Chapter 1 Brynn #2
How much more schmaltzy tripe were they going to make us subject America to on a Friday morning?
Mark shifted toward me and camera three. “We have a surprise for you, Brynn. This won’t be on newsstands until next week,
but the verdict is in.” He held up an advance copy of People magazine. “‘America’s Ray of Sunshine: Shining Brighter Than Ever,’” he said, reading the title superimposed above my photo.
Ugh. “America’s Ray of Sunshine.” There was nothing in life that I simultaneously treasured and loathed as much as that designation.
It’s not like it was clever or original in any way, shape, or form.
But for whatever reason, it had stuck. It was how I’d been introduced at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, it was the title of a memoir I’d been paid six figures to write (of which I had yet to write a single word, incidentally), and it would probably be the epitaph on my headstone.
America loved me and felt like they knew me.
Fantastic. If there was anyone left who didn’t love me, surely reminding them over and over that I was just a happier version of them— People magazine, White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and six-figure book deal aside, of course—would do the trick. Right?
“Would you look at that?” I pretended to humbly marvel at the “surprise” magazine cover that I had posed for. “Thanks, People magazine. And thank you, Mark. I have to admit, after some of the rustier bits this week, I thought you might want to cart
me off to a less public hour of Sunup . I really think we’re missing out on a key middle-of-the-night demographic, come to think of it. Don’t you think I would
kill as the host of Sunup2am ?”
There it was. That was what made me “America’s Ray of Sunshine” in the minds of the network suits. The gleeful, good-humored self-deprecation
that made everyone believe I was just happy to be there. That was my trademark. As if I ever had the opportunity to say a
single word that wasn’t written for me. As long as they scripted me as self-deprecating, that’s who I was. No matter that, as a result, I never got to draw attention to my own accomplishments
and instead had to act embarrassed whenever someone else pointed them out. No matter that Sunup seemed to have perfected a business model that had apparently been crafted while June Cleaver was cleaning the house in heels.
It worked. Viewers across all mediums were insisting on diversity. They were rallying around strong, independent women. But
here at Sunup , our favorite pastime was choosing not to care how Little Ricky was conceived from two separate twin beds.
“You’re being too hard on yourself!” Mark replied with a laugh. “As for the ‘rustier bits,’ some of those names are really difficult to pronounce.”
My eyes caught the monitor, which was currently focused in on the death glare I had received from Turkish president Recep
Tayyip Erdogan when I’d pronounced his name with all the enunciation skills of a drive-thru window.
Of course. They were going to wrap up my first week as the cohost of the number one morning show in the world with a blooper
reel. Why not? What could be better than humiliating me for the sake of uniting three and a half million live viewers—not
to mention another ten million or so later online—in laughter? Laughter that they no doubt believed would further endear me
to America but that I suspected would inch me ever closer to the role of lovable-but-inconsequential morning dingbat.
Mark adjusted his position on the couch next to me so he could offer me a good-humored sideways glance. “It is true, though,
that it hasn’t all been smooth sailing this week.”
In response I covered my eyes with both hands and shook my head dramatically. I also laughed, of course. I had no choice but
to laugh.
“Oh no,” I groaned and then took a moment to silently rehearse the next two words from the teleprompter before saying them
aloud. “Chiwetel Ejiofor has forgiven me, Mark.” Nailed it. “Don’t you think the noble thing would be for you to let me off the hook as well?”
“Noble, yes,” Mark replied. “But not nearly as fun.”
The red light on the camera directly in front of us shut off as a monitor began rolling footage of the multitude of blunders
I had made in five short days.
“Don’t worry,” Mark whispered to me and straightened his tie once we were no longer being filmed. “Audiences eat this stuff up. Your mistakes make them see you as human. And once they see you as human, they can decide whether or not they trust you and want to spend time with you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered.
“You’ve just got to be a good sport.”
I looked down at the hemline of my skirt and made a small adjustment. Just enough to keep my eyes concealed while I rolled
them into the back of my head.
“Oh, I think I’ve got the good-sport thing down. No worries there.”
“ There it is.” Mark chuckled as the clip of me stepping into a mountain of elephant dung at the Central Park Zoo flashed across
the screen. “That’s my favorite.”
At least Chiwetel Ejiofor had laughed and charmingly insisted I continue to call him Chai-WET-ul for the remainder of the
interview. My Jimmy Choos and I had yet to make amends.
“Fifteen seconds,” the new production assistant shadowing Carl at camera two called out. Carl whacked the production assistant
on the shoulder and pointed to the clock, causing him to yell out, “Five seconds! Sorry!”
“Colton!” Mark called out to our director with an impatient groan, and we each sat up a little straighter and perfected the
angle at which his gray-slacked knees and my pantyhose-encased ones faced each other.
Colton raised his hands in acknowledgment before shouting, “Carl!” in the second before the red light illuminated once more.
Poor Carl. It wasn’t his fault the new guy under his skilled tutelage kept looking at the wrong clock.
Even I had to admit the main stage of studio 2-A was a confusing place to be, timewise.
Sunday night, before my first episode, I’d dreamt that all the different digital clocks—ticking down until we were live, ticking up until commercials ended, and in some cases communicating something only Colton seemed to understand about local affiliates versus the network—were accompanied by the theme music from 24 .
When my 3:30 a.m. alarm clock went off, I woke up in a panic, certain I had prevented Jack Bauer from saving the world because
I couldn’t remember my employee code for the Xerox machine before the day ran out.
“I think everyone will agree, Brynn, that you didn’t take long to make a mark here on Sunup .” Mark carried on as Carl indecipherably lectured the protege who got him yelled at.
“Do you mean me or the footprints I left behind after we got back in the van at the zoo?”
“Both!”
We laughed together in that way only two coworkers who barely know each other but are trying to convince America they are
the nearest and dearest of friends can.
“Well, regardless,” I resumed, reading the continuation of our “spontaneous” witty banter. “This week has been one I’ll never
forget. I’m grateful to you, Mark, for being so welcoming. You’ve shared this couch with so many legendary cohosts through
the years, and I know that each one of them no doubt felt as I do now—honored and more than a little bit awestruck to be sitting
here next to you.”
Oh, give me a break. Awestruck? Mark is a nice enough guy, but have we forgotten that his storied career was launched by “Pet
Disasters with Mark-Paul Irvine” on a public television station in Cleveland? Or, for that matter, that he was Mark-Paul Irvine
until Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell beat him to stardom?
“And to you, the viewers... I can’t tell you what it means to this homespun, small-town girl to know you’ve put out the
welcome mat.” Not this again. “Growing up in the precious, rural community I call home, I just never dreamed that one day I’d get to become friends with
all of you. People from every walk of life, all across this great nation of ours. I couldn’t be more grateful.”
“And we’re grateful for you , Brynn. And speaking of dynamic duos—”
Were we, though?
New Guy scrolled the lines in front of us. And scrolled. I’m not sure where Mark’s line had come from, but it was gone in
a flash. And then all of it was gone in a flash, leaving a black screen in front of us.
Mark froze.
Oh, poor New Guy. The next time I saw him he would be Unemployed Guy, I suspected. Maybe Zamboni Driver at Madison Square
Garden Guy.
In less than two seconds of awkward dead-air time, Colton whisper-yelled at Carl and Carl shoved New Guy out of the way, leaving
camera two unmanned so he could take over at the teleprompter, while I heard an urgent “Brynn! Get us to break!” in my earpiece.
And yet, no one seemed to have any concerns about the fact that our cagey veteran, the senior man on the morning news-entertainment
team at the highest-rated network in the country, was sitting there speechless and shuffling next to me, completely undone
by the lack of a script and a hiccup in production.
Before we’d hit the three-second mark on any of those clocks, I smiled at the red light on camera four. “Dynamic duos besides
us, you mean?” Camera four was awkward at the angle we were sitting, but Orly at camera one was geared up and ready to go
to Maria at the news desk, and everyone else was caught up in the complete meltdown of broadcasting professionals in the middle
of the room. Seriously, how many people did it take to make sure Mark Irvine knew how to say goodbye? The world’s oldest-living
triplets were probably still in the building after our interview with them. Maybe we could call them in too.