Stay Tuned

by Lauren Clark

  Sharice lumbered over and bent to get a better look at the afghan. “Now, Miz Ruth Anne, now I gots to look in that blanket of yours—”

  My mother screwed up her face and pushed her body against the back of the wheelchair, her hands protectively holding the folds of material. I braced for another barb as Sharice leaned closer. Out of habit, glanced at the clock on the wall. 5:59 p.m.

  Perfect.

  “Listen Mother, it’s almost time for the news. Let’s go find out what the WSGA weekend crew has been up to.” I sang out brightly. “Don’t you want to find that remote?”

  At once, her shoulders relaxed. She stared at me curiously, cocked her head, and held her hands away from the folds of fabric. A black metal rectangle fell to the floor with a clunk. I snatched it up, clicked on WSGA, and set down the remote on the table next to her wheelchair.

  The television blared as she turned her full attention to the weekend report. The lights and colors from the screen illuminated the room and glinted off her wheelchair, casting a glow over Mother. She was mesmerized.

  And we were no longer needed.

  “The only things that make her happy are talkin’ about movie stars, those books she done wrote, and watchin’ that news channel. I jest can’t understand it.” Sharice made a tut-tut sound.

  But I did.

  The entertainers and actresses used to fill my mother’s life. The rich and famous were once her family. She knew them intimately. She told their stories. Mother defined herself as an author. Not as a wife. Not usually as my mother.

  Instead, Daddy and I existed as backdrop to her Hollywood events. We were props, mere stagehands, as she flitted from one opening night to another.

  When Daddy passed away and I left home, Mother was never quite the same. While I lived my own life, she withered slowly, like a hothouse flower lacking proper light or water. Eventually, she stopped writing, and her health failed.

  Her memories, however fleeting, were all she had left.

  Thank goodness my mother and I had Sharice. Other than Candace, there were few people in the world I trusted more.

  Sharice slipped out of Mother’s room unnoticed and I followed behind. The door closed with a quiet click.

  “I know you have your hands full keeping an eye on her,” I said. “How are you? How’s that big boy of yours?”

  Sharice, a young, single mother, grinned and pulled a photo from her front pocket. “I knew you’d be asking ’bout Darius.”

  “Oh, thank you.” I cradled the picture in my palm. Her son was about three, with dark curly hair, light brown skin, and big, blue eyes. “He’s precious! And getting so big.”

  I felt a pang in my chest, missing my own daughter. I forced my lips into a smile at Sharice, who was still talking.

  “He look like his daddy. Handsome. Smart as a whip, that chile. But Gawd knows where that man is,” Sharice stuck out her bottom lip and shook her head. “He disappear the second I said, ‘baby.’ Lawd have mercy.” Sharice snapped her fingers. “Men. They show up, they gone. And like that, we all alone. Just my chile and me.”

  I hugged her goodbye. “At least you have each other,” I said. “That’s what counts now.”

  Chapter 8

  The rush of Monday gave me a temporary reprieve from thinking about Mother, worrying about Chris, and missing Kelly.

  We had a full slate of stories, which meant a busy afternoon. Tensions were high, and somehow our normal staff meeting banter had suddenly morphed into a scene from Clash of the Titans .

  “We’ll lead with the kidnapping attempt.” I pointed at the line-up, marker-bright, on the white-board. “Live shot from the street scene, sound-bites from eyewitnesses, the family, the cops. We can wrap it with local and national stats.”

  Murmurs rose around the room. The troops were restless and wanted assignments.

  Tim Donaldson shook his head. “The school vandalism. It’s visual. An attention-grabber. Someone, probably kids, painted a damn mural on the cafeteria wall.” His gaze scraped across the room. “Have you seen the VO? It’s incredible.”

  Before anyone else could breathe a response, I snatched at the brief lull. “Incredible or not, let’s think about our audience.” The station’s demographics spun through my brain into a neat list. “Our six o’clock viewers. Fifty-seven percent female, twenty-six to fifty years old, affluent. Most are married home-owners with two or more children.” I sucked in my breath and let the numbers sink in.

  Sure, I had to admit I was intrigued with the vandalism. Did it deserve a slot in the newscast? Of course. Was it more than a student pulling a prank? Probably not. But, we had some time to find out.

  There wouldn’t, however, be another day of reckoning for some creep who tried to abduct an adorable three-year old girl in broad daylight. And it was my job to predict the issues our viewers cared most about.

  Those careful and deliberate choices made WSGA the city’s top-rated news show. Of course, it helped that viewers loved Alyssa and Tim. It helped that our news director could call the governor’s office at a moment’s notice and get a sound bite. It all helped, but the stories were paramount. Without a meaningful newscast, it was all just bright ribbons and pretty wrapping on an empty package.

  I’d done my time in the trenches. Worked my way up from coffee-carrying intern and part-time assistant to senior producer. My reputation rested on a simple code of ethics: Find the truth and report it. No making up sources, no embellishment. A strict, ‘No BS’ policy. Which was exactly why I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—compromise.

  “Look, our audience is made up of moms and dads who want to feel safe at night when they tuck their kids into bed. They want to see this perp behind bars.” I folded my arms and hugged my elbows close. “They want to see the DA get this guy twenty to life. Don’t you?”

  Heads bobbed in agreement. Tim, on the other hand, shrugged in semi-defiance and frowned out the window. Drew would normally weigh in, but he was out at a meeting across town.

  Someone, or something, had to be the tiebreaker. And soon. The more time spent arguing, the less time to write, copy, check video, and make beat calls.

  Compromise was key. I bit my bottom lip. “We’ll do a two-part series, if this pans out into something. Provided this is not fluff—and you can get a few students and parents to talk.”

  Tim looked a little pale.

  “All right by you, Mr. Monet…or is it Mr. Van Gogh?”

  “Sure, fine.” Tim’s voice slurred as he tugged his left ear. “Besides, I still have my lobe.”

  “I’ll give you that one,” I teased back, “but your vandalism story is bottom of the A-block material…budding artistes or not.”

  The room tittered with laughter.

  Tim waved his reporter’s notebook in the air. “Okay. You win.”

  “Thank you,” I swooped into a mock bow. “Go on, get to work everybody.”

  Five minutes after the staff meeting wrapped up, Alyssa strolled into the newsroom, admiring her reflection in a small makeup mirror. She checked her lip-gloss, snapped the compact closed, and lifted her chin, waiting for someone to notice her.

  Joe breezed by, carrying over a script. “Alyssa, your interview’s here.”

  She blinked her eyes wide and lowered her lashes to glance at the ornate watch on her thin wrist. “Is it that time already? Did I miss the meeting?”

  “Yep,” I answered, smiling at her bewildered expression. It was the same thing she said every single day. “How about I walk with you downstairs?” No need for her to get lost on the way to the studio.

  For May sweeps, our next Neilson ratings period, I’d dreamed up a segment to punch up the 5:30 time slot, the important lead-in to WSGA’s main news show. Cable and DirecTV gave viewers hundreds of other choices twenty-four seven, anything from cooking shows to ultimate fighting, so as a local news station, we had to battle hard to retain viewership.

  The premise was this: If viewers were watching at 5:30, they’d keep watching. Pe
ople, being creatures of habit, don’t like changing channels. We just needed a product—a show with some sizzle—right before the six o’clock news.

  Earlier this year, Drew tested focus groups with Mrs. Foodie , Mr. Fix-Everything, and other syndicated shows. Not one lit a fire with our audience. In fact, one, Travel with Tony , was so boring that one of our focus group participants actually fell asleep eating his pizza.

  Ask Anything was born.

  Dr. Jennifer Freeman, of Macon Ob/Gyn, was our first Ask Anything interview. To follow was a researcher who studied children with autism, a former architect who built entire cities out of toothpicks, and a zoologist who was bringing in baby Bengal tigers. WSGA viewers had selected every one of them.

  We’d posted the list of top experts on our website, then encouraged people to email with questions. Ask Anything was scheduled to run Monday through Friday at 5:30 during our first full week of sweeps.

  Before his vacation, I’d pressed Drew to go live with the interviews, but he overruled me with the possibility that the “experts” might be a little nervous. “Let’s see how it goes,” he cautioned. “You never know with live TV.”

  Being the token on-air alpha female, Alyssa was assigned to Dr. Freeman. Tim could handle the others. The two had chatted amicably when introduced, and I hoped the interview would come off more like a conversation. We’d put them on the noon set, which resembled a living room with cushy chairs, a thick area rug, and a small table between them.

  I checked my watch. We were ready to get started.

  Chapter 9

  Joe swiveled in his chair, bouncing one knee up and down, while Drew shifted from side to side behind me. They were like teenagers at their first prom, gangly and awkward.

  “Would you two quit it? You’re making me nervous, Drew, and I’m not the one in front of the camera,” I chided, taking a small bite of a stale Honey-Bun. “No more vacations for you, if you’re going to come back more keyed up than you left.”

  Drew eyeballed me. “Well, ‘Mother Hen,’ I hear you’re adding babysitting anchors to your list of duties here at WSGA.”

  “Ha. Ha. You know I was just trying to help—” I covered up half my face with my notebook, and shot an inquisitive look at Joe. He shrugged.

  “Didn’t hear it from him.” Drew cut in. “Alyssa was whining about it in the break room. So, no more champagne for Tim after-hours at the station.” He smirked. “Unless we’ve got a web-cam going and I get to supervise.”

  The two fist-bumped and smirked like teenagers at a high school football game.

  “Gosh, great, Drew. That sounds fabulous,” I crinkled up the Honey-Bun wrapper and tossed it at him.

  He dodged it and laughed. Still smiling, Drew leaned in to the mic and nodded at Joe. “Alyssa, you two ready to go?”

  On set, Alyssa surveyed Dr. Freeman, who nodded. “We are.”

  The plan was for Alyssa to take the questions I’d selected from viewers and delicately rephrase them so as not to offend or reveal identities. She had a stack to choose from. Alyssa did better sticking to a script, and didn’t ad-lib often, but Drew wanted to give this a shot.

  “Let’s get ’er done,” Drew pretended to chomp on an imaginary cigar.

  Alyssa straightened and gave a final glance to the mirror she kept Velcroed under her seat. She checked her toothpaste-white smile one last time, twisted both earrings, and pursed her plumped-up lips. If Dr. Freeman noticed, she was too polite to give any indication that Alyssa was overly self-absorbed. I gave a fleeting thought to inviting a psychiatrist on the show, but the urge to analyze Alyssa’s childhood might be too overwhelming. Or bizarre.

  As scripted, Alyssa introduced the concept of the show and ran through the ground rules.

  We were ready.

  “Dr. Jennifer Freeman, welcome,” Alyssa said and glanced at her notes. “It’s great to have you here with us today. Our viewers have sent in lots of questions!”

  “I’m glad to be here,” Dr. Freeman smiled.

  “We’re focusing today, of course, on women’s issues. Many of our WSGA viewers have asked about the importance of yearly mammograms. What’s the current recommendation?” Alyssa asked.

  “It depends greatly on a number of factors, including a woman’s age and family history of breast cancer,” Dr. Freeman replied, turning toward the camera like a pro. She went on to explain the risks and benefits of mammography—without a series of clichés or lots of doctor-speak.

  I loved this woman.

  Alyssa leaned forward. She brushed off an imaginary piece of lint from her skirt and glanced at her script. “The next question comes from…Lois…Sneedlemeister, in Warner Robins.”

  This caught Drew’s attention. He started to ask, but I held up a hand and I began flipping through my stack. There was no Lois Sneedle-anything, to my recollection. Nope, nothing. I shrugged and looked back at him.

  “Fine,” he rubbed his chin. “Maybe Alyssa came up with something on her own. Let her go with it.”

  Bad idea.

  “And so, Dr. Freeman, what would you say to Lois, who wrote in with a dilemma about these dozen or so itchy, red patches in her private area?”

  Drew, who had just taken a swig of coffee, spit out his mouthful in a spray across the room. I choked. Joe shook his head and chortled out loud.

  Dr. Freeman, the good sport that she was, took it all in stride, recommending that Lois see her gynecologist for STD testing.

  Alyssa wrinkled her forehead, offered a blank look, and gripped her script a bit tighter. “STD? Perhaps you can explain STDs to our viewers.”

  “Sexually Transmitted Diseases, like Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Hepatitis, Herpes—”

  With every STD Dr. Freeman added, Alyssa became a shade paler.

  “Houston, we have a problem,” I quipped in a whisper. As I was about to offer a gentle reminder to stay on topic into Alyssa’s earpiece, Drew interrupted.

  “No. No, no, no. Cut the mics,” Drew yelled. “Wait a damn minute.” Everything came to a screeching halt. Joe pushed back from the board. Drew stormed out of the room and onto the set. By the time he arrived, Drew had composed himself.

  He patted Alyssa on the shoulder and whispered in her ear. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Stick to the script , he mouthed.

  Ever the gentleman to outsiders, Drew thanked Dr. Freeman for her patience and explained that the show would be edited for commercial breaks. One of the camera guys ran and fetched Dr. Freeman a glass of water.

  Drew reappeared and motioned for Joe to resume recording.

  Alyssa tossed her hair and began with a viewer’s inquiry about supplements for women with calcium deficiency. Easy peasy.

  After Dr. Freeman answered, Alyssa leaned in again and lowered her voice an octave. “Very interesting and helpful. Now, I’m sure there are viewers out there who are wondering about supplements for these STDs you mentioned earlier?”

  Dr. Freeman’s jaw dropped. I almost screamed. Drew was out of the room before I could stand up. This time, he asked for a word with Alyssa off-set. Joe and the crew dissolved into howling laughter, tears streaming down their craggy faces.

  Drew barreled back into the small room. “Jesus Christ, my blood pressure. She’s going to kill me. How difficult is it to follow directions?” No one breathed. Joe crossed his eyes and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from giggling.

  “If she veers off-topic again, Melissa,” Drew warned and dabbed his face with a crumpled tissue. “I want you to—”

  He never had a chance to finish.

  Alyssa smiled into the camera. “Welcome back. Our next question is from a viewer, Penny Abernathy, in Dublin. Dr. Freeman, Penny asks if there’s any truth to the old wives’ tale that a woman can go blind from giving oral sex.”

  “Shit! Dammit! That’s it,” Drew threw his hands up in the air. “I can’t take it. Get someone else, anyone, to finish this mess.

  I scrambled to page Tim Donaldson to the set.

&nb
sp; “Christ! Elmo from Sesame Street could do a better job. Oral sex, pornography, pole dancing, what’s next?” Drew yanked off his tie. “Alien babies?”

  Chapter 10

  As the beams from my headlights filled the garage, I breathed a sigh of relief. The work issues, Alyssa, everything could be handled tomorrow. I was home with Chris. My spirits lifted instantly at the thought of seeing him.

  As I walked into the house, I noticed a glow of light from the downstairs office.

  Chris was probably working with papers stacked high, cell phone off, and his pencil behind his ear. We could have a late-night drink, catch up, snuggle. Hey, we could even fool around. Now that would get his attention.

  I snuck down the stairs and peeked into the room.

  Empty. Hmm. I flicked the lights off.

  Back up on the main floor, I checked the living room, the kitchen. Then, I heard him. Snoring.

  My heart sank for a moment, but my optimism surged back when I decided on plan B. Make some noise. Maybe he’ll wake up and want to talk. I opened drawers, talked to myself, unloaded bags, rustled papers. For kicks, I flipped on the overhead light.

  Chris grunted and rolled over.

  “Honey,” I said gently and kissed his cheek. “I’m here. I missed you.” He rubbed at his chin and kept his eyes shut. “Want to mess around?”

  My hand hovered inches from his shoulder until the steady blink of a tiny light on his cell phone made me pause.

  Hmm. I could just check to see who called. Just in case. What if there was an emergency? He’d want me to wake him up…

  I picked up the phone and flipped it over.

  Chris stirred again. He turned his head, his face like a baby’s, peaceful and innocent. The sight of him sleeping so soundly, not a care in the world, made me stop in my tracks.

  What was I doing? It was probably work, or a golf buddy, or Kelly.

  I was definitely overreacting.

  No. No. No. I shut off the television and turned out the light. Neurotic wife syndrome and the anticipated stress of work tomorrow were making me paranoid. I was going to sleep before I hurt anyone.