by Holly Brown
I almost walked out right then. But I’ve worked so hard. I’m just so fucking deserving.
“So far,” he said, “the ratings are good. The audience seems to be responding to you. What I worry about, though, is that they could change their minds. They could start to see through you.”
“Excuse me?”
“They could start to see in you what I do. That you’re a manipulative whore.”
It took all I had not to storm out. But the fact is, I still want this. I’m so close I can taste it. Once I’m a household name, I can take care of him.
“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I’m sorry but, no, I really don’t.”
“That night at your apartment. I told you how I really felt, and I thought you’d done the same. Then it turned out you were using me, feeding me that stalker story.”
“I think you know very well that it’s no story.” I was fighting to keep my voice even. “That night at my apartment, I was telling you about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I lived in fear. I’m still living in fear.”
“That night at your apartment, I opened up to you, Elyse, and you didn’t care.”
“What do you mean, I didn’t care?”
“You led me on.”
Oh, if I’d cared, I would have slept with him by now. He thinks I promised him something and didn’t deliver. He’s hurt, and now he has the chance to hurt me back, to take away something that should rightfully be mine.
Tears were running down my face.
He slammed his hand down on the desk. “Do not cry your crocodile tears in my office!” he thundered.
I was glad his secretary was out in the hall. If I hadn’t known better, I’d think he was about to hit me.
I didn’t speak, didn’t move. I had to let it blow over, let his anger flame out.
“So if you want the job,” he said, his voice more controlled now, “it’s yours. I can offer you a year contract. Shorter than that, it’s too much uncertainty for the viewers. But I don’t want to go longer than that for, well, obvious reasons.” He slid a folder across the desk. “That’s our best and final offer. Don’t bring some hotshot in here and try to negotiate. I have big names that are more than happy to take your place if you get any delusions of grandeur.”
I took the folder. “Thank you,” I whispered. My legs could barely carry me out.
He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what he just did; he should lose his job for that.
But who would I report him to? Human Resources? The head of the network? If I did report him, if I tried to take him on, I’d be finished at Morning Sunrise before I’d even really begun. It could put the kibosh on my whole broadcasting career. I’d be a troublemaker. Damaged goods. A liability.
I could go back to People and see if they’re interested in a follow-up. Tell them what he just did. Take the story public and see if that would provide a measure of protection.
No, it would never work. Women are hard on one another. They’ll remember A Current Affair. They’ll decide I put myself in this position, that I tried to use my looks and sexuality for professional gain and it backfired. They’ll hold my ambition against me.
But can I work under a vindictive man who seemingly hates me? Who drove my predecessor to drink, and then drove her out?
It’s the decision of my life, and I have to make it with a gun to my head—not just Dennis’s, but someone else’s.
I see those lipstick red letters in my mind, all the time:
I WILL KILL YOU, BITCH.
Chapter 38
Different time period, same accusations: Manipulator. Whore.
How far we’ve come.
I learn soon enough what really happened in the Hamptons. TMZ sent a helicopter that recorded footage of Reese and me in the pool naked. Of course the wily folks at TMZ knew whose house it was, though they didn’t see fit to mention that Pietro wasn’t actually there. Instead, they intimated that the newest INN superstar had destroyed her longtime boyfriend’s life and then celebrated by having an orgy with her assistant and a wealthy playboy developer while a beloved anchor remained missing.
I’m avoiding even reading the social media. Reese is going to handle all the “fans.” If there’s anything threatening enough, Officer Mortimer will be posted outside my door.
The staff of Beth’s show won’t look at me at all. It feels like everyone else is staring: the women (and some men) with expressions of mockery, mirth, or judgment; other men (not just Luke anymore) with a hint of a leer. I keep expecting some dude to ask me if I want to go party, like I’m in high school again. I guess I should feel grateful that it’s taken so long for me to get those kinds of looks. It’s not like it’s the first time they’re seeing me naked.
But somehow, it’s different, worse, to have it be a video. To have it be contemporary. To have it happen again, when I thought it couldn’t because there were no more photos to find. I would never take and send those kinds of pictures to anyone, ever again, but they still managed to get me. I wasn’t smart enough.
Last time, my photos were stolen. My dignity was stolen. My right to make the rules when it comes to my own body, to decide who has access, was stolen. And they just keep right on taking.
I haven’t seen Graham yet. He might think this gives him even more license than he already had. Any of them might feel that way. I’m surrounded by Someone Else.
Edwin’s in his office, and when he opens the door, his face is as closed off as I’ve ever seen it. I wonder if he’s reached the same conclusion that Dennis did about Elyse. I wonder if he—and INN—will want to cut ties and if all this is about to come to an end.
A small part of me would welcome a firing. Then I could walk away without feeling like a quitter. I could be (more or less) safe again. Sure, my internet footprint would dog me forever, but if I get a job in some unassuming industry, far from the spotlight, no one would care. I could stay quiet, and eventually I’ll be forgotten.
The only problem is, I’m actually good at this. As Elyse said, I’m just so fucking deserving.
Edwin steps away from the door wordlessly, and I follow him inside, taking a seat on the couch without waiting to be asked. He remains standing, his arms crossed.
Elyse had A Current Affair; I have TMZ (again). Elyse’s brush with tabloid fame worked in her favor, as she then sat in for Trish. I need to take a page from Elyse’s playbook (again) and turn this to my advantage. Sure, I’m humiliated, but this will not break me.
Not again.
“So you saw it?” I ask, not even needing to specify what “it” is. Edwin does the slightest of nods. “The truth is—”
“No one cares about truth, Cheyenne. You haven’t noticed that by now?”
“I don’t believe that. I think you really do care.” He doesn’t disagree, so I rush on. “Pietro wasn’t even there. Reese got him to loan us the house. We were just a couple of girls having fun, playing in the pool. She’s my friend, nothing more. I’m not like that.”
“All girls your age are like that.”
I can feel his contempt, but something else too. Jealousy. So it wasn’t a fluke, the way he behaved during that Chase conversation. If Reese is right, if Edwin really does have feelings for me, that could be the biggest advantage of all. “I’m not like that,” I repeat.
“You realize that according to your contract, I could fire you for this. You’re representing my brand. You’re representing INN.”
“I didn’t know a helicopter was going to swoop in. You think I wanted this to happen?”
“I don’t know. Some people get addicted to fame.”
“That’s not me. I hate this. I hate that it’s happening again.” I will not cry. “I’m trying so hard to become a real broadcaster, someone people will respect. When I made the video that went viral, when I made all my videos, it was because I wanted to show everyone at Stanford that I have a brain. That I care about
issues. Then someone hacked my phone and my pictures got out—”
“I know all this.” But he sounds less steely than he did. My vulnerability is eating at him. That means he has empathy, maybe even a conscience. At the very least, it confirms his feelings for me.
“Is there some kind of damage control INN can do now? Anything legal, maybe? I had the expectation of privacy. I was inside what’s basically a compound.”
He shakes his head. “We go after TMZ and we’re just calling more attention to the footage. That benefits them, not us.”
I’m glad he said “us.” I look at him imploringly. Men love a damsel in distress. “What can we do then?”
He scans my face slowly, and while his gaze is far from entirely professional, he has to be thinking that if I fail, he does too. I’m his creation, his reflection. He wants to fall in love with me, like Narcissus.
But he might be getting pressure from someone (Daphne?) to cut me loose. My series didn’t do what they’d hoped, and now I’ve been filmed in a way that only diminishes my credibility further.
I can exert pressure too. I stand up and walk toward him, not stopping until we’re less than a foot away from each other. I feel him catch his breath. I feel my power.
“Look at me, Edwin, please. You know I’m not like that.” He’s having trouble meeting my eyes, and I have the distinct impression he’s turned on. If it were even a week earlier, I might have been, too, being in his space like this. In his orbit. But it’s not last week, and this is a means to an end. “I don’t blame you for being upset, but please don’t fire me. I want to make you proud. I’ve always wanted that.”
“I just don’t know, Cheyenne.” He takes a step backward and runs his hand through his hair. It’s like he can’t think when he’s that close to me. I’m scrambling him. Good.
“Please, Edwin. You saw something in me, and it’s still there. You can feel it, right?” He’s clearly struggling with himself. Good. “I’m begging you. Don’t cut me now. There’s so much we can still do together.”
He searches my face. I hold his gaze.
It scares me a little that I can act this way. That I can snow someone so convincingly, so ruthlessly.
But he did it first.
“I’m begging you,” I say. “Let me turn this into something positive, for us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me anchor Beth’s show tonight. The audience needs to see me in a fuller way, like they did when you first introduced me, when I talked about cyberbullying and about Tulip. That was the real me. I’m not some topless nymph in a millionaire’s mansion.”
He’s considering. “So what’s your plan?”
It’s kind of cool, having Edwin ask me that, instead of the other way around. “We could make it a riff against fake news—those other networks’ fake news, since CNN and MSNBC and Fox have run with TMZ’s footage. It’s just high-end cyberbullying. We can say we know people care about the truth, which is that I’ve been under extreme stress with Beth missing and being a new correspondent and being a small-town girl handed this huge opportunity. Then I do the rest of the show, and I promise you, I’ll kill it.”
My pitch was carefully crafted. I know he wants to take a stab at those other networks, the ones who didn’t hold the president’s feet to the fire, who left INN out in the cold. He wants to call them out for their spineless hypocrisy, for letting go of the major story and then treating my naked body like it’s news.
But he isn’t speaking. So I take a risk. “Graham could write it with me.”
“You want Graham?” His voice is hard. He’s still jealous, only with a new object. Good.
“He’s the best writer here, and I need to connect with the public. We can transform this TMZ thing into a win.”
He fixes me with another stare. “You really want to stay at INN?”
“Of course.” What I know is that I don’t want to retreat like I did after the naked pictures. And I don’t want to be fired. If I’m leaving, it should be with a golden parachute like Megyn Kelly’s. Or a settlement like Gretchen Carlson’s.
“I have some terms,” he says. “Any time you’re in public, you’ve got your clothes and your game face on. You don’t give the media anything they can use against you.” I nod. “We’re going to start your media training soon, and you do what you’re told.” Another nod. “There are some benefit dinners coming up that I want you to attend. We’ve bought tables, and we need to do some strategic seating where you’re next to heads of corporations—the ones with shiny reputations, eco and all that shit—and you’re going to schmooze within an inch of your life. We’re going to use this new perception of availability. You’re good at that, right?”
I’m pretty sure he’s referring to that last conversation I had with Chase where he accused me of getting higher grades through the appearance of availability. Isn’t that how he phrased it? I can’t exactly remember. But I know he called me a cocktease, and Graham quoted him. So Graham and Edwin were both listening in, or Graham told Edwin what he needed to know. My weaknesses, my vulnerabilities. How best to control me.
I nod, a good little girl who won’t step out of line, who’ll follow instructions to the letter. I’m Elyse, preattack.
“You flirt, you talk up INN, you get them to consider underwriting a broadcast.” He gives me a meaningful look. “Maybe your broadcast.”
So despite TMZ, I’m still in contention for Beth’s show. “I can do that.”
“I’ll be the one to talk to Graham and see about him writing a script for you.”
“I need to be involved with the script, at least a little. You know, for authenticity.” I’m going to be a source on my own life this time.
“We’ll see,” is all he’ll give me. Then he asks, “Who do you think tipped off TMZ?”
I just assumed they had their ways, their spies, their tracking devices, something. “I don’t know.”
“Take a guess.”
“Pietro, maybe.” It’s the opposite of what he said in that VIP room, but then, you can’t trust people who proclaim their trustworthiness. “Or it could have been his driver, who took us out there.”
“Or it could be the more obvious suspect.”
He must mean Reese. “You’re the one who hired her.”
“Even I make mistakes.” His smile is grim.
He said I couldn’t trust Beth; now he’s saying I can’t trust Reese. Could he be telling the truth this time? Or will Reese be the next to disappear?
Finally I say, “I’ll go back to work and await my marching orders.”
Reese is in my office. “So how did it go?” she asks eagerly.
Too eagerly.
It’s strange that in all the time Reese has supposedly had her ear to the ground, she’s delivered no real data. She’s also managed to miss key moments, like when that note was left in my office. Yet when the teleprompter was erased, Reese was there. When TMZ sent the helicopter, Reese was there.
“It went fine,” I say.
“This is all going to blow over. You have nothing to worry about.”
I’m not just waiting for it to blow over, I’m capitalizing on it. But I’m not going to tell Reese that.
I’m not going to describe the humiliation of throwing myself on Edwin’s mercy, of using my feminine wiles to stay in the running for a job that I shouldn’t even want. Maybe I need to be fired. To be saved from INN, and from myself. Saved from the manipulator I’m becoming.
My competitive spirit has been engaged since coming to INN in a way it never was before, and like I told Reese, I hate to lose. If they sack me after all they’ve done to me, if I’m the one who leaves in disgrace, then they win. I can’t have that. I want to write my own ticket and take them down. Let them see how it feels to be humiliated.
Reese can’t know any of that. Because Reese most certainly knows what she wants; she’s known since she was six years old.
It’s possible that she’s here to undermine me and
steal the correspondent job. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Reese could have been setting me up this whole time. Means, motive, and opportunity, as Elyse said about Trish.
But is Reese working for herself, or is she working for someone else? Is she a source for Graham and Edwin? She has a key to my apartment. I don’t think there’s anything to be found there, nothing incriminating that can be used against me. But then, I’m not a trained journalist. It could be that Reese has no intel for me because she’s too busy doing the reverse: feeding information about me up the food chain.
If that’s the case, though, why is Edwin casting aspersions against her?
Maybe Reese has gone rogue. Or maybe she really is my friend and has been all along. I just have no way of knowing, and I can’t afford trust right now.
Wait, there is something to be found in the apartment. Elyse’s diary. Which means that the diary could very well have been sent by someone who wants to protect me, but Edwin and Graham and whoever else are using its contents against me. Keeping me off-balance so that I’m easier to control.
Where’s Beth? And who’s R.G.? My life might depend on finding out.
Chapter 39
He actually went for it.
He made me sweat a little, but by early afternoon, Edwin called me for a meeting with him and Graham to put the finishing touches on my “authentic” speech for Beth’s broadcast tonight. The competition between them was apparent. It was like that old saying about how pretty girls want to be told they’re smart, and smart girls want to be told they’re pretty. Edwin’s the pretty girl in this scenario.
I wanted to laugh at times as they basically jostled and elbowed each other like a couple of siblings. I like seeing the tensions between them and will subtly stoke that as much as I can. Divide and conquer. I made sure to bat my eyelashes at each when the other wasn’t looking. Beth would have been proud. Or should I say Trish?
I just can’t think of her as Trish. From what I read, and what I saw, it’s like they’re entirely different people, like the re-creation went far beyond the cosmetic.
