completely frazzled, all airs of professionalism gone.
“Jane, calm down.”
“I am calm,” I said. “Now listen, it’s not a total loss, okay? No need to worry. You got your story. Great stuff from Denise. Just like it says on the script. But the girl—she’s too young. We can’t do this to her.” We had to be breaking some kind of law! “She’s just a kid.”
“What did Madeline say?” Corinne asked, unaffected by my consternation.
“It was good. I promise! Like ‘kids at school call me fat’ and ‘I sneak food.’ But she was a little hard to understand because she was crying. She won’t stop crying. And I know how much you all like crying. So maybe it’s a good thing. Anyway, she did well, considering she’s seven years old! It took an hour, but we’ve got enough. Trust me, I have enough. Just don’t make me torture the poor kid anymore, okay?”
Corinne hesitated for a second. She was thinking. She was coming around. I had her on my side. But then they entered the room.
“Meg’s here. She’s going to toss the story if we don’t get the script verbatim,” Corinne said coldly. “And if that happens, I’m out my A segment for Thursday’s show. Frankly, I don’t need the black mark on my record. Sorry. You’re not the only one on a career path here.”
“But you still have your story,” I said, “and just what you wanted—monster mom!”
“Yeah, but we need the kid, too. She talked before on the phone. She’ll talk again. Now, here’s what we’ll do: My AP Heidi is the one who did the initial interview. She has a way with Madeline. I’m sure she’ll get it out of her.”
“What—Heidi? Heidi’s doing the interview? You mean Heidi, the associate producer who’s never done a field shoot in her entire life? You’re kidding, right?”
They were actually forcing me to persist. As I hit the speaker function on my phone, I felt a stabbing sensation in my heart. A little girl was about to suffer so I could rocket to the top. Had I really chosen a promotion over Madeline’s fate?
Heidi’s voice filled the room with a cold electronic vibration, Denise having gone behind closed doors again. I sat in front of Madeline on the carpet, holding the phone in my palm in front of me.
“Remember,” Heidi began in her baby voice, “what we talked about, Madeline? I’m your buddy, right? Now remember what we said on the phone and what you told me? Okay, say that. You told me your mommy thinks you’re fat and fat people are disgusting. Can you say that?”
Madeline was again bawling. This was agony.
Between sniffles and gulps, she whispered, “My mom calls me ffff—” Sniff, sniff. “She says I’m. . . ” It was totally unusable stuff.
“That’s it. I can’t take this!” I said, abruptly hanging up and powering off the phone.
The crew looked at me as if I was crazy. I jumped up off the floor and began a soliloquy to no one in particular: “Did I mention I’m quitting? Yup, jumping ship! Nuts, huh? Just decided. I’m done. That’s it! No more. Can’t do it. I’ve already lost my soul. Now I’m just trying to salvage my earthly life. Yup. The few short years I’ve got left here on Earth.”
Many tears and a single hug later, I walked out the door with my three tapes in hand: one of Denise’s interview, one of Madeline’s interview, and one of some rather b-grade B-roll. In all, we had enough of a story for the editors to cut around. It wasn’t exactly what they’d asked for, but at this point, I didn’t care.
“Ya look a lot worse for wear,” the cab driver said on picking me up. He’d been waiting for 15 minutes.
“Yup,” I said, in no mood for conversation.
As I contemplated my future, we rattled down the road en route to the airport.
“Pardon me for saying,” he started in his artful twang, “but in all my rides, I ain’t never seen a soul torn up like yours.”
As he politely scoped me out through the rear-view mirror, I felt as if I’d undergone a complete reversal of roles. Suddenly, I was the damaged girl, like all the people I’d ever interviewed, and he was the expert, with his years of practical wisdom, driving strangers to their destinies. What will she do? Fix her life or madly continue on her career fast-track?
“Can’t live like that,” he said. “Some people do, ignore the voice, wake up a