Spooning (24 page)

It was all plausible. I crossed Broadway feeling determined. Optimistic.

The New Year had officially begun.

Sweet Cinnamon Buns with Tongue-Tickling Icing

Icing

Buns

Prepare the icing in advance, as it has to chill for 3 to 4 hours.

To make the icing, beat the cream cheese on medium-low speed for about 1 minute with an electric beater with paddle attachment. Add the butter and beat for about 2 minutes, until smooth. Add the sugar, beating on low speed until combined. Mix on medium for about 1 minute until smooth and fluffy. Chill the icing in the fridge for about 3 to 4 hours until firm.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in bowl. Stir in vegetable oil. Add buttermilk and mix
.

Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth. Roll dough out with a rolling pin into a 15 × 8-inch rectangle
.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round baking pan
.

Spread the butter over the dough. Combine the sugar and cinnamon, mixing well, and sprinkle over the buttered dough. In a jelly-roll fashion, roll up the rectangle starting from one long side. Pinch the seam to seal
.

Cut the roll into 1½-inch-thick slices and arrange the slices, cut side up, in the baking pan. Bake for about 20 minutes until lightly browned
.

Gently spread the chilled icing over the cinnamon buns while they are hot
.

Serve these sweet cinnamon buns piping hot to your favorite loved one. Save any extra icing to frost your mate with this tongue- tickling delight (wink, wink)
!

I
don't care!” She shrieked from inside her office. “This is absolutely atrocious and whoever picked out these hideous red roses does not, I repeat, does not belong on my staff. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Jane. You are so right, Jane,” Donna,
Sunshine & Sensibility's
neurotic executive producer, replied softly, attempting to quell Jane's tirade. Her head was nodding like one of those dashboard bobbles.

“Don't nod!” Jane snapped. “If you agree, then this should never have happened. Why do I always have to do things myself?!” She sighed with the dramatic flair of a community theater actress.

“This will never happen again, Jane. I promise,” Donna swore.

Donna Murphy was in theory the most powerful person next to Jane. Yet time and time again, Jane made sure to emphasize Who (with a capital
w
) was truly and solely in charge. Case in point: Donna had just been reduced to the role of a six-year-old being scolded. The Diva was in full-on diva form and everyone in the office knew to either duck behind the partitions when she passed or stay hidden in the shadow of the now-damned roses.

“Roses are unoriginal, Donna!” She ranted on. “They are cliché. They are stale, boring, and insipid. So basic, so bland. Katie loves roses, Kelly loves roses; actually, no, Kelly probably loves daisies. For Christ's sake, you should have known this. Roses are trite. Red roses are thoroughly uninspiring. Most of all, they're pedestrian.” Pedestrian? Who used the word “pedestrian” when referring to anything other than a person on foot?

“So, what are you doing right now?” Jane demanded.

“Um, I'm sorry,” Donna stammered, looking confused. “What am I doing? Whatever it is, I can change it.”

“Donna, what you are doing is wasting my time and you of all people know that I don't tolerate this type of behavior. So get out of my office and fix this. Do you hear me?” And with that, Jane slammed the door behind Donna's shaking behind.

The entire office had heard the big bitch fest go down and you could just feel the black cloud hovering over the rows of cubicles. I swore I'd heard a clap of thunder erupt and the Wicked Witch of the West laughing from inside her lair. As I peeked over the edge of my cubicle, not a soul was to be found. No one was hovering near the staff lunchroom searching for an errant triple caramel fudge brownie, no one was giggling over wedding Web sites, no one was rearranging the dishes in
the studio on Set A. Everyone had assumed his/her high-alert status—hide and hide good.

Jane's tongue-lashings typically occurred once or twice a week. You would think one would feel sorry for Donna, but she had taken this abuse for three years, and we all figured she had enough zeroes in her salary to compensate for the verbal abuse. To make matters worse, Donna herself would morph from meek to maniacal about five minutes after the initial rant ended: Jane yells at Donna, Donna apologizes, Jane slams the door, Donna turns on someone else. It was pretty much status quo. Compared to the other girls and their jobs, my office dynamics were the most abnormal. Some would call them unbearable and downright cruel, but I kept reminding myself that this was a job hundreds of thousands of people my age would die for. The HR lady hadn't been kidding when she'd warned me it was going to be tough. And the unwritten understanding was that if you didn't like it, you could leave. However, there was a silver lining to Jane's sweatshop: Apparently, if you made it here, you could make it anywhere in the television biz. Rumor had it that Jane was notorious for molding the careers of some of the greatest television minds around. Oprah, Jay, Kelly, Dave, Katie, even Ellen's shows were filled with Jane survivors. And with the typical employee's tenure being about a year to a year and a half, I figured at the rate I was going, I'd be able to move up the ranks pretty quickly.

Things quieted down after the fight, but I could still hear feet scurrying around the office at a more frantic pace than usual. True, we were often in panic mode, but today it seemed a little different. I glanced at the “official” calendar that was given out at the beginning of each month that listed all the shoots and edits and the days they were scheduled. In bold letters
under tomorrow's date it read “Red Says I Love You.” It had been a last-minute change, but everything around here was last minute. It was television, after all. The viewer at home would never know the difference, but the programming board was always getting shuffled around like a deck of playing cards. I just kept thanking God I hadn't planned the segment Jane was bitching about.

“Did you hear that?” Julie said as she came out of her office.

“Who didn't?” I said. “God, I feel sorry for the person who's going to suffer the wrath of Donna over that one.”

“Yeah, to be on Jane's or Donna's shit list is not good, especially the day before a taping day,” she said.

“Totally. Even I know that Jane hates red and I haven't even been here that long. She made me return the red bathrobe I ordered for the bathroom remodel shoot. Now at least we all know that she hates roses too, because they are just so ‘pedestrian.’ Have you ever heard anyone use that word in that manner?”

“Nope. Just another diva-ism.” Julie shrugged.

“Well, back to work on my expensive treehouses. Did you know that we're showcasing none other than singer extraordinaire Willie Nelson's two-story pine tree monstrosity?” I asked.

“And Jane is going to climb trees?”

“No, Jungle Jane has a fear of heights,” I reassured her.

“You'd think she'd like to climb higher toward her divine throne.”

“She never does heights. She won't even climb a stepladder to put plates in plate racks high on the set wall. So, we're going to replicate the treehouses on the ground.”

“You're kidding!”

“Nope. The art department has drawn up blueprints, and
the wood experts have arranged for specially treated cedar to be flown in from India by next Friday. And Nancy in postproduction is creating some sort of digitally imaged film for the house's windows to replicate the trees we need to have simulated outside. I'm supposed to be researching the shape and shade of poplar leaves.”

“Oh goodie!” Julie clapped.

J
ane strove to be the first to show or do anything on
Sunshine & Sensibility
. Her motto was “Create and cultivate.” We (the royal we) were supposed to come up with the “Wow items” that would pique her creative interest during our Wednesday brainstorming meetings. It was a pretty tough feat to accomplish, but if you were successful, there would be no stopping you. I knew that in the end my treehouse segment would not just showcase Willie Nelson's humble abode. No, Jane would find some way to improve upon it. So I'd gotten a jump start on her and come up with a list of “out of the box” ideas. So far I had:

Humble Projects

• grow organic vegetables in the treehouse's window boxes
  

• affix retractable eyelet curtains to skylights
  

Grand Projects

• add a wraparound sun porch
  

• install an elevator powered by solar energy