2. Fences
MacKenzie was surprised at how quickly Will removed his microphone left the set after the broadcast. She expected him to revel over his total dismantling of Neal's Occupy Wall Street groupie.
The past month they had fallen into the habit of reviewing the day while lingering on set. Often afterward, they would, like the rest of the staff, meet up at Hang Chew's for a quick drink. Of course, that was before Monday.
She'd been at ACN for over seventeen months, yet their personal relationship still existed perched on a tall, jagged fence, caught between the past and the present. No matter how she encouraged, pleaded, teased and occasionally threatened, they were stuck on that fence. To him, she was both friend and enemy. Monday had been yet another reminder that when he hit back, he hit hard. She understood why he was that way. Nonetheless, it hurt.
She sighed and then regained her resolve. She would hang on to hope—hope that the barriers of their past could someday be torn completely down, leaving them free to take on the future unencumbered. There was love and longing in his eyes at times. On other occasions, usually when she couldn't keep her mouth shut, anger and loathing burst forth.
Why did he leave the set so abruptly? Had he received new threats? No. That would distract her, but not him. He remained completely nonchalant about his safety. Was he already brooding about the weekend? Of course, he was, and probably had been for days.
Friday, November 4, 2005
Mac crossed the street after exiting the CNN building and immediately spotted Will waiting for her twenty-feet away. This connection between them puzzled her. He was so different from anyone she knew.
His intelligence was so keen as was his skill at breaking down any argument; and he had more raw talent than she had ever seen in a journalist. Yet, underneath it all, there was… words failed her… there was his wonder at his own successes; and certainly, a cautiousness in his private, personal demeanor that belied the confidence and boldness on display whenever he was on camera, or when they were locked in a battle of wits and will. He was wry and serious. And both an idealist and a romantic (probably more so than herself). She loved that about him (though she would never tell him because he would deny it to kingdom come).
"What are you chuckling about?" Will asked as she reached him.
"You," she replied.
"Why?"
"Because you completely screwed up the first minute of that last interview and then you pivoted 180 degrees and nailed it."
"I did what?"
"Forget it," she told him. "Where do you want to walk this evening? And more important, what are you feeding me after?"
He insisted that she shed her heels in favor of more casual, exercise-type shoes on these outings. Ordinarily, she would resist. She was superstitious that way, believing that her power came from her shoes. With him though—on nights like this—she needed no such talisman (although, she felt even tinier in comparison to his solid 6'3" frame).
"Across Memorial Bridge and over to Iwo Jima?" he suggested.
"I do love that view—from both directions."
"Me, too."
He secured a cab for them and they made small talk as they rode across town to a spot where they could access the wide, majestic structure without getting killed in the process from all the traffic coming in and out of the city.
"I hate that winter is coming. I like these quiet sojourns of ours," she mentioned as they began their crossing. "Walking around this city was a favorite pastime of mine as a child. My father told such fascinating stories and somehow he always had the answers to my endless stream of questions about its history, and later, politics."
Will snorted. "I'm sure he anticipated what was coming."
"Much like you do," she replied with a gentle earnestness.
He stopped and turned towards her, a puzzled look on his face. "Is that what I do?"
She nodded. "I think so. It feels like that a lot."
"That's how it feels for me with you, too."
MacKenzie smiled, and again thought that this thing—this relationship—they were building was something unique. She liked him. And she liked who she was with him. This was something new for her. Maybe because they were taking things slow and deliberate, and sex wasn't muddying the waters. That, too, was different for her. Or perhaps, because she still felt the sting and confusion of past relationships—the sting of Brian Brenner—and she was approaching this one more cautiously and with greater self-awareness. But her attraction to him was real.
Will interrupted her silent musings. "I'm old enough to be your father. It's one thing to work together but quite a different thing to be involved."
"Sixteen years is nowhere close to that characterization. And why worry about that now?"
"Because you're not ready?"
Will knew about Brian, at least some things about him; and he knew Brian on a professional level—and not in a good way. "Not yet… but I'm getting closer, I think. You make it impossible to feel otherwise. Besides, you can't be all that ready yourself, or you wouldn't keep harping on our ages or be so insistent that we are not seen together without work as a solid alibi."
"That's for your protection, Mac, not mine."
She chose not to question his reply, but instead slipped her hand into his much larger one. She caught the look of surprise on his face in the glow of the street lamps and felt a crack develop in the ice that coated her heart.
They trekked up to the huge, bronze depiction of the Marines raising the American flag on that tiny Pacific island in 1945, and then sat on the lawn near its base and marveled at the vista before them—the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building all lined up in perfect visual symmetry. After, they made their way to a quiet Italian restaurant nearby.
They were starving by the time their food came so conversation was minimal, though she took every possible opportunity to study his face. As they lingered over a shared piece of tiramisu, she asked, "How did you get the scar on your chin?"
"Playing football. I took a hard hit."
"What?"
He shook his head. "You don't know much about football, do you?"
"I know soccer. We left here when I was ten and my parents are very British, so I had little opportunity to learn."
"Or interest?"
"That, too," she agreed. "But my brother taught me to be feisty and crafty on the pitch."
He laughed. "That is an understatement, I'm sure."
"So explain it to me."
"I was the quarterback. I dropped back to throw the ball and a player from the opposing team broke free and his helmet caught me just under the chin and it split open. They stitched me up and I finished the game." He must have seen the disbelief in her face because he added, "I loved to play. There was no way they were keeping me off that field."
"You were feisty and crafty, too," she teased.
"Is that just another way of saying I have no athletic ability?"
"I think you excel at anything you put your mind to doing." She paused to give him a moment and then asked, "And the one by your right eye?"
"I don't remember."
"Will," she pressed softly. "You have practically a photographic memory."
"It's not something you want to hear."
She watched a host of powerful emotions play across his expressive blue eyes. She didn't say anything but just held his gaze.
"MacKenzie," he said finally, "my home life was very different from yours."
She reached across their small table and took his hand and began to caress the top of his knuckles with her thumb. "And I keep droning on about my family. I'm…"
"Stop. You have nothing to apologize for…. I like learning about you and hearing stories about all the McHales. But this is ugly, Mackenzie, and you don't need…"
"Do you trust me?"
He nodded.
"Then let me in."
He sighed. "Okay…." He took a deep breath to gather his thoughts and then he said, "My father is an abusive alcoholic. I got the scar after I came home from baseball practice one day to find that he had lost his temper at my little sisters and then blamed my mother. As I came in the house, I watched him break her nose. I stepped in and he came at me, so I grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the kitchen table and smashed it against his face. A piece of glass rebounded and lodged in my cheek."
"Oh, Will! How old were you?"
"Eleven. But I was big for my age."
"You were just a boy. And your brother and sisters were…"
"My brother was almost six and my sisters were three. And no, it wasn't a one-time thing…."
"MacKenzie?"
She turned around to find Sloan looking at her with a worried look on her face. "Problem?" she asked her.
"Are you okay?" Sloan questioned in return, gesturing to the completely empty and dark corridor between the studio and control room where she now stood alone.
"Just gathering wool," she explained. "Do you need something?"
"We're leaving. Are you ready?"
"Has Will gone?"
Sloan shook her head. "I think he's still in his office."
"Go ahead without me," she insisted. "I'll meet you there."
"Kenzie… I heard about his tirade at you on Monday and he seems to be in one of those moods. He completely decimated that OWS chick. Are you sure?"
Mac shook her head and firmly said, "She wasn't prepared for anything else. He's not in that kind of mood. Trust me. I'll meet you there."
After Sloan left, MacKenzie walked across the newsroom to her office. She set her notes from the show on her desk, pulled the elastic out of her hair and quickly ran a brush through it, hoping to leave her EP persona behind. She hesitated a moment at Will's door, wondering if, given his surprising exit, she should knock. But when had such a thing ever stopped her? So instead she softly turned the handle and quietly stepped inside. Will was staring out the window. He had shed his suit coat but nothing else.
He must have heard her come in because he didn't startle when she asked, "You okay?"
Will turned around, hands in his pockets. "Yeah."
"Billy, are you worried about going home?" she pressed, moving closer to him.
"It's not home," he insisted, "not anymore. It hasn't been home in decades."
"Whatever. Are you worried about being around your Dad?"
He snorted and then shrugged.
She took a step closer to him, longing to comfort this dutiful oldest son who missed his mother's love years after her death, and who still deep down yearned for the approval and respect of his father. "Will…" She paused until their eyes locked. "You are the best man I know. Remember that truth this weekend. Try to relax and have fun. It's not often you get to be with all of your siblings." He snorted again, but his eyes sent a different message back to her. He would do as she asked.
"Want to join us at Hang Chew's? Maybe sing a little for us? You did promise the staff a song."
"I have a date," he replied.
"Oh…" She tried to keep her voice even and her expression neutral, while mentally trying not to imagine just what kind of woman he would be hooking up with tonight. She needed a vacation, or at least a drink.
He shrugged and returned back to the window, hands still buried in his suit pants.
Something was definitely wrong. She waited to see if he would re-engage and when he didn't, she went to him and placed a supportive hand on the small of his back, her body nearly next to him. She felt him sigh but beyond that he remained still. She, too, remained quiet.
After a time and while still looking out at the city, he asked her, "Why did you leave Atlanta and go to the Middle East?"
"What?"
"Why did you go?" he repeated.
In all the time they worked together on News Night, never had he so much mentioned in passing her time overseas. Why on earth would he be obsessed with this now? His voice was so earnest that she ignored the frustration she so often felt when she was completely clueless as to what was taking place in his head and said simply, "You know why."
He stepped away from her touch and turned towards her. Quietly he told her, "I don't. We weren't even working at the same network, or in the same city."
His use of selective memory frustrated her even more. "You seriously don't know?"
"How the hell would I know? We weren't speaking at the time, remember? You should. You caused it."
She should be immune to his verbal darts that always hit the mark, but she wasn't. "Yes, I did. I screwed up. I've admitted that over and over and over, including in several emails where I also talked about going."
"I told you. I didn't read them."
"You've only obsessed over the ones from before?"
"The ones during which you were sleeping with Brian? Yeah. The only ones that count."
"What did you see in them before I told you about Brian?"
"Does it matter?"
"It does to me," she pointed out quietly. "They were love letters."
"Only in the Machiavellian definition of the word," he threw back. "Which is why I didn't give a damn about the ones after."
Although he had said that before, she thought he was lying, trying to save face. Now she knew she was delusional. He hadn't read any of them. He truly did not care. "Then don't stand here and blame me for your ignorance when it was something you wanted." She turned away from him.
"MacKenzie…"
All she heard was condescension in his voice. She turned around, fire in her eyes. "You have no right to question me—question my decisions. You cut me out of your life. You left me sitting alone on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after midnight because I had the gall to want to start what I thought was going to be our life together—our marriage—with complete honesty between us. You didn't even allow me to explain. You turned your back on me and walked away… and you never looked back."
"Is that a question, Mac?" he asked, hands on his hips and defiance in his eyes that she would question that he was anything but justified in reacting like he did.
"No, it's not a question. It's a fact. At least be honest and admit it, Will."
"Alright. I admit it. Happy now?"
She shook her head. "Do you think this is how I want things to be with us—how I've ever wanted things between us?"
The hurt and anger in her voice apparently pierced his own fortress of emotions and he swore under his breath. "I know it's not," he acknowledged. "Why did you go?"
His anger and defiance disappeared as quickly as they came to be replaced by an almost pleading. However, still stinging from their exchange, she wasn't ready to give in completely. "It's been almost four years, why is it so important to you now?"
"It just is…. It just is." He returned to the window.
MacKenzie watched him again thrust his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. She was still clueless as to what was going on, but she could not take seeing him this way. She took a few steps towards him and hoping she could find the right words, she told him, "I came to hate producing and being in a newsroom; and Atlanta just wasn't for me. I was suffocating. D.C. was too painful, which, of course, is why I left there in the first place. New York obviously was not an option. So, I got out. It's what I know and what I'm good at."
He again turned towards her. "But it isn't what you want."
It would be pointless to lie to him. He knew well the history of her youth, of being moved from one diplomatic outpost to another: New York, Washington D.C., Russia, South Africa, and Hong Kong. Even after she entered Cambridge, her father continued to be assigned to various hotspots around the world. "No, it's not," she acknowledged. But she refused to look at his face, to let him see how vulnerable that admission made her feel.
Only he refused to leave it there. He closed the distance between them, tucked his chin and softened his expression as he said, "What you want is a home."
"Yes," she whispered.
She was startled when he stepped back as if he'd been burned. She was more surprised when he said, "You really left because of me?"
"Because of us, Billy. Because of us. And why didn't you just tell me that all you said in the voicemail was that I did a great job the night we got Bin Laden?"
"What?"
"You heard me. Why the act?"
"Is that what you think? Mac, I…."
"We're talking about the smallest of compliments, Will, and you can't acknowledge it in the light of day, even after all these months. I put my reputation on the line that night, and I did it for you." She sighed and threw up her hands. "Why the hell do I even bother?"
She turned and walked away. She wanted to go home but she would go to Hang Chew's. Otherwise Sloan would seek her out and ask questions she did not want to answer. And frankly, she had no answers.
