Scoops, Part I News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. - Evelyn Waugh
A1: Politics
Julian’s dressing room was small and cramped and lilac. Very, very lilac. Joe was not sure if it was just the overabundance of the color, or something to do with the sweet smells of perfume and expensive face powder and cold cream which seemed to have permeated the very walls, but the smoothest, least broken expanses of lilac had actually begun to shimmer if he looked at them too long.
To remedy this, he put down the stack of hat-boxes Julian had shoved at him in a panic before running out of the room and applied the end of his own humble shoe, which he was sure was faintly embarrassed to be so close to Julian’s much less humble shoe rack, to his brother’s ribs. “Give me part of that,” he ordered.
John continued scowling at the page he was reading, but moved one hand to extract another section of the newspaper and toss it toward Joe. Upon examination, it proved to be the Society Bee. The majority of the front page was covered in a picture of a smiling girl whose eyebrows, hairline, and smile all appeared to have been surgically altered, followed by a headline about whether or not she would be involved in the engagement of the year. Joe scowled at John.
“What the hell is this?” he asked crossly.
“A reason not to kick me in future,” said John.
Joe huffed in annoyance, but John either didn’t or pretended not to notice. Normally Joe would have suspected the latter, but a moment later, his brother offered some justification for thinking the former when he burst out, “Can you believe this?”, rattling his own portion of the paper to indicate what he meant.
“I have no idea,” said Joe, “unless it involves the engagement of the year.”
John rose from the floor and handed Joe the main paper. “Look at this,” he demanded.
Joe skimmed the indicated article. From the looks of it, some junior minister had made remarks recently stating that Muggleborns were the reason the Ministries needed to tighten restrictions on some potion ingredients and institute harsher penalties for adults who were proven to have dosed another with love potions. “It’s not exactly fun to read, but it’s not really news, either,” he said.
“It’s vile is what it is,” said John crossly. “Of course love potions should be illegal, but it’s got nothing to do with this - it’s - people will act like you either have to be for that or okay with this kind of rhetoric.”
“John,” said Julian, sweeping back in with a heavy-looking box with a lock on the front in her hands, “add ‘rhetoric’ to the list of words you’re forbidden to use until we get back from Europe.”
“Okay,” said John. “This kind of bulls - “
“Much better,” said Julian approvingly, carefully tucking her box into the open trunk John had recently been using as a footrest. “What kind of b.s. are we talking about?”
“Some racist asshat said a racist thing in the paper,” said Joe. “John’s offended by both the remark and the fact that other people don’t share all his combined views.” John glared at Joe.
“What? She’s busy, she’s got to pack...a large chunk of whatever all this is. She needed the short version.”
Julian laughed. “Thank you, Joe,” she said.
John leaned against the frilly little white table with the mysterious products and an empty teapot on it until Julian gave him a look to match the sort Mom would have given a child who appeared inattentive at Mass. “I hoped things would be better since the New Boss got to town,” he grumbled.
Julian laughed again, but this time scornfully. “That was stupid of you,” she said, now opening one of the hatboxes to re-examine its contents for the third time since John and Joe had showed up to discover that she had forgotten having invited them over for tea in her anxiety over her packing. “Any time the old boss isn’t the same as the new boss, it just means all the sub-bosses are going be the exact opposite of him.”
John appeared to struggle to translate all the ‘bosses’ into terms he could understand for a moment before giving up. “What does that even mean?” he asked finally.
“That you should stop reading newspapers and just go on praying for the Second Coming,” said Julian, sweeping out again. John glared at the paper for a moment longer before turning the page. Joe, for lack of anything better to do, began reading the Society Bee.
The engagement of the year struck him as a profoundly boring topic, dealing as it did entirely with people he didn’t know the least thing about, but the shorter articles in the section proved surprisingly interesting – albeit more in what they didn’t say than in what they did. The innuendos and snide asides and connections. And then, a surprise.
“Hey,” he said. “This is about Lenore.”
John looked up sharply. “That so?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Joe. Julian walked back in just as Joe began reading aloud from the article, “The latest reports are that the reclusive Miss Crowley may destroy her carefully-developed reputation for arrogant aloofness for that most common of motives – profit – “
“You’re not really reading that nonsense, are you?” asked Julian.
“What’s it about?” asked John.
“Oh, just another potential husband. I don’t think it’s anything serious – I don’t think Lenore will ever marry, and I don’t think they do, either. It just drives them mad that she wouldn’t give a penny for their thoughts.” Julian lifted the lid of a hatbox to re-examine its contents for the fourth time since John and Joe had showed up to discover that she had forgotten having invited them over for tea in her anxiety over her packing. “Everyone here is obsessed with that thing – I think most of them would rather have the Bee say something awful about them than nothing at all.”
“Priorities,” scoffed John.
“Indeed.”
“Where is she, anyway?” asked John.
Joe looked at his brother in some surprise, as expressing curiosity about others was somewhat unusual for John. Julian, however, was too distracted holding a brooch with a pale yellow stone up to the band of the hat in the open box to notice this, or show it if she did. “Who, Lenore? Visiting family in Istanbul.”
“She’s allowed to do that?” asked John, surprising Joe yet further. “I thought her parents getting hitched involved her dad killing this guy and getting booted from the diplomatic community and assorted melodrama.”
“It did,” said Julian absently, putting the brooch back on her dressing table. “But most of Ceyda’s family was killed by goblins, and since they failed to prevent that from making her independently wealthy, the handful of cousins she still has are all amazingly forgiving about her marrying a disgraced Anglo-Haitian-Canadian diplomat under those circumstances.”
“Money is the root of all evil,” observed John, with just enough sarcasm to prevent Julian from exploding.
“It’s the reason we exist,” said Julian. A complicated-looking bracelet with more yellow stones, these a bit darker than the one in the brooch, slid up and down her wrist as she picked up a short-sleeved, heathered pink dress. “Should I bring this?” she asked them.
“Only if you’re deliberately trying to look even more like Jackie O. than the hats and pearls already make you do,” said John, a bit snidely.
“Go away,” said Julian. “Go make us some more tea, for goodness’ sake, I need something for my nerves. I have to have all this done and tea ready in the Blue Room before William gets home.”
When William came home from work every afternoon, he and Julian had tea in the Blue Room, so called because one of her ancestors had for some reason decided it would be a good idea to lacquer the walls and ceiling bright blue. Bright, bright blue, covering the fireplace and the built-in bookcases and the molding. Julian had liked this room a great deal from the first time she’d seen it, and so it was where they had tea in the evenings, surrounded by blue walls, seated on maple furniture with cream-colored upholstery decorated with a chintz of red roses and across from each other at a tiny octagonal bamboo table with a glass top covered in a lace doily. The tea set they used at this daily gathering, kept in this room for that express purpose, was decorated with a border of strawberries and blueberries, picking up both colors of the room. In summer, as it was now, the French doors were opened to allow air and light in, and if Julian was not already standing beside the tea table ready to pour for them both when William walked in, it was because she was just opening those doors and turning back toward the table. Nothing about this arrangement ever changed: not the timing, not the china, not the tea and cream wafers and toast and marmalade Julian served. The only difference was in which tea dress Julian wore and whether or not the French doors were open or not.
* * * * * * * *
A2: Letters to the Editor
”No man,” Julian had mumbled from the bed as William had gotten ready for work this morning, ”has as much work as one who’s trying to go on vacation.”
William did not, as a rule, give his wife much credit for insight into the human condition, but he thought he might have to give her a little more for that observation alone. He was cursing the stack of reports and forms in front of him when he heard a rap at his office door and looked up to see, to his surprise, someone he’d almost consider a friend. “Steve,” he said in surprise, smiling and rising from his seat. “What’re you doing here? Come in, come in. How’ve you been?”
“Got a job on this floor,” said Stephen jokingly as they shook hands. “You? Looking forward to seeing Europe with the great political orator, I assume?”
“Looking forward to seeing Europe, sure,” said William, half-smiling in confusion, now. “Except I don’t think there’ll be any great political orators involved. Just me and my wife and some of her family.”
“You’re being too modest about your wife’s accomplishments,” said Stephen. “She ripped Schuyler a new one in that op-ed.” William continued frowning politely, and slowly, Stephen’s smile faded slightly. “Welles - you do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” he asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said William.
As Stephen explained, William’s eyes drifted to the diptych on his desk, one side showing a picture of him and Julian at their engagement party and the other side showing them on their wedding day. Julian kept saying they’d have to take an absolutely perfect picture on their first anniversary, while they were still in England, to make a triptych, to which he always laughingly argued that if they did that, they’d eventually end up with an iconostasis on his desk.
Maybe there were advantages to going on vacation after all.
* * * * * * * *
When William came home from work every afternoon, he and Julian had tea in the Blue Room, so called because one of her ancestors had for some reason decided it would be a good idea to lacquer the walls and ceiling bright blue. Bright, bright blue, covering the fireplace and the built-in bookcases and the molding. William would have included that in the list of things to be remodeled in this part of the house, the part he and Julian mostly lived in, but Julian liked the blue room, and so this was where they had tea in the evenings, surrounded by blue walls, seated on maple furniture with cream-colored upholstery decorated with a chintz of red roses and across from each other at a tiny octagonal bamboo table with a glass top covered in a lace doily. The tea set they used at this gathering, kept in this room for that express purpose, was decorated with a border of strawberries and blueberries, picking up both colors of the room. In summer, as it was now, the French doors were opened to allow air and light in, and if Julian was not already standing beside the tea table ready to pour for them both when he walked in, it was because she was just opening those doors and turning back toward the table. Nothing about this arrangement ever changed: not the timing, not the china, not the tea and cream wafers and toast and marmalade Julian served. The only difference was in which dress his wife wore and whether or not the French doors were open or not.
William realized something was wrong, then, as soon as he entered the Blue Room and realized the doors were not open. Next, he noticed that the little octagonal table was not only not laid with plain Ceylon tea, crisp toast, orange marmalade, a tiny sugar bowl for him, and cream wafers, it wasn’t even in its usual spot; Julian had dragged it over by the rose-chintz sofa, where of the normal accoutrements, it had only the teapot and one saucer on it. Then he noticed that Julian was not wearing a tea dress, but a button-down blouse and jeans, the kind of thing she wore around the house in the mornings when she didn’t go to Mass. There were papers on the table and on the sofa beside her, and she was holding her teacup improperly, between both hands as though to warm them.
They looked at each other for a moment in silence. William broke it first. “I assume that’s your fan mail about your news debut?” he asked.
“Some of it is,” said Julian, her tone even more artificially casual than his own. She sipped at her tea. “Apparently I really get reactions from people,” she said, waving vaguely toward the envelopes and papers surrounding her.
“What were you thinking?” he asked.
“Schuyler made that remark at a committee meeting being such a jackass, and it upset the boys,” said Julian. “I didn’t even think anyone would notice anything I said, or even publish it - I just dashed the thing off because I thought it would cheer the boys up for me to try.”
‘The boys.’ John and Joe, that was, and perhaps Paul - but she usually meant her younger brothers when she spoke of ‘the boys’ as a group. A good name, too, and easy enough still to call Julian just ‘one of the boys’ - she did not maintain the reserve proper for a woman dealing with a pair of children, instead treating them both as equals, confidantes and conspirators, simply because they were her brothers. Sometimes he found the sheer depths of her family-dependent immaturity amusing; at the moment, he wanted to slap her.
“You wrote a letter to the editor essentially calling a regional junior minister a bigot to cheer up the boys?” asked William incredulously. “And didn’t even think to tell me?”
“Why would I tell you? You always laugh at me if I even mention politics. Everyone does except Mom and Joe….”
“There’s a difference between you trying to discuss the newspaper at dinner and you getting involved in politics! I never would have allowed - “
“Allowed?” The question was asked in a very neutral tone of voice as she looked at him now over her teacup. Knowing that he had offended her limited, half-baked sensibilities only angered him further.
“Julian, this could affect my career!”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” said Julian irritably. “Your career will benefit from the publicity, if anything - and I don’t really expect it to warrant anything.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on, William,” said Julian impatiently. “You enter incident tickets and answer regular letters. You’ve got one person reporting to you. You’re not important enough for anyone to bother punishing for what I say.”
“And who do I have to thank for that?” he snapped.
“You’re really going to try that line again?” asked Julian. “Really? I’m sick and tired of it.”
“And I’m sick and tired of being treated like an afterthought,” shouted William. “Of you doing whatever you please and not thinking how it will affect me, or what I’ll think of it - “
“If I’d known you were going to disagree with me so much now, I wouldn’t have married you!” snapped Julian, but then went pale, seeming to realize what she’d just said. William was momentarily stunned - he hadn’t realized she was bright enough to notice that he’d been much more agreeable before they were married - but quickly recovered to press the momentary advantage before it flitted away.
“So that’s it, then?” he asked. “You jump on the slightest turn of phrase from me because you think you’re the one who ought to unilaterally make decisions - what? Just because you own this house? Which, incidentally, you’d have panicked and sold back to your cousins for half of what it’s worth if I hadn’t explained the situation to you? How very traditional of you, my dear,” he said with the suggestion of a sneer.
“William - “
“No – be proud of yourself,” he encouraged her angrily. “Why deny it? What do you have to lose by doing so? Sit back and enjoy yourself, your handful of power – “
He expected her to crumble before that, or else launch the nearest heavy object directly toward his head, but instead, she lashed back. “If I’m all that, then, why did you marry me?” she demanded.
“That’s an excellent question,” said William after only a fractional hesitation, not feeling quite safe in taking any path and so aiming for her insecurity instead before stalking out of the Blue Room to regroup.