Reality Jane (27 page)

Tasha wore a sleeveless brown turtleneck with an elegant gold chain holding a glass angel on a ring. Her naturally curly red hair was pulled tight into a clip and her make-up was tasteful, restrained. She looked at me trustingly.

I thought of Corinne and the trailer trash comment and felt a sudden wave of shame. I wanted to apologize, but we hadn’t yet begun. It felt odd to waltz into someone’s house, bull-doze their furniture to make way for our lights and equipment, and prod them to reveal their deepest hurt for our viewing pleasure. The only thing that comforted me was him—Ricky Dean. If he couldn’t help her, no one could.

We began the interview.

“I don’t want to die,” she said, “but I don’t want to live either, not without him. . . He was my one true love. . . Life doesn’t seem worth living.”

I asked her to leaf through albums of her husband during happier times. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I wanted to hug her but I couldn’t—not my job. I swallowed deeply, as if that might halt my own tears, then excused myself to get a tissue, which I crinkled into a ball while I tried to focus.
Get in the game! We need this story.
I was frustrated by my less-than-bulletproof exterior.

My phone buzzed mid-interview. “This is urgent,” I heard from the speaker. “Tasha’s friend Mindy is coming over. I need you to interview her too.”

“All right.” I checked my watch. It was already 5:30. There was no way I would be back in the office by seven.

“Write this down. Ready?” Corinne said hurriedly. “I need you to get Mindy saying that she can’t be Tasha’s friend anymore. That Tasha is pushing everyone away, ruining her life and her friendships.”

“That true?” I said, unable to imagine someone not wanting to be Tasha’s friend.

“Yeah, that’s what she told us.”

“Okay.”

“Call me if she says anything different.”

“I will.”

“Oh, and is she talking?” Corinne asked.

“Yes, she’s great.”

Tasha was an excellent subject, completely willing to expose her sorrow for the camera. After the interview, we worked through the shot list and got creative with rack focuses and
candles while we waited for Tasha’s friend.

When Mindy finally arrived, she looked frazzled. “I really don’t want to do this,” she said as she dove for Tasha.

Tasha cupped Mindy’s hand for support. They appeared to be the best of friends.

“Oh, it’ll be great, really,” I said, holding my hand out to introduce myself. “We just want to ask you a few questions about your friendship. Our goal here is to help Tasha. Nothing else,” I said, trying to put her at ease with the idea.

“I’m not comfortable with it,” Mindy replied, shooting me a suspicious look, which was almost a first. Most people liked me, at least at first.

“I understand, but this is for Tasha. And it’s the only way Ricky Dean can get a handle on her grief. That way, he’ll know what he needs to do to help her.”

Mindy stared at me. She wasn’t convinced.

“Really, it’s the only way we can help her,” I pleaded, smiling sincerely.

Tasha whispered to her. I couldn’t hear them and purposely began a conversation with my crew members to give the two friends the cover of privacy.

“Okay,” Mindy sighed, looking at her dear friend, “I’ll do it.”

Tasha nodded with approval before leaving the room—all individual interviews were standardly done in private.

I began Mindy’s interview with gentle questions about the suicide, her reaction, and how Tasha had changed since the tragedy. After a 10-minute warm-up, I launched into the meat of it:

“How has his death affected your friendship?”

“How hasn’t it?” she said.

“In a sentence, please.”

“Ron’s death has affected our friendship in every way imaginable.”

“Are you closer than you were before?”

“Of course.”

“In a sentence, please.”

“Tasha and I are closer then we’ve ever been. I’m totally here for her. I’d do anything to help her. She’s a wonderful person.
And she didn’t deserve to have her husband leave her in such an abrupt and hurtful way. No one deserves that.”

Bloody hell,
I thought to myself, glancing at my notes.
What do I do? Corinne said Tasha was pushing Mindy away, “ruining their friendship.” That’s not what I’m hearing!

“Um,” I started up again, nervous I wouldn’t get what we needed and afraid of how they would react at the office. “What will you do if Tasha doesn’t recover, if she doesn’t come out of her depression? Can you handle being friends with someone who can’t, or
won’t
, help herself?”

“I’ll just stay by her side. I’m here through thick and thin.”

“But, what if she won’t help herself. Then what?” I prodded.

“Then nothing. She’s my best friend.”

“Is she pushing other friends away?”
At this point, I’m hoping she’ll throw me a bone.

“I can’t speak for them.”
No bone.

“But are her other friends pulling away because she’s unable to help herself?”

“Not really. I’m her closest friend. No one except me really knows how sad she is. This beautiful woman is dying emotionally. I just want her to be happy again.”

Just as we finished, my phone buzzed again.

“Hey, it’s Corinne. Did you get it?”

“Just a minute.” I looked toward the crew. “Guys, Mindy, can you please hold a sec?” I stepped outside to talk. “Mindy is a tough interview, but it actually turned out great. She didn’t say exactly what you expected, but it was still touching, and very real. Some great stuff, in fact.”

“Did she say that Tasha is ruining her life?”

“Kind of. She said part of her is dying.”

“Oh. Did she say Tasha was ruining her friendships?”

“Not really. She said no one knows how sad Tasha is, except her. It was moving.”

“Hang on. Hang on a sec.”

I heard a gaggle of voices in the background. It sounded serious. Corinne came back on the phone.

“Meg wants to talk to Mindy.”

“Huh? What? Meg?”

“Meg, your big boss,” Corinne whispered into the phone sarcastically. “Anyway, she’s in my office right now and we’ve got to deal with this.” She resumed her normal volume. “Here’s Meg.”

“Hi, Jane. Listen,” Meg said in a crisp voice, “I need to know exactly what Mindy said to you.”

I described the interview and told her it was compelling. I told her that Mindy didn’t say exactly what they wanted her to say, but what came out was dramatic and sad and full of real emotion.

Meg could not have cared less. “Listen, what you don’t understand is that they need to say
on camera
exactly what they told us on the phone. If they don’t, we shut it down—the whole shoot, the whole story. It’s make or break.”

“But it’s a great story. I mean, here’s this woman—”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Who?”

“Mindy. Put her on.”

“Okay, but let me just explain—”

“Put her on.”

“Okay then.” I felt defeated.

Mindy listened as the rest of us sat quietly. She barely uttered a word. When she finished, she handed the phone to me like an eighth-grader being sent to detention. The gentle, friendly atmosphere I’d created was gone.

Meg was still on the other line. “She’s all set. Do it again, the whole interview, one more time. Call me if you don’t get what we need.”

“Okay,” I said.

Without another word, the line went dead.

It was ten o’clock when I finally returned to the office. The second time around, Mindy gave us a sterile version of Meg’s script: “She’s pushing me away, she’ll lose me and all her friends if she doesn’t snap out of this. . .” and so on. She’d completely changed her tune. The lines were there but the emotion was gone.

I’d just dropped the tapes off with the transcribers when Corinne grabbed my shoulder in a panic. “I need the story by tomorrow morning.”

“What?! It won’t be transcribed until morning. I don’t have an edit suite until two tomorrow.”

“It’s changed. You need to do it tonight. You transcribe. I’ll write the script. Then we’ll jog through the tapes and pick out the clips together.”

“But why?”

“Meg needs it for a mock run-through tomorrow morning.”

“Huh? Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“It’s a start-up. We have no choice.”

Grant spent
our
night
together
watching TV at my apartment with Toni. So much for make-up sex! Over the phone, I’d apologized profusely and promised to make it up to him. We both giggled.

Just as I was about to hang up, he stopped me. “Hey, I want you to know something. I’m really sorry about that morning. . . I don’t want us to be that way.”

“Me neither.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“And I you.” I took a deep breath. “You’re the best.”

“I’m here for you.”

“Thanks, honey,” I said, quietly. “Hey, is Toni behaving?”

“Like a banished puppy dog,” he laughed. “Your dinner is here—KooKooRoo chicken and mac and cheese.”

“My favorite,” I laughed, “comfort food to go with my comfort man.”

Little did I know then it would be seven in the morning before I returned home to microwave the meal he’d brought over.

The phone rang. I didn’t answer it. It rang again. I got up. It was 11:00 in the morning. Officially, three and a half hours of sleep.

“Jane, hey, sorry to do this to you.”

“Hey, Gib. What’s up?”

“You were sleeping, huh?”

“Uh, yeah. Didn’t get home until seven. What about you?”

“Three.”

“Yuck.”

“Yeah, and back at nine.”

“Double yuck.”

“Anyway, we need you here today by 1:30. Staff meeting. Mandatory. Sorry. I wanted to give you the day off after your all-nighter. But I can’t. I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

“That sucks. But no worries.”

The entire staff gathered in the audience chairs of the newly designed studio. It was exciting to see the forum where, starting next week, it would all go down, with millions watching every day. To me, it looked very masculine/talk-showish, as if a plastic factory had thrown up silver beams and orange silks. It had a black hardwood runway for Ricky Dean to move amongst the crowd in his Armani suits. I guessed it would be good for his stay-at-home groupies to see the man in all his manliness strutting up and down the stage, rather than relegated to a center stage couch.

The executive producer, Meg, stood in the aisle in her navy blue DKNY skirt suit, counting heads. At age 40, she was second in command under Ricky Dean—quite an accomplishment after working in TV for only a decade. I hadn’t seen her smile since I started the show—quite unlike the person I met in my original interview. “She’s a model for the ambitious,” the studio’s lawyer had told me when I turned in my signed contract. “Play your cards right, you could be another Meg,” he said boldly.

His comment ignited my growing ambition. I felt I had what it took. Seeing Meg now, I speculated that maybe—in a few years or so—I too could take up the reins. That thought comforted me as I watched her play commander and chief to about 100 willing subordinates.

“Jane,” Meg called, spotting me on the end of a row, “I had a look at your piece.”

My heart jumped. All eyes turned to me. I nodded, hoping for a compliment.