“All right, we’re done,” Rob announced. “I think you got what you needed, plus a fantastic YouTube moment if anyone had their iPhone on them.” Rob brushed himself off, turned, and walked away down the hall.
Chapter 19
Solid Sources
Charlie and I strolled along the sidewalk in the fuzzy postbrunch idyll of an August Sunday, trying to ignore the headlines blaring out of newsstands about the presidential race that continued to heat up. After the intensity of my workweeks, with the voices on each side getting louder and angrier, I spent weekends in a dreamlike fog—until it was time to kick my brain into high gear again on Sunday nights. I lolled past the boutiques in SoHo, which were already segueing from sundresses and sandals to sweaters and vests, and paused in front of one to admire a pair of gorgeous over-the-knee black suede boots—the kind that even Meg couldn’t justify buying for our work wardrobes. Someday soon, when Jake renegotiates my contract at an anchor salary, whatever that is, I might buy those boots. Or I might not. Maybe I’ll save my money to upgrade my apartment, someplace with an elevator and a view. You’re gonna make it after all. I sang it in my head. Boy, was Mom happy lately. “Finally, a progressive female presidential candidate who shares my vision!” she’d say. “All she has to do is win.”
• • •
My phone was already ringing when I got to my desk after the show Monday morning.
“I found the housekeeper,” Laurie said.
“Oh, my God. Tell me!”
“Her name is Martina Harrow and Fluke bought her a very nice home in Arizona.”
“How’d you figure it out?”
“Well, it took awhile. Turns out the house was bought sixteen years ago, so the timeline matches. There’s no evidence of a mortgage. It was bought in cash, and the purchaser used an LLC, which was named ‘Successful Man, Inc.’ and registered to the address of Fluke’s office in Bel Air! How fucking dumb is this guy?”
“Oh, my God! So did you get her to talk?”
“Uh, not yet. She’s hung up on me three times. But I’ll get her.”
“What’s your plan?”
“BNN’s lawyers say between the nanny and these real estate records, we can go with it. So we’re crashing something together for tonight. I gotta go.”
“Listen, Laur, after you guys break it, do you think I could get those real estate records from you? I could hit Fluke with them when he comes on this week.”
“Of course,” she said. “You’re the only network that has access to Fluke. You gotta nail him.”
“Done,” I said.
• • •
That night, Laurie and Gabe broke the housekeeper story, though they didn’t use her name and didn’t get her on camera, and the next morning I walked into the Wake Up pod, where Fatima and a bunch of PAs were hunched over a monitor, watching video that I assumed was BNN’s report.
“What’s the deal?” I asked, tapping Fatima on the shoulder.
“Oh, hey, Amanda,” she said, keeping her eyes glued to the screen. “Have you seen this stuff? It’s amazing.”
“I know!” I said. “I think BNN is trying to get the housekeeper to talk!”
“What?” Fatima said, turning toward me. “Oh, you mean that BNN stuff? Yeah, we can’t touch that. But check this out. This is Fluke’s North Carolina SUCCESS! rally last night that got really violent. Somebody pepper-sprayed the crowd.”
“And this old lady got a snout full,” Morgan said, hitting pause on the monitor at the moment a white-haired woman had raised her hand to her head, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open, her face contorted in pain.
“It’s great video!” Fatima said. “So we’ll play this at the top and bottom of every hour.”
I stared at her. “What do you mean we can’t touch the housekeeper story? That’s huge news.”
“But we don’t have anything on it. Benji called and he doesn’t want it in the show,” Fatima told me. “He doesn’t want to use BNN’s reporting.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Obviously BNN wouldn’t air something unless they had rock-solid sources. Why can’t we attribute the reporting to BNN?”
“Because that’s not what we do. We don’t just repeat accusations in some endless media echo chamber. We’re changing cable news to be fair again.”
At that, I stole a look at the side of Fatima’s head to see if she was wearing earphones with Benji feeding lines directly into her brain and out her mouth.
“Look,” she went on, “we have to wait until we have something on the housekeeper ourselves. Until then, Benji doesn’t want either of you asking Fluke about it when he comes on. Got it?”
“Roger that,” Rob said from next to me, though I hadn’t noticed he’d come into the pod.
“What if I could get some documents proving the allegations?” I asked. “Like the property records proving Fluke bought her a house?”
“Well, that would be amazing,” Fatima said. “Can you do that?”
“I think so,” I said. “Give me a few hours.”
• • •
“Psst,” I said in a stage whisper from behind a tree on the edge of Central Park.
“Oh, brother,” Laurie said, walking toward me, shaking her head.
I had sunglasses on, and for full effect, I’d also decided to wear a baseball cap pulled down low on my head, and a scarf pulled up high over my mouth.
“You look absurd,” she told me.
“I was considering a fake mustache, but can you believe they don’t carry them at CVS?”
“Very cloak and dagger,” she said. “Why not a trench coat?”
“Dammit! I should have.”
“Listen,” she said, “here they are. Obviously, I’d be royally screwed if anyone knew I gave these to you.” She handed me a brown paper bag from Fairway Market.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Fair-way. I get it. I like it!”
“I thought you would. Now, if anyone asks, you cannot say where you got these documents.”
“What documents?” I said.
“Good. Call me at nine tonight, after you watch our next installment of Maidgate, Creole edition. Cherchez le femme.”
“Laur, I go to sleep at eight,” I told her. “Did you get the housekeeper to talk yet?”
“No, but her lawyer called to threaten me with a cease and desist if I keep calling her, which I plan to ignore. Anyway, tonight we have an exclusive with Emilia the nanny, who says Fluke and the housekeeper were having an affair.”
“Of course they were!” I said, slapping my hands together. “The actor and the French maid—okay, Haitian maid—having a torrid affair. This guy is a walking Hollywood movie script. I’ll try to stay up to watch. And then you can watch me break the cable news exclusive tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t get up that early,” Laurie said.
“Whatever,” I told her, then I held up the brown paper bag. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I owe you one.”
“One? Frankly, I’ve lost count. Call me later.”
Chapter 20
Fair Way
4:00 A.M. “I got the documents,” I said, tapping Fatima on the shoulder again, this time with the evidence. Fatima was hunched over her keyboard, typing numbers into the rundown. “I emailed you last night about them,” I told her. “But I never heard back from you.”
“Crap, sorry,” she said. “I went to bed at six.”
I reached into the Fairway bag and pulled out the papers, like I was presenting the Hope Diamond on a silver platter.
Rob strolled into the pod. “What are those?”
“I got the Fluke documents,” I told him. “It’s all right here. The letter from the nanny that says Fluke was employing the housekeeper illegally, plus the property records showing his LLC bought a house for her in cash. Plus, if you watched Gabe
Wellborn’s report last night, you know the nanny thinks Fluke was having an affair with the housekeeper under his wife’s nose. Everything’s in there. All the salacious details.”
“Holy crap!” Fatima said, riffling through them. “This is incredible stuff. How’d you get these?”
“Um, let’s just say I know people who pester people.” I gave a smug I’m-so-connected shrug.
“This is good,” Rob said, pointing at the papers. “We’ve got to lead with this.”
Whoa. Something gets Rob’s attention? I’d given up on him being a real news partner, though hearing him praise my scoop made me think a latent journalist might be trapped inside him.
“So shit! This changes the whole rundown.” Fatima drummed her fingers on the desk, thinking. “I have to let the Third Floor know I’m going to blow up the show to lead with this. Why don’t you two go get into hair and makeup? I’ll find you and let you know how we’re going to handle it. I can’t believe you got these! I can’t believe we have them first in cable news!”
“Well played,” Rob said to me as I walked out. “I look forward to unpacking this.”
“Amanda,” Fatima called after me. “You rock!”
• • •
5:57 A.M. “Come on, man!” Rob sounded ticked off as I rushed into the studio late. He was in the middle of the sofa, face pinched, hand shielding his vision. “I’m getting an eyeful of ass!”
Jeremy looked up from his book over to Rocco in front of Camera 2. “Jesus, Rocco! You moonlighting as a plumber?”
I followed his line of sight right to the top of Rocco’s butt crack peeking out of his jeans as he bent over, adjusting the brightness on his camera monitor.
Rob recoiled again, pressing his back into the cushion of the sofa. “Get a belt, man! No one sees this much crack at 6:00 A.M.—except maybe Charlie Sheen.”
“It is the crack of dawn,” Larry pointed out. “Okay, people, places. We’re live on the air in thirty seconds. You ready, Amanda?”
“Not really,” I said, trying to get my Fluke documents situated in front of me. “I don’t see my headline scripts anywhere. I need to proofread them before I say them on the air.”
“I’ll print them for you,” Larry said. “It’ll take a few minutes. Places! We’re in the cold open in ten, nine, eight . . .”
The FAIR News Break bonged. “Welcome to Wake Up, USA! We’ve got a huge show for you this morning,” Rob read into Camera 3. “Victor Fluke will be here to talk about our top story: why he says it’s time to make traditional marriage the law of the land again. And on the other side, we’ll have liberal columnist Karen Burke here with her take on how gay couples raise better children.”
My head shot up and I almost screamed, What? That’s not the top story! Larry signaled for me to read into Camera 2.
“But first, we have a news alert,” I read, surprised to hear my own words about breaking news. I needed those news scripts! “Police are asking for the public’s help this morning to find a beloved school principal. Principal James Hardon has not been seen since last week.” I paused. That didn’t sound right. Hardon. Did I just say hard-on on TV? Shit! I knew I needed to swallow the second syllable and pronounce it like “Harden,” but that’s not how it was written in the prompter.
“Principal HARD-on,” I tried again, this time emphasizing the first syllable, which somehow made it worse. “Sorry, Principal Hard-ON has gone missing.” Dammit! I did it again.
The crew was starting to titter, which I feared my mic might be picking up. Somehow I had to get unstuck and move on to the next sentence. “Um . . . police say he hasn’t been seen for days. If you see James Hard-on”—Goddammit!—“please call your local authorities.”
I could see Larry’s face bursting, then he said, loud enough to be broadcast, “And if you see him for more than four hours, call your doctor!”
Panzullo doubled over and grabbed his gut.
“Don’t worry, Amanda,” Rob said, patting my knee. “I’m sure he’ll pop up.”
I knew the Twittersphere would have a field day with that one, but mostly I needed to know what happened to our lead Fluke story. I waited for Rob to read, then whisper-yelled into my mic. “Fatima!”
“What’s up?” she said.
“The Fluke housekeeper story belongs at the top of the A block!”
“Ohhhh, riiight,” she said, like I was reminding her of something from weeks ago. “Sorry, didn’t Topher come find you? Third Floor says we can’t use those documents you got. They said they don’t know where you got them. And I didn’t realize they’re copies. They’re not the originals. So, you know, Third Floor doesn’t want to be Dan Rathered.”
“But I can vouch for their authenticity!” I hissed into the mic as Rob was finishing and Larry was pointing at me to read.
“We’ll talk about it after the show,” Fatima said in my ear. “You’ve got the next headline!”
• • •
7:00 A.M. Top of the A block. This was the moment I was supposed to be breaking my big cable news Fluke scoop. But instead, here was Fluke on the sofa spouting his same tired line about one of his favorite topics.
“Traditional marriage is the foundation of this country. And if we give that up, we give up the stability of our homes, and our families and communities fail. When I’m elected, we’re going to get back to success.”
And there it was: the perfect opening. I took a deep breath. “I guess I’m wondering, Mr. Fluke, if you think that all heterosexual couples have done a good job of protecting the solemn oath of fidelity that’s the underpinning of marriage.”
Fluke stared at me. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.”
“Which one do you think provides more stability,” I went on, my heart thumping, “gay marriage with commitment or traditional marriage with infidelity?” I decided not to voice my next question: “And how does your undocumented girlfriend feel about this?” Instead I said, “Perhaps you’d like to respond to BNN’s reporting.”
Fluke raised one eyebrow almost imperceptibly, more of a twitch, really. But I saw it. And he saw me see it.
“I haven’t seen it and I prefer not to deal in hypotheticals, Amanda.”
Is that right, Mr. Maid-Lover? What does your wife think about the foundation of the house you bought for your Haitian housekeeper? The voices in my head were drowning out whatever Fluke said next, and before I knew it, Rob had wrapped the segment and read the tease.
“We’re clear!” Larry yelled.
Fluke walked over to the dark part of the studio, where Dove was waiting.
“Here’s lookin’ at you, Amanda,” Dove said, this time not smiling but pointing at me, then turning and exiting the studio. I watched the studio door close, and when it did, I yelled. “That sucked! We cannot do that!” Everyone looked at me.
“We can’t ignore the biggest story of the day! Look at the Quad Box! CNN, BNN, everyone else is talking about the housekeeper story and we’re the only ones who have Fluke on and WE’RE NOT TOUCHING IT!”
“Don’t worry,” Rob told me. “We’ll still win this quarter hour. We had Fluke.”
“I don’t care who wins the hour!” I yelled. “We look like idiots. We’re Fluke stooges!”
There was silence in the studio until Larry said, “We got Fluked.”
“Uh, Fatima,” Rob said, tapping his microphone and pointing to the Quad Box, “it looks like BNN is busting the break. What’s happening?”
“Unclear,” Fatima said, her voice nervous. “Let me check. We’re shuffling the order of some things. Stand by.”
I turned to the silent monitor playing the other four channels. A bold red BNN breaking news graphic splashed on the screen, interrupting a commercial, then wiped to Gabe Wellborn sitting at the anchor desk. Jesus, this must be big. Gabe is never up this early. “What’s he saying?” I y
elled.
“It looks like something’s up with Fluke. Turn up REM 15,” Fatima shouted to someone in the control room. “Um, I think it’s a press conference . . . Turn up the volume on BNN. It looks like it’s . . . no, it’s the lawyers for the housekeeper . . . announcing a press conference at noon. Shit! Let me call the assignment desk. Amanda, need you to put those pajamas on now.”
“What?” Surely I’d misheard her.
“I had to shuffle some things. We lost our eight thirty, that constitutional law expert. The driver never showed up to bring him to the studio. So I need you to model those pajamas now.”
“What pajamas?” I asked, looking at Larry, who, I was sure, would deliver the punch line that was missing here. But he was checking his stopwatch.
“Amanda, you’ve got two minutes to put on some pajamas,” Larry said matter-of-factly, like that was a regular request.
“What the fuck?” I said to the crew, then turned to Rob. “We need to cover the breaking news! We’re not going to do a pajama segment while everyone else is on a Fluke presser, right? Right?” My stomach felt like I was about to go over the tippy-top of a roller coaster. “Fatima! Fatima!”
“Fatima, need some guidance out here,” Rob said.
“Guys, the presser’s not until noon,” Fatima said. “We’ve got a hole in the show now! I’m plugging in the models-wearing-pajamas-out-to-nightclubs story.”
“Sounds like the control room is in a bind,” Rob said to me. “They’ve got nothing else to go to.”
“Nothing else?” I yelled. “We are sitting on the Fluke documents! The biggest story of the day, the week, the year! What do you mean?”
“I told you, Amanda,” Fatima said in my ear. “We do NOT have our lawyers’ permission to go with those. Do NOT get out ahead of this. I’m telling you, I have a hole in the show here. The presser isn’t happening until noon. We’re not going to sit around and talk about an upcoming presser for six minutes. I’m putting the pajama segment in.”
Amanda Wakes Up Page 18