“I’m not defending him now.I agree with you, Pam.He’s gone too far this time.”
“He didn’t tell you beforehand?”
Hillary shook her head.
“Bastard,” Pam whispered viciously.“But that’s nothing new.What’s new is his engagement.After all this time, after everything he’s achieved, it doesn’t make sense.”There was an urgency in her voice.“What is he after?I’ve been trying to figure it out, but nothing fits.John isn’t the marrying kind.He’s too much of a loner.Surrounded by people, yet alone—that’s John in a nutshell.He could never abide having any one person around for long.So what’s changed?”
Hillary had asked herself the same question dozens of times since the20/20airing.“Maybe he’s going through the midlife crisis he didn’t have time for ten years ago.”
“Maybe.Maybe he’s suddenly thinking of his own mortality, wanting his headstone to read ‘beloved husband.’But if so, he’s got the wrong woman.I know Janet Curry.Her credentials are impeccable.She’s like one of the old marble buildings that line Commonwealth Avenue—smooth, stately, and cold.I can’t imagine anything ‘beloved’ about a relationship between those two.”She sighed.“John has never been known to do the unexpected, but this certainly was.”
“Have you spoken with him?”Hillary asked, careful to keep her anxiety in check.Over the years she had often used Pam as a source of information about John.Pam never minded, particularly since the information-sharing was mutual.
She nodded.“Saturday.Briefly.He accepted my congratulationslike he does everything else—as though it’s his due.Of course, he thought I was congratulating him on the show.The man is incredible.”It wasn’t a compliment, but then, nothing Pam said about John ever was.So easy with compliments to others, she found little to like about him.“His reflexes don’t seem to work like other people’s.We may have the same father, but I’m telling you, he comes from somewhere strange.No matter that he just popped the surprise announcement of the decade, all he wanted to talk about was the program.”
“I can understand why.”
Pam looked disgusted.“So can I.Have you ever seen anything so one-sided?He managed that interview the way he’s managed things all his life.He’s a master at manipulation.He never enters a situation where he doesn’t have full control.He must have set certain ground rules that20/20had to follow if they wanted the interview.”
“They must have wanted it badly.”
“I’m sure they did.They had reason.We’ve been asked to provide pieces for the First Family’s trip to Moscow.”
That was the first Hillary had heard of it.“Exciting!”she said and meant it, though she felt another deep twinge of envy.Pam’s star was rising,alwaysrising—while Hillary was still waiting for hers to get off the ground.
“Coverage will be live,” Pam explained, “which means that the reporters will have to fill the dead spots with trivia like clothes and jewelry.”
“Trivia.”Even if Hillary had had no interest in jewelry, and even when she was at her most begrudging, she couldn’t think of Pam’s work as trivia.It was too beautiful.And too costly.She couldn’t afford to buy it herself.The only reason she was wearing a Pamela St.George Original—a bold ring with a single green tourmaline set in ceramic—was that Pam had given it to her as a gift.Not John.Pam.
“Believe me, I’m thrilled to be considered trivia,” Pam remarked.“Can you imagine the publicity we’ll be getting?Free publicity?So20/20decided to scoop theFacetsstory before the reporters got it.Apparently the producers were willing to compromise.”
“And go by John’s rules.”
“What else explains it?John has enemies.God only knows he has enemies.So why wasn’t20/20able to find them?”
“He must have given them a list of who they could talk with.”
“My name sure wasn’t on it,” Pam drawled.
“If it had been, would you have spilled the beans?”
“You bet!”she exclaimed with characteristic impulsiveness, then caught herself in the next breath and sat back in her chair looking torn.
Hillary wasn’t surprised by Pam’s ambivalence.On one hand, Pam’s grievances against John were far from minor.She thought he was a rat and had called him just that many times, particularly in the days before she’d been sophisticated enough to have other words on the tip of her tongue in moments of her undisciplined fury.Hillary had been the one to defend John, to point out that he had doubled, then tripled and quadrupled the net worth of the business, that he paid every cent of the taxes he owed, that he gave handsomely to charity.She had been his champion in allbut the most defenseless of his misdeeds, some of which had been directly aimed at Pam.
On the other hand, John was still the ultimate power behind the St.George Company and, hence,Facets.Pam could easily pick up her designs and go elsewhere, but Hillary doubted she would.Even if it weren’t a matter of respect for the memory of her father and the company he’d started, there was the matter of John’s wrath.
“You’re afraid of him,” she mused, more in sympathy than accusation.
“Not as much as I used to be.”
“But you wouldn’t have spoken with20/20.You’re too good a person.If you’d agreed to be interviewed, you’d have had to choose between slandering John or lying through your teeth.You couldn’t have done either.”She paused, sat back in her chair, linked her fingers tightly, took a breath.“I can, Pam.And I’m going to.I’m going to write a book about him.”
Pam was startled.“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.”
Pam considered that for a minute.She was wary.“What kind of book?”
