Morning Glory

by Diana Peterfreund

  Or maybe he’d skip all that for something short and sweet like: You’re fired.

  But Jerry didn’t call, and as I sat there, staring at the phone and waiting for the summons that would seal my doom, I began to wonder why it was that he wasn’t calling. I mean, I’d half expected him to ring even if the show had gone well. After all, I’d just debuted Mike Pomeroy on morning television.

  Maybe he’d slept through it all? But even if he had, surely he’d heard about it. If IBS Legal knew about the Carter situation, Jerry must have heard. Right?

  After another half an hour of fretting, I realized there was no way I’d make it if I just sat and waited for the ax to fall. So I picked up the phone and called Jerry’s office.

  His secretary told me he’d been out today.

  He still had to have heard about our screwup. Which meant he didn’t even think we were important enough to deal with right away. Fabulous.

  No point me sitting around here. It was obvious that no one, from our host to our executives to the guy responsible for wiping the damn chyrons, gave a shit about the show. What was I doing spending the entire night in my office?

  There were surely better things to be doing. I could think of at least one.

  Adam answered the door as soon as I knocked. It was a risk, coming to his place unannounced. I knew that. He might not be home. Or worse, he might be home, but entertaining some blond regatta-attending goddess. That would really cap the evening off.

  But instead he was standing there, looking at me, dressed in a pair of jeans and a faded Yale T-shirt.

  “Did you see it?” I asked miserably.

  He looked at Colleen’s too-big suit. “It wasn’t that bad. It—”

  Adam had watched the show! I threw myself into his arms and kissed him.

  “Uh, hi.” He backed us both into his apartment and kicked the door shut.

  “You know what?” I said. “On second thought, I don’t want to talk about it.” I kissed him again.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Adam murmured.

  We stumbled into his apartment, still locked at the lips, and I reflected on how high my Manhattan rent was and how ridiculously long it had been since I’d been in my own shoebox of an apartment. Adam, it seemed, had better taste in real estate than I. Or possibly more money to burn on rent. Maybe both, come to think of it. At any rate, his place boasted an actual view. It was of the street beyond and a glimpse of skyline, but it was still much nicer than my brick wall and alleyway.

  “Last night …,” I began, as he was nibbling on my neck.

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to tell you how much I like your place.”

  “Oh.” He started fumbling with the buttons on my top. “Well, you’re free to admire it as much as you want now. Shall we start the tour with the bedroom?”

  “Awfully confident, aren’t you?”

  He grinned at me. “You just tackled me at the front door. I didn’t think you dropped by for a game of Scrabble.”

  “True.” I slid my hands underneath his tee. He did the same under Colleen’s blazer.

  My BlackBerry began buzzing in my pocket. We both froze, but when I started to pull away, he tightened one hand on my waist, then reached the other into my pocket.

  “I should probably take that.”

  He held it away from me. “Waiting on any life-and-death sources?”

  “Um …”

  “How about relatives in the hospital?”

  “No, but—”

  “And I assume you already talked to Jimmy Carter?”

  “Not as such, but I did speak to—” I lunged for it, but Adam was way taller.

  “If it’s Pomeroy calling to apologize, I say make the bastard wait.” Adam strode over to his fridge and tossed the BlackBerry inside.

  “Adam!” I cried.

  “We’ve been interrupted twice now,” he said, drawing me back into his arms. “That’s plenty at this stage of the game.”

  “But what if something happens?” I looked over his shoulder at the stainless steel box currently chilling my phone.

  “Then you’ll miss it.” He went back to the buttons on my shirt. “And then someone else will cover the World’s Biggest Pumpkin.”

  “See, that’s not fair,” I said, helping him slide first Colleen’s blazer, then Colleen’s blouse, off my shoulders. “You work at a magazine show. You do one fifteen-minute story every two months.”

  “Oh boy,” Adam said, and swept me off my feet. “Here you go again.”

  But I wasn’t done protesting my point, even as he carried me toward his bedroom. “We’re doing fifteen stories a day, none more than three minutes.”

  “Watch your head,” he said, as we crossed the threshold.

  I ducked to avoid the doorjamb. “Three and a half if it’s the president or if there are nude photos. Four if we have both.”

  “Is that your follow-up to the Carter revelation?”

  I gave him a playful smack as he deposited me on his bed. “Watch it, buddy.”

  “I told you,” said Adam. He landed on top of me. “I did. I got up at six A.M. and I watched your show.” He took off his shirt. My mouth went dry.

  “What, you saying I owe you now?” I unhooked my bra.

  He rolled on top of me, grinning. “Whatever works.”

  “Mmm …” Except, before we got too involved, there was one thing I absolutely had to know. “Hey, Adam?”

  “Yeah?” His jeans hit the floor.

  “How reliable is your alarm clock?”

  Much, much later, when I was scrubbed clean and dressed in one of my sharpest suits, I still couldn’t shake off the glow of the previous night. Yesterday might have begun disastrously, but Adam had provided a very sweet finish to the day.

  I sat in the control room, trying to keep my focus on the show—such as it was, since Mike hadn’t loosened up any from yesterday. But at least we weren’t delivering insults to world leaders today.

  Except I couldn’t seem to keep my mind off the soft kiss Adam had given me just before I stole out of his bed in the wee hours and practically skipped home—learning something about New York City as I did so. The whole “City That Never Sleeps” thing is a lie. When you’re out in the middle of the night, the streets are silent and empty. No one’s around to witness the undeniable bounce in your step after you leave the apartment of your brand-new lover and float home on a delicious cloud of memories from the night before.

  “Hey,” whispered Lenny. “What’s going on with you this morning?”

  “Huh?” I snapped out of my reverie. “I mean, nothing.”

  He smirked. “Surrrre.”

  “Oh, you’re nuts,” I said, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s just been a long night.”

  “Due to … ?”

  I filtered through the breaking news stories I’d scrambled to get coverage for when I’d finally left Adam’s place. There was the new fire out West, the one they were blaming on the work of a serial arsonist. “I put together that whole piece on the arsonist.…”

  “Riiiiight. That took what? Half an hour?”

  I fixed him with a look. “Leave me alone.”

  “Fine.” He held up his hands in surrender.

  Just then, one of the producers, Dave, came in, a worried look plastered on his face.

  “Good Morning America got the mother of the arsonist,” he announced.

  I shot out of my seat. “Oh, ass! I didn’t even think of that. Well, I didn’t even hear about the whole thing until two A.M.—”

  Lenny gave me a look, his suspicions aroused anew.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s see if the arsonist has a girlfriend. Damn it. Let’s see quickly. We only have footage and commentary.…”

  They stood there for a second.

  “Guys,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Story. Make it happen.”

  “But, we’re supposed to be doing the thing on garden tools—,” Sasha said.

  “A
rsonist,” I said firmly. It was a story I was sure Mike Pomeroy could get behind.

  Unfortunately, the arsonist was a loner, his dad was nowhere to be found, and his college roommate was booked on Today. Drat. We’d been scooped.

  The realization took some of the bloom out of my cheeks, but I wasn’t done in yet. My copy was good, the arson expert I’d dug up had solid credentials, we’d gotten some great footage of the fire and the damage, and I had Mike Pomeroy doing the interview. He was ten times more interesting than some guy who hadn’t seen his college roommate since he’d dropped out freshman year.

  The mother, of course, was going to beat us both.

  “It’s a sad statement on humanity,” Mike said as we walked together toward our lunch meeting, “that the public is more interested in rubbernecking the woman who ‘created the monster’ than in trying to understand the pathology or the devastation it caused.”

  “I’m with you there,” I said. “But people want to be reassured that their own little tyke won’t grow it up to do something like this. They want to look the mom in the eyes and wonder what it is she did wrong.”

  “Apparently nothing,” said Mike. “She didn’t have any baby pictures of him playing with matches. They just wanted to watch her cry on national television. And the bozos over at Good Morning America were more than happy to milk that for all it’s worth.” He sneered. “And you wonder why I have no respect for your vaunted bantering.”

  “Okay,” I said as we turned the corner. “Forget bantering. I’m taking you out today because I thought we could talk about maybe doing a profile. We’re doing a piece on Daniel Boulud—”

  “Does it end with me in the kitchen making profiteroles?” Mike asked dryly.

  “No.”

  He gave me a look.

  “Braised lamb?” I offered.

  He turned and kept walking.

  “Okay,” I said. “Forget that. How about an interview with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill?”

  “If either one becomes president or cures cancer, let me know.”

  “Mike,” I begged.

  He stopped for a moment and folded his arms. “I hear you’re dating Señor Dipshit. How’d you make that happen?”

  I frowned and quickly scanned the area for IBS employees. “Who told you that?” News certainly traveled fast in the office.

  “You and him—really?” Mike looked disconcertingly baffled by the notion.

  “Um, well, we’re not exactly—”

  “Because he usually goes out with the girls who are …” He stretched his hands apart vertically. “And have …” His hands undulated around his torso.

  Wow, he was as bad at miming as me.

  I cocked my head to the side and tried to decipher. “Taffy pullers with meatballs?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “But guess what, Mike. I’m not taking the bait.”

  “Hmph.” He kept walking.

  “And we’re going to talk later about how it’s not nice to call people names.”

  Mike snorted again.

  “Because I can think of a few choice ones for you.”

  “Back atcha, fangirl.”

  I sighed. One more block. “How about Sean Combs?” I tried. My goal for the day was to nail Mike down with one fluff piece. Just one. If I had to ply him with scotch to get it done, so be it.

  “I might,” said Mike, “if I knew who that was. But hey, I do have one promising lead. There’s an interesting story out of Albany. The governor’s tax returns are being audited and—”

  “Oh for God’s sake!” I cried. This was worse than Ernie and the weather vanes. “You’re killing me, Mike. No. No.”

  “That’s a perfectly good story,” Mike insisted. For a second, I thought he might stamp his foot. “Could be a great story, in fact. You just don’t like it because it doesn’t have Britney Spears in it.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You get Britney and the governor together, we’ve got a deal.”

  He huffed off.

  “What wrong with a little human interest? I want the viewers to get to know you.”

  “And they are supposed to get to know me by seeing me act utterly indifferent to their favorite celebrities?”

  “Mike—”

  “What you want,” he said coldly, “is for me to pander to an audience so you can sell them erectile dysfunction medication. And I won’t do that.”

  I slumped. We’d just turned to walk into the restaurant, with me having my doubts that there was anything I could offer him that would sweeten the pot, when suddenly a woman pounced on us.

  “Oh my God!” she shrieked. “It’s you! You’re that guy!”

  Mike took a step or two back from his raving fan. The woman was in her fifties—right in our viewership range—and was dressed in a pair of slacks and a sweater set.

  “I just saw you this morning!” she went on, her voice getting well into squeal territory. “I was watching the Today show—”

  Mike grimaced. “I’m not on—”

  “And there was a commercial. So I clicked around, and there you were! Everyone was eating stuffed zucchini and you were all cranky about it and I was like—oh my God, there’s that guy. You used to do news, right? Like a while ago?”

  Used to? Uh-oh. Thanks a bunch, lady. Now I’d never get him on board.

  She put her arms around him and held her phone at arm’s length, smiling broadly. Mike stood stock still.

  “Please remove your hands from my person,” he stated.

  I heard the phone click, then the fan checked out the results and squealed again. “Oh, this is so great. Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, since it was clear Mike would not.

  “Dan Rather!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe it.”

  I clapped my hands to my mouth. Oops.

  Mike’s face was a thundercloud. He yanked open the door of the restaurant and dashed in.

  Okay. Okay, but this really just proved my point. I trailed after him, readying my arguments.

  “Mike, you see that—people want to like you.”

  “No, they want to like Dan Rather.”

  “They’d know it was you if you put yourself out there a little more. You don’t need to be so dry on morning television. They want to like you. They want to know you. You’re in their house every morning, while they’re eating breakfast. You’re chatting with them. About current events, about the world they live in … It’s an honor, don’t you see that?”

  He didn’t see. Not at all.

  “Mike,” I said, defeated. “Can’t you just do a few more stories that people will enjoy? We’re in trouble. I’m in trouble. Help me, please.”

  The hostess eyed us both, her expression alarmed. “Um, table for two?”

  14

  So, no big surprise, I didn’t get through to Mike at all during our lunch. He shot down every one of my story ideas and complained about the public’s lowest-common-denominator tastes. At this point, I figured, the only story we might agree on would be getting an interview with the actual arsonist. Doubtless I’d have lots of luck with that one.

  As the week wore on, it became clear that my problems were not a product of first-day jitters, but of a genuine miscalculation about the show’s capabilities. Perhaps it was time to face facts. I might be a great news producer, but I didn’t have the training or experience necessary for a job like this. Sure, I’d had a Rolodex full of useful contacts in Jersey, but that was local news. It took people years to drum up those contacts on the national level. Adam had been in national news his entire career—with a college degree—and he hadn’t yet attained executive producer level. Granted, he was at a far more successful show, but still. There was a process to these things.

  I could bluff about “Dempsey’s people” and “arsonists’ girlfriends” as much as I wanted, but in reality, all I had was a very convincing “fake it till you make it” act. I didn’t have any real pull.

&nb
sp; And neither did anyone else at Daybreak—except Mike, and he would back only the stories he wanted. Stories that usually weren’t morning show material.

  That afternoon, as I watched them tape Lisa’s entertainment segment for the following day, I was feeling especially relieved that Mike had taken off. I’d never hear the end of it if he was privy to what was happening on set right now.

  I wondered if there was a way to distract him while we played the tape tomorrow.

  “Many actors,” Lisa was saying, “have changed their names in order to be taken more seriously.”

  It was a wonder that anyone could take Lisa seriously. Her tan was practically orange, her mouth looked like she was wearing a pair of wax candy lips, and her halter top strained over the overinflated water balloons that passed for her breasts.

  Was it possible they’d gotten even bigger recently?

  “For instance,” she said, “Ricky Schroder became Rick Schroder. The Rock became Dwayne Johnson.”

  One of the cameramen covered his mouth to hold in his snicker.

  Oh, God. Hadn’t anyone vetted her copy?

  “And Portia de Rossi’s name used to be Amanda, but she changed it so as to sound more like the car, which she felt sounded more impressorial.”

  I turned to Lenny. “Impressorial? Are you sure I can’t fire her?”

  He shook his head no.

  “What?” I asked. “Is she sleeping with someone?”

  Lenny pointed up.

  “Jerry?” I said. “Ouch.”

  A moment later, an intern entered with a message for me from Jerry. Speak of the devil. I took a deep breath. Time to face the music.

  “Be right back,” I said to Lenny.

  Or maybe not.

  I was ushered into Jerry’s office right away. He kept me standing this time, waiting, while he studied a sheet of ratings.