The Dollhouse(43)

“They obviously didn’t get it. You’re talking about a bunch of cat women who never moved, never had families. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be there.”

She sat back and crossed her arms. “Do not call them cat women. Okay?”

“Fine. What should I call them?”

“This kind of thing drives me crazy.” Her words came out short and sharp. “Did you know there are dozens of terrible names for old women? Crone, cat lady, hag, battle-ax. But there’s no male equivalent. Instead, old men are the roosters of their retirement homes, flirting with the scores of women left behind, considered valuable commodities.”

“So that’s how you think of older guys? Like inanimate objects to be traded around when the girls get bored? How un-feminist.”

She was in no mood to be teased. “What about the fact that women have been no more than possessions for centuries? No man, no safety. No man, no honor. No man, you die. Thank God I live in a time and place where women don’t need husbands in order to survive.”

She should have stopped talking, stayed professional, but she couldn’t help herself. “Did you know the Barbizon used to be called the Dollhouse? Can you get more objectifying than that? As if these women were simply playacting until the magical powers of marriage turned them into living, breathing people. I want to humanize them, include photos of when they were young, descriptions of what their lives were like. Just because they don’t look fresh-faced anymore doesn’t mean they aren’t the same people inside, that they’ve lost their worth as human beings. You can simply call them by their names.”

“Okay, okay. You made a good point. Several, in fact.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “An old woman rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”

She was surprised. “So you read Sylvia Plath’s poems. Don’t call them terrible fish, either.” She paused. “Have you read The Bell Jar?”

“Finished it yesterday. Look, I get what you’re trying to do. I do. But we need more of a story.”

“I’ll get it, I promise.” She wanted to get him off the subject, wrap this meeting up. “Tyler said you did war documentaries, is that right?”

He leaned back and ran his hand over his head. His torso was broad, but not overweight, and his hands were solid.

The corners of his mouth turned up. He’d caught her staring at him. “Yes, I did some work with the children in Iraq once a reasonable peace had been achieved. We brought together Kurdish and Sunni kids, divided them into mixed groups, and had them create their own documentaries about their lives. Then we did a documentary about their documentaries.”

“Pretty amazing.”

“It was good.” His stare unnerved her.

“I’m sure it was. Why did you stop the international work?”

He rubbed his face with one hand. “My mother got sick. I had to move back to New Paltz to help her out until she passed.”

“I’m sorry. My dad’s sick. That can be really devastating.”

“Sure can.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Do you want to go back to what you were doing?” she asked.

“Eventually. Not right now. I’m picking up work here and there, freelancing for now.”

“Well, this shouldn’t be too tough. Interviews, B-roll, and we’re done.”

“Speaking of going back to what you were doing, why was Gloria Buckstone reinstated at the network but you had to leave? You were both proved right in the end after all. Madden was as crooked as a three-dollar bill.”

She hadn’t been right.

Rose fiddled with the spoon on the table, stalling for time. When a source had sent her bank statements that supposedly showed Senator Madden was skimming money earmarked for state nursing homes, she’d known it was a huge get. With the senator’s unstoppable popularity, the story had explosive potential, the power to take Rose’s career to the next level. Except something about the documents themselves felt off to Rose. She’d begged her superiors to wait until she had further proof of Madden’s crimes before taking the news to air. At the time, Gloria Buckstone was Rose’s friend and mentor, and unfortunately, she was also her boss and desperate to have a big exclusive.

In the end, Rose’s protests fell on deaf ears. When it turned out the bank statements were, in fact, doctored, the whole thing became a massive PR disaster for the news desk. Luckily, the loss of face lasted all of a week before a different whistle-blower came forward with irrefutable evidence of the senator’s wrongdoings. Now all anyone remembered was that Gloria and Rose had broken the story first.

Everyone thought she was a renegade, fighting to get the truth out. But if it were up to her, they’d never have run the incorrect version in the first place.

“I left because I missed writing too much,” she said. Always a handy excuse. Made her sound intellectual. The waitress tossed the check on the table and Rose snatched it up, relieved by the interruption. “Allow me.”

Outside in the sunshine, Rose considered her next steps. First off was to find the button store Stella had mentioned, and see if she could get some more color on Darby’s life.

Jason shrugged his backpack over one shoulder and stood, legs spread wide. He looked like an urban lumberjack. “How is it working for Tyler?”