Gloss

“Jennifer Oko’s Gloss is a very funny novel set in the parallel universe of morning television. Filled with details and gossip about what really goes on behind the cozy, coffee-tabled sets of the national morning shows and the people who host them, this story of a young producer caught in a web of journalistic ethics and political intrigue is both about and written by an insider who has lived to tell the tale.”

—Laura Zigman, author of Animal Husbandry and Piece of Work

“After finishing Gloss by Jennifer Oko, I felt as if I had finished a dish made up of fresh, seasonal ingredients that filled me up without slowing me down.”

—Christian Science Monitor, Reader’s Pick

“Comical, fast paced and full of insider gossip, Gloss is an entertaining read written by a TV news veteran who’s now a producer for CBS’s The Early Show. For anyone who has ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of news reporting, this book will fill you in and keep you entertained.”

—Kristin Harmel, author of The Blonde Theory

“Jennifer Oko’s novel Gloss [is] a peek behind the scenes of morning television…. Even though it is a serious story, the novel is a light and easy read, with humor present on every page.”

—The Oklahoman

“Jennifer Oko is flying off the hook with energy, wit, and style!”

—Moderngirlstyle.com

“This is one book you have to keep checking to make sure you are reading fiction. The story is engrossing…fast paced, riveting and one you just can’t put down, with an insight to morning news programs that gives you a whole new way to look at them while having your morning coffee and muffin.”

—Affaire de Coeur [five stars]

“A damn good book.”

—Modern Women’s Fiction

“Oko’s biting humor, à la Murphy Brown, makes this book very difficult to put down.”

—The Book and Cranny

“Often laugh-out-loud funny, but sometimes downright scary, this bigger-than-life romp will probably give more than one early morning news show staffer pause. Some of the characterizations—and complications—may be a little over the top, but readers will probably be too amused to take much notice.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“You won’t be able to put [it] down. Filled with tons of fun details gathered, no doubt, by the author’s own experiences in morning television. You’ll have a blast reading Gloss, and not just for the guessing game of ‘who’s really who’ in the large cast of characters that inhabit Annabelle’s world. A deliciously dishy and irresistible tale!”

—Brenda Janowitz, author of Scot on the Rocks

“A humorous send-up of the TV industry and today’s pop culture where fame is an end in itself. Ms. Oko’s eye is sharp and her pen as sharp, as she bares the quirks and flaws in an industry she knows from the inside. Gloss is an entertaining, delightfully irreverent, and enlightening work.”

—Romance Reviews Today

Gloss

Jennifer Oko

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Michael, who makes everything possible.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PART TWO

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

PART THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gloss would not exist if it weren’t for the support and encouragement of some very special people. So, to my agent, first reader and my personal Queen of Swords Stephanie Kip Rostan, thank you again and again. Selina McLemore’s enthusiasm for the printed page is contagious and I am lucky that not only did she fall in love with Gloss but she was able to help me whip it into a more readable shape than I could have done alone. I am grateful that Selina was able to usher the book into Linda McFall’s able hands and that Linda has been able to guide me through the rest of this adventure. Thank you to everyone at MIRA and Harlequin Books.

Every writer should have a support group like I had with Roomful of Writers: Elaine Heinzman, Kevin Ricche, Martha Heil, Peter Reppert, James Riordon, Contessa Riggs and (briefly) Eric Roston. A special shout-out to Jennifer Ouellette and Erica Perl. On the face of it, it would seem that the authors of books such as The Physics of the Buffyverse and Ninety-Three in My Family might not necessarily be the best readers for a book like Gloss, but in fact a little Einstein mixed with some excellent children’s literature was precisely the medicine the book needed. John Elderkin, wherever you are, thank you for the title. Thank you to Elizabeth Shreve for your endless publishing wisdom, and, along with her, to Emily Lenzner for the jubilations.

Thank you to my friends and colleagues at CBS News.

Writers usually work in solitude, but this writer wouldn’t be able to get anything done if it weren’t for friends like Tula Karras, Jenny Trewartha, Jan Trasen, Julie Ziegler, Jennifer Howze, Sasha Gottlieb and Liza Vasilkova.

This book was sold shortly after the birth of my son, Jasper, and published shortly before the birth of my daughter, Laila, and it took an amazing amount of help from my family to assure that I had the time, space and energy to be a producer, a writer and a good mother all at the same time. Annette Oko, Ben Oko and Helen Dimos—thank you for the love you have showered on Jasper, Laila and their mom. Thank you to my brother Daniel Cohen and his wife, Stephanie Cohen, who have been tremendous cheerleaders throughout my writing career (and my life!). And to my parents, Sue and Arnold Cohen, it sounds trite but I really have no words to thank you enough. My husband, Michael Oko, continues to amaze me with his patience, his kindness, his enthusiasm and his belief in me. And it is Jasper and Laila who have helped me see all the blessings and joy.

Thank you.

gloss (glôs) n.

1 A surface sheen, often referring to cosmetics used to enhance the lips.

2 A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.

3 A smooth-coated, slick media format.

The obscure we eventually see.

The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

—Edward R. Murrow

PART ONE

gloss (glôs)

n.

1 A surface sheen, often referring to cosmetics used to enhance the lips.

2 A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.

3 A smooth-coated, slick media format.

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

—Edward R. Murrow

PROLOGUE

I DIGRESS.

When I was little, the adults laughed and said I had a vivid imagination. It was a good thing. But by the end of my elementary years it was a source of heated conversations in parent-teacher meetings, and then, by high school, it became a source of parent-psychologist conversations, leading to parent-neurologist conversations, leading to a career as a television news producer, and ultimately, to where I am now. Which is to say, my tendency to take off on flights of fancy, and my general inability to focus ironically brought me to a place of fancy-less focus: the Federal Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia. My lawyer grins Cheshirelike and insists we will win. No fear, he says, this will end soon, you will write a book, a movie deal will be in place and, years from now, you will look out over the veranda of your Hollywood Hills home, sipping chardonnay and laughing at this little adventure. Wake me up after the second coming, I tell him, when I’m in a good mood. Most days I tell him to shut up and give me whatever paper it is that I need to sign.

I wasn’t always this surly. In fact, I’m not always this surly. I like to think of myself as personable. My fellow inmates seem to like me. They say things like “you ain’t so bad (dramatic pause) for a white girl.” And, when we are dancing around the cell block to entertain ourselves (my friend Galina in the neighboring cell can scat like she is channeling a Slavic version of Betty Carter), they tell me I move like a sista’ and that I could easily have a starring role in a hip-hop video. I’m not sure if I’m flattered or not, but I think many of my outside peers would savor that as a compliment. The whiter you are, the more privileged your background, the more being “ghetto” is supposed to be a coveted commodity. I never understood this trend, the rich boarding school boys with droopy pants, walking with the lilt of a drug lord thug. Wispy wheat-haired lasses showing their palm and saying in a staccato cadence, “Talk to the hand.” I appreciate the grit and flavor such mannerisms represent, but wouldn’t it make more sense for people to want to mimic the rich and powerful? Of course, I’m not sure which would be more absurd, a prep-schooled, Ivy-educated, wavy-haired, nose-sculpted young woman like myself trying to talk jive (if jive is still spoken) or a middle-class, third generation mixed Eastern European young woman, also like myself, trying to act like a Vanderbilt.

Like I said, I digress. But that is actually not so off point. Because really, what got me here, into cell block six, had a lot to do with people (yours truly included) trying to appear like something they are not: morning television.

Dear New Day USA—

I watch your show everyday and have for years. But yesterday, I noticed that Faith had changed her hair style. I don’t like it. She looks much better with a side part.

Sandy Franklin

Winona, WI

CHAPTER ONE

“THIRTY SECONDS TO AIR!” THE STAGE MANAGER skipped over the wires strewn about the floor and jumped behind the row of semirobotic cameras.

“Shit!” The frail makeup artist rushed forward, armed with a powder puff, and dived for Ken Klark’s shiny, pert nose. The white dust settled and she was gone, out of the shot.

“Ten seconds!”

Klark stroked his chiseled chin, smoothed back what there was to smooth of his ever so trendy, close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, and ran his tongue over his neon-white teeth. Four thousand dollars in caps right there. He had expensed them to the network, which did not contest.

“Five seconds!”

He tugged his dark blue blazer behind him once more and sat up cocksure.

“Three! Two!” On the unspoken count of “One” the stage manager mimed a gunshot at Klark, who smiled, leaned a bit forward, waiting a beat for the zooming camera lens to settle on him.

“Good morning, everyone! It’s a New Day, USA!” he said. “Today is April 4th, and this is ZBC News. I’m Ken Klark.”

“And I’m Faith Heide.” A small, bobbed blonde in a fitted red sweater popped up on the screen, emitting a girl-next-door smile into eight point five million homes.

And I’m fucked, I thought as I ran into the control room behind the set, twenty minutes late. You are supposed to check your graphics and chyrons before the show, not when it’s already live on the air.

The eyes of the executive producer were illuminated by the wall of monitors at the front of the darkened room, making it particularly intimidating as he turned them toward me for a brief moment, adding pressure to my dangerously undercaffeinated brain.

It was never a good thing to enter the control room without having had at least a sip of morning coffee, because even with the dimmed lights and hushed tones, the place was electrically charged. Figuratively, I mean. Of course it was literally, too. I often thought they turned down the lights not because it was easier for the director to focus on the monitors, since the darkness cuts down on the glare, but because sometimes it seemed the energy emitted by live television was too powerful to face front on. Think about it. For something to have enough energy to hold the attention of someone as far away as, say, Huntsville, Alabama, imagine the energy it has when up close and personal.

I tiptoed over to the row of graphics terminals.

“Maria,” I whispered to the unionized (and therefore to be treated very nicely) woman whose job it was to hit the button to call up each title as the director asked for it. “Can I check my chyron list at the break?”

She didn’t respond, but I knew she heard me. So I hovered, counting down the seconds to the commercial interruption, at which point I knew, because we had been through this before, she would wordlessly, if slightly aggressively, punch up the titles on the computer so I could make sure that none of the characters in my piece would have a misspelled name show up underneath them on the screen. I did this because such an error is one of journalism’s cardinal sins. No matter how moving, how well-crafted, well-researched, well-written, well-produced your piece, be it an article or a lower-third graphic for a segment of fluff, spelling someone’s name wrong was as good for your career as if you got caught sleeping with the big boss’s husband. Actually, that’s a bad analogy. In network television, most of the big bosses have wives.

“It’s P-u-r-n-e-l-l,” I said. “Not P-e-r-n-e-l-l.”

“That’s what you sent us.” She didn’t turn to look at me when she said this.

“I know. That’s why I’m here. We have to fix it.” I was talking through my teeth, but trying to sound sweet and sympathetic all the same.

“Whatever,” she said, typing in the correction one rigid finger at a time.

I exhaled. It was 7:12. That meant about eighteen more minutes for airing “important” stories, and twenty-three minutes until mine.

I went to the green room to steal some coffee. Technically, that pot was for the guests. But the mud they made for the staff was just plain offensive, and I’m sorry, I worked very hard and was entitled to something that was, at the very least, drinkable.

The green room was not actually green. Green rooms hardly ever are. When I worked at Sunrise America, the walls were blue. Here, our walls were a soothing, creamy yellow. If Franklin, the middle-aged man who considered himself the patron of the room, a man steeped in petty authority and indulgently expensive colognes, wasn’t around, it was one of my favorite places to watch the show. The couch and chairs were upholstered in a soft, welcoming tweed, the monitors were tuned to every network, for comparison’s sake, and there was an abundant spread of fresh fruit, cheese and pastries.

That day, a B-list movie star was holding court next to the latest reality game show reject, and I knew that Franklin wouldn’t dare say anything to me in front of them. And by the time the show was over, he would have forgotten my trespass.

Or he would have if it weren’t for the fact that as I turned to exit, carrying my hot, filled-to-the-brim cup of much needed coffee, I walked right into—Oh!

“Oh, my God, I am so sorry,” I said as I put down my foam cup and grabbed for some paper napkins.

“Don’t worry. It’s just my shoe.”

“No, but…” I bent down to mop up the brown liquid that was pooling at the front crease of this guy’s tan suede Wallabies.

“It’s really okay.” And then he bent down just as I was looking up and…

“Ow.” Shit. My head hit his chin.

“S’okay.” And his tongue was bleeding.

This was worse than misspelling a name. I had now ruined the tongue of a man who, I assumed, was supposed to be a guest on our show. A speaking guest.

Franklin was already at the guest’s side, ice water in hand, ushering him to the couch, fawning over him as if he were a damaged little bird.

I pulled myself up and started to apologize again.

“Wheelly,” the guest said, tongue in cup, green eyes on me, “I wasn’t wooking either.”

Luckily, the B-list star and the reality guest had been too wrapped up in the accolades of their publicity entourages to notice what was going on. And before Franklin could chew me out, a barely postpubescent production intern appeared to say the guest named Mark was needed in makeup.

The tongueless guy stood up. “’At’s me.”

“Let me show you where to go,” I said. “I promise it’s safe now.”

He laughed and followed me down the hall.

I was never a morning person. I liked to think the fact that the bulk of my career was spent in the trenches of morning television was inexplicable. I’d started out my career assuming that by this point (the moment I spilled the coffee on the show, I mean, not right now, sitting here scribbling behind bars), almost ten years into it, I would be producing world-changing investigative reports and documentary-length profiles of the interesting and important. But aside from the fact that there wasn’t much of an audience for such things, it turned out that getting a staff job at one of the few programs (most of them on public television) that did that sort of work required a kind of wake-up-and-smell-the-blood ambition I just didn’t have. As already alluded to, when I woke up, I couldn’t really do much until I smelled the coffee. And if you didn’t wake up smelling blood, the rumor was that the only other way of getting one of those jobs was by waking up and smelling some suit’s morning breath, if you know what I mean. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) that opportunity hadn’t come my way. Instead, I had developed a talent for turning out perfectly toned feel-good feature stories for the top-ranked national morning show. Wake-up-and-start-your-day-inspired stories. Have-a-good-chuckle-in-the morning stories. Learn-how-to-improve-your-life-with-the-latest-soon-to-be-forgotten-exercise-trend stories. But sometimes, especially since the war, if I was lucky, I was able to sneak in an occasional learn-something-valuable-about-the-world-at-large story, and it was that sort of thing that kept me going. Like this day’s story, for example.

“So, what do you do here?”

“Huh?”

“You work here, right?” said the man named Mark, tongue clearly improving, honey-brown hair being combed and teased. I was standing on the threshold of the fluorescent lit makeup room, waiting to escort him back to the green room once the face powder set, watching the artists work him up like a diva, slathering cover-up around his eyes as if looking like he was approaching his mid-thirties, which he did, was not entirely acceptable.

“Oh. Yeah.” I twisted my ponytail around in my hand. My hair was long then, and I accidentally caught a strand in my mouth. I hated it when I did that.

I pulled it out, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “Sorry. No coffee yet, you know? My brain isn’t fully functional.”

He laughed and playfully suggested I drink some off his shoe. Ha. Ha.

“I usually don’t come to the studio,” I said, explaining that I only did tape pieces, suggesting by my tone that I was somehow above the 6:00 a.m. call, like I was showing off. Which I suppose I was.

“So, why are you here today?”

“I heard one of our guests needed some coffee.” He was looking at me via my reflection in the mirror, and I was deeply regretting hitting the snooze button earlier, not allowing myself enough time to put on any makeup. But, looking at my reddening cheeks, I knew I didn’t need any blush.

He smiled. Cute dimples, I thought, which made me a little nervous. I glanced at my watch.

“We should get going.”

The stylist sprayed Mark’s (thick) hair one last time, trying unsuccessfully to tame a small cowlick on the right side of his head. He laughed (look at those dimples) and told her to leave it, that without it no one would know it was really him on TV.

I brought him to the sound check, where a lavaliere microphone was clipped to his tie, and then I left him with another nubile production assistant so I could get to the control room in time to watch my piece.

“Sorry again,” I said over my shoulder.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “I feel like I should buy you a coffee or something. I was the one who got in your way.”

I emitted a shrill giggle (ugh!) and rushed down the hall. By the time I reached the control room, my cheeks were so flushed they hurt.

“What’s wrong with you?” my friend Caitlin whispered as I sidled up next to her. Caitlin was another producer on the show, although she only did live bookings—politicians, pundits and their ilk. We’d worked together for years now, sharing late nights at work and many drinks at the corner bar afterward, and our friendship had long extended beyond the office. She was a friend I could call after a bad date or a bad haircut. I was a friend she would call for the same. Truth be told, for her the bad haircuts were pretty common. She had recently acquired an unflattering bob, streaked in brassy shades of red and yellow that seemed to change with each flicker of the monitor lights. She tried to tone it down by clipping it back with little baby barrettes, and the general visage was far from professional. Certainly, she looked odd as we stood in the control room, hovering in the back row where the segment producers waited to watch their pieces hit the airwaves. Apparently, I looked a little odd myself.

“Annie?” She tried again. “Your cheeks are like a clown’s. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said, my voice still sort of shrill.

“Whatever.” She let out a quiet, knowing chuckle. “Thanks for babysitting my guest. I got here late.”

“Mark?”

“Yeah. He goes on after your segment. Isn’t he cute?”

“I didn’t really notice.”

She gave me a don’t bullshit me kind of look. I glanced at the clock: 7:34.

“Excuse me, my piece is up.” I went to stand next to the executive producer, the EP, which is what we producers did so we could gauge his reaction when our pieces were on. It was the only time to get feedback. The rest of the day, he was too busy planning for tomorrow. There is no such thing as retrospect in morning television. It’s all present tense and tease the future.

“Take camera five! Cue music! Dissolve four.” The director brought us safely out of commercial. “Take three!”

Faith Heide looked up.

“Welcome back to New Day USA,” she said with an engaging smile, which quickly morphed into a furrowed, concerned-citizen look. “Later this hour, is the popular eggshell diet safe? And we’ll talk to the stars of the hot new reality show Who’s Your Mama. But first (pregnant pause), for this week’s edition of our American Ideals series, I met a man whose free-market ingenuity is helping to improve the lives of some women who, until recently, didn’t know what it meant to be free.”

She turned her head to watch the video on the enormous plasma monitor to her left, and then the image went full screen.

I breathed in deeply. I always got a bit of a knot in my stomach when I heard the words I had written come out of an anchor’s mouth. I never knew what they were going to do with them. And Faith, of late, had apparently decided she needed to be taken more seriously. Meaning she was constantly lowering her voice a few octaves and interjecting poignancy with perceptible sighs, trying, I suppose, to sound smarter. You could try to tell her to speak normally, but she wasn’t one for taking direction. Her agent had recently negotiated to get her the largest salary in television history (with a decade-long job guarantee), so she probably felt that she didn’t really need to learn anything new.