Morning Glory (14 page)

I doubted he cared. After all, his contract would remain intact long after
Daybreak
was hoisted into its coffin.

Dimly, I realized everyone in the studio was staring, but I was long past paltry concerns like dignity.

“Um, we’re back in thirty,” said Pete.

Everyone on set had stopped in their tracks.

“Uh, Becky?” I heard Lenny’s voice shine out from the control room. “You okay?”

“This was going to be my dream job,” I ranted to Mike. “My dream
life
! Working on a network show in New York City.”

“Uh-oh,” said Merv. “I think Pomeroy broke her.”

“Becky,” Lenny said again. “In fifteen—”

“And there’s a guy—a great guy, who is actually kind of
smokin’
—and he can stand me long enough to have
sex with me
.”

Mike’s eyes widened just the tiniest bit at that one. All around the studio, I could hear the gasps. Colleen’s smile was real for once. She was loving the show.

“Becky,” Lenny pleaded. “In five—”

“And instead,” I said, or rather, screamed, “it’s all a mess. Because of you.” I jabbed a finger at him. “No one here does their job well because
you can’t be bothered to do yours at all
!”

I glared at Mike. His face was frozen. No one in the room dared to breathe—but me. I sucked in oxygen like it was going out of style.

“And, we’re back,” said Pete the stage manager.

 15 

I
slinked off the set, still hyperventilating, as Colleen snapped into host mode.

“Welcome back to
Daybreak
,” she said cheerily. “And now, with a check of the weather, here’s Ernie on the plaza.”

The feed switched to a shot of our ebullient weatherman standing in front of a thick crowd of people. “Thanks, Colleen. Well, we’re all enjoying the sunshine out here today.”

The folks behind Ernie jostled one another and toasted plastic cups filled with lemonade. “
Daybreak!
” one screamed. “Woo-hoo!”

I knew for a fact that there were only six people in that crowd. Six people artfully arranged inside the camera’s frame to look like a pack of hundreds. Each of the six had been given free lemonade, hot dogs, and IBS T-shirts in exchange for their efforts.

Ernie smiled at the camera. “Makes me wish I was wearing my thong.” He laughed merrily. The fabricated crowd laughed too.

I felt hollow. Hollow and helpless. I trailed down the hallways, ignoring the stunned expressions of the people I passed along the way. The executive producer of
Daybreak
had just had a nervous breakdown in front of her entire staff. Had my rant gone on another microsecond, I would have been doing it in front of our audience as well.

All four of them.

I climbed into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. I needed to feel some of that sun Ernie promised on my face.

At one of the sub floors, the elevator stopped, and an intern climbed on. He took one look at me, and hugged the edge of the elevator. Ditto for the archivist we met on the next floor.

I gave them a little wave. “Uh, hi?”

They exchanged glances, and sidled even farther away.

I had a very bad feeling about this. Either I was wearing the crazy on my face or … oh God. How many people had been watching the in-house feed monitors when I went on my little tirade?

The door opened at the lobby and my two companions watched me the way one might a rabid dog. “Are you … getting off?” one asked me.

“Um …” My voice came out high and brittle. “Not yet.” I jammed my finger against the button leading to Adam’s floor. The other two raced out of the elevator.

I got the same response as I walked through the news department. Some people stared. A few of them scattered. I kept my chin up and my eyes straight ahead.
Just get to Adam’s office
,
and don’t think about how whatever reputation I had at IBS ten minutes ago—hard-ass? failure? fangirl?—had now mutated into something far more humiliating
.

I opened the door to
7 Days
. The people there were clustered in groups that got quiet as soon as they caught sight of me. Oh, no. Oh no no no no no.

With great trepidation, I approached Adam’s door and knocked. He answered, a triumphant smile practically splitting his face in two. “Hey, cutie,” he said. “You’re nuts, you know that?”

I nodded miserably.

“Let’s go to lunch.”

I stared at him. “It’s not even ten
A.M
.”

He shrugged. “Brunch, then. Come on. You need to get out of here for a bit.” He grabbed my hand and drew me back down the hall. We were only getting stared at more.

“Adam …,” I said in warning.

He looked back and me and winked. “Nothing’s a secret around here, Becky. It’s a newsroom. And you’re always on
Candid Camera
.”

We made it out of the building in one piece, though my cheeks felt heated by the time we exited the lobby onto the plaza.

“I thought it was a nice gesture, for what it’s worth,” Adam said. “Some people send flowers, you yell at giant cameras.”

I was too shell-shocked to respond.

“That
was
me you were talking about, right?”

I pulled my hand from his so I could rub my temples. “I’m never going to be able to show my face in there again.”

“Nonsense,” said Adam, steering me down a side street toward a diner. “Everyone was on your side. Mike doesn’t deserve you. You know that. We all know it. He’s ungrateful and nasty.”

“Can’t argue with you on that anymore.”

He smiled. “Glad to see you upgraded him from my personal threat level.”

I forced a chuckle.

“It’s making you crazy,” he said. We stopped walking for a moment and he turned to face me. “
He’s
making you crazy. It’s not worth it.”

I gaped at him in disbelief. Not worth it? The news? My dream job? Well, what was left of it anyway.

“Becky, I know you think it’s a great job, but it is just a job. There are other shows you could work for.…”

Easy for him to say, with his connections and his education and his track record of never killing a television show almost half a century old. Adam Bennett, of the
Newsweek
Bennetts, would find another show to work for. But Becky Fuller of the Weehawken Fullers? Not so much.

“I get it,” I said stiffly. “You think my life is ridiculous. My show is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.…”

“I never said that—”

“You’re upstairs doing investigative pieces on Zimbabwe and Zaire and—” Crap, what else started with a Z?

“Zambia?” Adam suggested.

“
Zambia!
” I cried. “God, you hard news guys look down on us! You, and Mike—”

“Whoa,” Adam said, holding up his hands in protest. “Do
not
lump me in the same category as—”

“What is it, huh?” I asked. “Is it because our audience is women?”

“Hold on,” said Adam. “I’m not the one who looks down on you, remember? Your show serves the needs of its audience. So does mine. So does the nightly news. If all news shows were the same, why would we need so many?”

I bit my lip. Did he have to sound so damn
reasonable
while I was in the middle of my rant?

“Yeah, Mike thinks it’s all bullshit. Mike—who, I might add, you literally hunted down to force him on your show. Did you think he was dying to go back on air and do pieces about how your hamster might be giving you salmonella?”

Wow, Adam. From a compliment to a punch in three short sentences. Impressive. Good thing he’d softened me up for that blow, otherwise I might not even have felt it, given the day I’d had.

“Salmonella,” I said slowly, “is a very serious health concern. There are over forty thousand cases of it diagnosed each year. I’m sorry if you or Mike think it’s a waste of your time.”

Adam sighed. “Becky, come on. You just need to have a little perspective here. Give it some time.…”

Time?
That was rich. “I don’t
have
time,” I said, blinking my eyes to wick away my traitorous tears. “This is the only chance I’m ever going to have to do this job.” And I’d already lost it.
I’d already lost it
. But I was still the only one who knew that.

“That’s not true,” Adam insisted.

And how could I tell Adam? I could trust him not to gossip about me to IBS—it wasn’t that. But I couldn’t bear to admit to him that I’d failed. How would I ever convince myself I was good enough for him then?

I shook my head. “You don’t get it. How can you? They hired me to be incompetent.”

“You’re
not
incompetent.”

Oh, yes I was. If only Adam knew. No—if only there were a way to keep him from
ever
knowing. “I’ve got to make this work,” I said, more to myself than to him. “I’ve got to. I’ll do it over my dead body if I have to.”

Adam’s expression took on some of the wary characteristics I’d seen on the faces of the people back at the office. Had I really gone around the bend? Was the crazy showing on my face now?

Of course. I was standing on a public street railing—at
Adam
, of all people. Adam, who’d never been anything but kind to me. Adam, who was exactly who he said he was, who did respect the work I was doing. Who, moreover, respected
me
, whether or not I was the executive producer at
Daybreak
. Or anywhere.

I sighed, walked over to him, and placed a kiss on his nose. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to blow up at you, too.”

He looked at me, sympathetic, but not pitying. “Bloody Marys with brunch?”

I nodded. “Definitely.”

There was something magic in the Bloody Mary. Either that, or spending time with Adam was far more restorative than I’d thought, even when we kept all our clothes on. Because by the end of brunch, I had started feeling a little bit like my old self again. The girl who could fire Paul McVee. The girl who could drag Mike Pomeroy onto
Daybreak
like a big game hunter with a trophy.

Maybe I would go down, but I’d go down swinging.

When we returned to the IBS building, I went straight to Jerry’s office. His assistant, possibly wondering if I’d gone postal, tried to head me off at the pass.

“Um, you don’t have an appointment—” She jumped in front of me.

I stood my ground. “I’m from Jersey and I have a pepper spray key chain. Now
step aside
.”

“Coke or Diet Coke?” she asked meekly.

I blew past her and burst into Jerry’s office. Jerry was sitting at his desk, doing paperwork. He didn’t even look up as I entered.

“What now?” he asked, bored. “Going to bust a cap in my ass?”

“What if I get the ratings up?” I said, a little too breathless for my taste, but it got the point across.

Now Jerry lifted his head. And he didn’t look happy.

“We have six weeks,” I went on. “What if we move the needle enough?”

“You won’t,” he said, and returned to his work.

“You don’t know that.”

Jerry sighed and laid down his pen. “Becky …”

I drew closer to the desk. “There must be some number we can hit that would give us a shot. An extra six months, something.”

“Well sure,” said Jerry, in a tone that suggested there must also be some chance that the office furniture would suddenly get up and dance the tango. “If you got something absurd. Over a 1.5—”

“Done.” I smacked the desktop and turned on my heel. “I have your word,” I said as I headed for the door. “If the ratings go up more than three quarters of a point, we get more time.”

“Won’t happen!” Jerry called after me.

I paused at the door. “We’ll see about that,” I said. And as long as I was going to be making demands … “Oh, and by the way. Your girlfriend, Lisa? Get her a dictionary and stick her on someone else’s show. She’s killing me.”

If we were out, his little bit on the side was going to need a new job anyway. So might as well get her used to the idea now.

And then I breezed out. I had a lot of work to do.

By the next morning, I had everything in place. It helped that the
Daybreak
staff was terrified of me again. But I didn’t care. If I had to work from a place of fear to get these people in line, then so be it.

I was going to give them a potent illustration of my new management style this morning.

“There you are,” Lenny said when I arrived at the studio, slightly windswept but ready for action. “Where have you been?”

I crossed the room and grabbed the schedule off the desk. “We’re changing some things.”

“We are?” he asked. “Should I be worried?”

I turned to Merv. “Is Ernie in place?”

Merv checked the feed from the remote. “Um, I’m not really sure what I’m looking at.…”

Now Lenny did look concerned. “Ernie’s supposed to be interviewing people as they come off the roller coaster—”

“No,” I said firmly. “Not anymore he’s not.”

Ernie, bless his simple, good-natured heart, had been pretty sanguine about my idea. Then again, I hadn’t given him much of an opportunity to say no.

“Merv,” I said, “the camera’s remote-operated. Why don’t you widen out a little.”

Merv and Lenny exchanged glances, then the director did as he was told.

“Jesus Christ,” Lenny said, and crossed himself. His faith, I was learning, was a mysterious and fluid thing.

Ernie was no longer standing in front of the roller coaster. He was strapped inside.

“It’s called picking up the game, people,” I said, as everyone in the studio turned to look at me. “From now on, every story we do will be undeniable. We may not be the
Today
show, or
Good Morning America
, or whatever that show on CBS is called—”

Oh, God. Was I losing it again? No matter. It was too late, and maybe what we needed was a little lunacy. What was the line I was looking for? Oh, yeah:
I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore
.

“We will work
harder
, we will be more
aggressive
, and we will do it
now
.”

Lenny looked on in horror. “Are you going to—”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to sing. Now”—I pointed at the screen—“make sure the audio’s working.”

Merv obeyed. Lenny shook his head. “So what? So he has a heart attack we’ll be able to capture every heart-rending scream?”

Exactly. I pressed the button to turn on the speaker to Ernie’s intercom. “Ernie? Feeling okay?”

He smiled at the camera and gave me a thumbs-up.

“See?” I said. “He’s happy.”

“Dumb people are often happy,” Lenny replied, frowning deeply.

“Lucky them,” I said. “Now let’s go.”

On set, Colleen began introducing Ernie’s segment. “Thrill seekers have something to look forward to this summer as Six Flags unveils a brand-new roller coaster. The Manhandler is the fastest coaster in the United States, with speeds of up to a hundred and thirty miles an hour and a ninety-five-degree angle of descent.”

Lenny gave me a dubious glance. Just offscreen, Mike sat at his news desk, arms folded, his expression far more than dubious. Closer to “disgusted.”

Colleen was still talking. “Today, our own Ernie Appleby is getting a sneak peek at this amazing new ride. Isn’t that right, Ernie?”

The monitors all switched to Ernie on the coaster. His legs dangled out of the bottom of the harness, his pants awkwardly hiked up, revealing pasty, surprisingly hairless calves.