“Ten minutes to air,” Lilly, the floor manager, said, hearing the cue from the control room through her headset.
The studio work lights went out.
Alexandra sat down at her desk. Her microphone was reattached and a small beige earphone was inserted into her right ear. A glass of water was brought to her, which she took a sip of and then placed on a small shelf down under her desk. Cleo touched her up with some powder and blush, fiddled a little with her hair, and then held a mirror for her as Alexandra applied fresh lipstick. An assistant leaped onto the set, exchanging a page of her script with a new one, which Alexandra scanned before stacking her copy neatly in front of her.
“Dick says no more running around,” Lilly told her. “They need another sound level.”
“‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,’” Alexandra said, picking up her pen and twiddling it, “‘establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the—’”
“Okay,” Lilly said, making a cutting motion under her neck.
“Yes,” Alexandra then said, smiling, holding her hand up to her right ear, “I can hear you fine, Kyle. How many times do I have to tell you? It’s only when you say things I don’t want to hear that the earpiece doesn’t work.”
“Five minutes to air, five minutes to air,” Lilly announced.
Cassy walked out of the darkness, stepped up into the glare of lights on the set and leaned over Alexandra’s desk, smiling. “Feel good to be back at work?”
Alexandra’s smile was a very happy one. “Sure does.”
Cassy nodded, still smiling. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Alexandra said.
Cassy stepped down and disappeared into the darkness. Alexandra lowered her eyes to her copy, quickly flicking through the pages.
Time passed, time signals were given. Kyle flew in, said something to Dash on set 2, and then flew out again.
“Two minutes to air, two minutes to air,” Lilly announced, moving over by the middle camera that was facing Alexandra. “Quiet on the set!” And then she added, in a quieter voice, “We’re going to open on 2, Alexandra,” pointing to the camera beside her.
Alexandra nodded, gathered her copy together, tapped it in line on the desk, and then placed it down flat in front of her. She moved her pen an inch to the side and left it there. Then she took a very slow, deep breath, drawing the air in through her nose, clasped her hands in front of her on the desk, pulled herself up tall in her chair and leaned forward slightly, closing her eyes and slowly letting out the breath. Then her eyes opened.
“One minute to air, one minute!” Lilly said, holding her index finger high in the air.
The studio was dark, the lights on the set brilliant. Alexandra’s earrings sparkled, as did her eyes. She unclasped her hands, settling them on the desk on either side of her copy.
“Forty-five seconds,” Lilly said. “We open on 2.”
Alexandra’s eyes glanced at the program monitor—on it was some sort of commercial—and looked back at camera 2, over the lens of which her copy could be seen on the TelePrompTer.
“Thirty seconds,” Lilly said.
On set 3, Gary dropped his pointer and it clattered off his desk, off the set and down onto the studio floor. “Shit,” he said.
Alexandra did not blink.
“Twenty seconds,” Lilly said. She was facing Alexandra, standing by camera 2, pointing at it with her left hand and holding her right arm straight up in the air. “Fifteen seconds—stand by.”
Through the headsets of the camera operators they could hear a lot of verbal action going on in the control room. On the monitor there was a station I.D. running for WST, the New York affiliate.
“Ten—nine—eight—” Lilly said.
Alexandra’s eyes moved to the monitor and then back to the TelePrompTer over camera 2.
“—seven—six—five—four—three,” Lilly said.
The studio was silent.
Alexandra’s eyes were on camera 2.
On the monitor, unfolding in eerie silence, was the opening. The screen was black and then a blue dot appeared, growing brighter, which then started to move as a line, quickly outlining the continental United States, Hawaii and Alaska. Seventy-three red dots appeared within them and then suddenly each red dot sent a white line streaking toward New York and when they met there was a flash of white light, clearing to show the full-color DBS NEWS AMERICA TONIGHT lettering and logo, glowing, against a backdrop of little boxes; inside of each a film was running (children playing, construction workers, white-collar commuters, farmers, bingo players, Washington tourists, truckers, and on and on). The glow of the letters grew bright and the screen flashed out in a blaze of blue light, clearing to show WITH ALEXANDRA WARING just under the montage, only for the screen to blaze white again and then fade down to the original map of the United States, outlined in blue on black, red affiliate points twinkling, white lines leading to New York.
Lilly’s right hand came down to point at Alexandra just as the red light on top of camera 2 came on.
“Good evening,” Alexandra said, eyes sparkling. “This is Memorial Day, May 30, 1988. For the DBS Television News Network in New York City, I’m Alexandra Waring, and this is the news in America tonight.”
Outside, under the lamplight, one of the night custodians was wheeling his cleaning cart across the square when he stopped, cocking his head as if he heard something.
Yes, there was something, a roaring sound, and he looked up at Darenbrook I to see a whole bunch of people going crazy up there in the cafeteria, jumping up and down, carrying on like the devil.
“Yeeeeeeeeeeee—” Jessica was calling from on top of one of the cafeteria tables, “haaa!” as the audience from her show danced around, echoing her sentiments.
In Jackson’s office, in front of the big TV, Ethel, Randy, Claire, Adele and Chi Chi were throwing popcorn in the air.
In Gordon’s office, Gordon was pounding the arms of his chair, yelling, “Yeah!” while Betty and others from the miniseries group were applauding.
Out in the carport, the drivers—huddled around the TV sitting on the roof of Alexandra’s limo—cheered.
Out in the guardhouse, grinning at the tiny TV sitting in front of him, the guard nodded, saying, “That’s our girl, guys, that’s our girl.”
In the control room, Cassy was leaning against the back wall, smiling, eyes glistening; Dr. Kessler was standing next to her, looking very proud; and Jackson was sitting in the corner, smiling from ear to ear.
Alexandra was finishing the intro into the lead story. “…in a public clash over civil rights, where Mr. Gorbachev complained about President Reagan’s—quote—sermonizing. With a special report for DBS News, we go live, now, to Moscow, where Eric Benter of the British International News Service is standing by outside the Kremlin.”
“Take satellite 3,” the director, Dick Gross, said. “Ready to go to a split screen with camera 2. Make sure Alexandra can hear him.”
It went along beautifully. After Benter’s report Alexandra was able to look at her monitor and talk with him and ask him some questions. They came back to the studio and Alexandra led over to John Knox Norwood, who “anchored” a six-minute segment of reactions and analyses of the day’s events in Moscow with political and academic figures, and then they broke for a commercial.
When they came back Alexandra went into a story about the Memorial Day services in Arlington Cemetery and similar services being held around the country; a cemetery strike in San Francisco disrupting a service; a veterans’ protest held at a cemetery outside Chicago; and a smattering of short items from around the country. Then Alexandra led over to Paul Levitz for the business and economy report (which, since it was a holiday in the United States, had no “breaking” news): an anticipated rise in short-term interest rates by the Federal Reserve; growing support in the U.S. for the proposed Canada-U.S. free trade pact; and a business profile of Robert Muse Bass. Alexand
ra promised they would return with sports after a break.
While they were in commercial Jimmy Hallerton ran into the studio with a last-minute final on a baseball game, leaped onto set 2, landed wrong, twisted his ankle and went crashing down, snapping Dash’s microphone floor connection as he did so.
“Sound’s out on Dash—they want you to skip ahead to the DC-9,” Lilly said to Alexandra, waving the stagehands on to carry Jimmy away. “Fifteen seconds. Coming up on camera 1. Ten, nine, eight…”
Alexandra was reorganizing her copy. When Lilly hit three, she looked up into camera 1 and there, on the TelePrompTer, was the copy for Dash’s sports report. Her eyes went back down to her script for a second and then came back up just as the red light went on. “Dash Tomlinson isn’t called Dash for nothing,” she said, smiling into the camera. “He just ran off with our sports report. But he promised he’d be back in a moment with the latest breaking scores and finals.”
Through the headsets of the crew, laughter in the control room could be heard.
“A fast-thinking pilot of a Continental DC-9 averted a midair collision near Cleveland this afternoon,” Alexandra went on to say, glancing down to read from her copy. Kyle, in the meantime, in Alexandra’s earphone, was telling her to go straight into the next story when she was done reading this one. She did and, as soon as they cut away to the film report that accompanied it, Kyle told her that she was to lead back to Dash and, after his segment was done, that she was to skip the beach in Miami story and go straight to commercial—which she did. During the commercial she was then told to move the beach in Miami story to the following segment, where the DC-9 story had been, and to cut an item on recycling. (She nodded, slashing a downward arrow through the story on her script.)
When they came back Alexandra went over the top stories and then led over to Gary for the weather. Gary, in real life, was standing next to a blank wall. On the monitor, however, he appeared to be standing next to a highly detailed topological map of the United States. (He had to watch himself on an offstage monitor to do his pointing on the map.) His footage of the day: a sudden hailstorm in Vermont (with ice balls an inch big), occurring after a series of very warm days. After he explained the mechanics of cold-front heat-wave collisions, they cut away for the local forecasts, followed by a graphic that said that the weather segment had been sponsored by KlapTrap. And then the first regular commercial rolled (in which four six-foot mosquitoes attacked a family cookout), followed by three more commercials from other sponsors.
When they came back Alexandra led to some local “town meeting” kind of stories, one from their Los Angeles affiliate, one from their Omaha affiliate, one from their New Orleans affiliate, and then she led to Helen Kai Lu for her special report on health maintenance organizations, “Should You Join an HMO?” They broke for a commercial.
When they came back Alexandra led over to Brooks for a report and mini-reviews of the top-grossing movies of the holiday weekend, and then Alexandra led over to Chester for their closing piece on Memorial Day. It was long, by TV standards, almost four and a half minutes, but it was a very strong piece, genuinely moving too, as they listened to Chester give a history of America’s wars and watched how twenty-four towns and cities this day had chosen to remember the Americans who had died in them.
And then, suddenly, it was the end of the newscast, and there was Alexandra, the warmth of her smile traveling forty-four thousand miles through the sky to be felt in homes across the country. “May 30, 1988,” she said. “From everyone at DBS News, we wish you a very good night—and an even better tomorrow.”
They closed with a shot of a single flag on a single grave. The camera then slowly drew back to show the breathtaking hillside the solitary grave was located on, with mountains steeping in the background. The frame froze, the color faded to black and white, the resulting image looking very much like an Ansel Adams photograph.
“All clear!” Lilly announced a minute later.
“All right!” Kyle announced, leaping into the studio and throwing his script in the air.
“Hi,” Cassy said, poking her head around the dressing-room door. “I thought you might be hiding in here.”
Alexandra smiled, wiping some of the studio makeup off with cotton pads. It was after midnight; standby for updates on the West Coast feed was over.
“What?” Cassy said to somebody out in the hall, leaning back out the door. “Oh, you’re welcome, Greg,” she called down the hall. “Please come again—any time—you were a pleasure.” She laughed and then came inside, closing the door behind her.
Alexandra lowered the pad to her dressing table and looked at Cassy in the mirror. “You don’t know who that was, do you?”
“Here,” Cassy said, holding up a glass of champagne. “I lost half of it in the hall, but there’s still enough to say that someone left you some. It’s quite a party upstairs.” She leaned past Alexandra to put it down on the dresser, and then she stood behind her, resting her hands on Alexandra’s shoulders, smiling at her in the mirror. “I am so very proud of you,” she said.
Alexandra smiled but then lowered her eyes, reaching for another cotton pad.
Cassy stood there a moment, but when Alexandra did not look at her again she moved over and threw herself down in the chair next to the dresser. “Oh,” she said, covering her mouth to yawn, “am I ever tired.” She dropped her hand in her lap. “And we’ve got Paul Hogan coming in to do his interview in the morning. I hope Jessica remembers.”
“She will,” Alexandra said.
“I hope so,” Cassy said, watching her. After a moment, “So don’t you even want to taste your champagne?”
Alexandra smiled, eyes moving to her. “I can tell you’ve had some.”
“A little.”
“Uh-huh,” Alexandra said, eyes returning to the mirror as she finished wiping her chin. “Okay,” she said then, throwing the cotton in the trash and picking up the glass. “To Cassy Cochran—I drink to your good health, to your future happiness and to your generosity of spirit, which serves us all so well.” And then she leaned over and kissed Cassy softly on the cheek.
“Wow—thank you,” Cassy said, looking a little embarrassed.
Alexandra sat back, took a sip of champagne, swallowed, smiled and then held the glass out to Cassy. “It doesn’t work unless you drink to your own good health,” she said. “No one can do it for you.”
Cassy took the glass from her and brought it to her mouth.
Alexandra watched her sip. Her eyes watched Cassy’s mouth, skipped up to her eyes and then she turned away, getting up and walking to the bathroom. “I think you should go find Gordon,” she said over her shoulder, “and ask him about your friend Greg.”
Cassy frowned, putting the champagne glass down on the dresser. “My friend Greg?”
“In the newsroom today,” Alexandra said from the bathroom. She left the door slightly ajar but was standing out of Cassy’s line of sight. “Greg—the guy you just said good night to.”
“What about him?” Cassy said, standing up, smoothing her skirt.
In the bathroom Alexandra was leaning back against the towel rack, looking up at the ceiling. She did not look very well. “That was Lord Gregory Hargrave,” she said, her voice sounding normal. “Gordon told me when he came down.”
“Lord Gregory Hargrave!” Cassy gasped. “And no one recognized him?”
“I know,” Alexandra said from behind the bathroom door. “So maybe you ought to find out what he was doing here.”
“I knew he looked familiar,” Cassy said, moving to the door. “I’ll strangle Jackson-his secretary told me he was a family friend.”
“You better go find Gordon now,” Alexandra said, “because I’m going to want to leave soon.”
“Oh, no,” Cassy groaned, clapping a hand over her eyes. “We gave Lord Gregory Hargrave a slice of pizza on a paper towel for dinner?” She dropped her hand and, mimicking somebody, added, “’Ey, Greg—ya wanna sloyce of sawsage
?” Laughing to herself, she opened the door, shaking her head. “Alexandra—you coming?”
“I’ll be up in a minute,” she said. “But could you ask Kyle to stop in here for a second?”
“Sure,” Cassy said, going out. “I’ll see you upstairs.”
When Alexandra heard the door close she brought her hands up to her face and held it for a long moment. Then she dropped her hands, closed her eyes, drew in one long breath, held it and slowly let it out. Then she opened her eyes and went over to the sink to look in the mirror.
Her eyes were wet and her nose was slightly red. She turned on the water, leaned over and scooped water over her face with her hands. The water running, still leaning over, she held her hands over her face again for a moment. Then she dropped them, sniffed, straightened up, turned off the water and reached for a towel. She held it against her face and then patted her face dry. She put the towel back in the rack.
“Alexandra?” Kyle said.
“Just a second,” she called. She grabbed a tissue, blew her nose, threw the tissue out and looked at herself in the mirror again. She waved her hand, trying to dry her eyes. Then she cleared her throat, ran her hands back over her hair once and went out, flicking the light off.
Kyle was standing half in the door. “What’s up?”
“I changed my mind,” she said, walking out.
“About what?” he said.
Alexandra walked over to pull Kyle inside the dressing room, closed the door and then turned to face him. “The tour,” she said. “I don’t want to wait until fall, Kyle. I want to go on the road soon—this summer.”
“Already?” he said.
“Already,” she said. “Just as soon as we can put it together.”
31
DBS Mail and Memorandums
Delivery by hand
*****CONFIDENTIAL*****
31 May 1988
MEMORANDUM TO: Catherine Cochran
FROM: Jackson Andrew Darenbrook
Alexandra Waring Page 41