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Keith has had a sick, nervous feeling in his stomach since eleven o'clock this morning, and he hasn't eaten since breakfast. He wishes he could blame his lack of concentration on hunger pains, but as he half-listens to his producer counting him back from commercial, a late dinner is the furthest thing from his mind.
"And in tonight's number one story," he's saying, but his mind is about five minutes ahead of his mouth, already focused on the toss. As he reads from the TelePrompTer, he is trying to tell himself that Rachel will be there in a few minutes, smiling uncomfortably from the other side of the feed while he does his level damnedest to embarrass her. He hasn't heard from her all day, but he tells himself that she is okay, that maybe she is busy, so busy she forgot how much he fears for her safety these days.
Nineteen hours have passed since she last called him, declaring, "I have arrived home safely and without incident." Over the phone line, Keith had heard the thunk-click of her key turning in her lock. "Will you be able to sleep soundly now, or do you want me to sing you a lullaby?"
"Whatever you do, please don't sing," he had told her. "I don't need another thing to have nightmares about. Just call me when you get to work tomorrow."
"Deal," she had said, but the deal had gone unfulfilled. No phone call, no text, no e-mail. Keith had even turned on the radio at ten after six, but her voice was nowhere on the dial. That was when he started popping antacids, stopping only moments before going on the air.
As he draws the final segment to a close, the sick feeling in his gut intensifies. He isn't sure what he'll do if he sees Shuster in Rachel's chair, behind her desk.
"That's it for Countdown for this, the one hundred and eighty-first day since the proposal of the twenty-eighth amendment," he says, and tonight he balls up his script with shaking hands. "I'm Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck."
He throws the crumpled up paper at the camera and says with a certainty he doesn't feel, "Our MSNBC coverage continues now with Rachel Maddow, host of the aptly-titled Rachel Maddow Show. Good evening, Rachel."
He bites the bullet and glances at the monitor, the sickness in his stomach rising to his throat before his brain registers that, yes, that is Rachel he's seeing and, yes, that is her voice saying, "Good evening, Keith."
"Oh, sure, now it's 'Good evening, Keith,'" he says, a forced lightness to his tone, and that's when he realizes she isn't offering the embarrassed, apologetic smile that would be a sure way to guarantee his forgiveness. The slight upward curve of her lips is forced, and he can see in her eyes that something is wrong, and he is quick to rescue her from having to force any lighthearted banter. "Well, you can just change that to 'Good-bye, Keith,' because I've got places to be. Have a good show."
"Thank you, Keith," she says, dismissing him with a slight wave, and Keith isn't even sure the camera on him has cut before he's jumping out of his seat and ripping off his mic pack.
The walk to Rachel's set feels like something from a nightmare. The halls outside his own studio are miles longer than he remembers, stretching before his eyes as he walks the once-familiar path. His feet are leaden, his legs jelly-like, and he has to put all of his energy into moving forward. He is keenly aware that he is trapped inside his body, that it is holding him back from where he needs to be.
When Keith finally gets to the studio, his perception snaps back to normal for an instant, for the briefest moment before his gaze locks on to her. Everything else--the newsroom, the lights, the crew--disappears, and all he can see are the things that are wrong.
Her mascara is smudged just slightly, and a visible line of tension runs from her jaw down her neck and through her shoulders, all the way to the white-knuckled way she grips her coffee mug like it's the only thing keeping her behind that desk.
"This happened here," she's saying, and she sounds so controlled, but the too-long pauses between the words contain a turmoil that has been carefully suppressed and repressed. "This happened in New York City. We like to think that we're safe here, that this government-sanctioned--this government-engineered hatred hasn't yet reached the streets of our communities. But these murders, these lynchings, they are no longer confined to Iowa, to Alabama, to little towns like President Huckabee's Hope, Arkansas. In the past two weeks, there have been five victims here in Manhattan."
Her hand is shaking when she takes it away from the coffee cup, when she lifts up a paper to read the names from a list. Keith knows she has these names memorized, that there is no way she needs that paper, but he taught her the art of stagecraft, taught her that one sheet of paper can lend so much gravity to scripted words.
She hides it well, hides it in plain sight. It is the second name on her list, and Keith's heart breaks for her as she tries to pretend that it means nothing, that it's just another name. He doesn't know how she makes it through the final three, but it's over, and the producer is saying they're out for commercial, and then Keith is at her side, though he has no idea what to do.
"Rach..."
She looks at him, deep frown lines cutting between her eyes. "Let me get through this," she says, almost pleading, and he knows she means more than the broadcast.
He nods and picks an imaginary piece of lint off her shoulder just so he can touch her. He doesn't know if he is giving or taking strength with that gesture, but she offers him the weakest smile he's ever seen, and he walks himself off the set.
In his office, he turns on the television. The bright greens and ruddy browns of Chase Field fill the screen, and Keith stares dumbly at it for a moment. He forgets some days that there is a world outside politics and government, a world with no interest, no stake in Huckabee's amendment. He doesn't understand that world anymore, least of all today, when he feels like everything should have stopped.
Angrily, he unknots his tie before changing channels, switching to Rachel's show. She's mugging for the camera and making those silly, sarcastic hand gestures she just can't suppress. If he hadn't seen her five minutes ago, Keith wouldn't know anything was wrong. He thinks she deserves an Academy Award.
He keeps his eyes fixed on the screen while he changes his clothes, reminding himself to slow down, to give her space. She doesn't need him down there, and he tries to distract himself, taking extra care as he hangs up his suit, buttoning the shirt, aligning the seams. He tidies some things on his desk, but he can only make it to the commercial break before he turns off the TV and heads back to her studio.
He doesn't call attention to himself, just takes a seat in an uncomfortable, too-small chair behind the cameras. Rachel has her attention focused on her computer, but when she looks up as the show comes back, she catches sight of Keith. Her hesitation is so slight that Keith thinks he may be the only person to notice how much his presence has thrown her.
"In just a minute," she says, looking away from Keith, "my fake uncle Pat Buchanan will join me to discuss the speech given today by former Vice President Dick Cheney. But first, a few of today's underreported holy mackerel stories..."
Keith stops paying attention when he notices Pat about to walk onto the set. Reaching out, Keith grabs the older man by the sleeve, startling him.
"Disagree with her," Keith tells him, still holding on to Pat's jacket. "Pick a fight. Don't go easy on her because of what happened, and don't tell her you're sorry. She doesn't need it."
They both know it's a lie, that she does need it. But she doesn't want it, not now, and they can't begrudge her that. She needs to get through the last fifteen minutes of her show, needs the distraction and the illusion of normalcy. Neither of them wants to see her fall apart, so for these final minutes, they will humor her and pretend that nothing happened, that she slipped that name past them. They are proud men, but tonight they will play dumb for her.
"So, Pat," Rachel says, turning to face him as he takes his seat. She folds her hands on top of the desk. "The speech--more of an impassioned plea, really--that Dick Cheney gave today wasn't something we ever would have expected to hear four years ago. He didn't have an overnight change of heart regarding gay rights; there were indicators in the past suggesting he didn't subscribe to the Republican Party platform on this issue. Knowing what we do today, with the twenty-eighth amendment looming on the horizon, you can't honestly sit there and tell me that remaining silent was the right thing for him to do during his years as Vice President."
"Well, Rachel, as a matter of fact I can," Pat says, and for as strongly as Keith disagrees with him, he still feels an affinity for the man that is based on their shared affection for Rachel.
But as he watches them debate, watches Rachel laugh in frustration and delight, the affinity Keith so briefly felt sours into animosity. This, all of it, is Pat's fault. This is Pat's culture war after twenty long years of being kept alive, stoked with incendiary, dog-whistle rhetoric designed to rally the base while slipping unnoticed past the masses. Pat's speech, the one Rachel so often cites, brought them to this point, and Keith wonders if Pat feels any guilt now, sitting across from Rachel, knowing what he and his culture war have cost her.
Keith has to look away when his anger with Pat starts to spread. He can feel himself growing irritated with Rachel, with her damn sense of decency and the way she can still sit there and laugh and be okay enough to discuss this rationally. He wants her to make this personal for Pat, to stop looking at this in the macro just long enough to remind Pat that people, real people, are being hurt here, are being killed.
"Pat," Rachel says, and she sounds a little more tired than usual, a little more worn down by Pat's ideology, "as always, I think you are incredibly wrong about this, but I still thank you for sticking around tonight to discuss this matter with me. It's always great to have you on."
"Thank you, Rachel," Pat says, and Keith isn't sure why he looks up, but he sees Pat's hand slide across the desk, the tips of his fingers brushing Rachel's hand so slightly. "It's my pleasure."
Rachel nods at him just slightly before saying to the camera, "As much as we love Kent Jones and his pop culture-y goodness, my discussion with Pat ran a little over, so that's all we have time for tonight. I promise Kent will be back tomorrow, and to make it up to you, I'll make sure he brings way more than just enough. Until then, and hopefully even after then, I'm Rachel Maddow. Countdown with Keith Olbermann starts right now. Good night."
Keith tries to be casual as he walks over to her desk, where she is gathering papers and pens and so carefully refusing to look at anyone. "Good show," he says, and he hears her sniffle, sees her nose wrinkle and twitch.
She looks up at him, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, dark circles visible even through the layers of makeup. "I want to go home," she tells him, and he can feel the but at the end of her sentence, the fear of being in that empty apartment.
"Okay," he says, touching her sleeve, catching the cuff between his finger and thumb. He sees her looking at his hand, watching the way his thumb rubs lightly against the fabric, causing subtle changes as it moves against the grain. He gives a slight, friendly tug, one that would be playful under other circumstances, and she meets his eyes. "C'mon."
-
Keith wishes Rachel had a television, something to make some noise, to distract him from the sound of her crying. The shower does nothing to hide her sobs, and Keith has never felt more useless or more needed in his life. He wants to help her, to comfort her, to say whatever will make it all right, but he knows there is nothing he can do, and she has put up a border between them, a solid, wooden door, to remind him that he cannot come close to fixing this, to fixing her.
He hears her cough and sputter, choking on some combination of emotion and phlegm, and he reaches for his phone, dials Anderson's number just for the distraction. It rings once, twice, three times before Keith can remember that it is just past eleven o'clock, that Anderson is still on the air. His voicemail, an impersonal, prerecorded message, picks up on the sixth ring, and Keith isn't sure what to say. He lets words slip out, something about how he won't be home, how he needs to be with Rachel, something that will lead Anderson to the truth without requiring Keith to say the words. The words don't feel like they are his to say, not yet. Not until Rachel can say them.
As he ends the call, the bathroom door opens, and Rachel steps into the hall. She stands there uncertainly, unsure of what to do, where to go in her own home, and Keith wonders what sort of routine used to exist for this moment, what part of her life has been disrupted, destroyed. He knows he is staring at her, and he glances away, looking out a window whose only view is the brownstone next door.
"Do you want a drink?" Rachel asks, drawing his attention back to her. Her glasses are fogging slightly, becoming hazy near the rims as the heat of her shower rises from her skin, getting trapped behind the lenses. She blinks rapidly as she looks at Keith, her eyes swollen and red.
Keith feels like this is a quiz, like there is a right answer and many, many wrong answers. Somewhere between yes and no, there is an entire spectrum of nuanced answers, answers that defer, answers that tease, answers that act like everything is normal. He thinks the answer is in there somewhere; he thinks there is something she needs to hear and something he needs to say. He just doesn't know if those two things overlap.
"Yeah, okay," he says, because it is the best he can do.
He watches her nod, watches her reach for a bottle, watches the skin slide and tighten across her knuckles as she pops the cork from the whiskey bottle. "I had to call her parents," she says, reaching for a glass, a heavy-bottomed old fashioned made from cut glass, and setting it upright with a firm thunk. "They wouldn't let me identify her. I had to call her parents. It was three o'clock in the morning, and there wasn't a God damn thing I could do."
She rights the second glass with the same dull, hard sound.
"I left before they got there." It's a confession breathed quietly into the air, sorrowful and ashamed, the emotion of the words lingering long after their utterance.
"Rach..." His heart aches for her as he watches her pour the drinks.
"I couldn't face them." She tosses back her drink, pours another, and corks the bottle. "I hate myself for it, but I couldn't look at them, couldn't ask them to look at me, not when this is my fault."
"How is this your fault?" he asks, standing, walking over to her. Under the guise of maintaining his balance, he rests his hand on her back as he leans past her, reaching for his drink.
She laughs ruefully, bitterly into her glass, shaking her head. "Should've bought that God damn chicken farm in the Upper Peninsula. Fuck TV; fuck radio." She sets her drink down and crosses her arms tightly over her chest, looking up to the ceiling as the tears well once more in her eyes. "I thought what the hell, you know? I've gotten death threats before. I didn't think--Jesus, Keith, I didn't think."
And she's pushing up her glasses, wiping tears out of her eyes, and she just keeps shaking her head like it's the last defense she has, and Keith thinks it might be. His hand hasn't moved from her back, and he leaves his drink on the cabinet as he guides her closer, lets her press her face against his neck and pretend she can choose not to cry.
"It's okay," he says, even though they are the worst two words he can say, the biggest lie he can tell. It's a worse lie than It's not your fault, and he rubs her back through the thin material of her t-shirt, feeling every bone, every muscle, every missed meal and lost pound. She has been running herself into the ground in front of his eyes, and Keith wonders if she will ever take care of herself again.
He sighs, resting his cheek against her damp hair. "You need to sleep," he tells her, because he knows she hasn't, and because he can feel her leaning into him, letting him take her weight as her body shuts down, giving in to exhaustion and grief.
"I know." Her words are slurred, muffled against Keith's shoulder, and her arms wrap loosely around his waist, her wrists crossed near the base of his spine. "Just...in a minute. I just need a minute."
Keith feels her muscles tense beneath his hand as she prepares for nightmares, for her empty bed, for the first morning she will wake up and remember. He squeezes her. "I'll be here."