Chapter 5
Five
“Two-minute warning!” the production assistant yelled.
I sucked in a lungful of air, trying to slow my pulse. I had to physically forbid myself from abandoning the studio in favor
of my sturdy desk in the newsroom.
Feeling like a kid playing dress-up, I braced my forearms on the gleaming quartz topper of the news anchor table, trying to
puzzle out precisely how I agreed to this. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was the wrong person for this role.
I slid my phone from the table’s hidden ledge. Sent the same text to both Natalie and the group chat I had with my parents—turn on Per Diem, now—then blocked Wells. I figured I’d squeeze at least a drop of satisfaction from that, but instead, my insides felt filleted.
Our history spun in my head. Three weeks after we’d met, Wells had left a browser open on the table; he’d Googled how to make
grilled pizza with spinach and feta, which I’d identified as my favorite food on our first date. On our second date, he’d
described everything Charley-related. The guilt he felt for staying in their rental while Charley went on one last snowmobiling
run. The accident, Charley pinned beneath the vehicle, the aftermath, his friend’s swollen brain and the piece of skull surgeons
had removed and the inevitable, awful honor walk Charley’s loved ones had taken. “I guess bad things always happen on the
last time out,” he’d concluded.
I’d shaken my head. “But that’s like saying something lost is always in the last place you look.” At the quizzical expression on his face, I’d shrugged. “Why would you keep looking after you’ve found it?”
I’d admired his self-promise to look after Cambrey. When I’d confided in him about Sabrina, he had clasped my wrist with his
thumb and forefinger, giving it one gentle squeeze. As my arm warmed, he’d said, “It feels so good to talk about him with
someone who understands.”
Yet now, I made a mental note to schedule an appointment for STD testing. Rage zipped back into my bloodstream. Soulmates,
indeed. If this phenomenon had happened yesterday, would I have wanted Wells’s to be the name waiting in my email? Today his
name was my landmine.
The studio thermostat was kept just north of a meat locker temp, but golden white light heat blared against my retinae. The
scent of ozone off-gassing from the cameras buzzed in the air. Far above me, mezzanine-style, was the glass-walled newsroom
where my out-of-sight desk lived.
I blinked back tears. I craved a good cry, but in private. Right now, I needed something to feel better. Even though being a visible face of news was never my dream—I was more backstage crew than first on the call
sheet—more than anything in the world, I wanted to be good enough, either for someone or at something.
A woman came by and wiped my teeth (my teeth!), then shoved a Listerine strip in my mouth. The mint cleared my mind. “Thanks,” I whispered. I checked my phone one more
time and swiped to my social folder, where shock thundered into my bloodstream.
The red notifications icon on the video I’d posted was not a bubble. It was not a grain of rice. It was five-figured, the
length and shape of a Tylenol pill. My post was viral.
“Morning, Olivia.” Richard, Per Diem’s beloved meteorologist, walked on set, wiping the bridge of his nose with a handkerchief. He sat in the chair to my left. A makeup artist chased after him, re-powdering. “Nervous?”
I swallowed, wondering why the algorithm gods had chosen to make this post go viral. “What makes you say that?”
He pointed at my leg, which I hadn’t noticed was acting like a jackhammer of its own volition. “A different kind of morning,
eh? Who’s yours?”
How many times would all of us hear this question over the next day? How many times would we ask? I wondered if Dola and Trent
Foster were still talking to one another. Or if they ever would’ve talked to one another if it weren’t for this. I gave my
head a little shake. “Never had a day like this one. I have no idea who mine is. I didn’t read it. Did you?”
“Of course I did. How could you not?”
“I’m not sure what the deal is with it yet,” I said. “Can’t undo it.”
“My brother said the same thing just now. He’s seventy-one. Says he doesn’t want to regret his life any more than he already
does.” Richard winked.
I grinned. “You just . . . Read yours? Immediately?”
“Not right away. Logged in after Samantha called me. But mine was easy. Soulmate’s my wife.” He beamed.
“On in sixty seconds,” the production assistant said. “People are thirsty for this soulmate info. Remember, Olivia. You write
for these spots. Just read the teleprompter.”
“Nerves are normal,” Richard said. “I’ll cover you.”
I nodded, my mind turning.
Next to the production assistant, Samantha raised both fists, shaking them gamely in my direction. “Places, everyone.”
People are thirsty for this soulmate info.
“You’ll do great.”
“Forty seconds.”
My mind whirred. I might do great. I might not. Anchors were performers, which was the reason why the position wasn’t desirable
to me. I’ve never been a willing performer. My time trying to keep my parents’ moods afloat taught me how to appeal to an
audience. From age six to eighteen, my goal was to maximize their happiness, to lift them from their grief. I’d zero in on
what they needed in that moment, and I’d deliver it, which was how I learned I loved to fixate on behind-the-scenes information.
There was nothing better than a podcast that broke down an excellent show’s episodes, a documentary on the making of something.
The assemblage of facts, the sweat equity, the work. A peek into the mind of Oz. That was the kind of information Per Diem
never gave out, and it was what I craved. Except . . . I scanned the set. There, beside the dummy monitor set up to show on-air
talent the live broadcast, Per Diem’s social media livestreams were angled to show the background. Videographers, lighting
tech, the PAs walking around with clipboards, sometimes the director’s chairs.
According to Natalie’s therapist, I armed myself with information to control my own destiny, carefully constructing my place
in this world by knowing as much as I can about as much as I can. My own therapist handled me with too much care to offer
that kind of opinion. You worry about what you can’t control, she’d once said, and I’d retorted: I can’t control what I worry about.
“Twenty,” the PA called.
I wished I was in my bed watching a great documentary. I wished the weight of my ring on my hand was comforting and not aching.
I wished, wished, wished I could rewind time, but here we were.
“Five. Four. Three . . .” The producer held up a peace sign.
At the very last second before we were live, I wrenched the multicarat engagement ring from my finger and tossed it into the hidden ledge beside my silenced phone.
Per Diem’s familiar opening tune streamed into the studio. My insides turned to a slippery gel. I pressed my forearms against
the table topper, took a deep breath, and set my gaze on the teleprompter. “Good morning. I’m Per Diem special correspondent
for the day, Olivia Jane Adler.” I smiled warmly at the camera.
“And I’m Richard Litchfield.”
I angled myself toward the lens, doing my best to hide the fact that I was reciting the scrolling screen. “We’re here during
our annual guest anchor week to bring you some breaking news out of—” I pretended to check myself. My pulse began to even
out. “Well, out of everywhere in the world.” The teleprompter scrolled.
[.>]
Smoothly, instinctively, as if we had done it every morning of our lives, Richard and I exchanged what would turn out to be
a reassuring glance. Later, when I watched that segment myself, I felt it, too. It was the kind of expression that told the
audience we trusted each other. And right then, in this new, strange society that still just so happened to be our ordinary
world, every audience member needed that.
Off camera, Samantha flashed a slow down gesture, then bent over her phone.
Richard squared himself toward the table. “If you’re tuning in now, you may have noticed something different in your email
this morning.”
“That’s right, Richard,” I agreed. “Nothing in human history has quite prepared us for this. We have very little information, but there’s one thing Per Diem has confirmed: This is real.”
When Richard took his turn, Samantha silently snapped her fingers at me. “Wrong camera,” she mouthed.
I flushed. The dummy monitor screen showcased my reality: Me, speaking earnestly to what appeared to be stage left. I’d lost
my place.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted, talking over Richard. I blinked furiously. “I have no idea what I’m doing. Still getting my bearings
here.”
“No problem,” Richard said easily. “I think that’s the way the whole world might feel right now. Getting our bearings. But
practice makes perfect, eh?”
I threw a smile in his direction. “My mom always said perfection wasn’t real. I’m a living case of that.”
“A wise woman,” Richard said.
Samantha pointed to the teleprompter, a pained expression on her face.
“Oh,” I said, tingles racing up my neck. “I’m lost again.”
“Aren’t we all,” Richard said. A nudge.
My eyes batted from the cameras to the teleprompter, to the dummy screen, where my red face was saturated enough to garner
a new Crayola color name. Cold sweat raced my pulse for the most uncomfortable sensation. I turned to Richard. “Where are
we?” I stage-whispered.
Richard’s laugh rumbled the table. “We’re here in New York City,” he joked.
And with that, I relaxed. My error was such a huge, glaring gaffe that I suspected my fate would lie in becoming a new meme.
There was nothing I could do but accept it.
The intern standing behind the social media streams cocked his head, and I refocused on the highlighted portion of the teleprompter.
“Okay. Here we go,” I muttered. “We can report classified confirmation of something that has never happened before. A day that will certainly go down in history.” I paused as directed for emphasis.
Next to the B-camera operator, Samantha dropped her phone.
She bent low to retrieve it. “The day every individual in the world was given their soulmate.”
Policy was that commercials were suspended for breaking news, a contractual headache for the marketing team. But as we geared
up to keep going, the teleprompter flashed twice. I froze. Everyone on our team knew this signal, the equivalent of a hospital’s
code blue. There was something so monumental coming that it would bust into our already-breaking news.
[.>]
At the wrap, I stilled so the makeup artist could reapply touch-ups and scrolled texts from Natalie, who reported that all
airports had grounded flights out of precaution. As the makeup artist moved onto Richard’s touch-ups, Samantha hurried over
to the anchor table. I stowed my phone in the hidden ledge.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Am I doing o—” I began, until I took in her appearance. I clamped my mouth shut.
Samantha’s eyes were round, her lips trembling. Her phone shook in her hand. “I opened mine,” she whispered, tears spilling
over in a rush.