Authors: Eileen Cook
“How come I get all the lousy stuff? I’m hanging off mountains and Colin’s making cake.”
“That’s the point, Erin. I thought you were committed? You don’t sound committed,” Pam chided.
“It’s just I don’t do a lot of climbing. I’m more of an inside person. The search and rescue teams have to pull a few people off of the trails every year. I’m not sure I should start with hiking up a mountain. Can’t I walk ten times around the mall or something? They have bears on those mountains, you know. What if I fall off a cliff or get eaten by a bear?”
“Then pray we get it on audio,” Pam said, and then clapped her hands together. I couldn’t tell if she was joking. “On the days that we’re doing in studio work we’re going to bring in some interviews.”
“Who are you thinking of?” Avita whipped out her pen. She seemed to be going for these ideas; of course, none of them required her to risk her life. That plum role seemed reserved for me. “We’ll need to act fast if we want to get anyone high profile.”
“What we want is low profile. I’m thinking we bring in a gigolo, a porn star, that kind of thing. The kind of people where you have no idea what they’re going say and really polarize the audience.”
“Jerry Springer rejects?” Colin asked.
“Exactly.” Pam gave him a smile. She had an inordinate amount of teeth. She looked like those toy monkeys that clanged the cymbals. The creepy ones that showed up in Stephen King stories. “You’re a sharp cookie. You’ve got an eye for the business, I can tell.” She gave him a lecherous wink. “All right, we’ve got a game plan. Avita, I’ll work with you getting things organized and handling promotion. We’re going to see what we can do to arrange a television interview for you two. We don’t have a lot of time so we’ll need to hit the ground running.”
“Any suggestions on how we can arrange TV coverage? How can we get the stations interested in our show?”
“The whole mismatched lover angle is your way in. People are interested in opposites attracting and more than attracting, staying attracted. These two are the Odd Couple with heavy dose of sexual tension tossed in.”
“There is no sexual tension,” I clarified. “And for the record, he’s the odd one.”
Pam stood next to my chair looming over me, hands on her hips. “What did you say?”
“I mean we’re only acting like we’re a couple. You knew that, right? I mean station management told you?” I shot a look over to Avita to see if she would bail me out, but she was focused on her notebook.
“Let’s be clear about something. I understand that the idea that you two are a couple is part of what is driving your numbers up. What I want to know is if you understand that when you committed to this show, you committed to making it a success. Which means there is no acting, you are a couple.”
“No problem,” Colin said, tossing an arm over my shoulder. I clenched my teeth together. If he was going to make a comment about Friday night this would be the moment.
“I understand that we’re acting as a couple,” I said. Pam shot me an icy glare. “I mean I understand we are a couple when we’re on the air. Are you saying you expect us to act like a couple all the time?”
Colin removed his arm from my shoulders. “You make it sound like you can imagine no greater horror. There are women who find me attractive.”
“Of course there are,” Pam said, turning her attention to Colin. She rubbed his shoulders as if she were making bread out of his muscles. I was starting to suspect that Perky Pam had a thing for Colin. She looked at me as if I had pushed him down on the playground and tossed sand in his eyes.
“Fine. We’re a couple.” I tossed my hands up in the air.
“Ah, darling,” Colin said kissing my cheek. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep hiding your feelings from me.”
“We’re a couple for the next two weeks. Then it’s over.”
“Careful you don’t commit yourself to anything. You might find after a few weeks you don’t want to let me go.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Well then, people, now that we’ve got that arranged. We’ve got a show.”
* * *
“You always get the same thing. Safe sushi,” Avita said, popping a piece of maki roll that might have been an eyeball into her mouth. She loved sushi that resembled extras from a horror movie.
I looked down at my plate. An avocado roll, two pieces of salmon, and a spicy tuna roll. I put a dab of extra wasabi into my soy sauce. Never let it be said I didn’t live on the edge.
“What did you think of the consultant?” I ventured.
“She certainly isn’t lacking in any vitamin B. She has energy to spare. Lots of good ideas.”
“Yeah, about some of those ideas…this whole climb a mountain plan for example, it strikes me it puts the station at some liability risk. I would think station management wouldn’t be that keen.”
“I talked to Wayne about it. He absolutely loves the idea. I swear to God he was panting with excitement.”
“Wayne likes it, huh?” I speared another hunk of sushi and gave it a soy sauce baptism. So much for my thought that once everyone had some distance from the cheerleader of doom they would reconsider.
“Wayne is impressed with you.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“That he thought you were stepping up to the plate lately. He likes that you’re involved with that mentorship program.” Avita smiled. I could tell she was almost as thrilled as I was that her suggestion that I join Colin’s show had worked out.
“Yeah, well, that’s another situation I’ve gotten involved in that turned into a mess.”
“What are you talking about? She seems like a sweet kid.”
“She thinks she’s in touch with the dead.”
“She didn’t look Goth. Why is it they all want to be vampires?”
“Not that kind of afterlife. She doesn’t think she’s a vampire. She thinks she’s Princess Diana.”
“Get out!” Avita’s hand’s slapped the tabletop.
“No joke. Imagine my luck to be a mentor for royalty. Of course, she thinks she’s my mentor, so the whole relationship is screwed up from the get-go, and then there’s her dog. Sometimes I think she’s mentally unstable and in the next minute I think she’s just playing with me. I think she’s run away from home too, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to turn her in or what, or if that will make things worse. Her mother looks unstable to me, but then again, who am I to judge?”
“Whoa. Slow down, one thing at a time. Princess Diana is homeless?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got my suspicions. Her home life isn’t great, so it could be a case where she prefers to stay with friends, but I can’t tell. The partnership group doesn’t tell you much. I can’t figure out if she knows she’s making it up or if she really does think she’s channeling Princess Diana. One minute she’s a somewhat normal kid and the next she’s all royal waves.”
I looked for a waiter to refill my Diet Coke. The wait staff moved at Nascar-like speeds. You could hear the squeak of their shoes as they ran by and just catch a blur of color. By the time you see them they’re already gone. I speared a piece of tuna on the edge of my chopstick and nibbled on it like a fish-cicle.
“Maybe you’re working backwards. Instead of trying to figure out if she knows she isn’t Princess Di, try and figure out why she would want to be Princess Di.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why her? Why wouldn’t she want to channel Marilyn Monroe or Cleopatra?”
Avita speared another of her tentacle sushi bits. I swear to God it tried to slither away as she popped it into her mouth. I nodded as I thought. Avita had a good point.
“I heard back from
Breakfast Television
. The morning show?” Avita said, cutting off my train of thought. “They had some llama specialist booked for tomorrow morning who had to back out at the last minute. They’re going to slot in the interview with you and Colin at that time.”
“Ah, the llama trainer’s loss is my chance to be a media diva.”
“You guys will be great. The show is really humming. It’s better than the original Male Men show. Kevin is going to come out of recovery and not know what happened.”
“He can have his job back. I’m still hoping to convince Wayne to let me do a solo show.”
“You don’t mean that, you love the show. You and Colin are great together.” Avita gave me a look over her eyeball chunks. “I think he likes you.” She looked around for any of our co-workers. “You know”—she winked—“like he
really
likes you.”
The sushi seized in my throat, suddenly it felt like I had an inflated puffer fish wedged in there.
“What are you talking about?” I choked out.
“You should see your face, you’re all flushed. If I didn’t know better I would say you like him too. I knew you weren’t ready to give up on the idea of love.”
“Have you lost your mind? I don’t
like
Colin. I
tolerate
Colin.”
“Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.”
“Stop trying to find an excuse to show off your English degree.” I poked my straw around in my glass, trying to suck down the last few droplets of Diet Coke lurking in between the ice. Maybe now was the time to come clean about where things stood. “I’m not interested in Colin. You know there’s only been one person I’ve liked in years.”
“Jonathon.” She put her chopsticks down. “Tell me you aren’t still seeing him.”
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I hedged.
“But are you dating him?” She pushed her plate away. “This explains why you’ve been so busy lately and avoiding me. You didn’t want me to find out.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you, but I know how you feel. All I can tell you is that he’s going to end things with his wife and then it won’t be so weird. Try to understand. You know how hard it is to find someone you really like who doesn’t have a whole whack of issues.” I laughed trying to make a joke out of it, but she didn’t join me. “I didn’t set out to be with a married man, but he is married. He isn’t going to be married forever. If he was divorced no one would think anything of it. He’ll be divorced, but it takes time. Don’t you want me to be happy?”
“And you think having an affair with a married man is going to make you happy?”
“Oh, because my relationships with single men were working out so well. I was the pinnacle of joy then.”
“You can’t honestly believe dating Jonathon is going to turn into anything good.”
“I’m going in with my eyes open. I know this isn’t going to become some easy recipe for happily ever after. Jonathon is smart and funny. He’s interested in me and for right now and that’s enough for me. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I truly believe he will leave his wife, and if he doesn’t then I’ll cut it off.”
“Sounds like you’ve made up your mind then.” She looked out the window.
“Come on. Don’t make this hard for me, it’s already complicated enough.”
“Look at this from my point of view. I’m married. Watching you try to steal someone’s husband feels like I’m sending out the message that it would be okay for Darsh to cheat on me.”
“Darsh would never cheat on you. He worships the ground you walk on.”