Turn of the Century (58 page)

“WHICH brilliant zillionaire,” George reads to himself, “is pressuring business associates to back the latest lamebrain creative project of his arrogant young progeny-about-town?” He thinks:
Which one isn’t?
“WHICH erratic, egomaniacal rap superstar drove his $150,000 foreign car up onto a SoHo sidewalk to stop his gamine starlet girlfriend from stalking off?” Still a little generic, but better. “WHICH teen-media tycoon was spotted at a Village gay bar partying heartily with two members of his demographic? WHAT distinguished casino mogul and real estate genius arranged to get which liberal newspaper columnist reprimanded after the writer unfairly attacked him?” Much more interesting, although George wonders how many items Donald Trump must offer to “Page Six” that they
decline
to run. “WHAT married show biz whiz (and former network journalist) was canoodling over cocktails with what rock-and-roll news babe the other night at the new chattering-class boite Madison Avenue?”

He thinks the owners of the bar must have phoned it in, but then decides they wouldn’t know who he was. He feels a sickening pang: was it Zip? No; please not. Maybe one of Zip’s new best friends who sat down with them … Vesto? Or one of the blowsy women accompanying Vesto? George’s eye flicks up to the top corner of the newspaper page, as he has another of his instantaneous pseudo-precognitions:
Clarise
was the overinterested woman with the insinuating smile sitting on the other side of Francesca, and there it is, Clarise Flannagan, one of the names in the
Post
’s group byline. George is relieved: Zip hasn’t betrayed him.

“You won’t believe this,” he says to Lizzie, grinning. “ ‘What married’ um,” but then he pauses, noticing on the next column over a continuation of the item. “(The man’s a serial extracurricular canoodler, since he was also spotted engaged in some semi-heavy petting with an actress half his age at a celebrity-studded Las Vegas party last month.)”

“What is it?” Lizzie says.

He reads the Donald Trump item to her.

“So?” she says.

“I wonder who the ‘liberal columnist’ is?”

“No idea.”

George used to think he isn’t prone to feelings of guilt. He used to think that guiltiness per se wouldn’t be a problem for him if he ever, say, committed adultery. But after Las Vegas and the episode with Shawna Cindy Switzer, he realized that one of the reasons he didn’t take her back to his room was his horror at the prospect of self-loathing—a kind of early warning guilt-perimeter trip wire. As a practical matter, he realizes, self-hate is probably indistinguishable from guilt itself, and in the end may be indistinguishable from morality. Now, however, he’s feeling anxiety over trespasses he didn’t really commit, certainly not with Francesca, and not even with Shawna Cindy Switzer.
Well, honey, she did fondle my arm, and shoved it between her tits, actually—in public, yes, at Ben’s BarbieWorld party, and then she did ask me to fuck her, really begged. But I declined! Why didn’t I tell you at the time? Because, because, because, because …
He shuts the
Post
.

“Hand me that,” Lizzie says from across the table, “I want to read the article about Congress outlawing Grinspoon’s research.”

George thumbs open the
Post
and, holding down the bottom of page seven with his bad hand, tears out the
CAPITOL HILL MIND-READING PANIC
article rather more carefully than he usually rips newspaper articles, and hands it over to Lizzie.

“Thanks,” she says.

Turning the ripped tabloid half-page, George sees the blind items in “Page Six” are still there.

“Georges
Cinq!
You crazy-ass gangsta man of the hour!”

“Hello, Timothy, I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Here, there, everywhere! I thought you gentlemen of the Fifth Estate were supposed to protect each other. I guess the
Post
isn’t a signatory to that deal.” He waves George ahead toward the
NARCS
offices. “After you—
tu oficina es mi oficina
.”

George goes in ahead of Featherstone, past Daisy’s replacement at the reception desk, toward his corner of the floor.

“You saw ‘Page Six,’ ” George says.

“
¡Que será!
As long as they spell your name right.”

“They didn’t. Or get the name of the show right. Good morning,” he says as they get to his office.

“Good morning, George,” Daisy says. “Hello, Mr. Featherstone.” Featherstone acknowledges Daisy’s greeting by putting his left index and middle fingers together in a kind of Boy Scout salute, then kissing the fingertips.

“Buzz is buzz, my G-man. Gross media impressions are gross media impressions. Although Hank Saddler’s a little freaked about the ‘ticking time bomb’ line.”

“Me too,” George says, tossing his briefcase on his desk and sitting down. “And gee, I wonder what president of News gave them that quote. Hmmm.”

Featherstone sits, leans back, and puts his Guccis up on the maple desktop. He’s not smiling.

“George, as a friend, level with me if we’ve got budget problems on
Real Time
. Better to lance the boil now, before it kills us.”

“How could we have budget problems? We’re still staffing up and commissioning scripts. We’re just reading actors for the roles. Everything’s fine.”

“Cool. Yeah, that’s what I told Harold. By the way, he says thanks for rubber-stamping the
NARCS
agreement, for the bonds.”

“No problem.”

Featherstone and Mose have discussed his “Page Six” humiliation. Featherstone is nodding, looking at George. George wonders if he’s here to tell him he’s fired, and to clear out of the building by noon. But Featherstone and Mose can’t fire him. He’s not an employee.

“Really,” George says, “we’re completely on track.” He pauses. “It was the
Post
.”

“Hey, I know. Been there, dumbed that.” He lowers his feet to the floor and rests his elbows on the desk.

“George?”

“Yeah?”

“The personal problems. This is totally nonjudgmental. But if it’s a sabbatical you need, or a medical leave—well, whatever we need to do. I
love
you, man. Like a brother.”

George wonders if Featherstone has a brother in addition to the one he accidentally killed crashing his Porsche.

“I’m fine.
Real Time
is fine. Everything’s fine.”

With his elbow still on the desk Featherstone puts his left hand up, as if he’s about to arm-wrestle. “Steady as she goes, bro.” As George shakes the hand, Featherstone says, “That’s
exactly
what I told Harold.”

George is not reassured by his reassurances or, fifteen minutes later, by Hank Saddler’s call. “A minor bump,” Saddler says, “totally minor, in all likelihood, I’m sure, although this does make me think I want to start keeping a mini-MPI for you, track the little press problems before they become big press problems.” Since
NARCS
is almost finished for the season, George has more time to pay attention to this new rising tide of anxiety and dread. The instant he hangs up on Saddler, Daisy says she has Jess Burnham and Emily Kalman both holding, Emily from her car.

“Hello, Ms. Burnham,” he says playfully.

“Just one moment,” a dour young man says back. Will George never learn to avoid that mistake? (A few years ago, Zip asked George to track down a piece of BBC tape on which he’d been told that a Republican congressman had used the c-word to describe Hillary Clinton on English television. When Zip called back, and George picked up the phone and said brightly, “ ‘C-U-N-T,
cunt
, absolutely,” Zip’s female assistant hung up and complained to the TVTVTV human resources department.) It’s only a tiny dose of mortification each time when he speaks to an assistant that way, but it is mortifying, not only as a stumble in the status contest, but because it requires George to repeat the cheerful greeting a second time. The Take Two
hello
is always self-conscious, a performance, fake.

“Am I speaking to the serial canoodler himself?”

What are you talking about?
will not do. Nor will stunned silence. “Hello, Ms. Burnham!” George says, repeating the line verbatim as he plays for time.

“You’re going to hire Francesca to anchor
Real Time
, aren’t you? George?”

“She’s one of the people we’re talking to.” If he doesn’t say something more, he’ll be on the defensive. “So why did your boss call
Real Time
‘a ticking time bomb’?”

“Because he doesn’t get it. And because you’re smarter than he is, and a traitor to journalism, and you’re having fun.”

“I’m not having fun today, I swear.”

“And because I told him on Friday that I want to anchor
Real Time
.”

George feels hot. Everyone wants to work for him! Except for the people who want to destroy him. Daisy ducks in, points to the phone, and mouths, “Emily,” but George puts up his index finger and turns away. He asks Jess why she wants to do this, and she says she wants to invent something new, and he proceeds to give her arguments against it—she may never be able to go back to straight news; she’ll have to move up from Washington; it would pay a lot less. She replies that Mike Wallace used to host a game show (not to mention that Ronald Reagan went from
Death Valley Days
to the presidency), she and Marie would kill to live in New York, and the money is the money.

“What about
NewsNight 2000?
” George asks.

“If your show works,” she says, “I’m betting they shit-can
NewsNight 2000
by Christmas. Maybe Labor Day. Why do you think Barry is so scared of this? Your wife killed dot-com, now he’s afraid you’re going to sink his flagship. By the way? If acting experience is an issue, I’ve never done chewing-gum commercials, but I’ve acted—I was in
The Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial
and
Inherit the Wind
for a whole summer in Ottawa.”

“Incidentally, I was discussing the show with Francesca at that bar. Period. We were not ‘canoodling.’ ”

“Yeah? What’s your definition of
canoodle?
”

“I’m serious. She went back to work, and I went home. It was absolutely professional.”

“Save the alibi, I’m teasing. I know it was nothing. You’re not her type.”

Hey, wait a second! We
were
flirting. There was definite a sexual edge! She told me I’m her hero!
“What do you mean?” he says with the hint of a chuckle, as if he’s amused.

“I don’t think Francesca canoodles with boys. Before Marie and I got together, when Marie still worked at the Pentagon, she and Francesca had a thing. Francesca Mahoney is ambitious, but even she’s not enough of a whore to pretend to have the hots for you to get a job. I don’t
think
.”

George tells Jess he’s completely shocked and excited that she’s interested, which is true. He’s also confused and anxious. Francesca would probably be better than Jess as an anchor, but Jess would probably act the non-news scenes better. Francesca is more fuckable, in the TV-Q sense, but is that what this show needs? (He thinks of the LuLu question:
Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Daddy?
) Hiring Jess, a real journalist, might win him points with the pundits, or it might piss them off even more—the infotainment Beelzebub seducing one of their own.

“Shall I try Emily again in the car?” Daisy asks.

He sighs. “Let’s wait until she’s on a land line.” George is serious (although he started using “land line” humorously last year after a couple of conversations with Mike Ovitz in which Ovitz, worried about eavesdropping, used the phrase repeatedly). Ever since the
Real Time
meetings at MBC in L.A., Emily has been a shade harsh, totally business. The morning after her man came in fourth in the Texas primary, she admitted that she was still upset about George’s “Fuck Al Gore” comment during the meeting with Featherstone, Stengel, and Burnham. The phrase she used was “deeply,
deeply
disturbed.” George simply cannot understand the arousal of deep political passion, pro or con, by Al Gore. Gore is a placebo. George W. Bush and Elizabeth Dole are placebos as well. They look real enough, and they make Democrats and Republicans feel as if they’re taking their prescribed medications. They’re nontoxic, but they contain no active ingredients. Any effects produced are entirely in people’s minds. George apologized to Emily for his anti-Gore crack, but when she grumbled something about how the vice president “
made
Lizzie’s company” and how George was giving
aid and comfort to the enemy, he reminded her that they are planning to put on a prime-time
news
show. And she has remained chilly whenever they talk about
Real Time
.

“Messages,” Daisy says. “A woman called
Rusty
phoned, she said on behalf of Barry Stengel. She sounded dodgy. She’s calling about your, quote, ‘freezing MBC News out of the liver-transplant story.’ Do you want her?”

George shuts his eyes. He’s about to tell Daisy yes, to charge straight up the hill into the enemy fire—be a man, clear the air, earn this week’s $16,575—when he stops himself.