“Aren’t we all,” Richard said. A nudge.
My eyes batted from the cameras to the teleprompter, to the dummy screen, where my red face was saturated enough to garner a new Crayola color name. Cold sweat raced my pulse for the most uncomfortable sensation. I turned to Richard. “Where are we?” I stage-whispered.
Richard’s laugh rumbled the table. “We’re here in New York City,” he joked.
And with that, I relaxed. My error was such a huge, glaring gaffe that I suspected my fate would lie in becoming a new meme. There was nothing I could do but accept it. The intern standing behind the social media streams cocked his head, and I refocused on the highlighted portion of the teleprompter. “Okay. Here we go,” I muttered. “We can report classifiedconfirmation of something that has never happened before. A day that will certainly go down in history.” I paused as directed for emphasis. Next to the B-camera operator, Samantha dropped her phone. She bent low to retrieve it. “The day every individual in the world was given their soulmate.”
Policy was that commercials were suspended for breaking news, a contractual headache for the marketing team. But as we geared up to keep going, the teleprompter flashed twice. Ifroze. Everyone on our team knew this signal, the equivalent of a hospital’s code blue. There was something so monumental coming that it would bust into our already-breaking news.
[.>]
At the wrap, I stilled so the makeup artist could reapply touch-ups and scrolled texts from Natalie, who reported that all airports had grounded flights out of precaution. As the makeup artist moved onto Richard’s touch-ups, Samantha hurried over to the anchor table. I stowed my phone in the hidden ledge.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Am I doing o—” I began, until I took in her appearance. I clamped my mouth shut.
Samantha’s eyes were round, her lips trembling. Her phone shook in her hand. “I opened mine,” she whispered, tears spilling over in a rush.
Six
A Curation of the First ViralSoulmailPosts
I can’t even take care of myself and now I have to worry about a soulmate
the TODAY show anchors look petrified lol wonder who theirs is
times are tough when you have a meteorologist and an intern breaking the biggest story of all time
Ok but I love this Olivia person??
check out her video from this morning it is??
This poor Per Diem girl. My secondhand embarrassment is extreme
MY HUSBAND IS MINE! this shit is real, you’re welcome
The president is going live! #President #America
“President’s on,” a tech announced from the sound pit.
My fellow Americans and citizens across the world, I address you live with a situation I never thought I’d face. The White House dictionary defines a soulmate as a person ideally suited to another, and I begyou,I implore you, to stop and think before you act today and all days...
I stared at Samantha. “What does it say?” I whispered.
