Easy on the Eyes (19 page)

I’ve never threatened to quit before, nor have I ever asked for time, and as impulsive as the decision is, my gut says it’s
also the right one. It’s what I need. I need time to figure out what I want and what I need. For too long I’ve made the show
my top priority, but it’s time I become my top priority.

It crosses my mind that this could be the end, too. If I leave, I want to go out on top, and my numbers are strong. My viewers
are back. “Four or five weeks.”

“Four or
five
?” He’s shocked.

My gaze falls to my hands, which are relaxed for the first time in a long time. I nod, exhale.

“So you’ll be back in time for the SAG Awards?” he asks.

I stand. “I’ll let you know.”

I
t rains as I drive home. It rarely rains in L.A., unlike in Seattle, where Marta lives. But it’s coming down now, cool, hard,
decisively, and the weather mirrors my emotions.

My moment of calm dissolves in outright panic. What have I done? What in God’s name was I thinking? Leave of absence, now?
Just before contracts? Just before awards season?

But I’m not thinking. I’m reacting. No, acting. I’m making a change. Change is good. Change is necessary.

At home, I strap on my iPod and put on a baseball cap and zip a thin L.A. Lakers windbreaker over my jogging bra and shorts
and go for a run.

I refuse to cry as I run.

The words—
I need a break
—came out easily enough, but confronting the reality of what I’ve said and what I need is something else.

I’m terrified. Terrified of failing. Terrified of suffering. Terrified that I’ll fall in love again and I’ll lose him just
the way I’ve lost everyone else.

Every time I think I want to give in to tears, I push on faster. I run and run despite the rain. I run, splashing through
puddles, sprayed by passing cars. My shorts and ponytail are soaked through. My shoes drip water with every step. I’m so far
from the house and I don’t have a dollar to my name or I’d call for a cab and have it take me home.

I finally stop moving. For a long minute I just stand where I am, sweating and shivering at the same time.

I have to go back now. I’ve been running for over an hour. It’ll take just as long to get back, if not longer since it’s going
to be all uphill.

If only I had my cell phone and could just call for help. Russian John or Polish John or even Harper. I’m sure she’d come.
But I don’t have my phone and I don’t know any numbers by heart. Besides, I’m soaking wet and I can’t climb into someone’s
car like this.

I’m alone. I start back for my house and I do what I do when I’m overwhelmed. I stop thinking, stop feeling, and focus on
the moment. I focus on just moving, on putting one foot in front of the other. It’s the way to get through a crisis. It’s
the way to get through loss. And it might just be the way to get through a breakdown.

One step at a time.

Marta had invited me to join them for Christmas but there’s no way I can get on a plane on Tuesday, December 23. Better to
stay home and get my head together so that by the time I arrive for Zach’s baptism, I’ll be good company.

But the 28th is five days from now, and I’m not sure how to fill them until I turn on my computer and see the file with Sveva’s
name on it, Sveva being the crusader in Kenya who caught my interest.

I open the file, see my rough notes begun last September. I was once so excited about the possibilities in this story. I can
be excited again. I need to find whatever it is that’s missing, because it’s something that’s missing in me.

Wednesday I head to Santa Monica to get breakfast but end up walking on the beach instead.

Hands burrowed in the pocket of my sweatshirt, I walk and walk and let my imagination run, but the tragic thing is, my imagination’s
stunted. I can’t seem to see the possibilities I used to, much less a future beyond the Horizon Broadcasting tower and the
artificially decorated
America Tonight
set. I’ve been part of tabloid television so long, I don’t know where I could go or who would have me.

Eventually I leave the beach, cross the street, and head for the little indie coffee shop on the corner. It’s warm inside
and the decor is artsy-funky with a bit of faux Christmas greenery thrown in. I order a mocha with whip to go.

When I get back home, my phone is filled with voice messages. I scroll through the text messages and then the voice messages.
They’re mostly all from my girlfriends calling to check in on me, wanting to know if I’ll join them for Christmas, wanting
to make sure I won’t be alone.

But I will be alone. I’m okay alone, and I flop down onto the bed and toss the phone on the mattress next to me.

At the last minute on Christmas Eve, I decide to attend a service at the Downtown Mission.

I love the California missions. The thick, whitewashed adobe walls. The red roof tiles. The towers with the bells. It can
be blistering hot outside, but inside the mission it’s always cool and dark and quiet. Some of the church interiors are plain,
while others are a glorious riot of red, yellow, and blue color or a palette of elegant, sophisticated golds and blues.

I haven’t been to a service at a mission in a long time, probably not since Keith and I were married at Carmel Mission nearly
eight years ago. It was a beautiful service. Mystical.

I’m underdressed when I arrive for the midnight service. I’m also early, yet the church is already nearly full. I find a middle
spot in a middle pew and squeeze past people to kneel to say my prayers.

Sitting back on the dark wood bench, I’m almost immediately overcome by emotion. My throat threatens to close and I fight
for control. I can’t cry. The familiar Christmas hymns have started. Must not break down until we’re asked to sing something
properly heartrending, like “O Holy Night.”

The lights above are dim, and white pillar candles glow on the altar and in the alcoves and before the stained-glass windows.
Fragrant pine boughs arch above the windows and through the Advent wreaths.

Emotion rushes through me again, and I squeeze my hands together, nails pressing into skin. Can’t cry. Can’t. But something’s
growing wild in me, something I’m not sure I can control.

I miss them all. My family. Keith.

The organist plays, and I concentrate very hard on the altar.

I used to play games after the car accident, pretending I was God and I could save just one of them from the wreckage. Whom
would I save? Which one would live?

My sisters, Willow or Acacia? I’d tell myself that it should be one of them. They were young like me. They had as much right
to live as I did. But then I’d remember my mom and how she gave the best hugs and kisses and every night told fantastical
bedtime stories.

I’d pick Mom.

I want Mom. I want Mom even now. I feel as though I never had enough of her hugs before she died. Never had enough love. It’s
a painful thing when you go through life feeling needy for love.

The organist plays the first keys. I know this song. Everyone rises to their feet.

The emotion I’ve fought all night returns, surging hot and wild through me. “Silent night, holy night…”

Tears fill my eyes. I would give anything to be a child in my mother’s arms again.

“All is calm…”

I would give anything to have lived with more love and less grief. The grief is huge and unending, and it is always there,
in the back of my mind. Death can come at any time. Death can steal everyone we love.

“All is bright…”

I can’t stop the tears. I cling to the back of the pew, my heart on fire.

“Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child…”

God, I know I don’t talk to you often, but help me be not afraid. Help me be strong. Help me face all challenges with courage
and calm.

I’m awake even before my alarm goes off and then I realize there is no alarm. There’s no need for an alarm. There’s nowhere
to go, nothing to do. I lie in bed for another twenty, thirty minutes, half dozing, and then when the memories come rushing
back again, memories of my family and Keith, and every memory is tinged with sadness, I throw back the covers and go to the
bathroom.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The mirror reveals just how little I slept. Red, bloodshot eyes. Shadows beneath
the eyes and a puffy brow bone. Christ. I really need an eye job now.

My house isn’t very festive. This year I didn’t purchase a tree or even poinsettias. I make a face at the stark interior,
and after putting on the coffee, I make quick calls to Marta and Shey to wish them a Merry Christmas, then phone Christie
to wish her a Happy Hanukkah, and then turn off the phone and settle onto my couch to watch my collection of Christmas movies.

I start with
Miracle on 34th Street
and then move on to
It’s a Wonderful Life
before finishing with
White Christmas
. And that pretty much takes care of Christmas Day.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the next few weeks.

On December 27, I board the Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle for Zach’s baptism and spend the first hour of the flight working
on my laptop, putting together story ideas I could pitch to other networks if the situation came to that.

I’m in the middle of typing when the man next to me faces me. “I know who you are,” he exclaims. “You’re on that show.
Entertainment
something or other. You’re her….” He shakes his finger at my face. “Come on. I know your name. T… T… Tiana! Tiana something.
Right?”

I save my work. “Yes. Tiana Tomlinson,
America Tonight
.”

He sits back in his wide leather seat, smug. “I knew I recognized you.”

I smile briefly before turning my attention back to my laptop screen, anxious to use the last hour of the flight as efficiently
as I did the first. But my seat mate now seems inclined to talk.

“I’m Bob,” he adds, propping his left elbow on the armrest to lean closer to me.

“Hello, Bob. Nice to meet you.”

“You know, it was the glasses that threw me. You don’t wear glasses on TV.”

“Not that often, no.” I frown at the screen, trying to remember where I was on this story I would just about kill to produce.
It’s about Sveva Gallman, a young, slim, blonde warrior of a woman born in Kenya to Italian parents. I had the pleasure of
hearing her speak in Baltimore four months ago at the Maryland Women’s Foundation and she dazzled the audience with her intelligence
and fire and passion for Africa.

Sveva and I were both there being honored that night for our work. She, for working to preserve Kenya’s cultural heritage.
Me, for bringing six years of celebrity news into America’s homes.

I told no one, but I was mortified to share the same stage. Mortified that I don’t make news but present it in tiny cheerful
sound bites.

Once I wanted to change the world. Once I thought I could.

But Sveva’s passion touched me, and I felt the first stirring of an idea: a show devoted to extraordinary women, women who
do heroic things not because they’re paid to, or because they’re photographed or even thanked, but because they believe they
can make a difference. And they do.

I worked on the concept last September for an entire weekend, but then it got put away. And it’s only now, three months later,
that I’ve returned to it, although I did put in some time during my Paris flight.

I’d start the show with the segment on Sveva. I’d go to Kenya and interview and film her there. I don’t know that I could
get my show producers to sign off on me heading to Africa, but if I funded my own trip, they wouldn’t have a lot of say….

Heck, if I’m no longer employed in a month, they’d definitely have no say.

Not that I necessarily want to just quit my job outright, but I do want an opportunity to do fresh stories, inspiring stories.
I believe there’s a place in news for empowering stories, too.

“What are you working on?” Bob asks, peering at my screen.

My fingers hover above the keyboard. I glance at Bob. He’s in his late fifties or early sixties and channeling George Hamilton
with the white pin-striped shirt, orange tan, Botox brow, and dark pomade hair. “A human interest story.”

I begin typing again, but he’s still staring at my screen, trying to read what I’m writing, and I stiffen, my mind blanking
in protest.

I flex my fingers, reread the last paragraph I’ve written. Unfortunately, Bob sees this as an opportunity to converse some
more.

“But don’t you have people who do that for you? Aren’t you just the host?”

Just
the host.

My jaw clenches. He’s hit a definite nerve. Once upon a time, I was considered a good writer. Call it what you will— talented
journalist, respected reporter— I researched, wrote, and produced my own stories. But that’s been so long ago, I don’t even
know what I am anymore. Other than famous.

“I have a journalism degree from Stanford,” I say evenly, gaze glued to the screen. “I spent nine years as a reporter before
America Tonight
.”