Every Wild Heart Read online

  How would anyone find the post, she wondered? The point was for everyone who saw TheKirkeLurk7’s posts to see hers, too. She wanted to drown out the Lurk’s posts with something better, messages that would build up her peers instead of tear them down. She thought for a moment and then added the hashtags “kirkekudos” and “kirkeschool” at the bottom of her photo caption. Then she posted it.

  The angry heat within her waned a little, pooling into a golden light that made her think of the dress that her mother had given her. Maybe she would go shopping when she was staying with her father that weekend. Her wardrobe had so little color.

  She spent the rest of the car ride searching Instagram for schoolmates to follow, and watching as her own account’s followers list grew.

  Chapter 15

  When Shayne told me that Lev Curtain wanted to meet for dinner at Beretta in the Mission, I was surprised. I’d expected he’d pick one of San Francisco’s fancier restaurants in one of its shinier neighborhoods—Farallon in Union Square or Spruce in Presidio Heights or Acquerello in Nob Hill. Those were the sorts of restaurants where people who wanted me to sign contracts generally wooed me, I suppose acting on a misguided assumption that famous people felt most comfortable sitting in front of small portions of expensive food. Still, I usually signed the contracts, because contracts meant more (more reach, more money, more middle fingers to the memory of my parents’ lack of belief in me), but the truth was that those fancy restaurants made me acutely aware that I was doing business with people who did not know me at all.

  Beretta, however, was one of my favorite restaurants in the city. It had great pizza, an interesting cocktail menu, and was dark and loud, which was how I preferred my public spaces. I’d probably mentioned my affinity for the place a half-dozen times on my show, so the fact that Lev Curtain asked me to meet him there told me that he—or one of his assistants—actually did tune in on occasion.

  I was in for another pleasant surprise when the Beretta hostess led me through the restaurant on Saturday night. A man was seated at the table already, but I didn’t think that there was any way he was the head of programming for ZoneTV. Instead of an expensive suit, this guy wore a white T-shirt that showed off the sleeves of faded tattoos that covered his arms. He wasn’t Los Angeles buff either, but thick in a way that made me think he prioritized steak over kale. A slight stubble of gray emerged from his buzzed head. I wondered if he was Lev Curtain’s security guard. Maybe Lev was in the bathroom. Or waiting outside in his car, making imperative calls about ZoneTV’s new slate of reality shows.

  But then the man caught sight of me approaching and sprang nimbly to his feet.

  “Gail Gideon!” he boomed in a voice that contained so much gravel that by comparison when I responded, my own gritty voice sounded practically sweet.

  “Lev Curtain?”

  We shook hands. Around us, diners were in various states of staring and pretending not to stare. “Sorry about blowing your cover,” Lev said, leaning toward me and lowering his voice as much as it seemed he was capable. “I got excited. I’m a fan.”

  “My agent mentioned that,” I said. We sat down at the table. “I thought she was just being good at her job.”

  Lev’s laugh was like the crack of a whip. “Shayne is a good agent. She held my balls over the coals to get you more money.”

  “That sounds unpleasant.”

  He shrugged, a twinkle in his eye. “Not as much as you might think.” He gestured at the drink in front of me. “I remembered the show where you mentioned that you enjoyed this place’s Kentucky Mule, so I took the liberty.”

  Now I was truly impressed. We clinked our glasses and I took a long drink. The delicious burn of bourbon and ginger slid down my throat. Over the rim of the glass, I considered Lev’s bulky form and felt a shiver of excitement for all of the food that I suspected we were about to order.

  IN THE END, we somehow managed to polish off two and a half pizzas while talking nonstop about everything, it seemed, except G.G. (Fall in love with the single you!). When Lev said he was into live music, we talked for an hour about the shows we’d seen, which bands were better in the studio and which were better in concert. And then Lev mentioned that he’d gone to college in San Francisco and had extensive knowledge of the city’s dive bars. He recommended a few that I had never heard of, and I made a mental note to check them out.

  “The thing I used to love about dive bars,” he said, “was that they played music I didn’t hear almost anywhere else, and the drinks were cheap.” He lifted his drink—we were on our third round—and took a sip. “Now, I love that they’re the only place that I can go where I’m never the oldest guy in the room. There’s always some salty old bastard in the corner, grumbling about how he doesn’t need to be cut off, he’s perfectly fine, goddammit.”

  “I love that guy,” I said.

  It was only when the pizzas were cleared that Lev leaned back in his seat, wincingly patted his belly, and said, “I want to fly you down to the lot sometime soon so I can show you around, maybe toss around some set ideas. I’m thinking we design something that’s a little edgy, very G.G., but, you know, accessible enough for a wide range of viewers.”

  Accessible. I appreciated what Lev was saying, but at the same time I had always felt that my radio show was a success for the very reason that I did not try to change myself to appeal to anyone or everyone. My draw was my authenticity. The piece of me that I shared on the radio was just that: only a piece of me. But that piece was, truly, me.

  I pictured an even more watered-down version of myself sitting in an expensive leather chair that some design assistant had rubbed ever so carefully with sandpaper to make it look lived-in. At Hawke Media, my studio had ugly maroon walls and a matching carpet. The bathroom was papered in concert posters. Years ago, I’d draped a pelt of gray fake fur over my rolling chair, and ever since Simone had referred to it as the Rat Throne. I’d never felt quite as fondly about the studio as I did in that moment when Lev spoke of creating an accessible set.

  “I’ve never worked in front of a camera before,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “Just think of the camera as your studio mic. Anyway, I saw your Barbara Walters interview last year—you’re gorgeous and the camera loves you.”

  I wanted to take the compliment to heart—I hated when women couldn’t accept a nice word about themselves—but I was suddenly questioning if Lev’s casual T-shirt and talk of music and dive bars was the real him. It wasn’t hard to imagine how his cropped gray hair would play in a glitzy corner office, his tattoos covered by a shiny suit, his sizable bulk suddenly less bar bouncer and more corporate shark. My mind wandered back to the comments Nic had made earlier that week about my music collection, and how Hawke Media didn’t know what they were missing.

  “What about music?” I asked abruptly.

  “The show’s music? We’ll have something new created for you. You’ll have approval.”

  “But what if I wanted to incorporate music into the actual show format?”

  Lev seemed puzzled. “Like an in-studio DJ? Like the dance intros Ellen does?”

  I shook my head. The truth was that even I didn’t know exactly what I meant, but I knew that I didn’t mean dancing around the studio like Ellen DeGeneres. I already felt like The Gail Gideon Show was confining, and I was beginning to realize that G.G. the television show would have even tighter parameters.

  Perhaps sensing that he was losing me, Lev leaned forward, his forearms pressing into the table. “Listen, we’ll figure out a way to make this show reflective of you and your message. Nobody wants to turn you into someone you’re not. We want you because you’re you. You’ll steer the ship. You’re the boss here, G.G.”

  I nodded, but, frankly, by that point I smelled bullshit. The person who was the boss was the person who signed the check; the employee was the one who cashed it.

  WHEN I GOT home, I grabbed a beer from the fridge, pulled PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me” from my wall o
f music and placed it in the stereo, kicked off my boots, and lay back on the couch. If I didn’t take the offer from ZoneTV, what would I do? Now that I’d admitted to myself that The Gail Gideon Show no longer charged me the way it once had, it was harder than ever to imagine signing the upcoming renewal contract with Hawke Media. I could do nothing for the rest of my life and be fine financially, but that idea appealed to me even less than manning the helm of an accessible ZoneTV talk show.

  I’d almost drifted to sleep when my cell phone rang. For a moment I felt uncomfortably aware that I was home alone. On Friday, Rebecca, the director of Hawke Media’s IT department, had told me that the threatening email that I’d received had been sent from an Apple store in Burlingame, a suburb south of the city, and the text that I’d received at Kirke had been sent from an app that blocked the senders’ contact information. So basically all we knew was that at least one of my charming stalkers was in the Bay Area.

  I picked up my phone, and felt a wave of relief when I saw Tyler’s name on the caller ID.

  “Did Nic steal another car?” I asked. I’d filled him in on Nic’s run-in with the Kirke law on Friday.

  He laughed. “No,” he said. “Not as far as I know. She seems great, actually, other than the near-constant sulking.”

  “She’s still sulking? I thought she turned a corner when I told her we’d see what Dr. Feldman said about her riding again.”

  “Riding? No, this seems to be about having the babysitter around at night again. She hates feeling like she’s taken a step back in terms of the amount of freedom and responsibility she’s allowed. Obviously if I had my way, she’d be trailed by a babysitter and a medical team for her entire life. But, G.G., the way she spoke up for herself today, pleading her case . . . She was calm and thoughtful and articulate and it took every ounce of restraint that I had not to interrupt her with hugs every other minute.”

  I released a sound that was half-laugh, half-sigh. This was one of the things I missed most about Tyler: being able to co-parent with him, to share in the admiration of and the concern for the person that we had created together.

  “I know exactly what you mean, but I’m still not sure she should be left home alone right now.” I told him about the call to the studio, the email, the text, and Roy’s broken headlights. As I listed these events, I heard how loosely connected they sounded and began to question myself. Was I making this all into a bigger deal than it actually was? Had Nic’s accident spooked me into worrying about things that I would have previously blown off?

  “You have to go on living your life, and so does Nic, but I think a bit of security would put both of our minds at ease,” Tyler said. “What if we had a guard outside the house? That way, we’ll know someone is keeping an eye on things when you’re at work, but Nic won’t feel as though we’re treating her like a little kid who needs a babysitter.”

  I knew Adam, the head of security at Hawke Media, would agree with Tyler, and I had to admit that in that very moment I wouldn’t have minded if a security guard were keeping watch outside. I told Tyler that I’d arrange to have someone in place by the time Nic arrived home from the barn on Monday.

  He sounded relieved. “Nic is going to be so happy. I’ll tell her now. They’re all down in the family room watching a movie.”

  They. Nic and her brothers and Lonnie. I didn’t think that I would ever get used to the idea that Tyler and Nic had another family. I didn’t begrudge Nic this; she loved them and they loved her and I wanted my daughter’s life to brim with every kind of happiness, even the kind that excluded me.

  I said goodnight to Tyler and put down my phone.

  The CD had finished playing. The house was silent. I drank the final sip of my beer and went to bed.

  ON MY WAY to Corcoran Stables the next day, I called Simone to let her know that I’d decided not to take the ZoneTV deal.

  “Really?” she asked. “Are you sure? You’re going to sign the renewal with Hawke Media?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” In the bit of silence that followed, I imagined my friend contemplating herself out of a job.

  “I’m ready to tackle something new,” I said quickly, “but whatever that is I think we should do it as a team. We built The Gail Gideon Show together. I don’t want to take this next leap without you.” What I meant was that I loved her. One of the things I enjoyed most about my job was that I did it with her. But she was my best friend, and she already knew all of this.

  “What do you have in mind?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But I’ve been thinking a lot about music.”

  “Music . . . ?”

  “That’s all I have so far.”

  “Okay,” Simone said, laughing. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  When she asked what I was doing that day, I admitted that I was on my way to Corcoran Stables.

  “Isn’t this Tyler’s weekend with Nic?”

  “Yes. I’m going to see the owner of the barn. We’re having lunch.”

  “You’re having lunch with the owner of the barn.”

  “Yup.”

  “Wait a minute,” Simone said. “Is this who you’ve been talking to all week before we go on air? The calls that keep making you late for production meetings?”

  I laughed. “I call the barn to check on Nic, and then I find I can’t get off the phone with him! It’s the strangest thing. I’ve known him for years . . . since I was a kid.”

  “I can’t believe you’re just telling me now! What’s his name?”

  “Denny.”

  “Stop it.”

  I laughed. “No, really. That’s his name. Denny Corcoran.”

  “I’m picturing Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer. Please tell me I’m right.”

  I thought of Denny, his softly graying brown hair and his olive skin and the lines that etched his forehead. I didn’t even know what color eyes he had—I’d never noticed. But I knew for sure that he didn’t look like Robert Redford. He looked better. Why had it taken me so many years to realize this?

  “Yes, of course,” I told Simone. “He looks just like Robert Redford.”

  She let out a low whistle. “Thank God,” she said. “You desperately need a real man. In fact, I think you should exclusively date cowboys from here on out. A cowboy couldn’t possibly give a shit about you being famous. He’d happily live in your shadow . . . until the cows come home! And he’d be perfectly comfortable riding your coattails!” She was laughing so hard she barely managed to choke this out.

  “I have to go,” I said, smiling. The turn for Corcoran Stables was just ahead. “But for the record, Denny doesn’t own any cows.”

  IN ALL MY years visiting Corcoran Stables, I’d never been to the Corcoran house. I’d never even seen it. At a certain point the driveway forked; one road led to the barn, and the other led up a slight hill toward the house. As the road curved upward, and just before a line of trees blocked the view, the ocean was visible in the distance.

  It turned out to be a pretty two-story Victorian farmhouse with a wraparound porch and a crisp white gabled roof that cut into the blue sky. Denny’s muck-crusted boots were on the mat in front of the yellow door as though he’d stepped right out of them and walked inside. The whole thing looked like a postcard. I heard a dog bark. Denny opened the door before I even had a chance to knock and I felt my heart do a little fishtail-flick thing that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “Hey,” he said. “You made it.” He held open the door, smiling out at me from below a Giants baseball hat that was faded to gray and frayed around its edges. He might have had that hat for years, or it might have just barely survived a single horse trampling. Denny’s mammoth black dog was at his side, wagging his tail and grinning up at me. Behind them, I caught glimpses of honey-colored wood floorboards and a staircase with a curving white banister.

  Denny held open the door wider and the dog padded out to sniff my boots. “You know Bear, right?”


  “Sure, but this is our first formal introduction.” He was an easy dog to pet since he came up to my waist.

  “Alright, Bear, go find your own girl.” Denny took hold of Bear’s collar. “Come on in. This spaghetti isn’t going to eat itself.”

  I unlaced my boots and stepped past Denny into the hall. He shut the door behind me and then neither of us seemed to know quite what to do with ourselves. After a moment, I stood on my toes and put one hand on his shoulder and lightly kissed his cheek. It was . . . disappointingly awkward.

  “Thanks for the invitation,” I said.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  I was seriously considering walking outside and calling him on my phone so that we could have the sort of conversation that we’d been having all week. But then Denny rocked back on his heels, smiled, and said, “Maybe the business of eating will help.”

  I nodded. “I’m starving.”

  As I followed him down the hall, I caught a glimpse of the den, a cozy-looking room with a large fireplace flanked by worn leather armchairs. Above the fireplace was a beautiful black-and-white photograph of a horse’s face. Its eyes were dark pools reflecting specks of light.

  When we walked into the kitchen, I heard Patti Smith on the stereo and smiled. Rain began to batter the window. We looked at each other, surprised. A moment earlier the sun had been out.

  “Strange to have so much rain early in the season,” said Denny, almost to himself, which was when I noticed the sheet of dough stretched across the kitchen counter.

  “Is that homemade pasta?”

  He grinned. “It’s a hobby.” He gestured to the small round table in the corner of the kitchen where a bottle of wine stood between two place settings. “Have a seat, pour yourself a glass of wine . . . this will only take a minute.”

  “Denny,” I said. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a spectator.” I rolled up my sleeves and washed my hands in the big white sink. “Teach me everything you know.”

  And he did. Well, not everything. But he taught me how to flatten the dough between the pasta machine’s rollers and how to swap out the rollers for cutters and send the flattened sheet back through the machine and then catch the cut ribbons of pasta in my open palms. We moved together side by side, linked by spaghetti, from the pasta machine to the pot of boiling water and let the spaghetti roll from our hands. The entire time, I felt acutely aware of his body, strong and warm beside mine. Two minutes later, he pulled the pasta from the water with tongs and spun it around in a large porcelain bowl with a few hunks of butter, a sprinkle of parsley and black pepper, and a healthy spoonful of grated Parmesan cheese. The pasta was still steaming as he portioned it into two bowls and set them on the table. He took off his hat and hooked it on the back of his chair, then ran his hand through his hair. The rain drummed the window. Denny poured the wine. I wondered how many women—the other divorced mothers of his riding students, perhaps—had been treated to this display of culinary magic. I decided that it didn’t matter. None of them were there now. It was just the two of us. And Bear snoring beside the table.