by Nic Tatano
I saw Ariel across the street pointing her phone at me. “Anytime!” she yelled.
“Go get ‘em, Tiger,” said Roxanne.
I shrugged and shook my head. “Whatever.” I had no idea what to expect but played along. Big deal, I was gonna walk across the street. Millions do it every day in Manhattan and no one notices. The light changed and the little crosswalk icon told me it was safe to go.
What happened next nearly made my jaw drop.
Because just about every man crossing in the opposite direction had his hanging open.
They gawked. They flat out stared. A young, hardbodied bike messenger heading around the corner stopped, tipped his sunglasses down for a better look, and said, “Whoa.” A cabbie going the other way gave me the classic blue-collar compliment of “Hey, baby” as he honked his horn and beat his hand on the side of the car door. A utility worker ten feet off the ground in a cherry picker got distracted and sent his bucket into a telephone pole. A man twisted his neck like an owl as he crossed the street in the other direction. I heard a clang and an expletive only to turn and see he had walked into a mailbox and was hopping around on one leg.
I reached the other side of the street to find Ariel laughing hysterically as she put down her phone.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’re now officially a smoking hot babe.”
***
The video rolled for the fifth time in slow motion, filling the giant flat screen in my living room.
“I love the look on the guy’s face when he hits the mailbox,” said Ariel, leaning back into my overstuffed beige couch while sipping a glass of red wine. She fired the remote at the screen and froze the video as the man cringed.
“I still can’t believe that’s me,” I said. “It’s like watching a stranger.”
Roxanne grabbed the remote from Ariel and started the video again, this time at half speed. “Look at that hair bounce. Am I good, or what?”
“It’s like there are invisible electric fans following her,” said Serena. “Rox, you’ve outdone yourself.”
“She didn’t just stop traffic, she made it back up.” Roxanne smiled and hit the pause button, then pointed a finger at me. “And I don’t want you touching your hair tomorrow. I’ll be here at seven to give you a comb-out.”
“Seven?” I said. “I sleep till eight.”
Roxanne shook her head. “Not any more. Beauty takes time. No more rolling out of bed and directly into a cab wearing a toothbrush as an accessory. Yeah, I’ve seen you do that.”
“Guess I need to start going to bed earlier.”
“Hopefully you’ll be doing that for reasons other than sleep,” said Ariel.
I looked at myself on the screen and it hit me. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh what?” asked Serena.
“I just thought of something. I’m not sure what the reaction will be at work.”
Ariel furrowed her brow. “Seriously? You work in TV. The new look should be worth bigger ratings. They’ll be thrilled.”
“There’s more to it than that. I realize my business is superficial but it’s hard to be credible if a viewer’s first impression of you has to do with how you look. That’s one of the reasons I’ve never fixed myself up.”
“The other reason is that you had no idea how to do it,” said Roxanne.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m gonna get some flak for this.”
Ariel waved her hand. “Pfffft. They’ll love it.”
“You don’t know Harry.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Harry Coyne likes to use the phrase “back in the day” when describing the halcyon days of broadcasting. No computers but typewriters, and not the electric kind but the kind where the letter “e” got stuck fairly often. No printers but carbon paper. A huge black metal wire service machine that spit out an endless roll of copy and had to be “stripped” every twenty minutes by the low man on the totem pole. (Only because there were no women on said pole. Their poles could be found in strip clubs.) Ribbons had to be changed, film had to be developed, phones had hold buttons that flashed. And actual human beings answered them when they rang. People smoked in newsrooms and every reporter had a flask filled with something a hell of a lot stronger than Dr. Pepper stashed in his desk.
And back in the day, as Harry puts it, “A newsroom sounded like a newsroom.” Watch any movie about the news business made before 1980 and you’ll hear the journalism heartbeat of the past: the loud banging of the wire machine, the incessant tapping of typewriter keys, the spinning of the typewriter platen as paper was ripped out. The wire machine is now a boat anchor, replaced by digital news delivered to your laptop while reporters gently write stories on nearly silent keyboards.
I say nearly silent, because today as I arrived in the newsroom I couldn’t hear them.
Same deal as crossing the street. Everything stopped. Jaws dropped open. Hal, the kid producer, walked into a file cabinet. Audrey the newsroom secretary spilled coffee all over herself. I left surprised looks in my wake as I entered the conference room for the morning meeting, adorned in a stunning short emerald-green dress that matched my eyes, which Roxanne had worked on after my morning comb-out.
The loud conversation that usually filled the room every morning came to a screeching halt as everyone looked in my direction.
Jenna Scanlin, our thirty-something five o’clock anchor with the supermodel body broke the silence. “Oh my God! You look … fantastic!”
“Thank you,” I said, sitting down in my usual spot at the far end, opposite the head of the table, newsroom “mom” to Harry’s “dad.”
Stan Harvey the feature guy couldn’t stop staring. “Excuse me, but … who are you and what have you done with Belinda Carson?”
“Just thought it was time for a little change,” I said, twirling a lock of my hair.
“Little change?” said Stan.
“I’d give you a compliment but I see Inhuman Resources lurking in the newsroom,” said Bob Evanson, spotting the troll on one of her regular spy missions. “So I’ll just ask if someone can turn up the air conditioning in here.”
“You look amazing,” said Audrey, still trying to dab coffee off her blouse.
“Thanks.” I looked through the glass and saw Harry headed our way. “Nobody say anything. I wanna see if he notices.”
Harry blew through the door as he always did, dropped a bunch of manila folders and a yellow legal pad in front of his chair, took a seat, banged his chipped red coffee cup on the table and spilled a bit of it. He pulled a pencil out from behind his ear and looked up. His brow creased as he noticed me, then he turned to his perky brunette assistant who sat to his left. “Audrey, you’re supposed to notify me in advance when we have a guest in the morning meeting.”
Audrey, who’s my age, bit her lower lip, trying her best not to laugh. “She’s not a guest, Harry.”
People snorted, laughs were stifled. Harry slowly turned in my direction, pulled his silver reading glasses down to the tip of his nose and stared over them at me. “I’m sorry, do you work here?”
“Every weekday for the last eight years,” I said. “Maybe you recognize the voice.”
His eyes suddenly widened in recognition. “Cupcake?”
I smiled and nodded.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Harry, you’re a real charmer,” said Jenna.
“In my office after the meeting,” he said.
***
I followed Harry into his cluttered office and closed the door behind me. Harry moved to the window that looked out over the newsroom and twisted the Venetian blinds shut, since the entire staff had stopped working and didn’t want to miss the scene about to take place. I heard a chorus of “Aw, shit” through the window. He started pacing behind his desk and shook his head. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself.”
“Did what, Harry?”
He started wildly gesturing in my
direction. “This … this … hair, and … you’re in a dress.”
“Women wear dresses, Harry. Women go to the hair salon.”
“But not you. You always look the same. You’re—”
“One of the guys?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re a real reporter, not the eye-candy fembots management sticks me with.”
“Are you saying I can’t be credible if I look attractive?”
“People won’t take you seriously.”
“You’re kidding, right? This is television news, Harry. Or have you forgotten we work in the world’s most superficial business?”
“You just took the brass out of the cupcake.”
I tapped my head. “The brass is still here, Harry. It’s just been polished a bit.”
Harry pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, jerked it toward his head and popped one in his mouth.
“You know you can’t smoke in here, Harry.”
He rolled his eyes. “Shit!” He fired the cancer stick into the trash. “Back in the day we didn’t have these stupid rules … aw, dammit, now I’m going to have to get new promo shot, and all your billboards will have to be replaced. Your face is on a hundred city buses and subway platforms.”
“The other women in the newsroom change their hair all the time.”
“You’re not like them. And this is more than a change. This is like … like trading in a Yugo for a Mercedes.”
A Yugo? A 1980s Russian car? I looked that bad in my “before” picture? “Is that your weird way of saying I look good?”
He shrugged and looked at the parade of Emmy awards that sat atop the battered wooden credenza behind his desk. “Let’s just say it’s going to be hard to sell the best-looking woman in my newsroom as the best reporter.”
A huge smile grew on my face. “Thank you, Harry. Took you a while to get there, but I’ll take it.”
“Just tell me why you did … ” He looked up and waved his hands up and down my body. “ … this.”
What the hell, I was determined to have some fun. I pointed to myself. “This? By this you mean … ?”
“You know damn well what I mean!” His hands moved faster. “This! This! The hair is all … down and has curls and it’s shiny and … the dress … I mean, you’ve got legs for God’s sake!”
I playfully slapped the side of my face. “The horror!”
He exhaled. The man who had been like a father to me now looked at me like one for the first time. “Just tell me why.”
“Why? Because I’m tired of going home alone to my empty apartment, Harry. All the Emmys and the fame and my face on the signs in the subway and the big paycheck aren’t keeping me warm at night. My best friends told me I need to change, starting in a physical way. You said it yourself last week, that I have no social skills.”
“I said I was sorry about that. You know I’m not the most tactful person, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know. But apparently I needed some female skills as well. I need to put my best foot forward out there if I’m ever going to find someone who will love me.”
“Oh, geez. Not again. Every damn woman in my newsroom.”
“What?”
“I never figured you as someone who owns a biological clock. Tick-tock-tick-tock and here’s my resignation.” He plopped down in his beat-up brown leather swivel rocker and folded his hands in his lap. “So.” Long pause. “She’s gone forever?”
“If by she you mean the sexless woman in baggy clothes who didn’t own a pair of heels and was the only girl in the newsroom who didn’t kill the ozone on a daily basis, yeah, she’s outta here. But I’m still the same reporter. And I’ll never stop doing what I do because I love it.”
He pulled a flask from his top drawer and took a sip, one of his last remaining defiant acts available in the hellish time known to Harry as the present. “Dammit, Cupcake, I never figured you for a skirt.” (It should be noted that a “skirt” was the term used by men back in the day referring to women in the newsroom.) “I’m not sure this is gonna work.”
“What?”
“Politicians run for cover when they know you’re around. They’re more frightened of you than an IRS audit. You think any man is going to avoid you looking like that?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Harry, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve still got a lot of work to do on those social skills.”
“Please don’t.”
***
My “tip line” started ringing the moment I got off the set at five minutes after five.
It’s an old, battered red phone that weighs a ton and it’s hooked up to an old-fashioned answering machine that uses a tape. Normally the thing only rings about three times a week. Viewers call tipping me off on stuff that they think needs to be investigated. Sometimes the tips lead to stories, more often they don’t. The stuff I get on politicians is usually generated by the other party and turns out to be bogus. But over the years I’ve gotten some great stories out of anonymous phone calls.
I needed some new leads anyway, having put the State Senator tale to bed as the guy resigned this morning. While there were a few things I had on the back burner, nothing jumped out as a big story.
I slid into my chair, tossed my script on the desk already littered with papers, and answered the phone. “Tip line, Belinda Carson … ”
“Hi, Belinda, thanks for taking my call.” The voice was young and female.
I shoved some junk out of the way, revealing a coffee-stained blotter that still had a calendar for 2006, grabbed a pen and pad, poised to take notes. “That’s what I’m here for. You have a tip you want to share?”
“Not really. I just wanted to say you look fantastic and I was hoping you’d share the name of your hairstylist.”
My head dropped and hit the desk with an audible thud. And so it began.
The tip line got a workout for the next ninety minutes, ringing non-stop. I didn’t get out of there till a quarter to seven, after fielding the following hard-hitting, investigative news tips, which would no doubt lead to Emmy award winning exclusives:
“Who does your makeup?”
“Where did you get that dress?”
“Would you like to have dinner this weekend?”
“Are your eyes really that green or are you using colored contacts?”
“What’s that shade of lip gloss?”
And my favorite:
“I’m married and would never cheat on my wife, but I just wanted to call and say you’re smokin’ hot.”
After the final call Harry walked by my desk on his way out of the newsroom.
“I noticed you were getting an awful lot of tip calls tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” I knew where this was going. Harry was wearing his I-told-you-so look.
“Any good leads?”
“Not one.”
“See what you started?”
CHAPTER SIX
Friday night couldn’t have come fast enough. I felt like my soul had been magically transferred into another body.
The old Belinda Carson, now known as “frumpy girl,” had apparently died last weekend. Oh, I was still the Brass Cupcake, but I had become that rare crossover hit in the broadcasting world, an “infobabe” who actually had credibility.
Not that viewers noticed the latter any more.
At this point I was totally conflicted. I was surprised, but I had to admit I loved the attention I was getting from men. Hated that my appearance had become secondary to my reporting talent. Loved getting dressed up and fixing my hair (which also surprised the hell out of me), hated that the first comment I heard in the newsroom had to do with my outfit or hair or makeup rather than the previous night’s story.
I would deal with it later, along with a bottle of wine that was chilling in the fridge with my name on it. First I needed a cab, one of the hardest things to get on a Friday night during rush hour in Manhattan.
Well, it used to be hard. I previously endured a y
ellow blur as taxis sped by me, often splashing me with slush in the process since I was apparently coated with invisibility spray.
Now I step one foot off the curb, raise my hand, awkwardly stick out one well-turned ankle in a stiletto heel, and it’s a lemon-colored NASCAR race to grab my fare. It felt weird, like I was in some bizarre dance class, but I’ll take it.
Ten seconds after I engaged my sexual hail, a shiny cab crossed three lanes of traffic and screeched to a halt in front of me. The rumpled middle-aged man in a business suit ten feet away who’d already been at the curb when I got there rolled his eyes at me.
I opened the door and got in, then noticed the new-car smell, which is rather rare in a Big Apple taxi.
“Where to, Miss?” asked the cabbie, making eye contact by using his rear-view mirror.
“1042 East 82nd, please.”
He didn’t pull away, and just sat there staring at me in the mirror.
“Well?” I asked. “Is there a ride somewhere in my future?”
“I knew it,” he said.
I furrowed my brow. “Knew what?”
I saw his eyes brighten in the mirror and then he turned to face me.
Oh shit.
“You! Vincent!”
“Oh, you remembered my name this time. I’m impressed.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“What does it look like? Driving my cab.”
“You said you worked on Wall Street.”
He shrugged. “Rox told me to say that. Besides, I do pick up a fare there from time to time.”
“So you’re a cab driver?”
“How very perceptive of you. I can see why you went into journalism.” He smiled, then gave me the once-over. “Anyway, like I said, I knew it.”
“I’ll repeat the question. Knew what?”
“That there was a serious babe under all those bad clothes.”
A tap on the window interrupted us. It was the guy who’d been waiting. I rolled down the window.
“Look, if you’re not going anywhere, can I have this cab?”
“No,” I said, rolling up the window as Vincent took off.