by Jack Weyland
Chapter 2
They had waited about ten minutes when David Alexander finally arrived, angry at not being able to find a parking place. “I shouldn’t have to park three blocks away,” he grumbled.
Emily and the other members of the class had all heard of him, and they were ready to be impressed by the famous news crusader. He lived up to his billing; his rumpled hair and clothes made it look as though he had been up all night, working on an important story.
In fact, wearing khaki pants, a wrinkled denim shirt, and a loosely knotted tie, David Alexander didn’t look like any university professor Emily had ever known. He didn’t seem very friendly, either. He fixed the waiting students with a steely gaze that seemed to say, You’re beneath contempt and lucky to have me here.
Seeing him for the first time, Emily thought, He must be the most conceited person in America. Does he really believe America is hanging on his every word? I’m glad he had to walk three blocks.
But even so, she felt herself being pulled in by the power of his personality and his rugged good looks.
On the morning of the first class, while still ranting about the parking situation, he spilled coffee on his shirt, which caused him to unleash a string of swear words.
One of the class members, a young woman, got up to leave.
“Where are you going?” David Alexander challenged.
“I’m in the wrong class,” she said.
“What class do you want?”
“Any class but this one,” the girl said with an air of self-righteousness.
David Alexander watched her go then shook his head in disgust. “Utah,” he muttered. “Why did I ever agree to come here? I must have been out of my mind.”
He dunked half a donut in his coffee while he gave an introduction to the class. By the time he remembered to retrieve it, it had broken off and fallen into his coffee. He swore again. Another student, this time a young man, left the class.
He fished the fragments of donut out of his cup with a spoon and then took a sip of coffee. “If you all want to drop the class, be my guest. Do what’s best for you. But before you do that, give me a few minutes of your time.”
He set his coffee cup down on the table and glared at them. “I don’t know if you have any interest in history, but right now you’re looking at someone who knows what it’s like to see history unfold. I was the one who covered the standoff in Syria. How many have seen me on TV?”
Most of the people in the room raised their hands.
“I’ve done one-on-one interviews with the President and most of the leaders in Congress. I’ve talked to heads of state, movie stars, entertainers, and serial killers. The news is my life. I can’t promise you this will be like your other classes, but I can promise you I’ll do my best. I’ve never done this before, and I’m sure I’ll never do it again. But if you’ll let me, I’ll give you the benefit of my experience.”
He’s good at what he does, Emily thought. She could see how he used his husky voice to good advantage. His skill at making eye contact made each of them feel as though he was talking just to them, and that he was sharing something with them that he’d never told anyone before.
The next time the class met, their numbers had dwindled to six students.
“I see we’ve lost a few more,” he said. “Anyone else want to drop out?” he asked.
No one moved.
“Well, then. Let’s get to work.”
He had each class member read from a newspaper article, as if they were a newscaster. He had Emily go first.
She thought she was doing a good job until he called out, “Stop! Do you know anything about what’s happening in the world today? When’s the last time you read the New York Times or the Washington Post? ”
She gave him an embarrassed smile. “Never.”
“You think people want airheads reporting the news?”
“Well, no . . .”
In his animated state, he slammed his coffee on a desk, cracking the mug, which started to leak. He ignored the mess. “If you want to be a talking head and just read copy other people write, that’s one thing. Any stooge can do that. But in a news reporter, the public wants someone with intelligence who can make judgments and give perspective. You read like you were announcing an ice cream social. Are you sure you want to take this class? There’s still time to drop and take something you’re better suited for.” He gave a dramatic pause. “ . . . like social dance, for instance.”
That infuriated her. “I’m in this class to learn. Teach me what I need to know and I’ll get better,” she spat back at him.
“You’re sure you’ll get better? I’m not. Right now about all you’re good for is to make coffee.”
“I don’t know how to make coffee,” she shot back.
He threw up his hands. “Why me?” he muttered, then stormed to the back of the room to cool down.
Who do you think you are to talk to me like that? Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do. That’s up to me to decide. I’ll show you.
Because David said she ought to, Emily began reading the New York Times. The first time she picked it up, she was amazed at how big the paper was. Do people really read all of this? she wondered. But because she was afraid of disappointing him, she forced herself to spend four hours, reading the whole thing.
She also watched every news show she could find on TV to see what she could pick up from the best in the business.
At the time they started the class, the campus TV station wasn’t even on the air, but by midterm, they’d received the necessary FCC authorization to begin broadcasting.
When she enrolled in the class, Emily’s dream was of becoming a news anchor, but under the influence of David Alexander, she changed her focus. What she really wanted to be was an investigative reporter—out in the trenches, digging out the essence of a story and then reporting it on the air.
But there was little opportunity to do that in Logan for the campus TV station. All she could do was learn how to write news stories and then read them on the one broadcast the station did each day. Fortunately, though they were all older than Emily, none of the other five remaining students in the class had any interest in being on the air. That meant Emily was the one assigned to give the evening news every day at five-thirty.
On her first day she showed up at two o’clock to get ready for the newscast. She was wearing a dress she usually wore to church.
David took one look at her and ordered, “Go home and change.”
“What for?”
“You think people want to get their news from a prom queen?”
“I’m not a prom queen,” she shot back at him.
“Then don’t dress like one.” He walked to the coffee machine to pour himself a cup of coffee.
She followed him. “I never know what you want.”
“No, apparently you don’t. Excuse me, I need a cigarette.” He picked up his new coffee mug and turned to walk out of the studio.
She had had it with him. “Don’t you walk away from me! If you have something to say, then say it!”
He stopped in his tracks, turned around, and glared at her. “What?”
“I said, if you’ve got something to say, then say it.”
His thick eyebrows raised and he smiled. “My gosh, there’s a real person in there, after all. Okay, you want to talk? Let’s go outside and talk. I really do need a cigarette.”
She stood next to him under the eaves during a cold, steady rain that was threatening to turn to snow.
He offered her a cigarette.
“No thanks.”
He lit up. “You’re right. It’s a disgusting habit. Go ahead and say it. I know you’re thinking it.”
“It’s a disgusting habit.”
He took a deep drag on the cigarette and then slowly let it out. “You sound like my mother.”
“You have a mother?”
“I do. She lives with me just outside Washington.”
“Just the
two of you?”
“Just the two of us. And a cat. She has the cat, that is. I don’t like cats.”
It was the first bit of personal information he had volunteered. Standing there watching him smoke his cigarette, she studied the face America had grown to trust.
“I can’t believe I’m standing here talking to David Alexander,” she said. She immediately regretted saying it because it made her sound awestruck, which in many ways was true, but not what she wanted to convey. She wanted him to treat her as his equal.
He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s like everything else. You prepare in advance. You work up to it a little at a time. And then when your big chance comes, you just go in there and do the best you can.”
“That’s what I want to do someday.”
He seemed surprised. “No kidding? I thought you were taking this just to get an easy elective.”
“Not at all. I want to take over your job someday.”
“Well, at least you’ve given me fair warning,” he said with a chuckle as he let his cigarette drop to the ground. He put it out by grinding it into the pavement. “Sorry for coming down so hard on you. From now on, I’ll try to watch that.”
“It’s okay as long as you’re honest with me. I just want to get better.”
“So . . . we’ve got an agreement then?” he asked. “Honesty above all?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Okay, let’s get to work.”
She went back to her apartment and went through the things in her closet, trying to find something David might approve of. Concluding she didn’t have anything really appropriate, she settled on a long-sleeved, white, turtleneck sweater and a pair of black pants, then came back and practiced her delivery.
At six o’clock, when she finished the newscast, David Alexander said, “That wasn’t too bad . . . for the first time, that is.”
She knew he was trying his best to be kind, but she no longer needed that from him. “Let’s go have a cigarette,” she said, mimicking him.
That was the first time she’d ever seen him be delighted by anything.
Outside, they found it was now snowing. The one good thing was that the wind wasn’t blowing, so they were able to stand under the eaves and stay dry.
With a skeptical look, David offered her a smoke, then grinned when she refused it.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, lighting up his own.
After a moment, he said, “Viewers expect us to cut through the rhetoric and tell them what’s really happening. That’s why they watch. Because they trust us to tell them the truth.”
“How did I come across today?” she asked.
“Like a nice girl reading someone else’s thoughts. You don’t convey any conviction or mental toughness.”
“How do I do that?”
“By questioning everything. You can’t just accept what people tell you. You have to be ruthless enough to ask the really hard questions.”
She thought about his answer. “I’ll work on it.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I’m not your girl.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t say it. Oh, and also, don’t expect me to learn to make coffee for you, either.”
He started laughing. “Who are you? And what did you do with the nice girl who used to work here?”
“If you want toughness, then that’s what you’ll get. You don’t scare me anymore.”
“Really?”
“Really. And while we’re at it, I can find things you could work on too, you know. Like the way you say your name, for instance.”
“How do I say my name?”
She mimicked his dramatic delivery. “This is David . . . Alexander.”
She returned to her voice. “I know that’s how you start your news broadcast, but you don’t need to do that all the time, okay?” She mimicked him again. “This is . . . David . . . Alexander . . . I’d like a large supreme with anchovies. And that’s the end of the story.”
“You are bad! ” he roared with delight.
“Also, is it okay if I point out when you’re being rude? Or would it be like telling Moses he has manna stains on his robe?”
David must have felt he’d been human enough for one day because he fell back to his usual self. “You work hard, and you can say anything you want to me.”
It was only a three-credit course, but Emily worked harder on it than any other class. She started coming in early in the morning to practice giving the news.
She and David developed a good working relationship. He became a little more agreeable, while she became mentally tougher. She would not admit it to anyone, but she also began to think about him all the time. In the morning she wondered if he would approve of the way she was dressed. Through him she became more aware of her voice. When she was around him, he pointed out every time her voice reverted to that of a bewildered teenager who was out of her league. “You can have mental toughness, but if you sound like a breathy teen on camera, everyone will turn you off.”
And then there was eye contact. “Look at me when we’re talking,” he said over and over.
She looked at him but made the mistake of smiling.
“None of that. You’re tough as nails, remember.”
“Tough as nails,” she said, trying to look as steely-eyed as he.
They ended up looking into each other’s eyes. It was more intimate than either one intended.
He turned away first. She should have recognized that as a bad sign.
There was a spillover between what she was learning from David Alexander and the rest of her life as a student. And it wasn’t always good.
As evidenced by this phone conversation: “This is Ben Christianson. I talked to you after Sunday School class.”
“Oh, yes. You’re the one who thinks the Book of Mormon teaches us to be against any legislation favoring gun control.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s right.”
“I view that as an untenable position, Ben, but why did you call?”
“I was wondering if you’d care to go to the winter formal dance with me next week.”
“Didn’t you just break up with Colleen Turner?”
“Yes.”
“You were nearly engaged to her, weren’t you?” she asked. She realized she was using her newscaster’s voice.
“Yes.”
“And you broke up with her two days ago. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t take you long to bounce back, did it, Ben?”
There was a long pause.
Emily continued. “The way she tells it, you broke up with her because you discovered she’s not a good speller. Is that right? This was after you led her to believe you were going to give her a ring for Christmas. And you broke up with her because she made too many spelling mistakes in a love note she sent you for your birthday? Am I close on this, Ben?”
He hung up.
After that, word got around, and nobody asked her out. Strangely enough, she didn’t care. The boys in her classes and in her student ward seemed immature to her, especially compared to David Alexander.
* * * * *
Emily’s brother, Jeremy, was serving a mission in California while Austin was on his mission in Illinois. Every two weeks she sent them each a letter. Actually, she often sent them identical letters.
Jeremy wrote back to her at most once a month. He seemed to be doing well, having success in finding people to teach and baptize. Austin’s early letters indicated that progress was slow, but that he was sure that things were about to break open.
Over Thanksgiving break, she baked cookies and sent them to both of her missionaries.
As time went by, any special feeling she once had for Austin faded. She began to think of him more as a cousin than a potential boyfriend.
She tried to tell Jeremy and Austin about David Alexander, but she always tore up what she’d written about him because when she read it to
herself, it sounded almost as if she were falling in love. And she knew that wasn’t true. It was just that at the moment, David Alexander was the most important person in her life.
That’s all.
She knew that if she admitted to having feelings for him then she would have to deal with the fact that he wasn’t a member of the Church. And that was something she didn’t want to face.
* * * * *
In January, Emily was hired on a part-time basis to continue working at the station. She took a reduced class load so she’d have more time to devote to learning from David Alexander.
In February, he suggested she’d look better on-camera if she had her hair cut. He even went with her to the hair stylist to make sure it was done right. He also went shopping with her and helped her pick out a black pantsuit, which he said made her look more professional. Maybe that was true, but when she wore it to classes, she noticed boys paid a lot more attention to her, so she wasn’t totally convinced it was because she looked more professional.
In March, a benefactor gave the college some money to buy a remote unit, so the station could do on-the-scene coverage of breaking news stories. That was an exciting thing for Emily. There weren’t that many sensational news developments in Logan, but there were some automobile crashes, a fire at an apartment complex, and even a robbery and a brief hostage situation at a fast-food place. David knew a lot about how to play to the camera and tell a story, and he coached her on how to do reports from the field.
“Look,” he said to her. “Even though you’ve just arrived on the scene, you have to give the impression you’ve been there from the beginning and that you’re on top of the story.”
“How do I do that?”
“A lot of it is in the tone of your voice. You can’t seem overwhelmed by the situation or too excited. I’ll give you some tapes of my feeds from Syria to look at.”
The long Logan winter finally came to an end, and spring broke through.
In May, on a Monday, just before the end of school, David approached Emily. “What would you say if I asked you to have dinner with me on Friday night?”