Chapter 7
Seven
“Who the hell do you think you are?” One of Tate Dimmock’s front teeth was slightly in front of the other one. His tongue
scraped it on the and think.
I hugged my arms to my chest and leaned against the corridor wall, where Samantha had steered me on break. My heart galloped
somewhere in my sternum, my wedgie still firmly shoved up my butt.
“Rule number one. Of being live on air. Is. You do not depart from the script.” The tips of his ears were rosy. “I have half
a mind to pull you off right this instant.”
“You can,” I said. “I have no problem stepping down right now.”
“No. We haven’t seen these kinds of numbers in years,” Samantha said in that matter-of-fact way of hers.
Jaime, a new-ish Per Diem production assistant, approached our huddle. “We have a head of transportation on virtual.”
“Get Richard on for a one-on-one report on the flight delays,” Tate ordered. “I need to think.”
Jaime whispered something into a mic. “Sir?” She held up a phone, the screen showing the comments section of the Per Diem
livestream. “This is breaking records.”
“What do you—” He broke off. “Someone tell me what this means.”
“It means we’re higher than TODAY, than GMA . . .”
“C’mon. Those aren’t touchable by Per Diem.” He pointed at me. “She’s lying on air. Do you know what that’s going to do to us when it comes out that some random reporter made up a story for attention?”
“Whoa. I’m not lying,” I said, flushing.
“She’s not.” Samantha put her hand on my shoulder. “The story is true. I confirmed it myself.”
“You—” He stopped. “You did? That baby story is real?”
Samantha’s flinch was almost imperceptible. “It’s real.”
“It’s not just that. It’s Olivia’s socials,” Jaime said.
The Tylenol-shaped notifications bubble. “My post?”
“You’re mega-viral,” the production assistant said. “Last I checked, you’re at almost thirteen million views.”
I flinched. “I didn’t watch it. I hope it’s not, uh, bad, I—”
“No. It’s fine,” Jaime said. “It’s the algorithm. Early post was the right time, opportunity the right place, with Soulmail
breaking at that moment. And your name is trending with Soulmail. When you Google Soulmail, your name’s right there, too.”
Tate Dimmock removed an honest-to-god handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face with it. A dozen yards away, Richard
interviewed an operations manager from LaGuardia, assuring people the delays were temporary. “Huh,” he said. “Just when you
think you understand the internet. So our numbers are good?”
“The best I’ve ever personally seen,” Samantha said.
He stared at her. “Ever?”
“I can read you some of the comments on the livestream,” Jaime offered.
Unease swirled through my gut. “I’m not sure—”
“Go.” Tate narrowed his eyes.
“Well.” Jaime darted a glance my way. “There’s a bit of dialogue between people making fun of Olivia’s little teleprompter
whisper versus others telling them to give her a break.”
Samantha rose onto her tiptoes. Her expression fell into a yikes jaw clench. “Oh, Olivia. The YouTube clip is titled ‘You’ll do a full-body cringe at this reporter’s mistakes.’”
“And that’s good?” Tate asked.
Samantha shrugged. “Everyone loves an underdog.”
Jaime kept scrolling. “Okay, this one’s in all caps. ‘OMG WHO IS THIS OLIVIA PERSON AND CAN SHE TELL ME MY NEWS ALWAYS INSTEAD
OF MY FACEBOOK-OBSESSED AUNT.’ ”
“See? No one knows who she is.”
“There’s more. Like, thousands more. ‘New anchor spilling some teaaaaaa.’ Tea has six As. ‘Can you do a 360 of her hair? Obsessed.’ ”
“What the hell is that?” Tate asked.
“It’s—”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Samantha said, tracing a circle in the air. “A camera circling her head three-hundred
sixty degrees so this person can see what her hair looks like in the back.”
“But why . . .”
Samantha sighed. “Potentially for showing their hairdresser for inspiration.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Very much.” Samantha patted her close-cropped curls. “Quit pretending you’re this out of touch, Tate. It’s unbecoming.”
He leaned over. “What’s this one? ‘This show is still on?’ with the hashtag ‘perdiem’?”
“I wasn’t going to read that one,” Jaime said. “The point is, they’re obsessed with Olivia.”
“They don’t need to be,” I said. “This is temporary.”
“Finally, we agree,” Tate said.
“I think that’s my cue,” someone said behind us. I turned. Alma, the ceviche-poisoned fill-in guest host for the week. Her expertly dyed hair was scraped into a middle-parted low bun, her makeup doing a fair job at best of covering the greenish tinge of her skin.
“See? Alma’s back,” I said. Up above us, my desk waited for me. Real life could resume, though it would look much different
than yesterday. I’d have to flip over the framed picture of Wells and me. Actually, no. Trash it.
Samantha lifted her chin. “What’s this? A miraculous recovery?”
“The IV people came to my apartment.” Alma lifted her sleeve, producing a gauze-wrapped elbow. “That, plus eight milligrams
of Zofran? I’m back.”
“Oh, yeah? What are you and Lu going to do tomorrow, go skydiving together during the biggest week of your year?”
“I’m sorry, Samantha. You think we thought we’d get food poisoning from a place where the martinis are thirty dollars?”
“Does anyone ever plan to get food poisoning?”
Alma moved to answer, then clamped her mouth shut. She fisted her hand in front of her lips.
“Go home, Alma,” Samantha said.
“Sir?” Jaime ventured. “Our livestream views are dropping. And the comments are begging for Olivia to come back?”
Tate looked at the ceiling. “They want Olivia . . .” He trailed off, seeming to search the rafters for my last name.
“Adler,” I supplied.
“Olivia Adler to be reporting?”
Samantha put an arm around me. “She is engaged to one of the Strattons. Wells.”
Tate’s face cleared. “Oh. You’re the staff writer with the From Yes to I Do special, then?”
My vision blackened around the edges. Slowly, I tucked my left hand behind my back.
One of the only things Wells and I ever argued over was his family throwing their name toward me getting this job.
The compromise I had made with myself was that I would work my way up here, on my own merit, and then maybe apply for a job at our competitors once I had documented success.
Wells swore I would have gotten the job anyway, and I believed I was good enough, but knowing that Wells’s father had “put in a good word” without my permission was demoralizing.
“That’s me,” I confirmed. I did technically have a wedding special. At present. But losing the executive producer credit and
experience was a vortex I refused to tinker with right now. And besides, denying my engagement could spawn a whole bouquet
of issues. Untangling myself from this wedding was going to be a nightmare. Beside us, Alma wavered like a palm tree.
“Go home, Alma,” Samantha repeated.
“I’m here to do my job,” Alma said.
“Is the Stratton fellow your, er—” Tate Dimmock made a vague motion with his hands. “Soul-person?”
“I didn’t open mine.” My pulse picked up.
Tate Dimmock pressed a finger to his temple. “At least I can reassure our ad people you’re the future Mrs. Wells Stratton.”
I hesitated. I felt dangerously close to something—the first waft of heat from an oven opening, a light rise onto two wheels
on a hairpin curve. I chewed on what I was supposed to say—always the truth, or a version of it—and what I wanted in this
moment.
Once I had been three years old, sidestepping a pile of vomit Sabrina had left on the stairs and gifting my parents with hugs.
At seven, I forced Caleb to invent songs and dances with me to coax a smile from my bereaved mother’s face so often my aunt
Josie started calling me Baby June from Broadway’s no-longer-politically-correctly-titled show Gypsy, the headlining song, I later learned, famous for stripteases. Now I was in my mid-thirties, trying to decide which box to
leap from to chase something I wasn’t even sure I wanted.
But it was also probably reasonable to think that no one on earth really knew what they wanted on a day like today. I ran my thumb against the naked crook where my finger met my palm, where my ring
usually nestled. “I’m keeping my name,” I answered finally. A truth that told half the story. “I’ll always be Olivia Jane
Adler.”
“Appealing to the feminists. Smart,” the network head said. “Get back out there, Olivia Adler.”