Morning Glory (16 page)

The tattoo artist stuck him with the needle.

Ernie’s expression turned resigned and then: “Oh, fuuuuuuu—”

Merv cut the sound.

As soon as the segment was over, we returned to the studio, where Mike looked like he’d spent the break chomping on rotted meat. “When we come back, we’ll tell you all about new ways to cope with”—he grimaced, forcing himself to spit out the words—“menopause.”

Served him right.

I didn’t even care. According to the ratings sheet, we’d already gone up a quarter point. Just another half to go.

Next up, we had booked that hip-hop artist, thanks to my unheard-of generosity when it came to amount of performance time, and on the living room set Colleen bopped along while he performed one of his latest hits. The rapper kept casting her confused glances, sidling away from this crazy middle-aged white woman who also chimed in whenever he hit the chorus.

After the show, Lenny saw me giving instructions to a crew of carpenters. “What’s going on now?” he asked.

I grinned at him. “New doorknobs.”

“You’re kidding!” Lenny whistled. “How’d you find room for it in the budget?”

“I didn’t. Oh, by the way, make room in the schedule tomorrow for Colleen’s new segment on ‘Home Repair You Need to Call the Experts For.’ ”

One of the carpenters looked over and gave me a callused thumbs-up.

“We’re going to have a few local carpenters on to explain why.”

“Of course we are,” Lenny said. “Of course. So, on the CEO story, did you want the transvestite prostitute to come on dressed as a man or a woman?”

I considered it. “Man. No. Woman.”

“Because it might be more of a shock—”

“I know!” I cried. “Have him/her do the first segment as a woman, then boom! After the break, he/she comes back as a man. What do you think?”

“I like it.” Lenny made a mark on his sheet. “I mean, for your dastardly purposes, not for the betterment of humanity.”

“Shut up, Mike Pomeroy,” I replied.

“You got it, boss.” He turned to go, then stopped. “Oh, we got the footage from the Irish Famine Memorial.”

I bounced. “How is it?”

“Colleen is the worst bagpiper in the history of the world.”

Perfect. “And the outfit?”

“Even more ridiculous.” Lenny sighed. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here, Becky? Are we making fools out of ourselves?”

“No,” I said. “We were already fools. Now I’m just trying to turn that impression to our benefit.”

I could only hope it would work.

 17 

“O
ur demos are getting better,” I said as Adam handed me a box of lo mein, “but our overall numbers are not where they need to be.” We were having a quiet evening in at Adam’s apartment, sitting on the couch, eating takeout while the TV droned on in the background. I wouldn’t have traded this for the VIP Room of any club in Manhattan. After all, they didn’t have Adam.

“Hmmm …,” he said, and dipped his egg roll in the plum sauce. “Might be time for another eight-part series on the orgasm.”

“You think so?” I asked, chopsticks partway to my mouth. “What new angle could—” I stopped. Adam was grinning at me. “Oh, I see.” I nudged his foot with my stockinged one. “You’re making fun of me.”

He gave me a lopsided smirk. “If you want, though, I’d be happy to help you come up with new angles.”

“Maybe later.” I dug into my food. “Can’t miss
Nightly News
.”

“Sadly,” Adam said, looking down at his dish, “with you that’s not a joke. You really would prefer news to sex.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh yeah?” He started counting off on his fingers. “The first night you spent here I found you sneaking a visit to MSNBC.com in the middle of the night. Last week, you canceled our date to stake out a source, which”—he held up his hand—“I was totally sympathetic to. Then the other night, I spent twenty minutes trying to get you to pay more attention to me than to Rachel Maddow.”

“She was doing a really interesting piece on—”

“Rachel Maddow,” Adam said, “already has a girlfriend. I’d like to keep mine to myself.”

I caught my breath. “
Girlfriend?
”

He looked up at me. “Yeah. She’s—”

“No,” I said. “I mean, you called me your girlfriend. I … I didn’t know we were doing that.”

“Oh.” There was something endearingly sheepish in his voice. “Well,
I
am. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No,” I said. “It’s great.” And then, “You’re kind of obsessed with the soft serve, huh? I mean, first you ask me out on a date without asking me out on a date, and then I’m your girlfriend before I know about it.”

He grinned. “Eat your noodles.”

I grinned back and did as I was told. After a minute, I picked up the remote. “Can I just put on CNN for, like, a minute? There might be something on that serial killer who Twittered his victims—”

He grunted and didn’t look my way.

“You’re right,” I said quickly. I turned the TV off and placed the remote control firmly back on the coffee table. “It’s not important. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

I was rewarded for my restraint with the reassuring touch of his hand on my thigh, and I snuggled up against him. The news could wait. It could totally wait. Was I such an addict that I couldn’t turn it off for an hour or two and spend some time with a smart, funny, totally smokin’ guy who liked me enough to not only want to have dinner with me and sex with me—
more than once
—but also to call me his girlfriend? Was this addiction what came of doing nothing but watching the news at night—every night? Did I not know how to survive without it?

When we were done with dinner, we went together to the kitchen to clean up the dishes and glasses. I was scraping some stray bits of fried rice down the sink when I felt Adam’s arms curl around me from behind. Something warm welled up inside and I leaned against his chest, reveling in the way he felt pressed up against my back. This wasn’t so bad. I could even get used to it. Stop worrying about proving myself, leave the work at the office for once. Evenings like this made me wonder what my life would be like if I could make this happen. What if I brought up the ratings the full three quarters of a point? What if I turned
Daybreak
into … well, not a hit show, but a solid performer? Something steady and strong that could stay on-air for another forty-seven years. I’d have proven I could do it. I’d be a successful executive producer. That would be enough, right? I’d move into a nicer apartment in Manhattan—maybe with Adam. Heck, if he kept up his current MO and I retained my general cluelessness about relationships, I probably wouldn’t realize we were cohabitating until a few weeks after we’d signed a lease and moved in.

Oh my God, I couldn’t believe I was fantasizing about moving in with Adam. It was way too early for any of those daydreams. Way too early to spend time imagining what an unbearably cute television news power couple we would become.

There I went again. And it wasn’t helping any that Adam was placing warm, openmouthed kisses on my neck now. It wasn’t helping that I inhaled his scent with every breath. I turned in his arms and pressed my lips against his. I wrapped my hands around his neck and tilted my head so we could get even closer. He backed me up against the sink, his legs sliding between mine. My eyes fluttered open, which was when I saw it, right outside Adam’s kitchen window.

The neighbor’s TV. Showing CNN.

Adam’s breath had quickened, and I moved my attentions from his mouth to his throat. I planted some feather-light kisses on his collarbone, but I kept my eyes trained on the TV. Were they doing the segment on the serial killer yet?

Adam’s fingers skimmed beneath my shirt, and he moaned a little. My angle wasn’t quite right to see the screen. I wiggled a few inches to the side, one eye on my boyfriend, one looking through the window. There, that was better.

“So,” he whispered. “Bedroom, or right here on the counter?”

“Mmmm …,” I said vaguely. Okay, this was better, but still not perfect. What was the chyron saying at the bottom of the screen?

Suddenly, I noticed that Adam had stopped kissing me.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He tried to swivel, but I was too quick and started tugging him out of the room.

“Come on,” I coaxed. “Let’s—”

He pulled his hand from mine and walked to the window. “Wow,” he said, his voice flat. “You can see the neighbor’s TV from here. And it’s closed-captioned. Score!”

“Adam,” I begged.

But he just shook his head. “That’s really depraved.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then stopped. “You know what?” I said, nodding. “You’re right.”

He looked at me, baffled.

“You win. You caught me. I try to get every story. That’s what I do.” I blew out of the kitchen and grabbed my coat.

He followed me, “What are you doing?”

“You look at me like there’s something wrong with me. All the time.” Damn it, where were my shoes? The left one was under the couch, the right … I searched around the coffee table. “I can’t do this.…”

Adam crossed his arms. “That’s the most ridiculous statement you’ve ever made, and it’s a tight race for that title.”

I located my right shoe, shoved my foot into it, and flipped my head back up. Oh yeah? I was ridiculous as well as depraved, was I? “You don’t understand,” I cried. “It’s so easy for you, but I can’t let down my guard. Ever. We’re still not booking the A-list unless we let them take over the whole show, and I’m not sure that’s helping us with the casual fans, just the hard-core ones. And YouTube hits are great, but are they translating to ratings? I totally whiffed on getting an interview with the arsonist’s mother—”

“Oh, Jesus,” Adam said. He threw up his hands in frustration. “You’re still obsessing over that?”

“Of course I am!” I crammed my arms into my jacket and shrugged it onto my shoulders. I can’t miss
anything
. I make a mistake, I won’t get another chance.”

“Jesus.” He ran his hands through his hair. “You have got to be a little bit easier on yourself.”

“Why?” I asked. “No one else is. I have to work harder at this than—”

“Becky, this has nothing to do with reality,” he said, frustrated. “This is just your ridiculous paranoia about your—”

“I’m not in the lucky white man’s club with you and all the other morning show EPs and all the guys named Chip!”

“—Experience and education,” Adam finished, as though I hadn’t interrupted him.

I returned the favor. “I mean, who names their kid
Chip
? What
is
that?”

Adam didn’t respond, just stared at me with an appalling mixture of shock and pity on his face. I was depraved. Ridiculous. Paranoid.

Perfect. Just Perfect. At least we were on the same page about what my failings were. “See?” I said, gesturing at him. “That’s the look. That. I have to go.” I grabbed my briefcase and practically raced to the door.

“Becky, wait a second.”

His voice sounded so plaintive that, for a fraction of a second, I hesitated, my hand on the knob. But I couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” I said, and hurled myself out the door.

I was barely in the cab before I realized what a huge fucking mistake I’d just made. Again. I’d run out on Adam when I’d seen him with the blonde. And tonight, I ran out on him as soon as he prodded the giant, festering wound that was my career insecurity.
Chip!
I’d likened him to Chip and I’d picked a glimpse at a neighbor’s television over the way he was kissing me and now I was sitting here in a dark cab that smelled vaguely of stale vomit instead of in Adam’s bright and welcoming kitchen because I couldn’t turn it off. Not for a single evening.

The in-taxi television announcer said, “An interesting development in California today—”

I switched the set off and looked out the window. See? I could do it.

I looked out on the dark Manhattan streets. It was early yet, so the sidewalks were still filled with people. Parents hurrying home to their children. Lovers on their way to a rendezvous. Newsmakers on their way to give me some content. I sighed and turned the TV back on. Who the hell was I kidding?

As it turned out, the development in California was not very interesting at all. Of course not. It was taxicab news. Only a step or two up from my own miserable excuse for a show. My own bit of mass-media-pandering newstainment. My—what had Mike called it?—horseshit. The horseshit that was my reason for living.

I trudged up the steps to my apartment and dropped my briefcase by the door. I trudged to bed, shedding my coat and shoes as I went. Out of reflex, I turned on the television on the counter, then the one on the bookshelf, then the one by my bedside table. I sat there, listening to the anchors drone on for a minute. There was nothing important. It was all just noise.

I shut them off, and for once, silence reigned in my apartment. I was utterly alone.

The next morning, I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t the first person into work. Mike was already seated at his desk, his phone pressed to his ear, taking furious notes about something or other. I wondered if he was having some sort of issue with his stock portfolio. Or maybe he was planning some sort of supercool pheasant-hunting trip. Those were the only things I could imagine would get Mr. Clock Puncher Mike Pomeroy excited these days. It certainly wasn’t the fact that I was forcing him to bake blueberry muffins with one of the runners-up from
Top Chef
next week.

It was a shame. If he could manage to get past his news snobbery, he had a lot to offer to a morning show audience. His life experiences were fascinating and his expertise was broad. He could bring so much to the broadcast, if only he got his head out of his ass. But that was a losing battle and one I was sick of trying to fight.

As I rounded the corner to my office, an intern caught up to me. “Ms. Fuller? These just came in.” She held out a ratings sheet. I snatched them from her hands like an addict waiting for my fix. Maybe this was it. All the skydiving and the sumo wrestling and the horrible hoops I’d made my on-air talent jump through—maybe it had all paid off. I scanned the sheet.

Things had been looking so good. We were so close. More and more people were tuning in all the time. Our ratings had gone up … more than half a point.

But it wasn’t enough. Not for the deal I’d made with my boss.

I slumped against the wall. There it was in black and white. Official. Irrefutable. I hadn’t done it. A minute later the phone rang, and I knew even before I answered that it was Jerry, calling to discuss my abject failure.

Man, I hate it when I’m right.

“Have you seen the numbers?” he asked in his usual brisk style.

“Yes,” I mumbled. I cleared my throat. Maybe I could try to spin this. “They’re much better. If you look at the trends, we’ve been really improving. We’re way up from last year.”

“So?”

“Come on,” I begged. “I’m almost there. Only a quarter point to go. If we only had a little more time. I think if we maybe do that segment where Ernie—”

“Becky—” Jerry began.

I didn’t want to beg, but what the hell? Humiliation was the order of the day at this morning show. “Please, Jerry. There are so many people who rely on this show. Who believe in it.”

Jerry tsked through the phone. “You have until Friday. That was the deal we made. And those numbers—Becky:
They’re just not good enough
.”