Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
The Sunday afternoon city was boiling, slow, the same people who escaped it like locusts on Friday afternoon returning from
their weekends away, suntanned and sweaty and tired. But inside the network conference room, any passerby would think it was
a weekday morning. My return was greeted with doughnuts and a coffee bar. A suited figure was planted in every seat, including
my new agents and manager. Samantha sat to my right. “They’re gonna start by flattering the pants off you,” she whispered
into my partially blocked ear, a side effect of the helicopter ride.
She was right. Then, their exaltations transitioned into volleying numbers. With charts. It was spiky, but revealed an obvious
hill-climb: There was a before and after Soulmail, which meant there was a before and after me.
“Olivia Jane Adler,” one of the suits said. “The newest name in news right now.”
I’d been so confident when the helicopter landed in Manhattan, so honored to continue this game of dress-up in someone else’s
life. But even though this was beyond what I’d wanted, something felt caught and leaden at the bottom of my esophagus, like
someone pressing their thumb to my sternum. When I clenched my toes in my wedges, a tiny spike of sand punched the smooth
skin between them, a reminder of where I was just a few hours ago. I smiled but said nothing.
“We’re offering you the lead co-anchor slot,” Tate Dimmock said. The network head’s words were buttermilk, sour and sweet. He’d come a long way from throwing a fit when I was on camera.
Josef’s negotiations must’ve tanked. Before I could respond, Chuck Wheeler leaned toward me. “Say nothing.”
His co-agent, Thelma, put a hand between us. “She’ll consider it,” she said. “We’ll go over the offer and contract and get
back to you.”
Tate nodded. “I think you’ll be more than pleased with the offer terms.” My heart rate picked up at the insinuation.
“Another thing,” Samantha prompted, waving her hand. “The network is excited about the From Yes to I Do promo now. Nothing brings in viewers quite like the wedding of someone they admire. But we know the spotlight can be a heavy
lift for you, and we all know wedding planning is stressful. Hell, Tate’s been through three of them.” She raised her eyebrows;
my conscience dove into the floor.
Tate bowed his head as if to say, look at me, I’m good-natured.
Samantha rolled her eyes. “As a perk of taking on the co-anchor role, the network will agree to support, produce, and release
the documentary of your choosing. You at the helm.”
Instinctively, I dropped my focus to my lap to hide a sprawling smile. My chest tingled, my breath coming in measured sips
to hide an enormous, overpowering exhilaration. Perhaps now I would always remember that elation tasted of old-fashioned doughnuts
and HEPA-filtered air. The resources, both financial and structural, to really make this addiction documentary come to life—it
was attractive. Impossibly attractive. I was a goner, the appeal brighter than one of my father’s favorite trolling lures.
With these resources, and maybe with this level of recognition and experience with Soulmail, I could maybe make an iota of a difference in the field of addiction.
A tiny idea began to form. I lifted my head, clamping my mouth shut to avoid offering to sign immediately, before the network realized it had made a terrible error.
“But before we proceed . . .” Samantha prompted.
Tate nodded and cleared his throat. “We’d like to know if there’s any skeletons to share.”
My agent held up a finger and scrawled something on a notebook and passed it to me. Tread carefully. You can say nothing.
Bones. I had proverbial ones named Sabrina. I also had Wells. Say nothing, risk everything. Say something, risk everything.
“My sister Sabrina died when I was a kid,” I said finally. “Drug overdose and subsequent accident. It was brutal. It’s also
not a secret in my hometown, so it’s something that could easily be linked to me. But more importantly, her death obviously
still haunts my parents, so I prefer to not talk about her on air.” I hesitated. “But in her honor, I’d like to possibly work
a story on drug addiction and awareness into my programming.”
An HR person jotted down something on a pad. Tate nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry. We’ll do what we can.”
“Thank you.”
After the meeting wrapped, we trailed down the hallway, Chuck at my elbow. “We’ll be able to get the money even higher,” he
said, holding the hallway door for me.
“Wait, you already know what they’re offering?” I asked. Beside me, Samantha made a clucking sound.
“Not yet. I don’t need to know what they’re offering to know I can raise it.” Chuck winked.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Samantha tugged her skirt. “Is this what it feels like to discover talent?” she mused.
“I should explore this. Career change to a casting director.”
“You really would be good at it,” Chuck said. “Okay, you two. Thelma and I need to make a pit stop here.” He jacked his head toward the door to Conference Room B, and I opened my mouth to thank him, then froze.
Inside sat Phoebe, her long hair with root touchups every ten days cascading over a jade green dress. She wore glasses and
less makeup than what was her typical. Her expression was the same as always—bored, annoyed—until she caught sight of me.
The tiniest of earthquakes started in the corners of her eyes, her mouth parting slightly.
Chuck turned to grimace at Samantha. He waved his assistant agent in before him, saluted me, and entered. Phoebe’s chin jutted
a notch. “They’re replacing me,” she said, before the door’s close cut her off.
It was hard to fill my lungs with air. The volume around me seemed to cut out, my already-dull ear muffled. I was brought
back by the sound of Tate Dimmock’s swishing pants.
Samantha nudged me around the corner. This was it. The something off. “Phoebe?” I choked out. “Phoebe?”
“Quiet,” Samantha said, herding me down the hallway. We hurried to her office.
I whirled. “I thought I’d be replacing Josef!”
“And you were cool with that?”
“I—”
“Why was it better to replace him?”
“Because he doesn’t care about this job. He— But she— This is her whole life.”
Samantha sighed. “Never make work your identity,” she said.
“I’m not. I don’t care if I’m ever on TV again.” I threw myself onto one of the chairs. “What if I say no?”
“Then you say no.” Samantha waited a beat. “What’s that gonna change? Phoebe’s out no matter what. People respond better to
Josef. He’s a brighter presence.”
“She’s going to hate me.”
My producer made a scoffing noise. “Phoebe hates everyone.”
“No—she was really kind to me,” I said. “In the elevator one day . . .”
“You know women in this world are often cast aside the second they do the thing they’re by nature supposed to do and age, right?” Samantha said. “Phoebe survived that. She’s employable. And rich. She’ll bootstrap her way elsewhere.”
“She’s going to think I was in on it,” I said miserably.
“You’re not like that. I know it and you know it, and that’s what matters.” Samantha handed me a bottle of water. “Look. The
entertainment industry is fickle. The reason why I’ve lasted as long as I have, besides the fact that I’m irreplaceable, is
because I’m off camera.”
I lowered my head into my hands, thinking of the click of the cottage fan. Wells had asked if I wanted to get dinner tonight
to talk, but I’d said no, even though we needed to. I wiggled my jaw. My ear finally, blissfully popped.
“Are they going to Sopranos ending or Friends season ten her?” I asked. A sharp break, a long parade.
“I predict quick and dirty.” Samantha slung a purse across her body, removed a pair of sunglasses from a case. “You’ve come
a long way from being unable to read a teleprompter. Congratulations, Olivia. You’ve made it.”
But Samantha was wrong. When I went back to work the next morning, waking up viewers with a debrief on Friday night’s special,
Phoebe’s farewell tour departure was announced. Special audience-favorite guest hosts, a party in her honor, and then, to
my utter shock, the final line of the announcement delivered a twist. They’d fan-cast her replacement.
Post-show, I beelined for Samantha. “Fan-cast?” I said under my breath.
“Yep. They think it’ll help engage the youth.” Samantha waved her hand, as if this proverbial youth was seated in rows before
us.
My heart thundered. “But I thought—is the deal they offered yesterday off?” The possibility was both dazzling and terrible. The realization was spectacular: I did want this job. It was the only way I could be expert enough on the subject to resolve my love life, and the thought of the
documentary support vanishing made my mouth go dry.
“Of course it’s not.”
“But what if the fans don’t vote me as the replacement?” My brow furrowed.
The look Samantha gave me was weary. “You have so much to learn,” she said.
My gut-slicked anxiety was my plus-one to my long-awaited meeting with Yvonne. She launched into the network’s plan for From Yes to I Do to focus on Soulmailed couples this upcoming season, handing me budgets (low) and shooting schedules (mid-November kickoff,
mid-January wrap) and an episode table of contents (predictable).
I didn’t lie to her. Wells and I hadn’t agreed on getting married, but the date was still booked. It was impossible to tell
a coworker that you barely knew that you’d been handed a picture-perfect life that you hadn’t chosen.
Weeks passed. As was the recent pattern, summer schedules might have ended with Labor Day approaching, but summer weather
did not. After dozens of late-night conversations where Wells tiredly explained he had no justification to cheat and I tiredly
did not forgive him, he suggested we start seeing a therapist together. It was exactly what I should want him to say, but
even as I agreed, I balked. I was a huge fan of therapists and therapy in general, but my least favorite subject was the sext,
and I dreaded explaining it to an eager-eyed doctor.
The first one we saw had appointments that were almost too open—healthcare, after all, was an impossible process—and during our consultation appointment, when the therapist confessed
that I was her first celebrity client, I recoiled.
Meanwhile, the world waited for the next round of Soulmails. Because the second slew of them arrived one month to the second
after they started, the general prediction was they’d come back precisely two months after the first, in that first week of
September. People started slinging Vegas odds, which was something I’d never bothered to understand. The only thing I could
grasp about it was that I could be accused of insider trading if I gave away information, so I stayed mostly silent.
In between, those who turned eighteen in America (or sixteen in Scotland, or fifteen in Indonesia) began a sort of Amish-like
rumspringa, a new rite-like passage of becoming an adult the old way. Travel agencies devised trips for people who might settle
with a partner within the next month, once their Soulmail was revealed. College attendance rates plummeted, but real estate
interest rates dipped, rose, then stabilized.
Still, the stubborn ones—like Caleb—kept going the old way. They dated if they wished, or they remained single or stayed partnered
in old relationships, happily in the dark. Many couples I interviewed made different choices, where one half read their Soulmail
and the other didn’t. (Though they always promised to stay together no matter what, this worked an estimated fifty percent
of the time, more often when the partner was silently the soulmate.)
Dad called, a rare choice for him. When I answered, he launched right into the most effusive tone I’ve ever heard him take.
Seafood prices were the best he’d ever seen, and astronomical for gourmet versions of fish: king crab, Maine lobster, wild Alaskan salmon.
People were willing to spend more when they were guaranteed happiness, he guessed.
I made a mental note to determine if fish prices usually soared at the end of the summer, then promptly forgot.
I hung up, tossing my phone on my dressing room ledge.
“Olivia.” Josef leaned in the open doorway. His smile belonged on a headshot. For years, I’d watched him go from bubbles to
quiet, depending on whether he was on camera. “Google just told me we’re sharing a bench now?”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “It’s official?”
He nodded. “Well, sort of. It was open on my browser, and I saw the breaking news headline. I asked to confirm.”
“Huh,” I said.
“Would you like to get lunch?”
I checked the clock. “Sure, but I’ll have to be quick. I’m taping with Alanna Sorensonn today.”
He smiled. “Let me guess. The impact of Soulmail on the next presidential election?”
“Bingo,” I said.
In the end, Josef was right. The fans voted. It was me. And even if they hadn’t voted for me, Chuck Wheeler explained later,
they would have lied and said I was it anyway.