Tom’s office was not a subtle place. The shelves on the sidewall overflowed with Emmy statues, and the wall behind his desk was covered with pictures of him in just about every place on earth, shaking hands with every luminary imaginable. A number of awards and honor plaques and paperweights lined the windowsill. A whole slew of things still needing to be hung were stacked in a corner.
Tom was fairly young (pushing forty) to have achieved so much, but clearly he had impressed the right people—impressed them so much that less than six months earlier they had poached him from a different network’s evening news program and named him head of our breakfast fare. As Tom liked to say, morning television was a whole new universe, Edward R. Murrow be damned.
“Hi.” I meekly knocked on the door, which was already open. Tom was on the phone, so he motioned me to take a seat in front of the bloated mahogany desk. The chairs were large and leather and I felt very small. I counted three pictures of him shaking hands with the president. Two with the vice president. Tom towered over both of them. He was ridiculously tall, a fact that I am sure did not hurt his career.
After a few minutes, he hung up and we awkwardly exchanged a few niceties.
“So,” he said, “I hear you are dating Mark Thurber.” Even in this gossipy business, this was weird. I mean, it hadn’t been three hours since the date ended. I immediately turned red and was, needless to say, a bit upset.
“Um,” I said. Brilliant response.
“Carl told me.” Of course. “And it was on Page Six.”
He opened up Page Six, the gossip page of the New York Post. There was a small paragraph at the bottom right:
Which Hollywood starlet was seen at Rocco’s last night, sitting this close with her latest—married—director? And which action star is reported to have cried when turned away from Mecca? And speaking of Mecca, which hot young D.C. insider was seen canoodling with an unidentified petite brunette at that hot spot late into the evening?
My cheeks felt swollen, they were so hot. “Uh, well, we just went out for a drink. Is that a problem?” I wanted to protest the canoodling bit, but decided it best not to go there. Anyway, there was hope for canoodling in the future.
Tom said that if people figured out who I was and where I worked, it could be a perceived conflict of interest, and that if things progressed, it was important to disclose these matters and so forth.
“It was just one date,” I said. “Anyway, I don’t cover politics.” And, wait a minute, wasn’t it a conflict of interest that our network (with its stock-holding news division employees) was owned by Corpcom, a corporation whose interests included just about everything we covered: movies, books, oil companies, chemical companies, fast-food chains, amusement parks, an airline…the list of conflicts went on and on. I didn’t say that, of course.
“Right, right,” he said, shaking his head a bit as if, oops, he had forgotten what it was that I reported on—which was mostly innocuous and soft. And then he apologized for meddling in my personal life, but he just wanted to protect me, and…whatever.
“Didn’t you want to discuss the Ideals piece?” I was anxious to change the subject.
“Of course.”
His barely postcollegiate assistant stuck her blond head in the door. “Max is on line one,” she said.
“Hold on,” Tom said to me. He picked up the phone. “Yup, uh-huh, yup, yup. Okay, I’ll let you know.” He hung up.
“A really strong piece,” he said, as if it were a continuation of a sentence. “Rated well. Max wants a follow-up.”
“Max?” The rumor was he hardly ever watched the show. Too early.
“Yes. Max Meyer. He liked your work. You should feel proud.”
I did. But I was confused.
“There’s not much else to say, though,” I said.
“Figure something out.” Tom turned to his computer and started answering e-mails, which I took as my cue to leave.
When I was little, I loved watching the monkeys at the zoo, the way they climbed all over the place and each other, periodically stopping to pick at each other’s scalp. That’s what our newsroom was like. Everybody was into everybody else’s business. But the funny thing was, so many publicists sent us so many flowers so often, that when an enormous bouquet of lilacs and peonies landed on my desk, no one took any notice.
I felt faint again, but in a very good way, and sat down in my ergonomically correct chair to open the little note that was attached to the basket.
There’s some good coffee in D.C. Perhaps you could come do a story about it.
Mark.
And so, after thorough consideration (and a fair amount of squealing to Natasha), I decided it was only logical to start the Ideals follow-up with Doug Purnell’s Washington office.
Dear New Day USA,
I am writing to register a complaint. Last week, we came all the way from Florida to stand outside your studio window with Weather Mike. Mike was very kind to us during the commercial breaks, but our friends and family said that the only glimpse they caught of us was a quick shot of my husband’s arm. If people are going to travel this far to stand outside your window, you should make the effort to show all of them.
Sincerely,
Donna Clemente Tempe, AZ
P.S. Could you please send us some New Day USA coffee mugs to the address below. It is the least you can do.
CHAPTER SIX
PERHAPS I SHOULD STEP BACK A BIT, EXPLAIN how the whole refugee cosmetics story fell in my lap in the first place. It was a little different from our typical fare, because, typically, unless a piece had already been covered by, say, the New York Herald, we would not consider doing it. Seriously. A huge number of the stories we produced were stolen from a newspaper story, wire copy or magazine article. Or, sometimes, from a noncompetitive television program, like something that aired on CNN or MSNBC, or, on rare occasions, from public radio. Our senior staff, especially Carl, were very reluctant to approve an unproved entity. But the best way to have an idea okayed? Tell the seniors that the other morning shows were hot on it already. Which is why, when Carl handed me a press release from Cosmetic Relief, I was fairly surprised that there were no supporting articles or transcripts to go with it, much less outside interest.
“We want you to produce this,” he said, coming up from behind me, putting a single sheet of paper on top of my keyboard. “It will be a Faith piece. Don’t fuck it up. It came from Max’s office.” Max Meyer. He was above Tom. He was above us all. He was the CEO of Corpcom.
“Max’s office?” This was a first. This would be like Bill Gates telling a junior software programmer that he had a suggestion for some code.
“Yes. Max’s office.”
I took a quick glance at the pitch. “Why was this sent to him?”
“Annabelle, I have no idea, but it’s here now, on your desk. I e-mailed it to you as well.” He was clearly exasperated by me (this was already more work than he usually did) and started to walk away.
“So, can I go over there, to this refugee camp?” This was a very exciting prospect; I had never been sent abroad for work.
“What do you think?” he said, turning back toward me, glaring as if that was the stupidest question in the world. “Of course not. Just coordinate with the foreign desk for the pickups. And apparently Cosmetic Relief has some footage we can use.”
Years ago, almost a decade, when I was in journalism school, all green and idealistic and out to save the