Star Time (52 page)

"That reminds me, there's some legislation I want to talk to him about."

Chris frowned. "Doesn't it strike you as just the littlest bit, say, low and exploitive—even a touch despicable—that you're lobbying the same man whose wife you're sleeping with?" She took a while to add, "I wish you hadn't invited us tonight."

"Not guilty, judge, to that particular idea."

"I'll watch Diane looking happy beside you and feel rotten for her sake and worse for my own."

Greg had no reply and struck out in a different direction. "I hate to add to that rotten feeling, but . . . The Putin and Sarkozy interviews were great and drew higher ratings for
Confidentially Speaking
. But those don't come along every week. We've got to do more celebrity interviews, lighter stuff, to keep pulling the numbers."

"Oh, no, I can tell what's coming. `The first interview direct from Kim
Kardashian’s
bedroom.'"

"Would probably outdraw the Super Bowl."

Chris looked up to gaze intently at him. "Greg, is there some evil fairy godmother who waves her wand and turns everything good to garbage?"

He kissed her. "Not this."

Her lips hung on his.

"You," he said softly, "are the only thing that keeps me sane."

Ken was a step behind Chris walking into their bedroom after the dinner party. Her slim body that always moved with an easy economy walked more stiffly along the hall with each step.

He thought he had been in good form tonight. Told a couple of humorous stories and hit it off well with several excellent prospects for campaign contributions. He was pleased that each of the
Lyalls
sought him out privately to raise matters on which they hoped to gain support. He knew Chris did not like these parties much, but she was usually a good sport about extending herself. Tonight, however, she had hardly spoken, had barely kept up her end of the conversations.

Taking her elbow as she stopped to turn on the bedroom lights, he moved in front of her.

"Chris, something's bothering you." Instantly, her look warned him he had made a mistake broaching it, but the words could not be retrieved. "What is it? Is there something troubling you?"

Her head felt as if it was barely containing a slow-motion explosion his questions had ignited. For weeks she had resolutely tried to live the
double life of wife to one man, lover to another, and had been tortured every moment.

"I want a divorce," she said.

"Oh, Lord!"

"You once said that if it wasn't right, I could end it, I could leave."

"Just like that!"

"I thought it could work. It hasn't."

"For two years it worked. You were happy. I know you were happy."

"Maybe I was fooling myself. I don't know. But things have changed for me, and I have to get out. Pretending to be happily married is a lie I can't live anymore."

“Is it the new job? No time for the marriage?”

She half-nodded, hoping he might take that as acquiescence.

But then he asked, "Is there someone else?"

"It's just over, Ken."

Even if Greg were no longer a factor in her life, she realized, she would end the marriage. Once passion fled, it could never return. Only respect for Ken was left—and sympathy.

"I want a divorce," she repeated.

Ken exploded. "Without a thought for what I'm facing? You picked a great time. The toughest election of my life coming up in November, and you just consider yourself. Do you think voters will stick with me if they see my wife didn't?"

"Oh, God, I forgot all about your campaign."

"My concerns are obviously
have
no place on your To Do list, but getting reelected happens to be damned important to me. If you ever loved me at all, if you have any regard left for me—"

"You know I do."

"Then you'll keep this whole thing just between us until after the election."

All Chris wanted was for the complications to end, but they entangled her. She could not extricate herself without hurting Ken.

She nodded.
"All right.
After the election.
Until then I'll move into the guest room." This was the first time either of them had called it that; with its desk and book-lined wall, it had always been known as the library.

"And you'll campaign with me."

"Yes. I still believe in you."

"I thought I might have to commission a last-minute poll to see whether your support had switched on that, too."

"Please, Ken, don't make it worse."

"I want it to be worse. I want it to be tough as hell for you. One minute you love me, the next you don't. I don't understand it. Maybe, like
you said, it's the pressure of the new job. Well, I don't fall in and out of love that easily. I love you, and I think down deep you still love me."

As Chris lay under the covers on the convertible sofa, for the first time since Greg's departure a decade earlier she cried herself to sleep. Even when Greg brought her happiness, it still came wrapped in sorrow.

Mickey Blinder was in his bedroom packing for his flight to New York. During these next three days in May, FBS would choose its fall schedule, the last of the networks to do so. Out of the dozen pilots it had financed, maybe half would make it onto the schedule either in the fall or midseason, many more than for the other networks’ more successful rosters. A few additional shows might get the nod to shoot some episodes as standby replacements for later in the year. The other pilots, in which so much time, money, and hope had been invested, would be scrapped or burn its episodes over the summer when viewership was scantiest. Mickey's projects at ABC, HBO, and FX had struck out. His last hope was FBS. He and other studio executives and producers wanted to be within walking distance of FBS’s office building just in case their show was on the cusp and salesmanship could save it.

"Does the concept have legs?" one network executive might ask, meaning,
Is
it capable of generating a new plot every week? You could pull out your batch of twenty more plot outlines and maybe entire arcs for Seasons Two and Three and start selling. "Is the country really ready for that kind of show? Our testing wasn't sure." You’d have your studio’s own research ready to counteract negative results.

But most of all, Mickey and the producers of his two shows and all the other producers and studio executives were flying to New York because it was easier to wait for the word there than three thousand miles away with the hundreds of actors; writers; directors; producers; co-producers; associate producers; and production-company executives whose future depended on the network's decision.

The phone rang. A producer friend wanted to let Mickey know that he had run into one of FBS's programmers at the L.A. airport.

"He mentioned that
The Neighborhood
, one of
Monumental’s
shows, had tested great."

"Really, he said that?" Mickey was buoyed by the news.

"He even said a couple of people there thought it was the best thing of its type since
The Wire
."

"Hey, that's great. Thanks. I appreciate it.
Anything about my other show,
Scum
?"

"No."

"But thanks, that's really something. Keep me posted if you hear any more."

Mickey's wife came in with the extra shirts she had asked the maid to iron for him. She looked as anxious as he did.

"Hey, not to worry," he told her. "I’ve struck out so many times the law of averages is on my side."

That did not seem to reassure her. He locked his suitcase and carried it out to the car. He felt like a dying man on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in search of a miracle.

The captain's voice interrupted the quiet murmur in first class. "On our left side you can see the city of Denver. We should be reaching New York in . . ."

Marian's and her top lieutenants' hand luggage was stuffed with DVDs of the pilot episodes they were bringing to New York. She had asked for some re-editing on a couple to speed up the pacing, and that had been done.
Tinsel Town
, which had never quite worked had been left in L.A. She still liked the idea, but it needed a few more interesting characters and cleverer dialogue. On the whole, though, she was pleased: The other shows seemed strong, several maybe even possessed the kind of breakout potential FBS desperately needed. But at that moment she remembered the old industry adage: Everything turns to shit over Denver.

Her mood plummeted. She even flashed a glance out the window to make sure the plane was still level.

Derek had dropped her off at the airport and would be back home by now, she assumed, getting the bedroom ready for repainting. She had moved her clothes out of one closet, so he could have it for his clothing. She had asked him to surprise her with a new wall color. He might even be applying it now. Marian had purposely not hired a painter so Derek would have something purposeful to do for the next couple of days. He claimed to have an audition coming up for a little theater thing, but she suspected it was said solely to maintain his pride. He seemed to have given up hope. She wished very much he could be happy with things just the way they were.

After UCLA, Derek had knocked around the country awhile. A role in an amateur theater production in St. Louis, where he was working as a construction laborer, so excited him that he returned to Los Angeles to pursue the acting career he had fooled around with as an undergraduate. That was three years ago, and except for some modeling jobs, he had little to show for all that time. Until he met Marian, he had lived from day to day, growing less and less sure that his big break would come.

Anxious not to be considered a fortune hunter, he told none of his friends about his relationship with Marian and kept it from his agent. Guilt about always taking from her and giving nothing back weighed
increasingly heavily on him. She was such a success, and he such a failure. He told her loved her for her intelligence, her strength and verve, her warmth and humor, and her love for him; and confessed that he felt inadequate and sometimes even awestruck in her presence.

Marian did not believe a word. She knew infallibly in her heart that what had attracted him was how much she could help his career.

"The Terminator's deep in thought," a friendly voice said, cutting off Marian's brooding.

Three nervous studio executives were looking down at her. Any one of them might have said it.

By the third day the FBS executives involved in the selection process had been pared down to Greg; Marian;
Ev
Carver and his
v.p.
of Sales, Ben Woodruff; Jimmy Minh in Research; and several of Marian's senior programmers. But the final decision-making rested with Marian and, ultimately, Greg.

The proposed schedule appeared on monitors sitting before each of them. Under discussion was the lineup for Wednesday night. A white rectangle representing a new show would go up on the schedule only to be pulled back down a few minutes later when a different possibility occurred to someone. Occasionally, a red card representing a current show would come down only to be reborn a few minutes later. Because FBS was later than the others in establishing its fall lineup, it did not have to rely on the intelligence gleaned from agents, producers, and ad-agency people close to the enemy camps to know what the competition's schedules would be.

"There's no sense in going with
Bottom Gun
unless we have an eight-o'clock slot," one of the programmers pointed out. "We need the kids and their parents because no adult with an IQ above room temperature will watch this one alone."

Everyone agreed that it was wrong for Wednesday, either at eight or eight-thirty. They moved it to Monday. Benny Blakely lasted twenty-three minutes at eight o'clock Wednesday before someone reminded the others how well Gus Krieger's show,
Miss Grimsby's College for Pious Young Ladies
, had tested with young adult demographic. But "Miss Grimsby" had no strong lead-in to establish it. It went back to the “maybe” group.

Adam and Eve
was
up and down several times.
Castaways
beat it out for Thursday at ten o'clock. The only other night on the schedule that seemed to provide a compatible audience flow pitted it against another network's action drama that attracted the same demographics and was considered too strong to unseat. That show, too, was held out for the moment.

Scum
was a show everyone finally admitted they liked, and to Hell with the characters’ weirdness. But would Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Viewer accept it? Ted Woodruff, the Sales
v.p
.
, asked Jimmy whether the actor playing the professor had tested well. He had.

Pushing for the show, Marian said, "I think it will build once younger viewers become familiar enough with the characters to like them. They're quirky, but very strong."