A Dangerous Dress (32 page)

“No,” she said, “I bet you won’t freeze.” She thought for a second, as if making some very important decision. Finally she said, “He went fly-fishing.”

“What?”

“Reed. That was the crisis. He stood you up to go fly-fishing.”

“Fly-fishing?”

“With Dick Cheney. Reed’s been expecting the invitation for weeks. You couldn’t expect him to pass it up when the call finally came.” She looked at me as if she was defying me to question Reed’s priorities.

“Fly-fishing,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Bertie said.

I just sat there for a minute. I wanted to tell her she was a miserable petty jealous bloodsucker with low self-esteem and no fashion sense. Instead I asked, “Are we done?”

“We’re done,” Bertie said. “Let’s get you back to the hotel. And no late nights,” she warned. “You have an early call.”

“How early?” I asked.

“Five.”

“Five A.M.?”

Bertie nodded yes.

“What time am I going on?”

“Somewhere between ten forty-five and eleven.”

“What am I supposed to do for six hours?”

Bertie ticked things off on her fingers. “Hair. Makeup. Teeth whitening. Color check. Sound check. Dressing. Chair fitting.” She tilted her head and looked down at me. More than a little condescendingly, I thought. “And a dozen other things that wouldn’t occur to you because you’ve never been in the TV news business.”

“But I am now,” I said.

“You are now,” she said.

F
or the entire Hummer ride downtown, I was more than a little—excuse me—pissed off about having to get up so early. Also puzzled about Reed denying that he bought the Armani tie. Not to mention creeped out by the whole Reed-Bertie thing—how she was supposed to have been Reed’s fresh new voice, which seemed to mean that I was now her, at least professionally.

A theory started to form in my head. I tried to stop it, because it wasn’t a very pleasant theory, but it moved right in and made itself at home anyway.

Reed was a climber. To be more precise, a dating climber. Most dating climbers are looking for obvious things—always trying to trade up to the prettier girlfriend, the richer boyfriend. But Reed’s climb wasn’t about looks, or money, or—sigh—even about sex. He was all about, well . . .
Fox News.
How much would it boost his career to find a fresh new American voice? How high would his stock soar if he single-handedly delivered that elusive female eighteen-to-thirty-five demographic? And just how many Bertie Thorns had been his stepping-stones on the way up? Reed’s hugs would stay ambiguous until he was sure about me. Sure I was good for his job. Good for The Network.

Falling asleep that night, and waking up grossly early the next morning, I tried to talk myself out of it. Back at the Fox News studios, while we did all those things Bertie had said we would, I worked hard to convince myself. After all, I reasoned, Reed wouldn’t go to the trouble of having them whiten my teeth unless he really liked me for me. Right?

Most of all, I reminded myself that Reed had assigned his best investigative team to find Grandma’s dress. That counted for a lot. So maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t a dating climber after all.

I wondered if they had found the dress. Forgive me, that question should have occurred to me before, but only a couple of days had passed, during which, as I have described to you, I’d been distracted. Plus, I had started to believe that losing Grandma’s dress hadn’t cursed me after all, it had set me on my very own path, maybe for the first time in my life. Everything really was coming together, like she said in my dream.

Still, if Reed’s team could find the dress, that would make everything just about perfect. So I made a mental note to ask him. Then I turned my mind back to the serious business of preparing for my big debut.

After hair and makeup, I looked in the mirror again. And I thought,
You know, maybe
I do
look a little like Scarlett Johansson.
Okay, a very little. But even wearing the not-so-exciting blue cotton sweater, tan khakis, and brown loafers that Reed chose, I looked nice. And I had to hand it to them: If they wanted Midwestern, they got it. I could’ve been any girl from Indiana, or Wisconsin, or Ohio, or wherever. Only prettier. If I do say so myself.

Did I mention I had my own dressing room? It was not big, but it was clean, and cozy, and I did not have to share it with anybody. It was all mine.

At around ten thirty, there was a knock on the door. “It’s me,” Reed said.

I told him to come in. It was the first time I had seen him all morning. He gave me another mixed-message hug and told me I looked great. I almost asked how the fishing was. But I didn’t. That would have been unprofessional. And petty. A star should be above such things.

Reed asked me if I was ready. I said I was.

“I really think you’re
the one,
” he proclaimed. He said it so solemnly, you’d have thought I was Neo in
The Matrix
or something. He was confirming my theory, but I had to be sure.

I flung my arms around his waist and looked into his eyes as enticingly as I could. “Kiss me,” I said.

“Makeup,” he said.

“Makeup?”

Gently but firmly, he pushed me away. “You’ve already been to makeup. Better wait till later.” He flashed a killer smile. “Let’s see how your debut goes. We can celebrate after.” Then he looked at his watch. His smile vanished, and he was all business. “You’d better go to the bathroom.”

“I’m fine.”

“Once we go to the set, there are no potty breaks.”

“I’m really fine.”

“Nothing looks worse on TV than a commentator who can’t sit still because she needs to pee,” Reed said. I went to the ladies’ room and peed.

When I came out, Bertie was in my dressing room too, standing next to Reed. I wondered again how many fresh new voices had come before her.

“Once we get on the set, you have to be completely quiet,” Bertie said.

“Of course.”

“You’ll probably go on about ten fifty. Michael will come out of the break at the forty-five and do two short segments. Then there’s a sixty-second commercial. We’ll move your chair out while that’s airing, get you positioned, confirm your sound is on, and then we’re ready.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Do I have to look anyplace special?”

“We want you to look natural,” Bertie said. “Just talk to Michael like you’re having a conversation, and one of the cameras will capture it.”

“If you’re about to make a really dramatic point, you can look straight at the camera where the red light is on,” Reed offered.

“Let’s not get too advanced our first time out,” Bertie said. She was praying so hard I would fail, I’m surprised she didn’t cross herself.

“She can handle it,” Reed said, and gave my shoulders a little squeeze.

Climber.
That’s what popped into my head. Still, I gave him a look that I hoped he and Bertie took as affectionate.

“Fine,” said Bertie. She gave Reed a look that I am pretty sure she hoped he took as a death ray.

We walked down a long corridor to a large heavy door. A red light was twirling over the door. Bertie put her forefinger to her lips. I nodded. She pulled open the door, and the three of us stepped into a little room that was like an airlock. Bertie closed the door, which was padded around the edges so it wouldn’t make any noise. I looked at Reed, then at Bertie. Bertie looked at Reed, then at me. Reed looked at me. Then Bertie. Then me again.

“Did they find it?” I asked Reed in a whisper.

“Who?”

“Your best investigative team. Did they find it?”

Reed looked at Bertie. She didn’t have a clue. He looked back at me. He didn’t have a clue either. “Find what?”

Reed had never assigned anybody to find Grandma’s dress. He had never meant to. It had all been a lie to get me to do what he wanted.

“Never mind,” I said.

“It’s time,” Bertie commanded.

I remembered my dream.
Take chances,
Grandma told me.

I knew what I had to do.

On the other side of the airlock there was another heavy door. Bertie pulled that one open, and we were on the set.

T
V sets are funny places. There is the part that you see. Which may look like a newsroom, which is what you see on prime-time news, or like somebody’s living room, which is what you see on, say,
Good Morning America.
Then there is the part that you don’t see, which looks nothing whatsoever like the part you see. It is unfurnished, except for a couple of folding canvas director chairs where people like Reed sit. I got one, too. But that’s over on the side. Most of the big space is filled with cameras on wheels, and cameramen, and cables and lights and microphones, and about sixty men and women who I suppose are responsible for all the things you don’t see that go into putting a live news show on the air.

The on-camera part of this particular set resembled an old-fashioned office. The oak desk where the host of the segment sat looked like an antique, and there were a couple of framed Norman Rockwell prints on the wall. Sitting behind the desk was a good-looking man who was probably about forty years old, wearing a navy-blue suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. His hair was prematurely gray, but in a very attractive way. Even from across the studio, I could see he had striking blue eyes. He was saying something about taxes, although I must confess to you I really don’t recall what. Because I was starting to get nervous.

Reed tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped. Honestly, if they want you to be quiet on the set, they shouldn’t sneak up on you like that.

Reed pointed at the good-looking man behind the desk, and moved his mouth in an exaggerated way. I am not a great lip-reader, and Reed is apparently not a great lip-syncher, but even I could tell he was saying
That’s Michael Smith.
Well duh.

Before I knew it, it was ten forty-five. They ran about two minutes’ worth of commercials while Michael Smith scooted out from behind his desk and disappeared. Probably to pee. And I thought,
Oh sure, he’s the star, he gets to go pee.
Then he was back. He did a segment about a group of parents in Ohio exercising their First Amendment right of free speech by removing objectionable books like
Huckleberry Finn
and
The Princess Diaries
from the public library. Then a segment about a group of teenagers at a public high school in Texas being discriminated against for holding a campus prayer vigil in support of their Second Amendment right to bear arms. He must have used the word
heartland
at least six times in two minutes.

Ohhh,
I thought.
So
this
is Fox News.

Michael Smith talked about The Heartland as if all the issues there were simple and everybody agreed with him on everything. Trust me, I am from Kirland, Indiana, and I can tell you that even when it is not all that exciting, life in The Heartland is as complicated as anyplace else. As for everybody agreeing, let us just say that at Christmas, people in Kirland cannot even see eye-to-eye on what time to hold Midnight Mass. So hearing him go on like that reassured me that I really should carry out the plan I had formulated in the little airlock when I was with Reed and Bertie.

Then Michael Smith stopped talking, and they went to commercial again.

A man carried a chair onto the set and put it next to the oak desk. It was the chair we had picked specially for me that morning. My chair.

Reed puckered his lips and blew me a kiss. I wondered if he blew Bertie Thorn a kiss just before she went on camera and froze. Given that he was a climber
and
a liar, I bet he did. Whether he did or not, though, the kissy-face was the last straw.

I sat in my chair. Hair and makeup people came over to me and looked at my hair and face from about two inches away. “Good,” they said. And, “Good.” Then they disappeared.

“Sound check,” said someone from back behind the cameras.

“Say something,” Michael Smith said to me.

“Good morning, America,” I said. I was not trying to be a smart-ass. Honest. That is just the first thing that popped into my head.

“Not funny,” said Bertie. She really did not sound amused.

“Back in five,” said a voice.

Then they actually counted off the seconds the way you imagine they do. The way they did in
Wayne’s World.
Which, by the way, is possibly the second-best movie ever. After
Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Anyway, you know. Some guy says “Five, four,” and then they count down the rest just with their fingers:

“Now,” said Michael Smith to the camera, “we’re going to be hearing from a fresh new American voice. In the weeks and months ahead, Jane Stuart is going to share her perspectives on how Hollywood has declared war on American values. On the moral cesspool of the French movie biz. We’re going to hear Jane’s views on everything from fashion to foreign affairs.”

We were? That foreign affairs thing was news to me.

“Before we hear from her, though, let me tell you a little about Jane Stuart. She’s a native daughter of Kirland, Indiana, where she’s currently on sabbatical from her position as deputy vice president of the Independence Savings and Loan Association.”

Sabbatical, huh? That was creative. Chalk one up for Bertie.

“Her scholarly accomplishments at Purdue University led to her being hired as a technical advisor on a big-budget Hollywood epic.”

I did not use the words
big-budget, Hollywood,
or
epic.

“The movie was being filmed on location in Paris, France”—he kind of sneered when he said
Paris, France
—“where Jane was thrown into a sexual snake pit. When she refused to play the obscene bedroom games that France demanded, she was fired.”