Ollie gave a small nod and left.
Adam surveyed the room. “They remodeled for you. Nice.”
“Good walls,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s how Ollie described it.”
“Oh!” He gave a small laugh. “You okay with him? He’s half puppy, half pitbull. At least that’s how he was with Kitty—very protective.”
Adam was midthirties with a boyish, trustworthy face, and struck Dana as the kind of guy who warmed bottles in the middle of the night and tried to influence his baby to appreciate guitar solos. Dana wondered how much he knew about Kitty’s love life, and if her affair was sort of an open secret in the company.
“I think we’ll be fine,” she said. “I just have to acclimate to the idea of having an assistant. This is all new to me.”
“Culture shock?”
“It’s nothing compared to spreadsheet shock,” she said, pointing to the binder. “And I have no idea when I’ll get time to study all this.”
Adam opened the cover and glanced down. “Where did you get this?” He seemed surprised.
“From Sherry. She wanted me to study it.”
“Why?”
“I guess I need remedial spreadsheet training.”
He blinked, confused. “Dana, you don’t need to know all this stuff.”
“I don’t?”
“Our other hosts have probably never even seen an Excel spreadsheet.”
“Sherry made it sound like it was my job to be well-versed in all this.”
“That’s my job,” he said. “I’ll always keep you apprised of how you’re doing and what benchmarks you need to meet.”
Dana rubbed her forehead and wondered why Sherry had been so compelled to intimidate her. Maybe it was just her way of making sure Dana understood how important it was to meet her numbers. But maybe it was something else.
“She also made a fuss about missing display inventory.”
Adam looked surprised. “She did?”
“As if she expected me to be a criminal.”
Adam’s brow furrowed as if he, too, were trying to unravel the mystery of Sherry’s vexation. Finally, he seemed to give up, waving away any concern. “Don’t worry about Sherry’s bluster,” he said. “I want you to trust that you’re in very good hands. If you have any questions, I’m here. And of course, Ollie will do anything for you.”
“He told me he went over Kitty’s spreadsheets every week.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. He was the only assistant who did that. Most of them don’t know Excel from Expedia.”
“I’m just hoping he gets over Kitty’s death,” Dana said.
“It’ll be interesting to see what he posts on the In Memoriam page.”
Dana nodded. She had been told the company was setting up a special webpage for Kitty’s distraught fans. It was a living memorial—a place for them to pour their hearts out about their beloved host. Employees were expected to submit their own memories of Kitty through the PR department, which would screen them before the web department set the quotes to tender, heartbreaking music. Vanessa Valdes would be expected to write the most emotional tribute of all so that fans would accept her as Kitty’s replacement. By the time it was all over, Kitty Todd would be immortalized as a cross between Princess Diana and Shawn Killinger.
Dana turned back to Adam. “Did you ever work with her?” she asked, hoping for more lowdown on Kitty. She needed all the information she could get.
“I was her first segment producer here.”
“What was that like?” Dana asked.
He let out a breath. “You don’t want to know.”
The hell I don’t, she thought. But Adam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and slammed the subject closed.
“Let’s talk about today’s show,” he said.
10
Felicia, Jo and Robért—these were the folks with the juicy gossip, the ones she could probe for information on Kitty’s affair. But Ollie had trotted along with her to hair and makeup, and so she couldn’t get any information. By the time she was on set and getting miked by Lorenzo, there wasn’t much she could tell him.
“Everything okay?” she whispered.
“That detective was here again yesterday and cornered me,” he said.
“About what?”
“Just asking the same questions over and over. He thinks I’ll trip up and contradict myself.”
Dana huffed. It was infuriating. “He knows damned well there’s someone else he should be talking to,” she said.
Lorenzo’s eyebrows shot up, and she continued. “According to Ollie, Kitty was in the middle of a torrid love affair with someone here at the company.”
Lorenzo nodded, taking it in, but he didn’t look surprised. “Do you know who it was?”
“I have a suspicion.”
“Thirty seconds!” the tech director announced.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Lorenzo said, then he turned on her microphone and backed away.
Dana adjusted her earpiece, straightened herself behind the display table of earrings, and stared into the camera like she was looking into the face of a friend. Not just any friend, but a beloved. The kind of friend a woman relies on. Adores. The kind of friend who reflects the feeling right back. It’s more than mutual admiration. It’s an infinity of mirrors reflecting nothing but love.
The camera’s red light blinked on, and at that moment everything else ceased to exist. Kitty’s murder, Lorenzo’s trouble, her Sweat City group, her father’s approval and even the patent leather shoes pinching her feet. It all turned to vapor, and Dana’s focus was complete. She talked straight to the viewer at home, tracking her reactions with occasional glances at the sales numbers scrolling through the tracking monitor like an EKG. She got into a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing. She took calls. She gushed. On Adam’s instruction, she beckoned for close-ups on the products. She described design and color and clasps and light refraction. She shared her feelings. She gushed some more. When told the earrings were nearly sold out, she switched to the matching bracelets. Then she moved on to a line of freshwater pearl necklaces. Her fourth segment switched from jewelry to fashion, and she had a moment of panic because she distinctly remembered that Adam told her it would be the midpoint of her programming and it felt like only minutes had passed. Nervous, she glanced at the time on the monitor, and was stunned to discover she had been on the air for two hours. She had been in such a zone it had felt like no time at all. And that was when she realized that Megan had been right. She was born for this job. All of her skills and talents—including her ease in front of a camera and the hyperawareness of details she had always taken for granted—coalesced to make her shine.
At last, Adam told Dana to wrap it up, and she smiled brightly at the camera. “Thank you for staying with us, and now here’s Vanessa Valdes with today’s special on gemstone jewelry. You won’t want to miss it!”
And then she was done. Dana unclipped her mike, took out her earpiece and walked off the set.
Adam approached and went over the numbers with her, explaining the benchmarks that were met and surpassed. Apparently, she had done quite well. During the conversation she looked up and saw Sherry Zidel at the back of the soundstage. Dana waved, hoping for a word of encouragement from the prickly supervising producer. But either Sherry didn’t see her, or pretended she didn’t, as she slipped out the back door without returning the gesture.
Dana walked back to her dressing room with Ollie hurrying alongside. Her plan was to dismiss him and go upstairs to see if she could sneak onto the roof without being seen. It was after business hours, and so she presumed those hallways would be mostly empty.
However, when she turned the corner toward her dressing room, there, in the hallway, was Megan, in her cinnamon-colored Saks Fifth Avenue
suede bomber jacket, holding a bouquet of purple irises.
“I watched about half of it from home,” she called, “and couldn’t resist coming by.”
“I let her come up,” Ollie said. “I hope this is okay, Dana.”
Technically, Dana had already forgiven Megan for withholding critical information on the noncompete clause of her contract. Emotionally, though, it was hard to release the feeling of betrayal. She wanted to, wanted to forgive her friend fully and completely. They shared so much history, and had been close since the day they met in an acting class at NYU Tisch, when they were both freshman theater majors.
“Are those for me?” she asked, pointing to the flowers.
“No, they’re for the key grip,” Megan said, deadpan. “I never show up on set without a bouquet for the key grip.” She handed the flowers to Dana, who accepted them with a smile.
“Come in and see my new digs,” she said, opening the door to her dressing room.
Megan surveyed the room and gave a long, low whistle. “Not bad for a kid who got chewed out by Santucci for sitting on an imaginary cat.”
It was true. They had been in the middle of an improv class when Dana forgot that one of the other student actors had been petting his beloved Min-Min on the sofa. Dana was playing a despondent teenager, and had let herself drop heavily right onto the spot where the imaginary tabby had been happily purring.
Nice work, Barry, the acting coach had boomed, you just killed the fucking cat.
Her nickname for the rest of the semester was Scar, after the murderous character in The Lion King.
“I will find a vase for your flowers, Dana,” Ollie said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dana said. “Why don’t you go home for the day? I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
After he left, Megan acted as if she was checking for cats before taking a seat on the sofa. Dana let herself fall into one of the upholstered chairs, and Megan howled like a wounded feline. It wasn’t the first, second or even third time she had made that exact joke. It had reached a point where the very stupidity of repeating it so often had usurped all the humor.
“So it went well,” Megan said, as more of a statement than a question.
“Apparently.”
“Any problems I should know about?”
Dana shrugged. “I don’t think Sherry likes me.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing huge. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think she was trying to intimidate me.”
“She’s pretty intense,” Megan said.
“I know. It’s probably nothing.” Dana got up and went to the dressing alcove. She took off the pearl gray sheath she had borrowed from wardrobe, hung it up on the rack and got back into her own clothes—jeans and a V-neck top she had picked up from the clearance shelf at Hot Topic, using her employee discount. It appeared to be a black-and-white houndstooth pattern, but when you looked closely, the white part of the pattern was actually skulls.
“What the hell is that?” Megan said, pointing to her top.
“This?” Dana said, pulling on it.
“Alas, poor Yorick,” Megan said.
“I thought it was subtle.”
Megan sighed and slipped out of her jacket. “Put this on,” she said, handing it to Dana.
“Why?”
“Because you need to look like a professional now.”
“You sound like my sister,” Dana said.
“I sound like anyone who’s lived on Planet Grown-up for more than five minutes.”
Dana stroked the suede. “This is silly,” she said. “The day is over. Hardly anyone will even see me on the way out.”
“Humor me,” Megan said.
Dana slipped on the jacket in front of the full-length mirror and felt instantly transformed.
“Sweet Jesus,” Megan said as she stood behind Dana and peered at her reflection. “That looks amazing on you.”
Dana hugged herself and stroked the sleeve. “It’s a gorgeous piece.”
“You know what?” Megan said. “Keep it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Dana said. “Absolutely not.”
Megan folded her arms. “Don’t insult me,” she said. “It’s a gift. To make up for my massive fuckup.”
“No,” Dana said. “I can’t accept it. Next you’ll want to give me a pound of flesh.”
“There won’t be a next time. I’m done being a jerk. Besides,” she said, grabbing the meaty part of her thighs, “if I knew how to give you a pound of flesh I’d have done it years ago.”
Dana surveyed her reflection. It really was a hell of a jacket.
“You’re keeping it,” Megan said. “Resistance is futile.”
At last, Dana relented. She threw her arms around Megan. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll treasure it.” She knew then that she would. And that she had, in fact, forgiven her friend.
“Want to go out for a bite?” Megan asked.
Dana hesitated. She still wanted to search the roof as soon as possible, and for a moment, she considered telling Megan the truth—about the joint and about Lorenzo—but she knew that her friend would go ballistic at the idea that Dana had risked the job by getting high on the premises. And now that Dana considered it from Megan’s sensible perspective, she saw how juvenile her judgment had been. If she wanted to keep this job, she would need to start thinking more like someone who lived on Planet You-Have-to-Stop-Acting-Like-a-Snotty-Teenager.
For now, though, she would tell a little white lie to backtrack over her stupid mistake.
“I’d love to,” she said. “But the segment producer asked me to see him after the program. Rain check?”
11
After Megan left, Dana lingered awhile in her dressing room, just to be sure the executive floor would be deserted. Her patience was rewarded, because by the time she got up there, the receptionist was gone and there wasn’t a soul around. All she had to do was swipe her ID card by the sensor to let herself in, and slip down the hallway.
The yellow police tape was still there, marking off the end of the corridor that led to Kitty’s office and the stairway to the roof, but all was still and quiet. The police had packed up and left for the day. And the overnight Shopping Channel crew had no reason to be on this floor after business hours. Still, Dana took an extra sweeping glance to make sure there was no one around who could see her, then she ducked under the tape and went up the stairs. She pushed open the metal door, and was out on the roof, where a pink-and-gold sunset had settled over the Hudson River. The colors were slashed with blades of silver clouds that edged the bright white setting sun. It was so beautiful her hand automatically went to her heart, as if it took extra effort to keep it inside.
But Dana didn’t want to take too much time for her rapture. She was up there with a mission, and would lose light soon. And so she retraced her steps from the door to the west side of the building, scanning the ground for any sign of the joint. She realized it could have blown into a corner, or even off the roof. But she needed to check the entire surface. And so she took out her cell phone and, using the flashlight app, began scanning every inch of the roof, walking from one end to the other. The ground was dirtier than she realized, and every light-colored splinter of debris caused her to stop and crouch for a closer look. At last she saw something that seemed to be joint-like in dimensions, but when she kneeled to get a better view, she saw that it was just a sliver of paper.
“Looking for this?” came a male voice behind her, and Dana jumped, her heart nearly flipping in her chest. She whirled around to see Detective Marks looming over her, holding a baggie.
“What the hell?” she said.
He shook the plastic bag at her and Dana could see that there was a fami
liar joint inside.
“This yours, by any chance?”
“What are you doing up here?” she asked, taking a step back to look him in the eye.
“My job. You?”
“I, uh...” Dana knew she needed to admit she was looking for something, but what? “I’m missing a ring and I thought maybe it had fallen off.”
“A ring fell off your finger?”
Damn, she thought. I should have said bracelet. “It was pretty loose.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“What question?”
“The weed. Is it yours?”
“No!”
“Then you won’t mind giving me a DNA sample.”
The question felt as sharp as a needle. “What?” she said as she struggled to understand his reasoning.
“DNA. That way we can rule you out as the owner of the joint.”
“I’m not giving you my DNA.”
“I can get a warrant, you know. Up to you.”
“Why would you even care whose joint it is? Do New York City homicide detectives bust people for having marijuana now?”
“I’m trying to connect the dots in a murder investigation,” he said.
You mean you’re trying to connect the dots to Lorenzo, she thought. “Am I a suspect? You want to check my fingerprints against the murder weapon?”
“Interesting that you’re willing to give me your fingerprints but not your DNA.”
Clearly, he knew it was her joint. Worse, if he tested for DNA it would come up positive for both hers and Lorenzo’s. She’d lose her job and Lorenzo would lose his freedom. Dana weighed her options, trying to figure out what an inhabitant of Planet Nip-This-Thing-in-the-Tightly-Rolled-Bud would do. There had to be a way out of this, and it didn’t seem like lying was working.
“Okay,” she said, “it’s my joint. You got me. Can I have it back, please?”
“Why would I give it back to you?”
“Because you’re a human being and you don’t want to see me get fired from a job before I even have a chance to fuck it up in the usual way.”
Love Sold Separately Page 8
