After Tex

Megan nodded. “Mail order, huh? Maybe a catalog?” She beamed. “I love it. Put somebody on developing it. Let’s not just offer exotic gourmet foods, but a sampling of everything we talk about on the show. Anything else?”

“Nope. I’ll take care of this and get back to you.”

“Thanks, Micah.” Megan regarded her hopefully. “I don’t suppose we could get the first catalog out in time for Christmas.”

“Not without having the entire staff crash and burn. Maybe next Christmas, if we want to do it right.”

“Okay, I’ll settle for summer,” Megan compromised.

“Done,” Micah said, then grinned. “I would have gone for spring.”

It was a game they often played, tempering their natural tendencies toward eagerness and excitement with reality checks.

“See you tomorrow,” Micah said. “I’ll find something to sub for the figs.”

After her meeting with the producer, Megan retreated to a test kitchen to sample the recipes slated for nine months from now, in the July issue’s feature on backyard entertaining. She prided herself on the fact that Megan’s World had never once mentioned the word hamburger in connection with such an informal social event.

She thought of her grandfather and smiled. Tex referred to her suggested alternatives as “sissy food” and refused to allow his housekeeper to put any of it on his table. Megan knew, because on her last whirlwind visit home she’d asked Mrs. Gomez if she’d ever tried any of the recipes.

“Only at my own home, niña. Your grandpapa wants only meat and potatoes, nothing so fancy as what you write about.”

“Does he even look at the magazine?” Megan had inquired, unable to hide the wistful note in her voice. For all of her claims to independence, she still craved Tex’s approval, which he gave out with stingy rarity.

“Of course he looks. He even got cable last month so the picture of you on TV would be clearer. He is very proud of you.” The older woman had shrugged. “That does not mean he understands the choices you have made or the food you write about, Sí?”

“Yes,” Megan had agreed with a sigh.

Megan was a mystery to her grandfather, just as Tex was an enigma to her. He had taken her in when she was barely nine and abandoned by a mother who no longer wanted any part of raising a difficult child. That was the last time Megan had seen Sarah O’Rourke. She had never seen her father, at least not that she could recall, and no one mentioned him. She didn’t even know his name. Given Tex’s tight-lipped reaction to her hesitant inquiries, there was some question whether her mother did, either.

Tex had been mother and father to her from that moment on. He’d done the best he could, but he was not an especially warm man. He believed in plain truths and harsh realities with no sugarcoating. He’d given her a roof over her head, food and clothes, but he thought toys and dolls were foolishness, television a waste of time and books on anything other than ranching only marginally better.

Megan had never doubted, though, that he loved her. And when the time had come to let her go, he’d railed about it, but he’d given her the wherewithal to make her dreams come true and the knowledge that home would be waiting for her if she failed.

That Megan had succeeded beyond her wildest expectations and his was still baffling to him. Not a conversation passed without him asking when she was going to “give up that damn fool nonsense” and come back where she belonged. She’d put off another visit for just that reason, because the pressure to come home—both overt and subtle—would be relentless. Seeing the hurt and disappointment in his eyes when she refused took some of the joy out of her accomplishments. Better, she’d concluded, to stay away.

Tex thought she should be satisfied that she’d proved what she could do in a competitive world. He simply couldn’t understand that every single TV show, every single issue of the magazine was a new and exciting challenge. His attitude was proof that his early support had been an indulgence, not a genuine exhibition of faith in her abilities. He still dreamed of turning her into a rancher.

That lack of understanding and his refusal to set foot in New York grated on her and made every conversation with her grandfather a minefield. Their last one had ended with an explosion that had shaken her. She’d been avoiding his calls for the past week, letting Todd and her answering machine deal with Tex because she simply couldn’t, not without adding to the mountain of guilt already weighing her down.

She was tapping her pencil against her desk, still lost in thought, when Christie Gates burst into her office carrying an I Love Lucy lunchbox and a Howdy Doody puppet. Christie was Todd’s assistant and an aspiring writer who spent every lunch hour searching for some story angle she could sell to Megan. Most of the ideas had been outlandish and way off the mark, but this one had potential. Megan could feel it.

“Are these not the greatest?” Christie said enthusiastically, setting the two pieces of memorabilia on Megan’s desk with surprising reverence for someone who hadn’t even been born when either classic show was originally on the air.

Megan examined them closely. “Definitely originals,” she concluded.

“Would I bring back anything else?” Christie demanded indignantly. “I know a reproduction when I see one.”

“What do you propose we do with them?”

“I was thinking of a feature on using decorative accents like this to rediscover the child within. Talk about a whimsical touch. I mean, how could you not smile every time you walk into a room with Howdy Doody or Lucy staring you in the face? I’ve even heard that people are collecting those really old sand pails to remind them of when they were kids at the beach.”

She paused and watched Megan closely. “So, what do you think?” she finally prodded.

Megan considered the idea thoughtfully, deliberately taking her time, then grinned at Christie’s bouncing impatience. “I think it’s terrific. Congratulations! You have your first story assignment.”

“Oh, wow! You mean it?”

“I mean it. At a fee above and beyond your salary, of course. Have Todd draw up the contract and make sure accounting reimburses you for whatever you have to buy for the photo shoot.”

“Like a real freelance deal?” Christie asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Christie rushed around the desk, embraced her, then backed away self-consciously. “Sorry, Miss O’Rourke.”

Megan grinned. “No apology necessary. And I think from now on you should call me Megan.”

The girl’s eyes brightened. “Really? Oh, wow.”

Megan might have been amused by the unabashed excitement if it weren’t for the fact that not very long ago she had reacted in exactly the same way to every triumph—minor and major. Still did, if the truth be known, but she tried to confine it to the privacy of her office.

“One last thing,” Megan added, “you might ask around, see if any decorators know of a home doing anything like this. Todd can give you a list of people to call.”

Christie bounded toward the door to share her news, but Megan stopped her. “Hey, Christie, when the story’s done and all the photos have been shot, I’d like you to bring Howdy Doody back to me, okay?”

“You want the puppet?”

“Sure. I need to remember being a kid, the same as everybody else,” she said. The pitiful truth was, though, she couldn’t really remember ever being a kid at all.

Slowly the outer offices fell silent. Megan worked on her column for the next issue of the magazine, not coming up for air until darkness had fallen outside and the sky was lit with the twinkling lights of endless rows of skyscrapers. It was her favorite time of day in New York, when the streets were emptying of traffic, the impatient blare of horns was dying and the view from her office turned into a picture postcard. Daytime might offer a glimpse of Central Park in all its orange-and-red autumnal glory, but this was the view that had been on the one postcard she’d ever gotten after her mother abandoned her.

Some days Megan wondered if New York’s pull had been professional or personal. Had she subconsciously come here hoping to spot Sarah O’Rourke on a street corner? It was a question she rarely asked herself and had never adequately answered, just as she never examined too closely how a woman whose own background was so dysfunctional was qualified to promote life-style choices for others.

To her surprise, given the hour, one of the phone lines lit up and she heard Todd answering. She was even more surprised when he stepped through the door rather than buzzing her. The sympathetic expression on his face set her pulse to pounding.

“What is it?”

“It’s Mrs. Gomez.”

No doubt the housekeeper had been persuaded to play intermediary for her grandfather. “I can’t talk to Tex tonight. Please just tell her that for me.”

Todd stayed right where he was. “You need to take the call, Megan.”

If she hadn’t already had this gut-deep feeling of dread building inside, his somber tone would have set it off. With reluctance, she reached for the phone.

“Mrs. Gomez,” she said.

“Ah, niña,” the woman murmured, her voice suspiciously scratchy, as if she’d recently been crying. “I am so sorry to be calling like this. It is your grandfather.”