Love at 11 - By Mari Mancusi Page 0,5
was cute. Long eyelashes, high cheekbones, a full mouth that was perfectly kissable. Just a hint of five o’clock shadow scruffiness to keep him from looking too pretty.
He glanced over at me and I felt my face heat with embarrassment. Did he know I was checking him out? He gave a brief smile, then made a gun out of his forefinger and thumb and mimed shooting himself in the head. Whoever was on the other line, he didn’t want to talk to. Maybe it was his mother. Or maybe it was his psycho ex-girlfriend. Or …
“Yes, dear. I know our wedding’s in three months. That’s plenty of time,” he said, blowing out a deep sigh of frustration.
Or, dammit, maybe it was his fiancée.
Chapter Two
FROM: “Laura Smith”
TO: “Madeline Madison”
SUBJECT: re: story idea
Maddy,
Thanks for your story idea on pharmaceutical companies fixing prices to drain Medicare and make more money. It’s great that an ex—employee sent you all the documentations on this scandal.
However, seeing as this story would only affect under-insured old people on a lot of drugs (so not our demo!) I would prefer you work on the following. Gather ten purses from around the newsroom and have them tested for E-Coli and Staph bacteria and other such grossness. We’ll call it “Handbag Horror.” Perfect for that 24-55—year-old woman viewer we’re targeting, don’t you think?
Thanks!
Laura
Executive Producer
News 9 —San Diego
P.S. In order to avoid a repeat of “Icky Ice”—which unfortunately tested pure as the driven snow and had to be canceled as a sweeps story—please take each purse into the bathroom and drag it across a toilet seat a few times before testing. This should ensure we don’t waste a ton of money again at the testing labs for a story that doesn’t pan out.
The sun had set moments before, painting the Tijuana sky with a rosy glow. Jodi and I sat in our plastic outdoor chairs at the little Mexican café, soaking up the colorful atmosphere and our even more colorful margaritas. Coming down to TJ, just across the border, was one of our favorite after-work activities. We stayed away from the noisy, tourist-packed Avenida Revolucion, however, in favor of a smaller, quieter market square just before the canal bridge.
Of course, “quieter” was a relative term in Tijuana. The square still boasted loud ‘80’s music, blasting from the karaoke bar next door and little Mexican children still pulled at our sleeves, wondering if we’d like some Chiclets. The first time I came here, I thought they meant those pink-colored books about girls in the city. But no, they were talking about gum.
Still, there was something serene about sitting back and watching the shopkeepers harass tourists into buying their cheesy wares. Or spying on the druggies browsing the plethora of pharmacies for their Percocets and Valiums. (And the shy, old, balding men who slunk in and whispered their Viagra orders to a Mexican pharmacist who didn’t give two cajones about whether or not they could get it up.) Okay, so it was a bit sketchy. But also a much cheaper night out than hitting any of the San Diego bars. There, even the dive places charged like ten bucks a margarita.
We’d started coming here about a year ago, after Jodi produced the “Tijuana Tacos” story. That was one of the few occasions we could name names on News 9, basically because they had absolutely no chance of becoming potential advertisers. So we bankrupted ten taco stands by getting a food inspector to test the temperature at which they kept their meat. A proud day, even though it turned out in the end that the so-called food inspector Laura dug up wasn’t even licensed to test food and most likely made up all the results. But hey, the story looked good and got killer ratings—all that mattered to the News 9 Gestapo.
Anyway, when working on the story, Jodi came across the most amazing find. Fake purses! You name it, this Mexican shop had it. Prada, Gucci, Fendi, Kate Spade. All 100 percent counterfeit and all 100 percent cheap. So of course she’d wanted to return when she had more time to shop and brought me with her. At first I was a little skeeved out by all the poverty and dirt and puking eighteen-year-old drunk San Diegan kids, but once I saw the purses and the price of margaritas, I realized TJ could very well be the Promised Land.
“So, what’s up with the photog?” Jodi asked, paying the waiter for our third