Her mother didn’t complain about the bulimia in her twelve-year-old daughter until Samantha’s weight dropped below what was attractive on screen and the show’s director asked if Samantha was sick. But by that point the disease was caught. The years of psychological damage had taken hold. Her mother could find equal success in mentioning to a person with diarrhea that he ought not to crap so much.
“Any acting after that?”
“Just some smaller stuff, commercials mostly. By the time you become a teenager, you need to decide whether or not you’re all in. I wasn’t.” Samantha takes a breath. She didn’t expect to be nervous for this interview.
By seventeen, Samantha had left acting and gone to college. From college it was law school. Three more years to prove she was more than a child actor. With each year, her relationship with her mother was more estranged.
Her first seventeen years in acting were about her mother. The next seventeen years in law were a reaction to her mother. This is her first choice driven neither by her mother nor by the damage her mother inflicted.
“Columbia Law. Impressive.” Mueller smiles. “Partner at Davis Polk?”
She nods.
He leans back in his chair, interlocks his fingers, and rests his joined hands on his belly. “Samantha, why are you here?”
She knew this was coming. Lots of lawyers turn to journalism but most don’t turn their backs on a successful law career in order to take an entry-level news job. But this question had been asked and answered by herself. “I want this job and I’ll be great at it.”
“You’re a partner at Davis Polk. You’re probably making a million bucks a year. In a few years, maybe two million. For a first-year news correspondent at UBS, I can maybe pay you six figures, barely. And that’s if I think we’re going to use you a lot.” He pauses. “That’s a big salary change. How are you going to pay your bills?”
“I’ll manage.” She has no family money, modest savings since she only just made partner, and a mortgage on a new apartment that is too big for a hundred-thousand-dollar salary. “Let me worry about that. All I’m asking is that you make a bet on me. A small bet.”
“I’ve seen your tape,” says Mueller. With TV broadcasting, it doesn’t matter much where a person’s degree is from. It’s the resume tape.
Samantha paid a thousand bucks to a cameraman who is an old friend from L.A. to shoot her doing a fake news story. She scripted a hurricane disaster site and got herself in the mode of delivering closing arguments and appealed to the viewers of her tape to relate to the plight of the victims in the way she would appeal to the jury to award damages. “I’d appreciate your advice. What did you think?”
“It’s rough as hell but there’s something there.” Mueller knew after watching it the first time that he wanted to hire her. She has that intangible star quality. You never know what makes it come across. You just know it when you see it.
He wants her and he’ll pay more than a hundred grand if he has to. His mind was made up by the end of the initial handshake, as it is in all his interviews.
Mueller’s manner changes as his internal timer for the meeting has gone off. “Anything else?”
“No, thank you. If I have any questions I’ll email your assistant.”
“Great.” He stands and they shake hands. “I’ll walk you out of the newsroom.” He leads her through the hive and to the security guards.
“Thank you.” They have another handshake which is an awkward one because neither feels it is necessary or is sure it will happen until Samantha decides it will just be easier to get it over with and she sticks her hand out.
He walks back toward the control room.
She takes the escalator back up to ground level and steps outside into the heavy, wet July air. She decides she wants a drink to celebrate and contemplate whatever the hell just happened in there. Whether it leads to a job or not, it was a moment. It was a step toward change. Real change to make her life happy again.
Heavy drinking is the one thing about a lawyer’s life that sits well with her. As is too often the case, it will be drinks alone. Sometimes to blow off steam or after a good verdict she’ll get drinks with the legal team. But if it’s something personal to celebrate, she has no one to go to.
I want this job, she thinks. Litigation to broadcast journalism is a proven path. If it isn’t UBS, it’ll be someplace else. I won’t stop.
She cabs to the Time Warner building, walks past the statue of the fat man and up the escalator to Stone Rose. It’s 4:30 p.m.
A waiter comes right over wearing a starched white button-down shirt and black pants. He’s deciding whether or not to flirt.
“Vodka martini up, slightly dirty.”
He nods. He decides to hold off on flirting until he has a better read.
Samantha’s cell phone rings. It’s Robin Paris, her friend and college roommate. “Sam, if I didn’t call you we’d never speak.”
Samantha laughs. This is not said with judgment, just an observation. “I swear I’ve been meaning to call you.”
“Thank God one of us is a pampered housewife,” says Robin.
“I knew I chose the wrong major.”
“Did you get the job?”
Samantha says, “I don’t know yet. He seemed to like me but it wasn’t much of an interview because they were busy covering the plane crash. It was more like an introduction to the news business and he was challenging me to like it.”
“What’s next? Another interview?”
Samantha says, “There’s no one left to meet. He’s the one who decides. Now either I get it or I don’t.” She sips her martini, drawing the vodka up from the glass more than pouring it past her lips.
“You’ll get it, Sam. You’ll be the smartest, prettiest badass lawyer on TV.” Robin is the only daughter of a wealthy Boston family and she went to Andover, so admission to Harvard was not as significant as a rejection from Harvard would have been. She married a childhood friend and managing director at Goldman Sachs. She’s the rare person who’s taken advantage of an easy draw in life to be a happy person and not expect even more of the world.
“I may not get this one, but I’ll get something.”
“When are you giving your notice at the law firm?”
“Tomorrow. I’m sad but certain about it,” says Samantha.
“Good, Sam. We get one go-around on the planet. Don’t spend it filing legal briefs.” Robin plays tennis, goes to lunch, shops, manages two nannies for her two kids, and has the time to be a considerate friend. She carries the bigger part of the burden for nurturing the friendship and does it without real complaint because she loves Samantha. They have a curiosity for each other. There is the unusual combination of a separation of their lives mixed with institutional knowledge of each other’s lives that makes them perfect confidants.
Call waiting beeps on Samantha’s phone. She holds the phone back to look in case there’s an emergency legal filing required of her at Davis Polk, which is probable. The caller ID says unknown.
“Robin, I need to take this. I’ll call you later.” She presses to hang up and accept the incoming call. “Samantha Davis.”
“Samantha, it’s David Mueller.”
“David, hi.” She pauses while her brain runs scenarios of why he could be calling and prepares her answers. Legal training. “Nice to hear from you.”
“Well, Ms. Davis. Do you always get what you want?”
“It feels like never, but that may be a neurosis of mine.”
“I’m calling to offer you a job.” Mueller knew he was going to hire her. He just wanted a few minutes to decide on the salary and terms. “It’s a three-year deal. One fifty year one, one seventy-five year two, two twenty-five year three. General assignment news reporter based in New York.” Mueller had upped his number because he wants to put a condition on it. He knows there are still people smart enough at his competitors to hire her if they see the resume tape. “One more thing. I need to fill this spot, so you
have forty-eight hours to accept.”
“Okay.” She decided earlier that she would take any offer without pushing a negotiation on terms. Now that she has an offer, her instinct to drive a better deal is kicking in. She knows she’ll be a success. She can push either for more money or fewer years. “Is the three-year commitment negotiable?”
“We like three-year deals.” He pauses. “You don’t have an agent.”
“No.”
“Friendly piece of advice. Get one.”
I tried, she almost says and doesn’t.
“I’ve got a forty-eight-hour window for you, so it won’t matter for this deal, but you should get one soon. He’ll tell you that three years is standard.” He continues. “Today was a plane crash. That’s newsworthy but not consistent. The only consistent news we do is politics. Are you political?”
“Not really.”
“Bone up. Get steeped in the news, especially politics. I’ll email you a few websites that you should read every day, and watch cable prime time. Bounce between channels and start with ours.”
“Got it.”
“Alright.”
“David, I appreciate the call. Can I call you at close of business tomorrow?”
“Sure. One more thing I want you to think about. This is UBS News. You can work packages for the network morning show and for the network evening news. No show has bigger ratings. Bigger exposure. Nobody. I also have UBS-24. Twenty-four-hour cable news where you can do legal, political, and general news reporting. There’s a lot of real estate to cover here. Nobody has more real estate than I do. That kind of opportunity for growth and exposure is an important thing for you to think about as you start your career in this business.”
He’s selling me! I can’t believe this, she thinks. “I appreciate that, David. I also appreciate the opportunity.”
“Talk to you tomorrow, Samantha.” He hangs up.
“I got the job,” she says to her martini.
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Until 2011, Douglas Brunt was CEO of Authentium, Inc., an Internet security company. He now writes full-time and is currently working on his second novel. A Philadelphia native, he lives in New York with his wife and their two children.
www.DouglasBrunt.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Douglas Brunt
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First Touchstone hardcover edition October 2012
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brunt, Douglas
Ghosts of Manhattan / Douglas Brunt—1st Touchstone hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“A Touchstone book.”
1. Financial crises—Fiction. 2. Wall Street (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R868G46 2012
813'.6—dc23
2012004367
ISBN 978-1-4516-7259-6
ISBN 978-1-4516-7261-9 (ebook)
Ghosts of Manhattan Page 26
