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It didn’t happen all the time. Maybe every few months, but enough that my antenna started to twitch. I finally asked him about it over a late dinner in his office one night. It was hours after a hurricane had socked Brooklyn, and Ryan had been on the scene. “There I was, just trying to get a feel for the area,” he said, “and this woman called out from the subway. She was drowning, Ains! I ran down the stairs, into the water, which was completely filthy, by the way, and dragged her out. She was barely conscious.”
The antenna quivered. Why would he wait all day to tell me this? “Where’d you take her?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh, someone helped her to the hospital. She was fine.”
The antenna twitched.
“Did you get her name? It would make a fantastic piece.”
“I should’ve asked, right? Guess I was just too caught up in the moment.” Except he was a newsman. Getting the story was his life.
The antenna began voguing, Madonna-style.
I took a bite of my sesame noodles. “It’s funny. Sometimes it seems like you only remember the best details after you’ve had a couple hours.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke, and I kept my tone careful.
This was my boss. He made sixteen million dollars a year. He’d given me an incredible career, and I wasn’t exactly awash in life skills.
Ryan didn’t answer. Just looked at me and took another bite of his Reuben.
“I just want to be sure the story is...clean,” I said.
“Of course it is, Ainsley,” he said with that crooked grin America loved. “Sometimes it takes a little while for everything to filter through. The adrenaline, you know? Well.” There was a significant pause. “Maybe you don’t. Since you don’t go on scene.”
In other words, don’t push it.
Every news show probably did the same thing, right? I mean, it didn’t simply rain anymore—we had rain events. Fog warnings. Anchors were sent to stand in front of empty buildings in the middle of the night to create a sense of drama. “Earlier today, a shocking story...”
Really, what did I know? I wasn’t there. My antenna knew nothing.
Then came the point of no return.
It shouldn’t have been such a big deal. Really, of all of Ryan’s exaggerations to cause a frenzy, this one was the most harmless. But the frenzy happened just the same.
Ryan was doing a story on the cuts Congress had just made to veteran benefits. He was interviewing a vet who’d lost both her legs and part of her face to an IED. They all sat in the humble living room, the husband’s voice gruff as he spoke about his wife’s courage and determination, the American flag in its triangle box on a shelf behind them.
Ryan looked so gentle and concerned that I myself teared up. He asked about what the benefit cuts would mean to the family, how much her physical therapy (no longer covered) had helped, and what her prosthetics and additional plastic surgery would cost.
Then the kicker. The couple’s three-year-old wandered into the shot and climbed right on Ryan’s lap. “Hello, there, sweetheart,” he said, and he carried on the interview just like that. She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.
You could feel America sigh with love.
I mean, talk about good TV! The noble warrior, her hardworking husband, their adorable toddler and America’s most trusted face. You couldn’t script that stuff.
Except apparently, you could.
Two weeks later, the New York Post ran the headline: Ryan Roberts Bribes Military Family for America’s Tears. An email had been leaked—the veteran’s husband wrote to thank Ryan for doing the story and apologized that it took so long for Callie to warm up to you. Hope your ears don’t still hurt from her crying!
Crying? There’d been no crying!
The email went on. The extra money sure will help. We really appreciate it.
Ryan could not be reached for comment.
Turned out, he’d offered the couple a thousand dollars to have their kid come sit on his lap, coached into the shot by the grandmother. It had taken quite a few tries before little Callie trusted Ryan.
Bill, the retirement-age cameraman, had leaked it. Though he’d been in on Ryan’s exaggerations all along (for a few extra thousand each time), this story was the straw that broke his back. He was a veteran himself. The couple admitted they simply needed the money for better prosthetics, due to the Congressional funding cuts.
Long story short, Congress got off their asses as if they were on fire.
A GoFundMe page was set up for the family, and more than $1.4 million was raised in the first day.
Ryan’s other stories came to light. The tornado. The bullets. The drowning woman in the subway. He was fired, and after a six-month period of head-hanging and sheepish apologies, he was rehired at another network for a paltry half of his sixteen-million-dollar salary.
I was fired, too. I was not rehired. It was my job to make sure the news was clean, to know if Ryan was stretching the truth, to keep an eye on these things, goddamn it! as the head of NBC screeched.
So I joined the ranks of the unemployed, as appealing to other networks as an Ebola-riddled leper holding an open jar of typhus.
After my one hundred and fiftieth job rejection in four weeks (Starbucks wouldn’t have me), I lay on the couch, ten pounds heavier than I’d been a month ago. It was okay, I told myself between bouts of sobbing and Ben & Jerry’s. I never wanted to be a producer in the first place. At least I had Eric. And Ben. And Jerry.
Eric sighed as he came in; I was in the “pajama” phase of grief. “Babe, come on. You were gonna leave anyway once we had kids.”
“It’s just... I didn’t do anything wrong. Technically.”
“I know. We’ve been over this.”
Oh, God. If Eric didn’t want to talk about it—Eric my rock, my love, my best friend—I was really, really pathetic.
Then he threw me the best bone ever. “Listen, with my salary, you don’t need to work. Take your time, find something you really love, something that will work in the next phase of our lives. Besides...” He paused and stroked my unclean hair. “Don’t you think it’s time we bought a house?”
Hell’s to the yes! It was exactly what I needed. I’d figure out what the next phase was (marriage and children, thank you very much). First step, a home for all of us.
We found a house in Cambry-on-Hudson, where I’d spent my teenage years, where Candy and Dad still lived, forty-five minutes from Judy and Aaron in Greenwich. An easy commute for Eric via the train, close enough to the city that we could still pop in for a show or to see friends, far enough away that it felt like the country. The posh little town was filled with interesting shops, some great restaurants, a couple of little galleries and a bakery that could be compared only with paradise. A marina jutted out into the Hudson, and high on a hill sat a huge white country club that we nicknamed Downton Abbey (which would be perfect for our wedding).
“Wait till we have kids,” Eric warned me when we found the house. “Don’t be surprised if my parents buy the house next door.” That would be great with me.
Our house was a little soulless from the outside, but fabulous on the inside. Huge bedrooms, a sunken living room, a kitchen with granite countertops and a nice front porch. It was in a development, which I hadn’t wanted, but the yard was landscaped and pretty.
We went to the animal shelter and picked out Ollie, then a skinny little bag of bones who’d been found tied to a phone pole. Still, when we reached out to pet him, he wagged so hard he fell down.
“Our family has begun,” Eric said, kissing the dog on the head.
When it came time to sign the papers, I had a little shock.
“Um...my name isn’t on here,” I told the real estate agent.
“Oh, no! Did I make a mistake?” he asked. “I can draw up new papers. I just... I’m sorry, it must’ve been a misunderstanding.”
“No, let’s do this,” Eric said. “We can fix it later, babe.” He signed with a flourish, grinning at me, and when the Realtor left, we made love in the empty living room. His parents came over that night, and even though we drank champagne and laughed, I kept thinking about that. Eric Fisher. Not Eric Fisher and Ainsley O’Leary.
“I wonder if we’ll ever have grandchildren, Aaron,” Judy said, subtle as a charging lion. She held Ollie, stroking him as he crooned with joy. “Grand-dogs are lovely, too, but...”
“Mom,” Eric said. “Why do you think there are four bedrooms?”
He kissed me, and Judy sighed, and Aaron chuckled, and I put my worries aside and waited for a marriage proposal. Kept waiting. Waited some more. Started volunteering at the local senior housing complex where Gram-Gram lived, bringing Ollie in for pet therapy. Planted tulip bulbs. Painted rooms, refurbished a table, bought furniture.
Two months after we moved, Eric got another promotion. He apologized, saying he really, really wanted to tie the knot and spend more time at home but this job would put us over the top. I tried not to feel glum. His career was on fire; I was an anomaly in Cambry-on-Hudson—a stay-at-home person. Like a shut-in, Kate mused, or a kept woman. She smiled when she said it, but I knew she meant it.
I missed my old job more than I ever would’ve guessed.
That was when Candy got me an interview for features editor at Hudson Lifestyle. “Don’t mess this up,” she said over the phone as I stood in front of the fridge, eating Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, Eric in Dallas yet again.
“Thanks for your faith in me, Candy,” I said. “I’ll try not to blow it.”
“It’s just that I have a professional reputation there. I recommended you for this job. If you don’t make a good impression, it will reflect badly on me, and let me tell you, I worked very hard to get where I am. It wasn’t easy, especially having a toddler thrust on me when I was forty years old.”
Lest we forget. “Got it, Candy. And really, thank you.” I hung up and polished off the entire pint of ice cream like any good American.
The offices of Hudson Lifestyle were in a brick building in the old part of downtown. There were six people on the staff, most in cubicles, most dealing with advertising and bookkeeping.
A secret about print journalism—the writers are often the least valued people on the job. Advertisers keep any paper afloat, and the graphics people have to set the thing up, and someone makes those irritating calls to see if you want to subscribe, and someone has to empty the trash and clean the bathrooms, but writers? Pah. A dime a dozen. There’s always some college intern who can do what you do. Besides, everyone reads only the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.
I waited in the reception area, which was small but nicely furnished. The glossy magazine was spread out on the coffee table—a picture of a farmhouse on one cover; a head of lettuce on another; a sailboat on another. Headlines such as Best Plastic Surgeons in Westchester! and Farm to Table Dining and Area’s Top Garden Centers! told me all I needed to know about the magazine, which I’d never read before. The receptionist told me to have a seat, then disappeared (probably to clean the bathrooms and empty the trash).
I missed my old job. I missed Rockefeller Center. I missed Ryan. I missed being important.
Tears filled my eyes, and my nose prickled. Did I have a tissue? No, I did not. It’s just that this job...after my other job...it was such a step down. It was humiliating. I’d produced news stories on rebels in Afghanistan. I’d met the leader of the free world. Now I’d have to write about lettuce. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve, leaving a smear of eyeliner and mascara. Great.
A man came out to greet me, already seeming pissed off, as if he could read my mind. “Ashley?” he said.
“Ainsley. Ainsley O’Leary. A pleasure.” I stood up and stuck out my hand, which he looked at and didn’t shake.
“Are you crying?”
“Oh... I just... I’m a little, uh, premenstrual.” Shit.
He gave me a long, unblinking look. Strange, pale blue eyes, like an alien. “Will that be a problem during this interview?” he asked.
“Let’s hope not. But those first two days can be murder.” I smiled. He did not. I felt my uterus shriveling, as if his disapproving gaze was bringing on menopause.
Finally, he blinked. “I’m Jonathan Kent. This way.” I followed him into a big, sunny room divided into cubicles. One of the men gave me a half smile and, unless I was wrong, an eye roll.
“You have an appointment at eleven, Mr. Kent,” the receptionist said.
Mr. Kent, huh? He couldn’t be past forty, but he sure didn’t give off that easygoing Mark Zuckerberg vibe.
There was only one office on the floor—his. It was scary-neat, a clean desk (sign of a sick mind), one photo facing him. On the wall, a painting of, you guessed it, the Hudson River. A bookcase that contained books only, no statues, no photos, nothing personal at all.
“Remind me why you’re here,” he said, sitting behind the desk. “You want an internship, your mother says?”
“No, and she’s my stepmother. Not my mother. Candy, that is. Um, you’re looking for a features editor?”
Another long, pained, uterus-shriveling glance. “How old are you?”
“I believe it’s against the law to ask that question.” He stared. “Thirty,” I added.
“You look younger.” It wasn’t a compliment.
He stared at my résumé, glanced up at me. I smiled, or continued to smile, as the case was. He didn’t smile back. Looked at the papers again. My smile felt stiff. The left corner of my mouth was twitching.
People usually liked me right away.
Jonathan Kent wore a suit, and his tie was not loosened. He was clean-shaven, which was kind of rare these days. Dark hair combed back severely. Cheekbones like dorsal fins, and those pale eyes. He was neither attractive nor ugly. Generic Caucasian male with potential to be a serial killer, please. Back when I was the receptionist at NBC, I’d made calls for the casting director.
“Do you really want to work here?” he asked, looking up at me.
“Yes! I’m here for an interview, after all.”
He blinked. Finally. “Why?”
Because I’m bored didn’t seem like a great answer, though it would be honest. “Well, I really, uh, respect what you do and think I could positively contribute to the content of the magazine.” Ta-da! The perfect answer.
“What do we do?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“What is it you think we do?”
“Is that a trick question?” No answer. “You publish a regional magazine.”
“And why would we do that?”
Because it’s a cash cow. “To showcase the beauty and vibrancy of life in the Hudson River Valley,” I said with my best Girl Scout smile.
“Your résumé says you graduated from Wagner College. I assume you have a degree in journalism?”
“Uh, no.”
“English?”
“Nope.”
“Do I have to keep guessing, Ms. O’Leary?”
I winced, then smiled to cover. “Philosophy.” Another stare. “It’s one of those degrees that can be used for anything,” I said, echoing the duplicitous guidance counselor at Wagner.
“Is it?” Mr. Kent said. I couldn’t argue that point. “You worked for Ryan Roberts.” He waited, expressionless.
“Yes.”
“Who was fired for an egregious breach of professional ethics.”
“And rehired by another network. But yes. That’s correct.”
“Putting aside your possible complicity in his journalistic deception, do you have any actual skills or education to recommend you?”
I felt a sudden rush of anger. What a rude man. Ryan had not been my fault. (Okay, fine, a little bit my fault, but mostly not.)
“Wow, Jonathan,” I said. “Those are a lot of big words. I’m not sure I follow you.” Clearly, I wasn’t going to get the job, so why not go for broke? “But after seven years with NBC, I think I can write about the great lettuces of Westchester County and who does the best boob jobs.”
His expression didn’t change.
“Have a lovely day,” I said, standing up and reaching for the door.
“You’re hired,” he said. “You’ll have a three-month probationary period. Be here tomorrow. We open at 8:30. Don’t be late, Ms. O’Leary.”
And so I went from writing news that tens of millions of people would hear to editing fluff pieces—the historic Groundhog Day parade in Smithville and the artisan potter who’d had a piece bought by the White House. Where the prettiest wedding venues were (okay, that piece I enjoyed), and how shipping lanes had changed on the Hudson.
It was fine. It was pleasant. I made friends fast, as I always did, though Jonathan failed to succumb to my charms and didn’t eat the cookies I occasionally brought in. I was just killing time, waiting for Eric to propose so we could get married and have kids.
Instead, he got cancer.
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