I need a stylist.
All the big-time reporters have them these days, or share them between one another. My hair is too … something, too fluffy. I barely know what to do with blush.
When the powers-that-be at the network told me last year that I would be taking over the anchor chair from Henry Stoller, who finally retired to his family’s dairy farm a few miles from Middle Valley, I figured that a stylist would be a given – someone dedicated who will make all of your fashion decisions for you.
Well, a year later, here we are – no stylist, ratings, no anchor chair.
The network, it turns out, had run pre-launch surveys after the announcement that showed the viewing public to be more enamored at the thought of a man tucking them in before Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune than a woman. With direct regard to yours truly, they called me “uppity” and “aggressive,” and said I was “too ambitious.”
So, in an effort to placate the masses, the network chose to install Mr. Fluffy himself, Sheldon McCabe, as anchor – a middle-aged Irishman, friend to all, man about town, known best for his love of the pub rather than his news sense or journalistic drive.
Someone, as they say in presidential races, you’d love to have a beer with – or, in many cases around the city, someone you already had had a beer with.
A lesser person may have taken this as a slight, but I am not a lesser person. A lesser person would have shopped around resumes, called her agent in a panic, perhaps eaten her weight in those spiedie sandwiches that everyone here is so fond of scarfing every Friday.
Uppity and aggressive? Yeah, I AM uppity and aggressive! And this was from New Yorkers!
When the network informed me of the decision, and after the initial shock of realizing they wanted me to stay here in town, I was (admittedly) slightly relieved. I can’t say I love living here, but I can say that … things are always interesting. Like Miss Comportment, for example. I don’t think she fashions herself as a “real” journalist, of course. She stays in her lane, works the ground – but she always has the facts.
Mr. Fluffy had been scoffing up ratings the likes of which the network hadn’t seen in years, so it’s not like the experiment had failed – it hadn’t. So what good would it be to be in that fishbowl each and every day of my life when I could be out reporting? They’d already made a fool of me in front of millions of people. May as well let them pay my living expenses and keep on the story.
I sound healthier about the scenario than I really am. I mean, in truth, I’d love to filet and fry everyone involved, particularly Mr. Fluffy, who, over the years, had tried on numerous occasions to get me to come home with him, all of which I was intelligent enough to resist.
So it was with those experiences in mind that I addressed the News Director this afternoon.
“Sheldon has no place in this story,” I told him. “He has his anchor chair – there is simply no reason for him to be coming here and doing the interviews with Carson and Elyse. This is a local story with a national angle, and I don’t want Sheldon involved!”
“I heard you twice the first time,” Jimmy said to me through the receiver. “I’m not the one wanting to send him. It’s the brass.”
“Jimmy, I swear to God, if you send him, I quit, and then you have no one on the ground here in what is arguably one of the most compelling, tragic stories of the decade – the death of a … a rock and roll icon, for heaven’s sake, on the shores of this … ridiculous little town with all of its strange little people.”
Why did it feel like I was begging to keep my job? Why do I feel like I’m always begging to keep my job?
“Look, Sue, I’m in your corner … get the sit-down, record the interviews, and let me see what you get. Wow me and I’ll keep Mr. Fluffy in his seat for the next few days.”
“No, Jimmy, that’s not enough. If you send him, I swear to God, I’ll quit. Right now.”
I hoped the silence on the other end of the line meant I’d gotten through.
“Do the interview, cut the tape and send it. That’s it, Sue. No one else has the access you do, we can get an exclusive, blow it up, and you’re back at the top being the national treasure you are.”
“Jimmy?”
“Yeah?”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of doing.”
“So show me … you know, live up to that aggressive, uppity persona.”
My spine tightened. “That’s so annoying.”
I could hear Jimmy laughing on the other end. “Good.”