Star Time (29 page)

“I guess if the
directors thought it was
important for us to stay on,”
Ev
declared, “then we should.”

Apart from his salary, Greg's contract was to be kept confidential, but
Ev
already knew its terms, including his protection during Greg's one-year probationary trial period. He appeared prepared to wait for Greg to fail, perhaps with some unseen assists from the head of the Broadcasting division.  His knowledge of what had occurred at the directors meeting meant he had at least one ally, and maybe more, on the Board.

I’m delighted. I couldn’t want better men alongside me,” Greg replied, as if the decision to retain both men had been his. “Now, let’s get to work. Next year’s budget has to be cut by fifteen percent, and a lot of our operations reorganized. We’ll do a lot of this as we go along, but I’m moving Hurley up to my old job as head of the Finance and Administration Group. He and I will put together a rough reorganization plan to cut costs and streamline operations and work with you and your departments to implement it. I’m calling a senior staff meeting tomorrow afternoon to give a pep talk to FBS officers, but also to let them know they can expect changes. Over the next week I’ll meet with every department head and their key people to examine their operations.”

Part of Greg’s reorganization would be to
unpry
Ev’s
fingers from around the company’s throat. The man had placed loyal subordinates in critical executive positions throughout the company and spies elsewhere. His followers were mostly were set in their ways and fearful of change, seeking to advance by dint of abject obedience that substituted for competence. Greg wanted people who were committed to the company’s rebirth and to his own vision of its future.

He nodded and both men rose.
Ev
hung behind as Jorgenson departed, a wickedly cunning smile widening across his face.

“I guess, like they say,
Lyall
, blood can be thicker than talent. One thing though, you can’t hide anymore.”

Greg’s own smile emerged. “
Ev
, there isn’t any
need
for me to hide anymore.”

Just before six, Greg picked up Diane at her father’s apartment. Barnett was asleep.

When they were in the elevator Diane said something that she had been planning to tell him all day. “I’m proud he picked you, Greg. But it’s distressing you’re getting ahead because he’s sick.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? I'm not sure I ever wanted this for you, you know . . . to run the network.”

He glanced over in puzzlement.

She explained, “I never wanted to share you.”

They pulled into the driveway of River House, where the
Blakes
lived, just as Ray
Strock
was briefly reporting on FBS’s nightly news broadcast that Greg had been named to head the company with the company’s founder remaining Chairman of the Board of Directors.

“He sounds like he’s announcing my death,” Greg remarked with displeasure at the slow, deep-voiced delivery.

“Dad always liked that sense of dignity. He personally picked
Strock
for the job.”

“But we’ve lost the younger viewers. He’s dragging us down.”

Diane grew concerned. “I don’t think Dad’s strong enough for you to
discuss
it with him right now.”

“I don’t intend to.”

Greg was in a jubilant mood at the dinner party, accepting the others’ good wishes on his new post. He noticed the heightened respect even in something
so
small as their facing him directly now when they spoke and having to turn to include Diane.

He was eager to make love to Diane that night and to demonstrate the pledge he had given Barnett to rebuild the marriage. Diane could not partake emotionally, but was glad that he seemed satisfied.

Greg lay awake a long while afterward rethinking the day’s events and planning tomorrow’s. He had wanted this promotion to ultimate authority all his life. This, at last, was his time in the spotlight, his time at the controls. Only now did it fully strike him how difficult the job would be.

His career successes seemed so puny. Oddly, the only achievements seemed so minor by comparison: lifting a local news show from third to second in the ratings, selling some daytime spots for more than expected; and a few months ago, arranging an advantageous loan to cover production costs for the new season's pilot development. The thirst for success did not indicate the capability to achieve it.

What if his confidence was fatuous self-delusion?
he
wondered. Probably half the loony bins in the Western world contained a fully convinced messiah. Was his self-image any more realistic? He had sacrificed so much to get this dearest desire, but now could see, as if it were a great rock suspended over him by a thread, how the weight of additional declines in FBS’s fortunes could snap that thread and crush him.

Greg hadn’t
prayed
since childhood and didn’t now, but he remembered again why people did.

Book Three

NETWORK NEWS

OCTOBER 2009

Chris had just slammed the door on Ron Skelly, the morning show’s producer, after his insulting removal of her on-air interview and spoken to her agent, Carl Green, about the unexpected phone call and offer from Greg. She needed to talk it over with Marian.

She stared at her desk clock. Nine-fifteen in the morning in New York, it was only six-fifteen in California. She and her friend had spoken for over an hour the night before, mostly about Marian’s sudden promotion to director of Comedy Series Development. Marian would probably be on her way to the health club.

“Guess who just phoned me?” Chris began as soon as the other woman answered.  Traffic could be heard in the background. Having lost twenty pounds the year before and worried about regaining it, she had become a fitness fanatic.

“Who phoned you?” Marian repeated as if actually musing on the question. “Let’s see. I know, Jack Kennedy.
Had to be collect.
They don’t have money where he is. You ought to trace it. There’s a story there.”

“Be serious.”

“The head of the Taliban wants to go on your show to plug his new deal with Gillette. With every razor, the company will give away a free Uzi.”

“Someone in my life you’re not going to believe.”

“Greg
Lyall
.”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

“He’s the only person in your life I wouldn’t believe. He wants to hire you?”

Chris indicated that he did, as nightly news anchor.

“He’s moving fast,” Marian observed.

“What do you think?”

“For him it’s a smart move, smarter than most people here give him credit for. You’ll kick up the news ratings and draw younger demographics.”

“And for me?”

“It’s certainly the glamour job in TV news. We both know that. And you’re not happy where you are. But if you’re asking me whether you should work for Greg
Lyall
, I can’t help you. I’ve never even met him. All I know is the scuttlebutt around the network.”

“Which is?”

“What he seems to be best at is being a son-in-law.”

“He’s smart, I can tell you that. And you can’t trust him farther than you can throw a safe.”

“Perfect credentials for success in television.
Chris, I’d love for us to be working at the same network, but you sound very negative.”

Chris had paused to consider. “If it were anything but anchor . . .” She left the last word hanging in the air as well as in her own mind.

Marian was already inside the health club.  I’ll call you when I get to my office,” she said.

A little while later Carl Green called Chris to confirm a private dinner at his apartment tonight with Greg
Lyall
. He wanted to meet the man alone, but
Lyall
had insisted she be there.

Marian spent half an hour on an elliptical walker and then doing weights before dashing through the shower, running a brush through her hair and a swipe of lipstick across her mouth. She was back in her car on the way to work by seven-thirty. She might be older and slimmer now, but she was almost as heedless of her tall, slouching appearance as she had been at school.

Marian waved at the guard and guided her car into the basement garage in the FBS tower at the edge of the company’s several-acre complex. Her hand was on her ID, ready to present to the guard she was always anxious would not remember her. It was almost as if in her own mind the size of her presence had diminished with her girth.

She had held half-a-dozen jobs in Programming, her rise in the department was due in large part, she knew, to the care she took not to threaten her boss, Raoul
Clampton
.  As he rose, so did
she
.

Survival in the Programming Department, she had early learned, depended on not standing out. Her deferential manner, the mousiness of her looks lessening the intimidation of her height, her almost nonexistent social life, which allowed for long hours in the office and devouring the stack of scripts
she
took home each night all assured him of her loyalty. She saw how others there had mastered the art of saying "no" to innovative projects. Saying "yes" put one out on a limb, exposed one to blame for their failure. Because many more shows failed than succeeded, it was far safer to reject innovation and choose shows that copied previously successful formats. Marian hated that self-serving technique and thought it a major reason why so many shows failed. The concepts were tired and the viewers bored, at least with FBS’s lineup.

Other networks were taking risks on original concepts and were being rewarded in the ratings wars. She deduced that during the country’s deep recession, viewers wanted escapist originality that lifted
them above personal financial problems. But
Clampton
was not about to risk his career on what he considered to be off-the-wall fads.

Programming’s corridors were still dark when she entered her office. Two intriguing series proposals by really promising writers eager to take the next step to
showrunner
that she had passed on to
Clampton
were back on her desk. Scrawled on them was
Clampton's
familiar red-ink "Rejected." No reason was given. Raoul
Clampton
was not one to risk putting his reasons into writing. If the show proved successful at a different network, the wrong reason for rejection at FBS might prove embarrassing. Despite the lesson that should have been learned from the almost predictable failure of this season's lineup, the company seemed once again headed down the same old road that led over the same old cliff. Marian felt helpless.

Greg charged through his first day as CEO, aware that all those who caught even a small glimpse of him in action would evaluate it against their skepticism. Now, they were about to be presented with a full frontal view. The senior staff meeting would serve as a kind of formal coronation in front of those who had ignored and undervalued him after the directors’ private investiture.

But as he stood peering at the sea of dark suits and brighter dresses, he realized that those watching him were also ambitious, had also sacrificed and struggled to haul themselves up to their present levels, and hated him for the unfairness of his selection. Only bold, unexpected success could erase the stain. 

As Greg spoke, trying to evoke a sense of team spirit in his listeners, he could sense fear rising like body odor. The word was already spreading that he was planning to cut staff. Nothing he said could pierce their worry.

The upcoming meeting with Chris remained on his mind all day, like the start of a long-delayed trial. A truce, however uneasy, would first have to be agreed on between them if he was to have any chance of inducing her to consider his offer. He had charged several people with the task of clandestinely probing acquaintances at Chris's network for what they might know about the status of her negotiations there.

Almost as ticklish as making the original phone call had been the question of where to meet with her. A restaurant was too visible and, besides, there was something about dining out together that was
unbusinesslike
and, thus, too reminiscent of their past intimacy; it was sure to alienate her. His office was neutral and professional, but she would be spotted entering and leaving the building. Her home would have been awkward and suggesting it an imposition. His home was out of the question. Her agent, who sounded unacquainted with the couple's
past history, had inadvertently solved the problem by inviting him to join her at his apartment for dinner.