Sad Desk Salad (19 page)

But now is not the time to indulge myself in feelings about my relationship. I need to be in Terminator mode.

The shower refuses to heat up; the water doesn’t even reach its normal tepid heights. No matter. I hop in, lather up my shampoo without even minding the downright cold temperature, and clean my face with the fancy face-scrub I use for special occasions. I hop back out approximately three minutes later and rummage around in my closet until I locate the one dress that fits Moira’s qualifications: a cerulean wrap dress from Forever 21 that is miraculously clean. I throw on the dress with a pair of pointy-toed sling-backs that I only ever wear for job interviews.

I hear the sound of a car pulling up to the curb and I glance at the clock. It’s 6:28. I go outside, my hair still dripping, to find a gleaming black Town Car sitting next to a bunch of trash out for garbage collection. I pick my way around an old air conditioner and get in.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” the driver says back to me. He’s wearing a pressed black suit and bears a striking resemblance to Steve Buscemi. Since I’ve made it to the car on time, I relax into the backseat, which is when my head starts pounding with caffeine withdrawal.

“Can you pull up here?” I ask him when I see a bodega.

“Sure.”

“I’m just going to get some coffee, do you want some?”

“That would be really nice, thanks,” he says.

“I’m Alex,” I tell him, extending my hand.

“Tim,” he says, shaking it firmly.

I walk in and am momentarily soothed by the quiet hum of the morning show. They announce the weather (it’s going to be a hot one today!) and then segue into playing some bouncy Taylor Swift song. I pour two large coffees, one for myself and one for the driver, and liberally dump milk and sugar into both.

I get back into the car and hand Tim his coffee. As the caffeine starts to hit my system I am struck by an inescapable sadness. I’m living my dream—how many mornings while watching the
Today
show have I fantasized about gabbing with Kathie Lee?—and yet no one knows: Peter’s barely speaking to me; I haven’t talked to my mom since Monday; and Jane has no idea I’m about to be on TV.

I look down at my phone to push off the gloom and see that our daily traffic report from yesterday has come in. The Rebecca West post has two million page views, making it the most popular post in Chick Habit history by a multiple of three. I tell myself that this video is officially real news and that the
Today
show would run a segment on it whether or not I agreed to participate. I tell myself that if I didn’t publish the video, Molly sure would have, so what’s the harm? I’m just doing my job—and doing it well.

Traffic is moving briskly this early in the morning, and at the base of Manhattan Tim tries to make some light conversation. “So what are you going on the show for?” he asks, craning his neck back to look at me at a stop light on the West Side Highway.

I consider making up something more respectable, for instance: “I run a booming macaron bakery called Bakerista and am going on to do a cooking demonstration with Al Roker.” But instead, I go with some version of the truth. “I write for a website and yesterday I posted a piece with a video of a pseudo-famous person doing drugs and taking her shirt off.”

Tim’s eager, wizened face scrunches up. “Oh,” he says, then turns back around. He’s pretty quiet for the rest of the trip to midtown, but as we pull up to the studio, with its enormous wraparound window replete with tourists standing behind the barricades outside, he wishes me good luck with a genuine smile.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t better company this morning,” I say.

“You’ll be great!” he says, and for a second I believe him.

It’s 6:50
A.M
. when I check in with a security guard and am promptly ushered into a dingy, windowless room where a motherly woman named Barb immediately comes at me with a tincture of foundation in her meaty hand. She tells me, almost under her breath, “Christ, hon, it’s going to take our industrial-strength concealer to fix that mess under your eyes.”

I’m strangely grateful for her honesty and smile up at her as she dabs something thick on my sleepless circles. “Thanks. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“It shows. But don’t you worry, we’ll fix you right up.”

I close my eyes, relaxing into the feeling of Barb’s fingers on my face. A few minutes later a hairstylist who doesn’t introduce herself gets to work on my still-damp, stringy hair.

With a genuine hair-and-makeup team working to cover my bad decisions of the last few nights, I start to get genuinely excited about this appearance. Tyson Collins—or executive X from Omnitown—might see the spot and realize how indispensable I am. Rebecca West’s feelings aren’t
really
my problem, are they? It’s not my fault that her family is so fame-whorey.

I’m almost fully relaxed when the whine of the hair dryer goes silent and Barb snaps me out of my calm with a cheery, “Okay, hon, you’re all set!” I open my eyes and barely recognize the reflection in the mirror. I certainly look less tired, but I don’t quite look like myself, either: It’s like I’m wearing the Kabuki mask of a third-tier starlet. At least those under-eye bags have disappeared.

I’m shuttled off to wait in the greenroom, a similarly shabby little place with threadbare furniture and an anemic-looking fruit basket. I’m momentarily let down: I thought the digs would be swankier than this, and the snacks more delicious. But I don’t have time to consider this because I’m immediately met by a harried producer, Tammy, who is wearing a headset and a determined look in her green eyes. “Okay, so you’re the one who posted the Becky West coke tape, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.” I try to sound as confident as possible. I’ve watched enough morning TV to know that showing self-doubt is televisual death.

“Savannah’s going to be interviewing you. Usually I have more time to prep our guests but our producer couldn’t reach you last night.” Tammy’s voice is accusing and I start to get anxious.

“Sorry. I had turned my phone off.”

“Too late now. I’ve written down some topics on these.” Tammy hands me a stack of multicolored index cards. “I can’t guarantee where Savannah’s going to go with this one, but you’ll at least have some idea about what we’re going to discuss.”

“Thanks,” I say, trying to sound calm. But the makeup chair relaxation has worn off. A flubbed appearance on national television could make me my own video meme—if I say something embarrassing or indefensible it could whip around the Internet all day. Maybe not with the velocity of an angelic blonde doing blow and taking off her top, but still.

“We weren’t able to locate Becky West,” Tammy adds. “We asked her to come on the show, but she didn’t respond to any of our inquiries.”

“Huh,” I say. That seems odd. Why wouldn’t she want to set the story straight? Wouldn’t Darleen at least want to reprise her role as aggrieved party on the
Today
show couch?

Before I can ask Tammy any of these questions, she’s hustled off down a dim corridor. I shuffle through the cards, and this interview seems soft enough: Savannah wants to talk about the habits of college girls today, privacy online, and Darleen West’s divisiveness, in particular the Chick Habit campaign against her. I am just beginning to fully process these lines of conversation when Tammy bursts back into the greenroom. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be!” I say brightly. As an avid student of the
Today
show I know that perkiness can cover a multitude of sins.

I follow Tammy’s hunched shoulders down a labyrinthine hallway and out onto the
Today
show set. Unlike the lumpy back rooms, the actual set is crisp and bright, and the sun is streaming in on this perfect July day. As I walk past the big window onto Rockefeller Plaza, I look out at the beaming faces in the crowd. One squat woman is holding up a sign that says
HAPPY 40TH ANNIVERSARY, MORTY!
and I am briefly but sincerely touched. I wonder if this studio is so steeped in earnestness that it is rubbing off on me, like some sort of anti-snark solution.

Tammy brings me to a low, comfortably plush beige couch. There’s a matching beige chair next to me, and I know that is where Savannah will sit. But when Tammy returns it’s not with attractive Savannah but with a woman I don’t recognize. She’s wearing a boxy bright red suit and sensible, two-inch black heels. Her dyed auburn hair is higher than her heels and appears to have about a can of hairspray locked into it.

“Howdy,” the stranger says. “I’m Internet safety expert Joellen Maxwell.”

I’ve never heard someone introduce herself by citing her expertise before. I spit out, “Hi. I’m Chick Habit associate editor Alex Lyons.”

“Oh, I know who you are, sugar. They briefed me on you last night.”

Damn it. I really should have been answering my phone. “I didn’t know someone else was going to be on with me,” I say, trying to hide my surprise. “It will be nice to have a discussion partner!”

“It sure will!” Joellen affirms this as she settles to the right of me on the couch, neatly crossing her hose-covered legs.

Before I can ask my pert partner some leading questions to figure out how exactly she’ll stand in what I assume is opposition to me, Savannah Guthrie appears on set and walks determinedly toward the cushy chair next to me.

Whenever people meet celebrities in real life, their first comment is usually, “They’re so much smaller in person!” This holds true for Savannah, who is impossibly petite and put-together. She’s wearing a magenta sleeveless shell and a slim-fitting light gray pencil skirt. Her glossy shoulder-length hair shines in the studio lights as she gracefully sits down and angles herself toward us. I’m just able to register that someone is saying, “And we’re live in five, four, three, two . . . ,” and then Savannah is speaking.

“It’s seven thirty, and we’re starting this half hour with the story of a celebrity child exposed. Rebecca West is the successful daughter of ‘Genius Mom’ Darleen West. A video of Becky partaking in an illicit substance has become an Internet sensation since it was posted yesterday at one. For more on this story, we go to NBC’s Jeff Rossen in the Wests’ hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.”

A producer says, “And we’re out.” Instead of talking to either me or Joellen, Savannah reads her notes intently. Behind Savannah’s head I can see a TV rolling footage of Rossen—
Today
’s investigative reporter—framing the Becky West story for the audience: “Just two days ago, America thought of Becky West as a model daughter. She made the dean’s list at MIT three semesters in a row and has a promising future as a robotics engineer. Becky is one of four quadruplet daughters of parenting expert and Nebraska state senate candidate Darleen West, whose highly controversial bestseller,
How to Raise a Genius,
Times Four
, encourages parents to be tougher on their children. Becky has only ever had praise for her mother’s methods.”

I hear the show cut to the clip of Becky on the
Today
show a few years back, telling Ann Curry, “I don’t regret a thing,” and then Jeff Rossen is back.

“But a shocking video published yesterday by the gossip website Chick Habit shows that even the most accomplished young women can have serious problems.” I hear the sound of Becky West snorting those lines reverberate throughout the studio and am mildly annoyed at Rossen’s characterization of Chick Habit as a mere “gossip website.” Aren’t we a bit more than that?

“The publication of this video has started a national debate about the blurred line between public and private behavior. The West family would not respond to our interview requests, so we asked people in Omaha, where the Wests are local celebrities and Darleen is running for state senate, what they think of Becky’s alleged drug use.”

I take my eyes off the TV for a second and notice Savannah’s still looking studiously at her notes, rubbing her left temple occasionally as if she is massaging the information into her brain. Joellen is sitting perfectly still, her smile undimmed even off-camera. I turn back to the screen, where Rossen is now holding the camera in front of a teenage girl inside what appears to be an upscale Omaha mall. “Whatever Becky West wants to do in her, like, free time, that’s her business,” the girl says with an appropriately adolescent sneer. “It’s not, like, anyone else’s place to judge.”

The camera cuts to a matron in her fifties with a bad perm and an expensive-looking tennis bracelet. “It just makes me so nervous for my kids,” she says. “They could make one dumb mistake and it could follow them for the rest of their lives. This girl needs private help, not publicity.”

Finally, a man in his midtwenties with an air of skeeziness about him, whose skinny, unshaven neck is sticking out from an oversized T-shirt, says, “That Becky girl should know better than to let someone tape her. You gotta be a moron in this day and age to think that anything that goes on tape is going to be private forever.”

“Is this young man correct? Does a person’s expectation of privacy disappear the second someone hits record? For NBC, I’m Jeff Rossen.”

Like one of Becky’s robots, Savannah immediately snaps her head up to the camera with a sanguine expression. “Joellen Mitchell is an Internet safety expert, and Alex Lyons is an associate editor at Chick Habit. Welcome to you both. Alex, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your decision to post this video of Becky West. Were you worried about violating her privacy?”

I wonder if the beads of sweat collecting in my armpits are bleeding through my $19 dress. I know that silence is deadly on these shows so I just open my mouth and let the words fall out.

“Darleen West has positioned her daughters as, ummmm, aspirational figures, and in doing so has turned them into public figures. The video of Becky had clear news value
because
Darleen has used her daughters in the pursuit of her own controversial platform. I don’t think that we violated Becky’s privacy by publishing this. This is information the public has a right to know about.” I don’t think I sounded like a total moron, so I finish my sentence with a cryptic half smile. Savannah’s expression doesn’t change, so I can’t tell if she thinks I’m full of it.