Morning Glory Read online

  “Such a classic,” I said. “Anyway—my name is Becky Fuller, and I’m the executive producer at Daybreak?”

  “At what?”

  “Wow, you’re funny, too!” I exclaimed with false cheer. “We’d love to have you on our show. We’ll give you twice as much time as Today and we’ll let you sing four songs from your new album. Think about it.”

  He squinted. “What’s your show?”

  “Daybreak? On IBS?”

  “Oh, uh … yeah.” By which he meant, “Oh, uh … no.”

  I handed him my card. “Give me a call anytime. We’d love to have you!”

  “Right.” He stuck the card in his pants pocket and climbed into his chauffeur-driven car.

  I held back my squeal and dance of triumph until after he pulled away.

  The next day at Daybreak, we readied ourselves for Ernie’s next “Atmospheric Adventure.” The segment title had actually been Sasha’s idea, but I liked it. Tied his official duties in with our new angle.

  At least we had the pattern down pat. Once again the shot was tight on Ernie’s face and upper torso. The viewer could tell he was being strapped into something. The viewer could tell he was nervous. But what the viewer couldn’t tell was what was about to happen.

  “Stay tuned,” said Colleen, “for Ernie’s latest ‘Atmospheric Adventure.’ ”

  If our new YouTube followers and Facebook friends were anything to judge by, they would. The minute-to-minutes looked good, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that the next ratings report would bear out the trend.

  When we returned to Ernie, the shot zoomed out as we heard him say, “These fighter jets exert amazing stress on their passengers, with g-force measurements sometimes reaching—”

  A loud whine filled the screen as the engines roared and Ernie took off. His smile wavered at the edges as the plane tilted back.

  “All right, guys, here we go! Here we go, folks! Here we—”

  “Um, boss?” Merv asked. “Do we cut away for barf?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But that’s going to be a vomit-only policy. Hold on a nosebleed.”

  “Got it.”

  On-screen, Ernie was starting to freak out. “Oh fuuuuuu …”

  “Cut the sound,” I cued. Merv cut.

  But then, better than a nosebleed, and prettier than vomit, we got our money shot: Ernie fainted dead away.

  I was going over the minute-to-minutes when Colleen caught up with me in the hallway. She didn’t look pleased.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said. “About Ernie.”

  I eyed her with suspicion. Had Mike somehow gotten to her? Was she about to give me some ridiculous impassioned speech about the sanctity of the news?

  “You too?” I sighed. “Why is everyone so worried about him? He’s a grown man, he’s signed all the release forms, his life insurance is totally paid up—”

  “You bet I’m worried,” Colleen said. “Ernie’s a hack and you know it. Yet you keep giving him all the good stuff.”

  I stopped walking and gave her my full attention.

  “I would have killed on that coaster,” said Colleen. “And tomorrow’s bungee expedition? Come on now. Who’d you rather see scream?”

  She had a point there. She might even have those magic three quarters of a point we’d need to keep the show on the air.

  Colleen came closer. “Look, I see what you’re doing and I think it’s great. It’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Put me in, Coach. Sign me up. Whatever you want to call it. I’m in.”

  I smiled. “Great,” I said. “Any particular ideas?”

  Colleen rubbed her hands together with glee. “Well, now that you mention it …”

  The following day brought a special treat to early morning pedestrians passing by the IBS plaza. Colleen Peck, coanchor of the morning show Daybreak, was decked out in an enormous foam rubber sumo wrestler’s suit, grappling in a makeshift ring with an actual sumo wrestler.

  Lenny and I watched the proceedings from the control room. His expression remained doubtful.

  “What?” I said, gesturing to the screen. Behind Colleen’s fake girth, I could see a steady crowd forming. Some of them were on their cell phones, no doubt informing their friends and family back home that they just had to turn on IBS. Others were holding up said cell phones, trying to get their own video record of the event. It was a certifiable success.

  “She’s … grunting an awful lot, don’t you think?” Lenny asked, wrinkling his upper lip.

  Grunting? Great. I turned to Merv. “Can you hike up the sound?”

  The day after that, we had happy fun animal time in the studio. Sasha was in seventh heaven as she ushered the animal handler onto the living room set, where Colleen was primed and waiting. We’d had to pack on a little extra makeup to hide the bruises this morning, but she was a sport about it. Who knew sumo wrestlers were that tough?

  Colleen introduced our guest and her charge: a tiny little squirrel-looking thing called a sugar glider. Apparently, they were all the rage as celebrity pets.

  “These are adorable,” Colleen cooed as the handler held the creature out to the camera. “So, they’re marsupials?”

  I pressed the button that turned on Colleen’s headset. “Pick it up,” I suggested.

  Colleen obeyed.

  The handler looked mildly alarmed. “You just want to be careful you don’t bring them too close to your face.”

  Colleen cast a quick glance at me, then nestled the marsupial against her cheek. “Aww, it’s so soft. You cute widdle—”

  The sugar glider wriggled out of Colleen’s grasp, then vanished up the arm of her blazer. She shrieked and began hopping around the set, desperately attempting to shake the animal loose from the strap of her bra.

  Eventually, she fished it out of her cleavage. “Well,” she said, holding the creature at arm’s length, “aren’t they a fun time for the whole family.”

  Score.

  The Web buzz was building to match the minute-to-minutes and the latest ratings report was showing a very definite—if very slight—bump. This was working. I just had to keep it up. Push the envelope a little further.

  The day after that, Colleen participated in a tumbling act with a bunch of local children who were part of a dance troupe that raised money for charities. Usual fare for the morning show crowd, to be sure, but Colleen kicked it up a notch by dressing like the children in a Pepto-Bismol pink body stocking and matching giant tutu.

  Her YouTube hits began to give Ernie’s a run for his money.

  I avoided Mike as much as possible. There were only so many stony glares of disapproval a girl could take. He kept delivering the news in his usual dry manner, and his expressions of disgust at my tactics, both on and off set, were so ubiquitous as to have grown invisible. No one even paid attention to him anymore. And why would they, when they could watch the infinitely more entertaining spectacle of Ernie Appleby getting a tattoo on his ass.

  Yes. Tattoo. Ass. Live television. God, I’m good.

  Ernie was such a sport. He sat there on the table, all relevant parts covered except for one creamy, broadcast-friendly flank.

  My meteorologist addressed the camera with equanimity, holding up a sketch of a tornado with two lightning bolts coming out the top. “The thing is, tattoos can be quite painful, depending on the sensitivity of the area you’re stabbing with a needle.” He chuckled. “Which is why I’m choosing a place with a little extra padding.”

  The tattoo artist stuck him with the needle.

  Ernie’s expression turned resigned and then: “Oh, fuuuuuuu—”

  Merv cut the sound.

  As soon as the segment was over, we returned to the studio, where Mike looked like he’d spent the break chomping on rotted meat. “When we come back, we’ll tell you all about new ways to cope with”—he grimaced, forcing himself to spit out the words—“menopause.”

  Served him right.

  I didn’t even care. According to the ratin
gs sheet, we’d already gone up a quarter point. Just another half to go.

  Next up, we had booked that hip-hop artist, thanks to my unheard-of generosity when it came to amount of performance time, and on the living room set Colleen bopped along while he performed one of his latest hits. The rapper kept casting her confused glances, sidling away from this crazy middle-aged white woman who also chimed in whenever he hit the chorus.

  After the show, Lenny saw me giving instructions to a crew of carpenters. “What’s going on now?” he asked.

  I grinned at him. “New doorknobs.”

  “You’re kidding!” Lenny whistled. “How’d you find room for it in the budget?”

  “I didn’t. Oh, by the way, make room in the schedule tomorrow for Colleen’s new segment on ‘Home Repair You Need to Call the Experts For.’ ”

  One of the carpenters looked over and gave me a callused thumbs-up.

  “We’re going to have a few local carpenters on to explain why.”

  “Of course we are,” Lenny said. “Of course. So, on the CEO story, did you want the transvestite prostitute to come on dressed as a man or a woman?”

  I considered it. “Man. No. Woman.”

  “Because it might be more of a shock—”

  “I know!” I cried. “Have him/her do the first segment as a woman, then boom! After the break, he/she comes back as a man. What do you think?”

  “I like it.” Lenny made a mark on his sheet. “I mean, for your dastardly purposes, not for the betterment of humanity.”

  “Shut up, Mike Pomeroy,” I replied.

  “You got it, boss.” He turned to go, then stopped. “Oh, we got the footage from the Irish Famine Memorial.”

  I bounced. “How is it?”

  “Colleen is the worst bagpiper in the history of the world.”

  Perfect. “And the outfit?”

  “Even more ridiculous.” Lenny sighed. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here, Becky? Are we making fools out of ourselves?”

  “No,” I said. “We were already fools. Now I’m just trying to turn that impression to our benefit.”

  I could only hope it would work.

  17

  “Our demos are getting better,” I said as Adam handed me a box of lo mein, “but our overall numbers are not where they need to be.” We were having a quiet evening in at Adam’s apartment, sitting on the couch, eating takeout while the TV droned on in the background. I wouldn’t have traded this for the VIP Room of any club in Manhattan. After all, they didn’t have Adam.

  “Hmmm …,” he said, and dipped his egg roll in the plum sauce. “Might be time for another eight-part series on the orgasm.”

  “You think so?” I asked, chopsticks partway to my mouth. “What new angle could—” I stopped. Adam was grinning at me. “Oh, I see.” I nudged his foot with my stockinged one. “You’re making fun of me.”

  He gave me a lopsided smirk. “If you want, though, I’d be happy to help you come up with new angles.”

  “Maybe later.” I dug into my food. “Can’t miss Nightly News.”

  “Sadly,” Adam said, looking down at his dish, “with you that’s not a joke. You really would prefer news to sex.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Oh yeah?” He started counting off on his fingers. “The first night you spent here I found you sneaking a visit to MSNBC.com in the middle of the night. Last week, you canceled our date to stake out a source, which”—he held up his hand—“I was totally sympathetic to. Then the other night, I spent twenty minutes trying to get you to pay more attention to me than to Rachel Maddow.”

  “She was doing a really interesting piece on—”

  “Rachel Maddow,” Adam said, “already has a girlfriend. I’d like to keep mine to myself.”

  I caught my breath. “Girlfriend?”

  He looked up at me. “Yeah. She’s—”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, you called me your girlfriend. I … I didn’t know we were doing that.”

  “Oh.” There was something endearingly sheepish in his voice. “Well, I am. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s great.” And then, “You’re kind of obsessed with the soft serve, huh? I mean, first you ask me out on a date without asking me out on a date, and then I’m your girlfriend before I know about it.”

  He grinned. “Eat your noodles.”

  I grinned back and did as I was told. After a minute, I picked up the remote. “Can I just put on CNN for, like, a minute? There might be something on that serial killer who Twittered his victims—”

  He grunted and didn’t look my way.

  “You’re right,” I said quickly. I turned the TV off and placed the remote control firmly back on the coffee table. “It’s not important. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

  I was rewarded for my restraint with the reassuring touch of his hand on my thigh, and I snuggled up against him. The news could wait. It could totally wait. Was I such an addict that I couldn’t turn it off for an hour or two and spend some time with a smart, funny, totally smokin’ guy who liked me enough to not only want to have dinner with me and sex with me—more than once—but also to call me his girlfriend? Was this addiction what came of doing nothing but watching the news at night—every night? Did I not know how to survive without it?

  When we were done with dinner, we went together to the kitchen to clean up the dishes and glasses. I was scraping some stray bits of fried rice down the sink when I felt Adam’s arms curl around me from behind. Something warm welled up inside and I leaned against his chest, reveling in the way he felt pressed up against my back. This wasn’t so bad. I could even get used to it. Stop worrying about proving myself, leave the work at the office for once. Evenings like this made me wonder what my life would be like if I could make this happen. What if I brought up the ratings the full three quarters of a point? What if I turned Daybreak into … well, not a hit show, but a solid performer? Something steady and strong that could stay on-air for another forty-seven years. I’d have proven I could do it. I’d be a successful executive producer. That would be enough, right? I’d move into a nicer apartment in Manhattan—maybe with Adam. Heck, if he kept up his current MO and I retained my general cluelessness about relationships, I probably wouldn’t realize we were cohabitating until a few weeks after we’d signed a lease and moved in.

  Oh my God, I couldn’t believe I was fantasizing about moving in with Adam. It was way too early for any of those daydreams. Way too early to spend time imagining what an unbearably cute television news power couple we would become.

  There I went again. And it wasn’t helping any that Adam was placing warm, openmouthed kisses on my neck now. It wasn’t helping that I inhaled his scent with every breath. I turned in his arms and pressed my lips against his. I wrapped my hands around his neck and tilted my head so we could get even closer. He backed me up against the sink, his legs sliding between mine. My eyes fluttered open, which was when I saw it, right outside Adam’s kitchen window.

  The neighbor’s TV. Showing CNN.

  Adam’s breath had quickened, and I moved my attentions from his mouth to his throat. I planted some feather-light kisses on his collarbone, but I kept my eyes trained on the TV. Were they doing the segment on the serial killer yet?

  Adam’s fingers skimmed beneath my shirt, and he moaned a little. My angle wasn’t quite right to see the screen. I wiggled a few inches to the side, one eye on my boyfriend, one looking through the window. There, that was better.

  “So,” he whispered. “Bedroom, or right here on the counter?”

  “Mmmm …,” I said vaguely. Okay, this was better, but still not perfect. What was the chyron saying at the bottom of the screen?

  Suddenly, I noticed that Adam had stopped kissing me.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. He tried to swivel, but I was too quick and started tugging him out of the room.

  “Come on,” I coaxed. “Let’s—”

  He pulled his han
d from mine and walked to the window. “Wow,” he said, his voice flat. “You can see the neighbor’s TV from here. And it’s closed-captioned. Score!”

  “Adam,” I begged.

  But he just shook his head. “That’s really depraved.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but then stopped. “You know what?” I said, nodding. “You’re right.”

  He looked at me, baffled.

  “You win. You caught me. I try to get every story. That’s what I do.” I blew out of the kitchen and grabbed my coat.

  He followed me, “What are you doing?”

  “You look at me like there’s something wrong with me. All the time.” Damn it, where were my shoes? The left one was under the couch, the right … I searched around the coffee table. “I can’t do this.…”

  Adam crossed his arms. “That’s the most ridiculous statement you’ve ever made, and it’s a tight race for that title.”

  I located my right shoe, shoved my foot into it, and flipped my head back up. Oh yeah? I was ridiculous as well as depraved, was I? “You don’t understand,” I cried. “It’s so easy for you, but I can’t let down my guard. Ever. We’re still not booking the A-list unless we let them take over the whole show, and I’m not sure that’s helping us with the casual fans, just the hard-core ones. And YouTube hits are great, but are they translating to ratings? I totally whiffed on getting an interview with the arsonist’s mother—”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Adam said. He threw up his hands in frustration. “You’re still obsessing over that?”

  “Of course I am!” I crammed my arms into my jacket and shrugged it onto my shoulders. I can’t miss anything. I make a mistake, I won’t get another chance.”

  “Jesus.” He ran his hands through his hair. “You have got to be a little bit easier on yourself.”

  “Why?” I asked. “No one else is. I have to work harder at this than—”

  “Becky, this has nothing to do with reality,” he said, frustrated. “This is just your ridiculous paranoia about your—”

  “I’m not in the lucky white man’s club with you and all the other morning show EPs and all the guys named Chip!”