“Has Rob been a real heel?” Larry asked.
“Sorry to break up this freaky love fest, or whatever weirdness we’re all hearing in the control room. You know your mics are still hot, right?” Fatima said into our earpieces. “Benji wants to see you BOTH in his office. Now.”
Chapter 36
The Kicker
Rob and I marched down the hall and I felt like I might explode from the boomeranging sensations of being with Rob and being about to lose my job.
“What if we’re both fired?” I asked when the elevator doors shut.
“Then it’s ‘Good morning, Cincinnati!’” Rob said in his best Ron Burgundy voice. “‘Bob, is that a Bengals tie you’re wearing? What a spanking they took last night, huh? Now give us the seven-day forecast, you animal!’” Rob stopped and blew out a stream of air from his mouth that told me he was more nervous than he was pretending.
“Hey, Rob,” I said, drawing his attention away from the third floor button that he pressed again though it was already lit up. “Thank you. I know you didn’t have to say any of that on the show.”
He nodded, seriously this time. “I’d run into a burning building for you, Amanda.”
We marched single file, me in front of Rob, into Benji’s waiting room.
“Awesome sauce!” Melissa exclaimed upon seeing us, then bounced over on a pogo stick. “Do you know you guys are trending on Facebook right now? You’re right behind the maid story. There’s even a hashtag for you two called #Romanda. How adorbs is that?!”
“Come in here, my dynamic duo,” Benji called from the threshold of his office. Rob and I exchanged looks then walked toward him. “Come, come, sit down,” Benji said, gesturing not to the cowhide sofa this time, but to two chairs parked in front of his desk with two matching stacks of white paper in front of them. “So. That was interesting,” he said. “Amanda, you made your lofty points about journalism, which are getting good buzz on social. I mean, it’s not as good as the fucking maid story would have been. BNN is going to crush us in the numbers today.”
I braced myself. Here it comes. The end of the show and our jobs.
“So I’m rethinking everything. I want to go in a different direction,” Benji said. “The election is almost over, thank God, and it’s time to think about what’s next. I’ve got an idea and, frankly, the timing could not be better. I’ve been watching the trend lines for the past month, ever since the research department gave me the latest focus group findings. Turns out, the audience says they’re sick of politics, sick of conflict. The minute the election is over, they want us to move on. And you know what they all say they want?”
“Free pizza,” I blurted, because that’s what I heard they got at those focus groups, and also because I was delirious.
“Ha! Good one,” Benji said. “Close! They all want good news. They’re tired of terror and violence and politics and anger. They want more pet stories and hero profiles and babies doing silly things. We can be ahead of the curve on this. Hell, I don’t even have to change the name of the network. Think of FAIR News as in My Fair Lady. It just works!”
Rob and I turned to each other and nodded along, like, yeah, that makes total sense.
“And that’s where you two come in. You’re like the perfect good news team. You know, your speech about journalism and trust, and keeping promises, blah, blah, blah. You two will be my good news couple. And you are a couple now, yes? Look, it’s none of my business. But even if you’re not, I think we should plant the seed that you are. Cause how great a marketing tool is that? Unity. Love. Forgiveness. You guys are a slogan machine!” Benji’s face lit up. “Good News Times Two! True Blue News! The Better Together Team. I’m spitballing here. We could stage an elaborate proposal on the air. And Rob, you could pop the question out on the plaza! Think of the ratings you’d generate with the months of wedding prep. Jesus,” he said, slapping his hands together. “I gotta pinch myself.”
“Yeah, that’s good stuff, Benji,” Rob said. “And believe me, the idea of marrying Amanda is very tempting. I mean, if you could get her to go along with a stunt like that, which won’t be cheap.”
I raised my brows and looked over at Rob, cause I had no idea where he was going with this. But Benji did.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. No, no. Don’t worry, I’ve thought of that,” Benji said. “That’s why I’ve had these two contracts drawn up. Feel free to glance through them quickly. I think you’ll be very pleased with the terms,” he said, pointing to the papers in front of us, which had lots of small print. “I’ve added first-class travel and accommodations when you’re on the road, higher clothing and car allowances, some prime-time specials for you to front. And, as you’ll see on page five, I’ve bumped up your salaries considerably.”
I flipped to page five and thought it must a typo. I’d never seen that many zeros before. “Oh, my God, yes, hand me a pen!” I almost yelled—until I remembered that sometimes Benji’s dreams were not in my best interests, and, oh yeah, he didn’t have a fucking clue about journalism.
“Hmm,” Rob said, tapping a pen on the desk “This looks a little thin, Benji. I mean, for all the marketing and sales promotion you’re asking us to do.”
“Yeah, no,” Benji said quickly, “we can work that out. I mean, obviously this is just a starting point.”
“I don’t know, Benji,” Rob said, like he was really disappointed. “I see it’s for four years with no outs—and I just don’t think Amanda and I are ready for that kind of commitment. I mean to you.”
“Those terms are negotiable,” Benji said.
Rob scratched his head. “I’m not seeing more vacation time in here. Amanda and I are going to need a lot of vacation. In fact, Benji, can you add a rider in which those first-class accommodations extend to personal travel as well?”
Benji said, “Sure, sure. I don’t think that will be a problem.”
“Good,” Rob said. “And we’d like that provision to begin today. There’s a flight to St. Bart’s at two P.M. that we’d like to be on. We could use a long weekend getaway before Election Day. This campaign has been exhausting for all of us. So if travel could arrange that, we’d appreciate it.”
Benji looked at us. “All right, so if I meet those conditions, we’ve got a deal?” He extended his hand for a shake and for a second I almost took it. Benji’s idea sounded soft and delicious to me—like a bowl of whipped cream or a fluffy pillow. Then something shifted and I got that stomachache again.
“I don’t think so,” I said, surprising myself. “I understand that people want good news. And doing that would make our jobs a hell of a lot easier. But I don’t think the answer is more water-skiing squirrels. Regardless of who wins the election, our jobs should get harder, not easier. We have to get back to being watchdogs of government, not junkies for conflict. We’re going to have to be more open-minded and fact based, in case our president is not. We’re already being accused of bias by both sides, so we’re going to have to convince viewers that we hear them and they can trust us. So, yeah, dancing baby videos do sound like a fun distraction, but there’s too much at stake for a funfest. Sorry, guys, I’m out.”
Benji picked up his stress ball from the desk and squeezed like he was giving it chest compressions. “I like where you’re going with this, Amanda,” he said. “You’re right. We shouldn’t make the show more fun. Every other morning show already does that. Let’s counterprogram! Let’s make ours deadly serious! We can call it What’s at Stake or Democracy in Danger. Or DefCon1. Nobody else is doing this!”
“Or Into the Fire,” Rob said, smiling at me.
“Or Cooler Heads Prevail,” I said back.
“Look, we can massage all that later,” Benji said. “Right after you guys sign the contracts.”
“I have an idea,” Rob said, standing up. “How about we take these with us? Because Amanda has a lot of thoughts I want
to hear about how to make the show better. She and I will brainstorm on the beach. Cool?”
“Uhh . . .” Benji said.
Rob grabbed his contract off the desk, then I did the same, trying to affect his same swagger, but accidentally sweeping the pen off the desk in the process.
Rob held out his hand to me. “Ready?”
I took his hand and prayed he knew what the hell he was doing.
“Hold on,” Benji said, following us out the door and past Melissa, who was peeking out from behind her monitor. “This offer doesn’t last forever! I need to hear from you in the next forty-eight hours.”
“Not a problem,” I told him. “As long as we have cell service on the island.”
“Guys, this is bullshit!” Benji said, positioning himself in front of us now and blocking the way out. “You’re not going to hold me hostage to your pseudo honeymoon.”
“Don’t worry, time flies when we’re having fun.” At that, Rob thrust his hand out, I think to high-five Benji, but his palm connected with Benji’s right shoulder, causing Benji to lose his footing and topple backward into the ball pit.
“Oh!” I gasped, watching Benji’s body slip down into bright blue, yellow, and red quicksand.
“Rob!” Benji yelled. “This is not funny.”
“Have a ball while we’re gone!” Rob said, then grabbed my hand and we ran out.
“Oh, my God!” I said once we were out in the hall. “Did you mean to do that?”
“Not really,” Rob said, making his eyes wide at me, then biting his lower lip. “But I think it worked.”
“I would have gone with a handshake.”
“Yeah, point taken,” Rob nodded. “Do you need to swing by your office to grab anything before our tropical brainstorming session?”
“I need to swing by my house to grab some clothes and a bathing suit.”
“You know, it’s really clothing optional there. I find clothes cramp the creative process.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I rarely travel with enough.”
Rob and I got off the elevator and headed for the front door. Just then, my phone rang.
“Don’t answer,” Rob said. “I don’t want anything to stop this.”
I looked at the caller ID. “I have to,” I said. “It’s Laurie.”
“Hey! Did you see the news?” she asked.
“You mean the part where you violated every tenet of journalistic credibility? Yeah, I saw that.”
“No, that there’s a book deal in the works. Publishers are throwing offers at Martina and Chrissy. A mother-daughter memoir.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Oh, and the president saw Martina’s story. As his last act in office, he’s issuing an executive order to keep her in the country for a new public service campaign. She’ll be the face of undocumented workers.”
“Peabody Award, here you come!” I told her.
“Shit, I gotta go. There’s a mob chasing Fluke down the street. I need to get video! Call me later.”
“What’d she say?” Rob asked.
“The usual,” I said.
Rob held the door as we left the building and headed to the black car at the curb. A sign in the window read GALLO AND LAHR.
“Oh, look,” Rob said, pointing. “The name of our new show.” He stopped me right there and pulled me in for a kiss.
“I like the sound of that,” I said, looking into his eyes. Then I turned to look back at FAIR News, my attention drawn to the red neon ticker gliding around the middle of the building, usually blaring the latest headlines, but I saw that Benji had already made an adjustment. He’d turned the ticker into a tease: “Keep it tuned to FAIR: Real News Starts Now.”
Author’s Note
Covering presidential elections is a strange business, and I’ve done my share of it. Starting in 2000, riding on John McCain’s Straight Talk Express through New Hampshire, I learned that political campaigns are lively, interesting places where facts can fall victim to the blood sport of winning at any cost. Just ask John McCain’s illegitimate daughter—who never existed, other than as the brainchild of an underhanded opponent.
In 2004 and 2008, I returned to New Hampshire, chasing candidates along the trail. Before John Edwards’s campaign was scuttled by scandal, I went to so many of his whistle-stops that I could recite his stump speech word for word as he delivered it, which always cracked up my cameraman.
By 2012, I was the anchor of a national cable morning show, trying to navigate my way through another tumultuous primary season filled with colorful characters and outlandish claims. I regularly interviewed the candidates, from Herman Cain to Michele Bachmann, trying to get them to answer questions and stick to the facts. It took a lot of mental energy to process the ethical issues that came up when deciding which stories to cover—or not cover. What do you do when you know someone isn’t being honest? How do you check your own bias at the door? What happens when your boss tells you not to touch a story? What’s wrong with wearing pants? I didn’t have the answers back then, but handing these challenges to a fictional character somehow helped me figure it out.
Publishing a book, I discovered, takes a long time (this was a news flash to a deadline-driven broadcast journalist), and I learned that by the time this book would hit the shelves another presidential race would probably have come and gone. But I’d already seen enough campaigns to make some safe bets: the next presidential race would likely include a female candidate making a historic run, and a male candidate, who by dint of a larger-than-life persona and TV exposure would be able to break through a pack of prospective opponents. In addition, I thought there was a good chance that certain perennial issues would make a comeback: immigration, voter fraud, gay marriage, funding for Planned Parenthood, gun control, et cetera. I also had a hunch a personal peccadillo or two might crop up. They always do.
If as you read this novel you start to wonder whether I’m psychic, the answer is: I knew you were going to ask that. I can’t count how many times my editors, agent, and I would gasp in amazement at how something I’d already written came true in the 2016 election. (Senator Wynn dressed up as Wonder Woman long before Kellyanne Conway ever had the idea.) The parallels between my fictional world and the real one became so striking that at one point my editor begged me to share future lottery numbers with her.
But, it turns out, truth is stranger than fiction. As prescient as some of these pages were, I could not have predicted where we’d find ourselves after the election of 2016. And I didn’t try. This book was not designed to be an answer to a world in flux or a treatise on geopolitics in a precarious, anxiety-filled time. Let me be clear: this book is not an autobiography. While it’s informed and colored by my almost three decades in TV news and the crazy cast of characters I’ve met along the way, it is not a tell-all. It’s a composite of the interviews, dilemmas, questions, and laughs I’ve experienced over the course of my career.
Being a journalist isn’t easy, but it’s the best job in the world, and for the most part, I’ve loved every minute.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some breaking news to cover.
Acknowledgments
A lot of people told me I should write a book. But it was my friend J. R. Moehringer who insisted I do it and helped put the wheels in motion. He said it would be easy. I don’t know whether to thank him or sue him.
To figure out how, I consulted a host of talented writers, literary minds, and general geniuses who took time from their own important projects to read my manuscript or offer guidance. Peter Goldberg, Jay Sures, Lauren Wachtler, Paul Montclare, James Carville, Aline McKenna, Eric Zohn, Susan Mercandetti, and Gary Ginsburg. I owe a particular debt of gratitude (and sincere apology) to those who suffered through early drafts and had to indulge my painfully rudimentary questions: Adrienne Brodeur, Matt Danilowicz, Phil Lerman, Caroline Sherman, Harrison Hobart, Svea
Vocke, Patrick McCord, Tish Fried, Jaimee Rose, Leslie Kaufman, Elizabeth Sheinkman, Jay Weiss, and Alexander Wright.
As always, my friends’ enthusiasm and feedback were invaluable. Their smart words and funny expressions color every page: Maria Villalobos, Gillian Kahn, Lori Burns, Susan Flannery, Rosalyn Porter, Amy Fanning, Lu Hanessian, Daniella Landau, Jennifer Snell, Jennifer Donaldson, Beth Halloran, Brian Kilmeade, James Rosen, Mary Ann Zoellner, Megan Meany, Deirdre Lord, Charlie and Blyth Lord, Tim and Allison Lord, Lisa Lori, Nyssa Kourakos, Duncan Hughes, Cameron Stowe, Ben Tudhope, Stephanie Szostak, Stefanie Lemcke, Annika Pergament, Jane Green, Emily Liebert, Lauren Cohen, Allison Winn-Scotch, Karen Vigurs-Stack, Coco Grace, Sally Kohn, and Jennifer Rivera.
To my CNN colleagues, Chris Cuomo, Rick Davis, Amy Entelis, Allison Gollust, Ken Jautz, Neel Khairzada, Javi Morgado, Jim Murphy, Izzy Povich, and David Vigilante, your support and friendship mean the world to me during these tumultuous times. It’s an honor to work with such stellar journalists. And Jeff Zucker, who renewed my faith in the power of TV news. You truly changed my life.
To the remarkable Carole DeSanti at Viking, who got Amanda immediately, I can’t imagine being in more thoughtful, experienced hands. You kept me focused on what mattered, even during some dark days. Your keen vision made the book and me better. Someday we’ll laugh about all of it. Very soon. Over wine. I promise. Thanks to Brian Tart, Andrea Schulz, Lindsay Prevette, Carolyn Coleburn, Rebecca Marsh, Kate Stark, Lydia Hirt, and Mary Stone for all of the energy and enthusiasm. Christopher Russell at Viking and Svetlana Katz at WME were soothing presences through it all.
If writing a book is like birthing a baby, this was one hell of a gestation period. It’s a long story but this novel was more like producing quadruplets—and Hilary Liftin was the perfect midwife (and editor) through the long labor. Wise, compassionate, and indefatigable, this woman gets it done. I hope to never write another word without her. She is a godsend.
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