Chapter 1
Here’s what the TV producers ofMorning, Sunshine!want you to know about their three co-hosts:
Joy Marriot is a grandmotherly TV veteran of fifty-seven years.
Lynny Stewart is her hooting sidekick.
Melanie (me) is the new kid on the block. The timid voice of reason to Joy’sopinionsand Lynny’s nonstop shrieking.
Here’s what theydon’twant you to know:
One of us tiptoes out to the staff parking lot to enjoy an early-afternoon pounding from the sports reporter who is definitelynother husband. (Lynny.)
One of us released a Paleo cookbook three years ago and pledged 15 percent of the profits to a cancer charity. They’re still waiting for the money. (Joy.)
One of us is staring at a terrifying text from her fiancé and stuffing her palm against her mouth to hold back the screams. That one is hanging onby a fucking thread.(Me.)
I sit stiffly on the edge of the white leather couch, angling my phone away from the bustling set designers as I read my fiancé’s text over and over. The studio lights are bright and burning hot, but I’ve never felt so cold. Somewhere in the darkness the director yells, “Showtime in five minutes, people!”
I stare at my boots, hyperventilating. I cannot sit throughtwo entire hoursof this live taping and pretend to give a damn about this morning’s news when my own life has just gone to hell in one text.
Everything is a blur of noise, color, and movement. Aqua skirt. Red hair teased to maximum height. Skin stretched so tight it looks like it hurts. Joy.
Bright pink and plunging blouse. Lemony perfume and a shrieking laugh. Lynny.
My co-hosts sink onto the couch beside me, crossing their legs like synchronized swimmers. Their stilettos gleam under the studio lights, the heels so thin and sharp, you could use them to play darts.
My shirt is seashell white and buttoned so tightly at my throat, it hurts each time I swallow. My culottes are hideously ugly and the color of iced coffee. My suede ankle boots are blocks of concrete.
White. Camel. Neutral. That’s me. I’m the one brought in once a week to, in the producer’s words, “connect with the Gen Y crowd.”
It’s not working. The ratings are appalling, and the network has no money. I only got this job because I knew the right people, and no one else could stomach Joy’s on-air bullying like I do. But I’m an expert at blending into the wall and the couch until the threat disappears. Survival instincts I carried over from childhood.
Underneath my neutral shirt and neutral bra is a stinging rash with raised red bumps. Hives, my doctor said.Have you been stressed lately?
Joy sips at a coffee as bitter and boiling as she is. She’s the first of us to reach for a tissue when a Z-list reality star brims with dutiful tears. The first to pat their knee and cut to a commercial while staring grimly into the camera, only to reappear smiling three minutes later. How can you trust someone who shuts off their emotions like a light switch?
Lynny opens her cavernous mouth wide while the makeup artist applies another coat of gloss. She’s forty-two, shrill as a whistle and easily bored, and I’m pretty sure she loves gossip and screwing the sports reporter more than her four children.
Look at them, these two brightly colored fish. Seventy years of showbiz experience between them. They gleam. They preen.
And they scheme.
You have to hand it to these pretty, dirty bitches.
“Two minutes!” someone yells out, and I jump. My co-hosts stare at me like they’ve just remembered I’m here. That’s me. I’m so agreeable, soneutral,I might as well be the couch.
Lynny practically shoves the makeup artist away and inches over,her whole body an exclamation mark. Instinctively, I place my phone face down in my lap. My entire body trembles.
“Melanie, dear!” she yells, as if she’s surprised to see me. I’ve sat beside her once a week from 5 to 7a.m.for nearly four months now. “And where wereyouthis morning, missy?”
I missed the morning briefing. All of it. I stumbled into the makeup chair five minutes ago, stumbled out again, sat on the couch, and received the worst text of my life.
She doesn’t wait for me to answer, that’s how short her attention span is. “How’s thatgorgeousman of yours?”
Oliver is my fiancé of three months, boyfriend of seven, a meteorologist on a rival network, one that actually has money. He proposed to me right on this couch, live on air, despite me telling him repeatedly that I hate surprises. My fiancé loves grand gestures, but it was at that moment I realized that none of them were for me.
I hesitated for long enough that Lynny cried out, “Melanie! Put the poor dear out of his misery!”
