Chapter 18

10:10 Wednesday, August 28^th, 1991

28910 Matadero Creek Lane

Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

"San Francisco Post, how may I direct your call?"

"Melissa Penley, please." Deb waited patiently, with the call on the speakerphone while she typed.

Finally, the voice of the Society reporter came on the line. "Hello, what is it?"

Deb tsked quietly. "Melissa, I'm Deb Reineau, you'll remember me from a conversation we had last month, at the California Academy of Sciences."

The voice was now wary, guarded. "Yes ... I remember."

"Melissa, are you free for lunch today? I'll be in The City, and would like to discuss a proposition and a story." Come on, Melissa, it's only lunch ... I'm not buying your soul.

"Okay. But I can't stay long, it'll have to be close to the building."

Deb shook her head in amusement. "Okay, I've got just the place in mind."

The two arranged details, and Deb ended the call.

The waiter brought the menus and their water. Both women ordered unsweetened iced tea. Deb took her time choosing among the four varieties of Caesar salad, twelve varieties of soup, and three kinds of fruit plate, before settling on the French Dip. With fries.

Melissa frowned at the menu, and ordered a bacon cheeseburger, to Deb's approval and amusement. As the waiter left, there was a brief period of time while both women added Sweet-'n-Low and lemon to their glasses, then stirred.

"Okay, Melissa, you're wondering why we're here. Do you feel you've dead-ended in your career?"

The other woman blinked at her. "This is the job I've always wanted, dear."

Deb snorted. "Come on, Melissa, you can't bullshit a bullshitter. This is the top of one social circle, but there are others ... Washington, for one."

Melissa could not hide the gleam in her eye, Deb saw. Aha, I felt a nibble... "One way to get there is to be a political beat reporter."

Deb watched Melissa sniff, toying with the straw in her iced-tea glass.

"Another way is to follow a campaign, a rising star."

Melissa sat up, her tea forgotten. Oh, yes, a definite hit on the lure. "Who?"

Deb smiled at her. "Ground rules first."

Melissa nodded, reluctantly.

"Okay, I want generally sympathetic articles. Your editor has to understand that you're more-or-less exclusive, and thus we tell him more, and more often. You'll still do Society articles for about a year. When we go to Washington, you'll replace one of the beat reporters, your editor has to rely a little less on wire service, you'll get to ask me and the principal questions in private interview that you might otherwise miss. You'll warn us if other reporters are going to throw lowballs. In return, you ride our coattails."

Melissa moistened her lips with the straw, thinking, Deb saw. "How do I know you can do this?"

"Melissa. Look at me. The man I work for sits on how many boards? I played your tune fairly well, didn't I?"

Deb watched the other woman come to a decision. "Okay. Nothing binding, we can both walk away if it doesn't work out. I'm not going to commit to a long tour without it working out for me."

About what I expected, Deb thought. She smiled at the other woman while the food was placed on the table.

15:15 Wednesday, August 28^th, 1991

Rm 112 Barrows Hall

University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

Lenore was in her last Monday-Wednesday class for the week. She'd lucked out – her Fridays would be free, other than lab time, which for Business and Psychology classes were mostly study anyway. Well, Psychology would have some hands-on stuff to do, she reflected, and then cringed, since there would be some interviews with business leaders she'd need to do this semester, also. Which meant some 'lab' time.

The workload seemed to be OK, though she gritted her teeth with the Economics 141 class she had to take, since Cal didn't accept her Sterling Community College credit for Economics for a degree program. This Economics class had rote memorization and homework associated with it, and worse, there were several Midshipmen she recognized in the large lecture hall. Lenore fully expected to have to lead study groups, something she had been advised upperclass Midshipmen did. She tried to determine just when – not on Fridays – she'd run such a group, and came up with evenings – her Gunny-time – as the only option.

This class was going to be all right, though, Political Science 343, Current Events. Lenore was confident she could find a unique, and more importantly, mature, viewpoint amongst her circle of friends.

The girl next to Lenore seemed interesting enough, too, a student-athlete, Lenore gathered by the gym bag with books crammed into it, on top of Ace bandages and similar under the girl's chair.

When the lecturer told the class to find partners to work with for written debate, Lenore turned to the brunette, only to find she had turned to Lenore, also.

"Would you... ?"

"You want to?"

"I'm Lenore."

"Hi, I'm Denise."

Each smiled, and now Lenore felt as if she might have a friend at Berkeley. She wrote down her name, address, and phone in the corner of a class handout sheet, ready to give Denise after class.

At long last, the class ended, and Denise asked Lenore if she would like to go to the café in the MLK Student Union. Lenore had had to consult her map – it was only a few hundred yards away from where they were now in Barrows, but it lay in the opposite direction from the Hearst Gymnasium, where Lenore had parked the Gunny's truck in a Navy space.

Lenore suspected the parking police would leave the truck alone and not ticket it, on the strength of the red band under the DOD sticker on the windshield that read "NMC OAKLAND", but there would be days that she would have the BMW, and it had no windshield sticker. Besides, the sticker would expire eventually, she knew. A problem for another day, she decided.

Denise had waited for her to look at the map. "You're new to campus?"

Lenore allowed as to how that was so, having come from Texas.

Denise, quite naturally, wondered where Lenore lived, so Lenore gave her the address on the scrap of paper she'd torn off the class handout. The other girl looked confused when she read the address.

"Yeah, it's not the greatest section of town, but it has benefits," Lenore told her. "My boyfriend, for one."

Denise nodded, but Lenore had seen the intense curiosity on the other's face. "Meet me tomorrow for lunch," Lenore offered, "in that café in the King Student Union, at, say..." Lenore did some fast reflection, "thirteen hundred. I've got to run, I have to go to my office."

Lenore left a very surprised maybe-friend behind, as she trotted toward the Hearst Gym parking lot.

16:40 Wednesday, August 28^th, 1991