“Sure!” Olivia felt the word perhaps came out sounding a little too puppy-dog-like, so she softened her tone a bit. “Yes, how can I help?”
“Are you going back inside? Can you give something to Tom? You know him, right? The anchor with the silver hair?”
“Of course.”
Faith set her purse, makeup mirror, and teddy bear on the hood of Olivia’s car and reached into her giant bag, pulling something out. It was a piece of paper, folded over many times into a small square as if very deliberately done. For a moment, it reminded Olivia of the origami she and her mom used to enjoy doing together, before Evelyn went to Europe and now was saying she wasn’t sure when she was going to come back. A mom pang passed through Olivia’s stomach, but she suppressed it.
“Here,” said Faith, handing the tiny paper to Olivia. “Just tell him it’s from me. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Olivia placed the little square in her pocket and put her cardigan on as Faith was walking toward her car. Olivia noted Faith’s walk. It was so delicate, like a ballerina’s, like she was floating on air. Olivia wished she walked like that, but she felt she had been born heavy-footed.
Faith stopped, turned her head, and called out, “Hey, Olivia, good luck at Channel 9.”
“Thank you,” Olivia replied. “Have a nice dinner break.”
“I will,” said Faith breezily.
Faith seemed kindhearted, and Olivia considered herself a good judge of character. She had noticed, for instance, that Tom was gregarious and pleasant to all of the interns. Veronica was a little more standoffish but would warm up if you complimented her in any way. Roger, the sports guy, seemed sincere but a little like a buffoon. Laura, the executive producer, always had bags under her eyes—someone said she had a baby at home and her husband was gone a lot—and Matthew, the weekend weather guy, had an edge to him, like a chip on his shoulder. It was hardto believe any of them had ever been young interns like her, though. They were all so adult and confident in their place in society and in the newsroom.
One thing had shocked Olivia in her short time at Channel 9. She heard producers and others complain about Faith. Maybe they were all just jealous of Faith, Olivia decided, because she was beautiful and popular.
Olivia used her key card to get back in through the employee entrance. Having a key card to the station still felt thrilling. She was a part of the team and it was amazing. This was definitely the career she wanted. She still wasn’t sure if on-camera or behind-the-scenes was the route for her, but she would figure that out.
On the way back to the newsroom was a women’s restroom, and Olivia stopped to use the facilities. She was just washing her hands and looking at herself in the mirror when the thought of the little square in her pocket came into her head. She would walk down to the newsroom, find Tom, hand it to him, and tell him it was from Faith. Then she would look for Laura and see what she could help with tonight. Maybe they would let her write a short script that might make it to air. How amazing would it be to have an anchor read her words on TV!
One thing that had really surprised Olivia was that anchors did not write all of their own stuff; in fact, they wrote next to none of it. Executive producers, producers, and associate producers did the writing, with reporters writing their own stories and the anchor intros that went with them. Anchors took long dinner breaks, then came back and looked over the show, making some small tweaks but not researching or writing much of anything at all.
TV was a giant production, a dance of many people almostlike a Broadway play. You had your boatload of behind-the-scenes people all working to make the people onstage look and perform their best. It was a fascinating first week of the internship to see how it all came together.
Olivia started drying her hands with the hand dryer (a sign on the wall touted Channel 9’s no-paper-towels environmentalism) but resorted to wiping them on her slacks when she couldn’t get them fully dry. Was there a hand dryer anywhere in the world that fully got your hands dry, she wondered, as she looked at herself in the mirror. Olivia had been unsure how dressy to be for this internship and had opted for dressy, so she had on nice black pants with her blouse, but most everyone else had worn jeans on what she now knew was “casual Friday,” and she had already decided she would do the same next week.
She was just about to leave the restroom when a thought came to her out of nowhere, so fast it was like an electric current.
That little square of paper in her pocket. What did it say? How did anchors talk to each other? What would Faith have to share with Tom? The square wasn’t in an envelope, Olivia could easily open it and fold it back up and no one would be the wiser.
It might be fun to take a peek, right? The side of Olivia that her mom called “wicked” started to come out. Olivia liked to play little jokes and be sly. April Fool’s Day had always been one of her favorites, and she loved testing out pranks on her family. Around Christmas they would do the “Elf on a Shelf” tradition where a small elf the size of a Barbie doll moved around to do impish things every night. When Olivia was old enough, she took command and would put the elf in ridiculous scenes every night, making her parents laugh in the morning. The elf hung from the ceiling fan, hid in the toaster oven, was found passed out next to a plate of milk and cookies, even showed up in bednext to her mom and dad once (Olivia had to stay up late for that one).
These types of things gave her a rush of adrenaline and were perfectly harmless, so why not peek at the paper burning a hole in her pocket? She glanced around the bathroom nervously even though it was completely empty. Quickly, before she could lose her nerve, she stepped into a stall and pulled the paper out, unfolding it rapidly. Her eyes scanned it over.
“Weird,” she whispered aloud.
It just had a list of names on it, that was all.
Matthew (met) and Tara
Laura (executive producer) and Elliott
Steve the stalker (see PC drawer)
Kelly (college roommate) and Joel
She recognized two of the names: Matthew and Laura, the meteorologist and the executive producer, respectively. She had overheard Matthew talking about Tara and things they did together, so she assumed that was his girlfriend or fiancée. The others she didn’t have a clue.
Completely unsure what this meant, she folded it back exactly as it had been, took a breath, and stepped out of the stall, scolding herself for even looking. Clearly she had now violated an intern code of ethics. Someone asks you to do something and you betray them? What kind of a person was Olivia? She lashed herself mentally as she walked back to the newsroom.
Tom was at his desk talking to his Apple Watch on a phone call. She waited a good distance away until he was done and she saw him grabbing his car keys for dinner break, then she walked quickly to intercept him.
