producers of Spotlight? But that would make her his boss. And they’d be together virtually 24/7. Better to hold off. Besides, he may not want to work for his wife.

  “You sound a little subdued, considering . . . ,” he says.

  “Just a big day, with Rothman’s death.”

  “Are you ready for tonight’s show?”

  “I think so. I was able to book Leslie Burke Wilson.”

  “That’s a score. Is there anything I can do to help? Do you want me to come over?”

  “I think it’s all under control.”

  There’s another pause and then he says, “Have a great show.” Erica can hear a hint of disappointment in his voice. But if Greg came to the studio it would only complicate things. Eileen might resent his presence. Plus, it would dilute Erica’s focus.

  “How are you in the midst of all this?” Erica asks.

  “WPVI in Philadelphia wants me to come down next week to discuss a contract.”

  “Oh, Greg, that’s great news.” But helping some local station polish its news department seems like pallid stuff next to Rothman and Wilson and Spotlight. Best to change the subject. “Listen, Jenny is bringing a friend down this weekend.”

  “That’s a first. Should be fun. Talk later.” He ends the call and Erica sets down her phone.

  “Are you okay, Erica?” Rosario asks. The middle-aged, homey makeup woman has become a friend and ally at GNN, always alert for news or gossip that she thinks Erica should know. People’s lips tend to loosen when they’re in the chair.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” Erica says.

  Rosario narrows her eyes in skepticism, then picks up her airbrush. As she and Andi work their magic on her face and hair, a phrase coined by Truman Capote comes to Erica: Beware of answered prayers. Here she is with two women fussing over her, she’s starting a thrilling new project, earning millions of dollars a year doing work she loves and believes in . . . and yet . . .

  Has her success put distance between Erica and her daughter? Between Erica and her husband? How ironic it all is. And the job itself can be so draining—reporters aren’t paid to report good news, sunshine, and lollipops. No, it’s an unrelenting barrage of disasters and bombings and climate crises and human suffering. Death never takes a day off.

  Erica looks at herself in the mirror. She’s almost camera-ready, except . . . “Rosario, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Could you put a little more concealer under my eyes?”

  CHAPTER 3

  LESLIE BURKE WILSON IS SITTING in the green room going over notes when Erica walks in. Erica stops for a moment—struck by how arresting Wilson is in person. In her midforties, her thick black hair in a layer cut to just below her ears, she’s wearing black silk pencil pants, a matching low-cut top that reveals a hint of cleavage, and black sandal-strap heels. Exuding a subtle sensuality, thin and toned and expertly made-up—she’s one of those women who trick you into thinking they’re beautiful by sheer force of will. And brilliant styling.

  “Leslie,” Erica says. The two women shake hands.

  Leslie’s smile is open and warm, in contrast to her look, which seems a bit like armor. She’s wearing some amazing perfume—Erica recognizes the top note as citrusy bergamot, but under that is something floral, subtle and seductive, that she can’t quite name.

  “Thank you so much for coming, and on such short notice,” Erica says. “I don’t gush, but if I were a gusher, please know I’d be gushing.”

  “Gush back at ya.”

  “Are there any questions you’d particularly like me to ask?”

  “I think the president is facing one of the most critical decisions of her presidency. She was elected on a promise to bring the country together, but her political future depends on continued support from the right, which held its nose and voted for her. Now they want payback.”

  “What do you think she’s going to do?”

  Leslie tilts her head and gives Erica a conspiratorial smile. “Why don’t we save that answer for when the cameras are rolling?”

  “Bingo.”

  Leslie takes one of Erica’s hands in her own, looks her in the eye, and says, “Listen, I know your story, your history. And then, of course, there are the piddling matters of Nylan Hastings and Lily Lau.”

  It may be a practiced charm offensive, but it sounds sincere, and Erica feels an immediate emotional connection to this woman—she feels like a friend, or even an older sister. “A gig’s a gig.”

  “No, Erica, for some of us a gig is more than a gig. It’s a calling.”

  “Speaking of which, I see my producer is calling us. Ready to rumble?”

  The interview goes well, more than well. As with all terrific exchanges, this one takes on a life of its own. Inspired, ignited by Leslie’s answers, Erica finds the questions pouring out of her. The two of them touch on the Constitution, the history of the Supreme Court back to its founding, the best and worst justices and their most significant decisions, finally ending up where they started—at today’s developments, the president’s choices, and their ramifications for the court and the country.

  “Well, that was fun!” Wilson says as they go to a break.

  Erica walks her out of the studio. “You were cooking.”

  “Listen, if you have nothing better to do Saturday night, Stan and I are trekking down to the Lower East Side to see a chamber opera based on a Toni Morrison short story. It’s being done by a new company dedicated to contemporary opera. Fran Lebowitz is on their board, and she’s corralling one and all.”

  Erica feels a frisson of excitement: Leslie Burke Wilson is reaching out to her. Is she going to invite Erica into her heady circle of friends? But then Erica realizes, with a twinge of disappointment, even resentment, that she’s not free this weekend. “My daughter will be in town.”

  “Bring her.”

  “She’s thirteen.”

  “All the better. Morrison is so remarkable. I just reread Beloved. It’s staggering.”

  Erica stops for a second. The Lower East Side? Toni Morrison? A chamber opera? Three undiscovered countries for Jenny (not to mention Erica). “You know what? We’d love to come.”

  “I’ll call Fran and have her put aside tickets for you. Three?”

  “Four if possible. My daughter’s bringing a friend for the weekend. Now I’d better get back to my desk.”

  “See you Saturday,” Leslie says with that disarming ironic smile.

  Erica watches as Leslie strides out of view—and the world seems slightly less alive than it did just a moment before.

  CHAPTER 4

  ERICA, JENNY, AND BETH ARE at the dining room table, Greg is in the kitchen, and they can smell the chicken Provençal he has just taken out of the oven. Erica doesn’t cook. Never has. Never will. Her list of man’s three greatest inventions goes: the wheel, flight, takeout.

  “So, we’re heading down to the Lower East Side tonight,” Erica says. She feels distracted—and guilty for feeling distracted—but her mind keeps going back to Spotlight and the need to hire a production team. They’ve put out the word that they’re hiring an executive producer, and interviews start on Monday. It’s a crucial hire, and Erica has been consumed with that and the thousand other details that go into developing a new show.

  “An opera, Mom? Seriously?” Jenny says.

  “Yes, seriously.”

  “I guess you’re serving broccoli too.”

  “No way . . . We’re having cauliflower.”

  Jenny smiles and rolls her eyes. She can dish it out, but she can take it. What a great kid. Erica’s not so sure about her friend Beth, who’s wearing eyeliner and lip gloss and a multicolored, multipatterned jumpsuit that borders on seizure inducing.

  “I googled Fran Lebowitz, she’s wicked famous,” Beth says. “There might be celebrities there. Can I use my cam?”

  “I don’t think that would be appropriate,” Erica says.

&
nbsp; Beth shoots a glance at Jenny, who says, “Oh, come on, Mom.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Beth frowns, shrugs, and takes out her phone.

  “And no phones at the dinner table.”

  Beth ignores this admonition, texting and swiping.

  “No. Phones.”

  Beth exhales with a sigh and puts down her phone.

  Maybe Erica should do a Spotlight on what smartphones are doing to kids’ brain synapses. We’re definitely in the nascent stage of some evolutionary leap, she thinks. Where is it leading, where will we land?

  “I could use a hand in here,” Greg calls. Jenny leaps up and heads into the kitchen. Beth makes no move.

  “Just to make it clear, Beth, my contract with GNN forbids me to appear on other networks or channels. Including YouTube.”

  “But I’ve seen you on YouTube.”

  “It’s footage of me on GNN that subsequently got posted.”

  “Can I at least do a Snapchat of this dinner?”

  “Beth, I lead a very public life. I treasure my privacy.”

  Beth clasps her hands on the table and goes silent. She’s definitely a bright girl, and ambitious, but there’s something calculating about her that Erica finds off-putting. The kid has an agenda. Why has Jenny chosen her to be friends with? Why couldn’t she have picked some silly, messy, funny kid, full of questions and spontaneity? Someone who wasn’t racing toward adulthood as fast as she can.

  Erica feels a pang of guilt and sadness. Her own childhood was such a litany of pain and abuse, she wants Jenny to have some good old-fashioned fun. Adulthood will come soon enough.

  “Ta-da!” Greg says as he and Jenny appear from the kitchen bearing plates. Erica feels a catch in her throat—Greg looks so adorable in his apron, with his tawny skin and dark tousled hair, smiling broadly, happy to cook and have the family together. Jenny is beaming in adoration. Erica wishes she could file away this moment of happiness, bank it for future withdrawal.

  They all dig in. “This is delicious!” Jenny exclaims.

  “It’s an old family recipe I made up,” Greg says. “So, girls, bring us up to date on school.”

  Jenny engages completely, stories of book reports, science projects, and track meets spilling out. Beth puts in a word now and then, but clearly school is not her chief focus. Her eyes keep darting to her phone. When Greg and Jenny finish clearing the table and bring out the coconut cream pie he made, Beth declines a piece, saying, “Sugar is inflammatory. Miley never touches it.”

  “Beth is obsessed with Miley Cyrus.”

  “Miley’s my big sister, there was a mix-up at the hospital,” Beth says with a sly smile.

  Well, at least there’s a sense of humor under there.

  In the cab heading downtown, Erica is keyed tight. She wants to be at her best for Leslie and her friends—will Toni Morrison be there? She’s wearing very little makeup and is dressed down in black slacks and a white oxford, her only accessory a pair of sapphire clip-on earrings. (Erica only wears clip-ons—as a teenager there was enough pain at home, she wasn’t about to self-inflict more.) She considered wearing a dress, but it’s not about how you look, it’s about what you do.

  She thinks of Archie Hallowell, her brilliant, ancient, chalk-smudged, hairy-eared mentor at Yale. He took her—an insecure kid from an abusive background gasping in the thin Ivy League air—under his wing. He encouraged her to read, to think, to aspire, to fight for what was right, to appreciate art and beauty and literature, to call on her best self and better angels. After one thrilling discussion on democracy, he pressed Leslie Burke Wilson’s book on the Founding Fathers—Self-Evident Truths—into her hands. And now she’s in a taxi on a clear Manhattan night, on her way to meet Wilson at a downtown cultural event.

  Oh, Professor Hallowell, dear Archie, if only you could see me now.

  Then Jenny asks, “Can we go shopping tomorrow, Mom?”

  What Erica really wants to do tomorrow is work on Spotlight, but she says, “What about a museum? There’s a show on exotic insects at the Museum of Natural History that sounds fascinating. It’s filled with live specimens from places like Tasmania and Madagascar. Islands often have their own ecosystems.”

  Jenny loves science, or used to love science. She’s turning into an adolescent so quickly, Erica can’t keep track of her changing tastes.

  Her daughter’s interest seems piqued, but then Beth says, “Why don’t we go downtown to the Whitney, then do the High Line and then hit the shops in the Meatpacking District. My parents put three hundred dollars in fun money on my phone.”

  There’s silence. Jenny looks uncomfortable. Beth is wide-eyed and expectant. Well, the girl certainly is fearless. Erica shoots Greg a help-me look.

  “The insect show is up for a while, we can go in two weeks,” Greg says.

  They reach the Lower East Side, a neighborhood of former tenements that has been colonized by cutting-edge boutiques and farm-to-table restaurants, each straining to be more rustic than the next. After all, shouldn’t the gritty heart of Manhattan feel like a farmhouse kitchen in Vermont? Squeezed between them are funky bodegas, Jewish delis, and discount catch-all shops that signal the area is still a yeasty mix of classes and cultures. This is a foreign land for Erica, and she marvels yet again at the gorgeous mosaic of her adopted city.

  They pull up in front of Dixon Place. There’s an expectant crowd out front, the scene is charged with that peculiar New York electricity that never fails to jolt and jazz Erica.

  “There’s Jesse Eisenberg! And Chloë Sevigny!” Beth coos.

  They get out of the cab and Leslie comes over. “Erica!” She has her husband in tow; he’s in his early sixties, well-groomed if not handsome, with a slightly distracted air, as if he’d rather be somewhere else.

  Erica and Leslie make the introductions. Leslie sticks out her hand and shakes Jenny’s, giving her a big smile, but then turns away quickly. Like many brilliant and successful people Erica has met, she clearly has little interest in kids. She hooks her arm through Erica’s as they make their way inside. “I’m so glad you could make it. Apparently the composer is quite a talent.”

  New York worships talent the way LA worships youth and beauty. Not that those shiny coins don’t have currency here, but it does feel more like a meritocracy and Erica loves that, partly because it validates her own success.

  The crowd in the lobby has a downtown edge—the clothes are hip and the insouciance is thick. Erica sees writers, artists, and actors she half recognizes. Leslie introduces her to several people, and Erica soaks it all up. Greg and Stan Wilson are deep in conversation. Jenny takes Erica’s hand, and she can tell her daughter is a little intimidated by the scene. Erica gives her hand a squeeze.

  “Where’s Beth?” Erica asks. Jenny shrugs. Erica scans the room, anxiety spiking. Then Beth appears through the crowd, smiling brightly. A little too brightly—Erica’s thoughts go to cats and canaries.

  “So, Erica, I saw the mention in the Times about your new show. Congrats, kiddo,” Leslie says.

  “We’ll see. It’s a long way from here to daylight.”

  “I have no doubt you’ll deliver.”

  Or die trying.

  Now a man is approaching them—his face is familiar—he’s around fifty, self-consciously rumpled and shaggy, with flashing eyes behind rimless round glasses. “Leslie! You brought one of my favorite journalists,” he says.

  “Erica Sparks, Eliot Woodson.”

  Of course—Woodson is a leading essayist and cultural critic, well known for his pieces in The New Yorker and elsewhere, which are collected and published in book form every couple of years and regularly win him fancy prizes. Erica has read some of his work—it’s penetrating and incisive. He’d probably make a terrific guest on her show.

  “What’s on your mind these days?” Erica asks.

  “I’m fascinated by the secessionist movements we’re seeing pop up around the country. I think they speak to a national mood of a
lienation and dissatisfaction.”

  Erica leans in toward him. “Say more.”

  “At their worst, they’re about threats of violence and not wanting to pay taxes. At their best, they’re a reflection of that yearning for independence, to create something better, that is such a part of our national character.”

  Erica’s wheels start turning.

  “What do you think is driving them?” she asks.

  “The natives are restless,” Woodson says. “They’re struggling. Our democracy, as it stands, simply isn’t working for them. We really are at the edge of oligarchy. This is only a free country if you can afford it.”

  “And if you can’t afford it, your pain turns to rage,” Erica says.

  “Exactly. And that rage can lead to violence. Look at the standoff at that ranch in West Texas that’s going on right now. That could turn ugly on a dime,” Woodson says.

  “It all seems very fringy to me,” Leslie says.

  “All revolutions start at the fringe. Secession was debated and voted on at the last Texas GOP state convention. It lost, but still, that’s what you call inching into the mainstream. There’s one group in particular that fascinates me. It’s in North Dakota. I don’t want to use the word legitimate, but they seem more serious than some of the crazies, the Cliven Bundys, the white supremacists.”

  “I’ve read a little bit about the drive in North Dakota. A couple is spearheading it, I forget their names,” Leslie says.

  “Sturges and Mary Bellamy,” Woodson says. “They’re well educated and well heeled, from old ranching families. They’re not seizing government buildings and parading around with guns. They’ve started what they call the Take Back Our Homeland movement and are working through the political process. Which I think makes them far more intriguing. And perhaps dangerous.”

  Erica knows a little bit about these secessionist and sovereign citizen groups. She ran a piece on the group down in Texas, the Free Texas Rangers, but it was reported by a stringer and didn’t go into a lot of depth. In the last few days the standoff has escalated. Maybe she needs to do something more expansive, include secessionist movements nationwide. Interview the Bellamys. Maybe it could work for Spotlight.