“How'd he look to you?” The reporter next to her asked briefly, checking some notes while lighting a cigarette with one hand. They were a relaxed group of pros, but nonetheless there was a faint hint of electricity and tension in the air. It had been an endless week for them all, and it would be good to get home and unwind. Most of them were returning to their home base as soon as they reached Washington, and the network had already booked a seat to New York for Mel at ten o'clock that night. She would be picked up at LaGuardia at eleven and taken home. In a way, she felt as though she were returning from another planet. But she was not at all sure she wanted to go home now, as her mind lingered on Peter's words, and his face, and his lips the night before.

“Hm?” She hadn't heard the reporter's question.

“I said how did he look?” The older reporter looked annoyed and Mel narrowed her eyes, thinking of the President as he lay on the gurney.

“Lousy. But he's alive.” And unless something drastic happened on the flight east, or he met with severe complications, it was unlikely that he would die now. He was a very lucky man, as they had all said again and again on the air. Other presidents had not been as lucky with assassination attempts as this one.

There was the usual banter between them on the way to the airport, dirty jokes, exchanged bits of gossip and old news. No one ever gave anything away, but this was not as tense a trip as the one out had been for all of them. Mel thought back to the week before, and to seeing Peter again for the first time. She wondered now when she would see him next. She couldn't imagine another opportunity presenting itself in the near future, and the realization of that depressed her.

The reporter sitting next to her glanced her way again. “You look like the last week got you down, Mel.”

“No.” She shook her head, her eyes averted. “I' m just tired, I guess.”

“Who isn't?”

And half an hour later they boarded the plane and sat in the passenger area in the rear. A sort of hospital-room arrangement had been made for the President toward the front, and none of them were allowed near it. Every hour or so, during the flight, the press secretary would join them and tell them how the President was doing, but it was an uneventful flight for them all and they reached Washington in four and a half hours and had the President settled at Walter Reed Hospital within an hour after that, and suddenly Mel realized that it was all over for her. The network's Washington correspondent had met them at the airport, and after accompanying the President to Walter Reed along with the others who had come from L.A. and glimpsing the First Lady once more, Mel stepped outside to the limousine waiting for her and went back to the airport. She had an hour left before her flight to New York, and she sat down, feeling as though she were in shock. The last week was beginning to seem like a dream and she wondered if she had imagined Peter and the time she had spent with him.

She walked slowly to a telephone booth at an adjacent gate, put a dime in the slot, and called her home collect. Jessie answered and for a moment, Mel felt tears fill her eyes, and she suddenly realized how exahusted she was.

“Hi, Jess.”

“Hi, Mom. Are you home?” She sounded like a child again as her voice filled with excitement.

“Almost, sweetheart. I'm at the Washington airport. I should be at the house by eleven thirty. God, I feel like I've been gone a year.”

“We've missed you like crazy.” She didn't even reproach her mother for not having called. She knew how impossible her schedule had been. “Are you okay?”

“Wiped out. I can't wait to get home. But don't wait up. I'm going to crawl in and pass out.” It wasn't just the fatigue that was getting to her now. A kind of depression was setting in, as she realized how far away she was from Peter. And that was foolish too. But she couldn't seem to stop the feelings anymore.

“Are you kidding?” Jess sounded outraged at her end. “We haven't seen you in a week! Of course we'll wait up. We'll carry you upstairs if we have to.”

Tears filled Mel's eyes as she smiled at the phone. “I love you, Jess.” And then, “How's Val?”

“She's okay. We've both missed you.”

“I've missed you too, sweetheart.” But something important had been happening to her in California. There was a lot she needed to sort out, or at least absorb, and the only people she wanted to see or talk to right now were the twins.

They were waiting in the living room when she got home, and they fell into her arms one by one, delighted to have her home again, and as Mel looked around, her house had never looked as good to her as it did now, or her children.

“Boy, it's good to be back, you guys!” But a tiny part of her said it wasn't. A tiny part of her said she wanted to be three thousand miles away, having dinner with Peter. But that was all behind her now and she had to forget it, at least for now.

“It must have been awful, Mom. It looked like you almost never left the hospital lobby from what we saw on the news.”

“Hardly ever except for a few hours sleep here and there …” And time spent with Peter … She looked into their eyes, almost expecting them to see something different about her. But they didn't. There was nothing to see, except what she felt deep inside, and she kept that well hidden. “Have you two been behaving all week?” Val brought her a Coca-Cola and she smiled gratefully at the voluptuous twin. “Thanks, love.” And then she grinned. “Are you in love again, young lady?”

“Not yet.” She laughed into her mother's eyes. “But I'm working on it.” Mel rolled her eyes and they sat and chatted for a long time, and it was one o'clock in the morning by the time they all went upstairs. They kissed their mother good night outside her bedroom and went up to their own floor as Mel went to unpack her bag and take a hot shower, and when she looked at the clock again, it was two o'clock in the morning … eleven o'clock on the West Coast … suddenly all that seemed to matter was where he was and what he was doing. It was like being constantly torn in two. She had a life to lead here in New York, and yet she had left a part of her three thousand miles away. It was going to be a difficult way to live, at least for now, and she still had to sort out what it all meant to her … what Peter Hallam meant to her … but, secretly, she already knew.





CHAPTER 16

“Welcome home, old girl. How was L.A.?”