Through that week, I gave them reasons to like me. Stella’s mother found me cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. Stella’s father saw me reading The Portrait of a Lady and complimented my taste; Thomas Bradley had always regarded Henry James as one of our greatest novelists. Anne and Thomas watched me, their polite-but-cool judgment evolving into warmth. They had oysters as an appetizer one night. When Anne demonstrated how to slip them loose from the shell, her guidance was free of condescension, like I was an exchange student from a foreign country.
In good palate-cleansing Protestant manner, the Bradley family always capped Thanksgiving dinner with a brisk walk through the neighborhood. It was freakishly cold that year. Stella looked at my thin jean jacket and said, “That won’t work. Take this,” handing me a parka from the hall closet. It was tomato red, heavy with down filling, the lining slippery smooth. Expensive clothes were like camouflage, or alchemy. During the walk, the Bradleys waving at the occasional neighbor, I liked the idea that—from afar, at least—I blended right in.
“Keep it,” Stella said, later. “You’re going to need a real jacket. I’ve got others.”
Stella had treated it as a fait accompli that I’d come home with her for Thanksgiving. I hadn’t even considered going back to Florida, and Stella didn’t question that, which was another reason to love her. “Thank God we saved you from those people,” she sometimes said, which was the closest we ever got to talking about my family. My home seemed to exist in her mind as a dense jungle, a tangle of sinister mysteries.
“And my parents love you, by the way,” she said, after Thanksgiving. “I can tell.”
“Oh!” I said. “Good. Well, I love them, too.”
Stella snorted. “You don’t have to say that.”
“But it’s true.”
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow. “Then you’re a better person than me.”
It was, in fact, only half true. I loved the calm and comfort of the Bradley family. But what I couldn’t admit to Stella, what I could barely admit to myself, was the underlying calculation. It whirred constantly in the back of my mind. To wind up at a private college like this was luck enough, but to wind up best friends with the most dazzling girl on campus? It wasn’t that my personality changed when I met Stella. It was that it became, it flourished, because I could say things to Stella that I wouldn’t have said to anyone back home—knowing they would only respond with bafflement, or laughter—and she always volleyed right back, sharpening me like a whetstone to a knife. I didn’t just want the friendship of this dazzling girl. I wanted the world that had made her so dazzling in the first place. This was a golden opportunity not to be taken for granted. So I paid attention. I studied everything. I learned the vocabulary and the syntax. It was hard work to win over people like Anne and Thomas Bradley. But in the service of a larger ambition, hard work is nothing.
Besides, genetics dictated that I had inherited the streak of darkness in my parents. Overcoming that would take deliberate effort. I’d rip the weeds out by the root, leave the soil rich and bare. I was certain that if I played the game correctly, I could become someone better. The past could be overcome. Outcomes could be changed.
And through the years, new things grew. My role became firmly established. “Violet’s the responsible one,” Stella told people, slinging her arm around my shoulder, spilling her drink in the process. “And I’m a mess.”
Everyone came to agree on this. Stella Bradley didn’t care about anything. That’s what made her so fun. Stella’s credit card paid for spontaneous road trips, lavish meals, and hotel rooms. She made cutting remarks about her family’s net worth as she handed over the platinum AmEx. She liked being rich, but she knew that it wasn’t really her money, so she expurgated her guilt with fits of generosity. The fun we had was genuine and real, but Stella was also strategic when she declared me to be the responsible one. My responsibility had a particular utility. Stella had a unique tendency to get herself into binds; I got her out of them. I retrieved her when she was stranded, brought her money when she’d forgotten her wallet, held her hair back when she vomited from drinking too much. I saved her, over and over. See? she’d say, when I rescued her from yet another scrape. See how right I am?
There was an assumption, shared by nearly every student at our expensive college, that anything was possible. No careers, no avenues were off-limits. Your ambition didn’t have to be circumscribed or compromised. Stella had taught me how to live in this world of long horizons. I imagined the years ahead, the two of us gradually becoming equals. Look at how well the system had taken care of the Bradleys. If I worked hard, wouldn’t it take care of me?
But that, I eventually realized, was naive.
Stella opened doors for me. She showed me how confident and outspoken a person could be. Even a young woman, whom the world is not inclined to take seriously. I learned by watching her, witnessing the power of her charm and confidence. I loved Stella, and beyond that, I needed her. This life wouldn’t have been possible without her.
But the things you need when you’re nineteen years old aren’t the things you need later. People change. Relationships change.
There would be a test in the years to come. Could I do it without her?
Or, more accurately, could I do it in spite of her?
Chapter Two
back when i was in high school, Corey Molina described what it felt like to walk into the CBS offices for the first time. The walls were lined with portraits of legends—Edwards, Cronkite, Rather, Stahl—and it was thick with the aura of seriousness and 60 Minutes. He had gotten his first job by showing up and not leaving until someone gave him something to do. “You need two things to succeed in this business,” Corey had said. “A news instinct, and a little bit of masochism.”
I had moved to New York the summer after graduating from college. I struck out at the page program at CBS. Ditto for NBC, and ABC, and CNN and Fox and MSNBC. My résumé lacked the right internships and connections, but it didn’t faze me. My mother was always falling for those law-of-attraction scams: think like a millionaire and you’ll become a millionaire! She assumed it was as easy as ordering a pizza. But I believed in my own version of the law. You can become a millionaire if you really want it. You just have to bust your ass to get there.
There was a relatively new channel called King Cable News. It had no ideological bent, nothing that made it stand out, except for a wealthy owner—Mr. King, of King Media—who was happy to run the company in the red for as long as he had to. For the decade of KCN’s existence, Mr. King had been poaching stars from other networks, wooing them with massive paychecks, complete editorial independence, and equity in his privately held media conglomerate. When King Media eventually went public, the star anchors wouldn’t be wealthy in the usual multimillion-dollar-contract way. They’d be wealthy like tech titans, or hedge funders. KCN had won several Peabodys and Emmys in the past few years and had started gaining respect in the industry. Their audience was growing, too; they were often in third place, sometimes in second. More to the point, they were the place that offered me a job.
Rebecca Carter had been a network star, a White House correspondent and then a morning show anchor, and one of Mr. King’s original hires. Her innate seriousness, which she’d had to shelve for morning television, was on full display at Frontline with Rebecca Carter, the flagship program in the 8 p.m. hour. And it worked: she was on a hot streak lately, moderating a primary debate in the last presidential election, scoring big sit-downs.
After arriving at KCN’s headquarters in Midtown on my first day in August, I took the elevator up to the floor that housed Frontline. There had been no instructions about an orientation or who to ask for. Within seconds, a woman spotted me—and the bright lanyard that held my new ID badge—and shouted, “Intern!”
“Me?” I said.
“Who else? I need you to photocopy this.”
She was waving a sheaf of paper like an urgent white flag. I took it from he
r, but before I could ask where the copier was, she had disappeared.
“Over there.” At the desk next to me, a guy with his phone pinned between ear and shoulder gestured across the room. “The copier’s around that corner.”
“Ah—thank you,” I said, and ran toward the copy room. As I was squinting at the machine’s instructions, my forehead pricking with sweat, panicking at the options to collate and staple and double-side, the woman reappeared. “Actually, I need ten copies of that,” she said. She snapped her fingers. “Now, not yesterday.”
After leaving the copies with her, I wasn’t sure what to do next. Across the bullpen, the nice guy who’d given me directions was now off the phone. I walked back over.
“Success?” he said, eyes glued to his computer screen, typing with disarming speed.
“Thanks again,” I said. “It’s my first day. I’m an intern.”
“I’m Jamie,” he said. He had a Southern accent, and it came out like ahm Jay-mee.
“Violet,” I said. “I’m not sure who I’m supposed to report to.”
“It doesn’t really work like that,” he said. “People will figure out who you are and they’ll just tell you what to do. Although you’re lucky. You’re starting at a quiet time.”
“Really?” I said, looking around the newsroom—the ringing phones, the people running back and forth. There was a guy on crutches, following a group into the conference room. Even he was hobbling as fast as he could.
“Relatively quiet,” Jamie said. “Rebecca’s on vacation until Labor Day. It’ll get a lot busier when she’s back.”
“But that’s three weeks from now,” I said.
“Correct.”
“Well, I thought anchors hated being off the air for that long.”
Jamie stopped typing. He looked at me for the first time. “Violet what?”
“Violet Trapp.”
“You did your homework, Violet Trapp. Most anchors hate being off the air. But Rebecca would rather be on vacation. Normal people don’t care. That’s what she says. The only people who care about anchors taking long vacations are those rabid media-watcher types. And they’re all out in the Hamptons right now, too.”
“Oh,” I said. “Smart lady.”
“The smartest.” His phone started ringing. “All right, next thing. Could you run down to the cafeteria and get four coffees? Two black, two with milk and sugar. Keep the receipt.”
The days went fast. There was no time to train the interns, so we were assigned to the simplest tasks: fetching coffee, answering the phone, running scripts to the control room. Or seemingly simple, because the tasks had to be done perfectly and they had to be done now. On Friday, one of the production assistants approached our cluster of interns and said, “Which one of you made it through the week without fucking up?”
The other five interns had each been reamed out by somebody and laughed nervously at the question. Except for me. I stepped forward. “What do you need?” I said.
The assistant was maybe a year older than me, but hierarchy was hierarchy. “Bring the guest from the green room to the set before the D block,” he said. “You can handle that?”
“I’m on it,” I said, ignoring his snotty tone.
The guest was a consumer safety expert, there to talk about the latest changes in airbag technology. The executive producer wanted the anchor to stretch the interview to fill the block. It was amazing how much could be learned just by eavesdropping.
“Here you are,” I said, pushing open the swinging door that led to Studio B. Terrance, the substitute anchor while Rebecca was on vacation, was shuffling papers on the desk and humming to himself. He looked up at the guest and nodded, then went back to his notes. Terrance wouldn’t bother engaging until the cameras were on. It was a waste of energy.
“Hey, lady,” the floor director said. “Are you staying or leaving?”
“Am I allowed to stay?” I said.
“As long as you stand in the back and don’t get in anyone’s way,” he said. “But if you’re staying, close the damn door.”
It was dark around the edges of the studio, and freezing cold. The cameraman to my left was wearing a fleece sweatshirt and a hat, and the one to my right was drinking hot tea. The consumer safety expert squinted into the bright stage lights. “Can I get a glass of water?” he said.
“Two minutes back,” the floor director yelled. “Water’s under the desk.”
The door swung open. “Home stretch, Hank,” Jamie said, cuffing the floor director on the shoulder. “Almost the weekend.”
“Airbags,” Hank said. “Christ. They didn’t have airbags when I was a kid. You just had to hold on.”
“Did they even have cars when you were a kid, Hank?” Jamie grinned. Then he spotted me, standing at the back. “You’re staying to watch?” he said.
“Is this your segment?”
“Yup,” Jamie said. “How’s the first week been?”
“Good. Great, actually. It’s been fun.”
“Thirty back!” Hank the floor director yelled.
Jamie stepped forward. “Hey, Terrance. You’re giving us a quick intro, throwing to package, then four minutes for the interview. Got it?”
Terrance narrowed his eyes. “I’ve done this before, James.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Jamie said.
“Hey!” the airbag expert said. “That’s exactly my motto.”
“And we’re on in five,” Hank shouted. He finished the countdown with his hand. The red light on the camera went on. Terrance sat up straight, relaxed his face into a confident expression, looked into Camera One, and began talking. After he introduced the previously recorded package and the camera cut away, he sighed and went right back to shuffling his papers.
“Long week, I guess. So, do you like the other interns?” Jamie said.
“Sure,” I said. “I guess.”
Jamie smiled. “You sound enthusiastic.”
“We don’t have a lot in common,” I said. “Everyone seems…connected.”
“How so?”
“This one girl—her father used to be a producer. Tim Russert’s producer.”
“Ah,” Jamie said. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a useful connection.”
“She kept calling him ‘my late uncle Tim.’ Oh, you know, the time my late uncle Tim was talking to Yasser Arafat. Finally someone said, Tim who? She had been dying for one of us to ask.”
Jamie laughed, and I blushed. “Never mind,” I said. “I shouldn’t be talking trash.”
“Don’t worry about it. Those connections only matter at the beginning. Most of those people will wash out,” he said. “I didn’t know a single person when I started in news. Eliza completely took a chance on hiring me six years ago.”
Hank waved at us to shut up. The prerecorded package was over, and now Terrance was introducing the guest. During the interview, Terrance nodded and made eye contact and thoughtful “hmm” noises. It was a skillful performance, although when Hank started making “wrap it up” hand gestures, Terrance’s genuinely delighted smile undercut his previous posture of interest. This was what he was actually interested in—going home. “Well!” he exclaimed. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have tonight.”
“And we’re clear,” Hank yelled when the red light switched off.
The studio was one floor below the newsroom. As Jamie and I climbed the stairs, he said, “They’re not stuck up like that. Rebecca and Eliza, I mean. They could be, with the success they’ve had, but they aren’t.”
I was intensely curious about Eliza. She was the executive producer of Frontline, her office adjacent to Rebecca’s corner suite, her shelves lined with a collection of news & doc Emmys. I’d googled her, of course, but this was the difference between talent and producers: Rebecca’s every movement was plastered across the internet, while Eliza remained almost anonymous. Mostly I knew that Eliza Davis was an exception in a business still dominated by white men: a powerful black female EP.
/> “I’d think that helps,” I said. “Not being snobby. Right? It keeps you outside the bubble.”
Jamie looked over at me. “Where do you come from, anyway?”
When I started telling him where I’d gone to school, he shook his head. “No, I mean, where are you actually from. Your hometown.”
“Oh.” I responded as I always did: “You’ve never heard of it.”
Back in the newsroom, Jamie said, “A bunch of us are going for drinks across the street. A Friday tradition. Want to join?”
I hadn’t gotten a paycheck yet, and my bank account was nearly bare. But I could afford one beer. I’d eat rice and beans for the rest of the weekend. “Sure,” I said.
“Good,” Jamie said, smiling. “More time to figure out what your deal is.”
“Honestly, it’s a nowhere town.” Didn’t moving to New York mean I’d never have to talk about my past? Then again, Jamie’s job was to ask questions. “On the Florida Panhandle. Barely even a real place.”
“Everywhere is a real place.”
“I haven’t lived there in a long time.” There was a tightness in my chest, and I was feeling uncomfortably defensive. “It’s not home anymore.”
“Okay, okay. You’re pleading the Fifth, then?”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
“We can talk about it some other time,” Jamie said. “But you know, I’m from nowheresville just like you. Small town in South Carolina, in my case. My momma would murder me if she thought I was disrespecting it. Here, look.” Jamie pulled out his phone, flicked through a stream of photos. “From the Fourth of July parade. See that lady dressed up like Martha Washington?”
“That’s your mom?” I said. This woman was wearing a powdered wig and a hoop skirt.
Necessary People Page 2
