“This is our society now,” I said into the mic pinned to the underside of my high-necked shift dress, my eyes on the correct camera. Samantha had punted my Du Jour segment up the chain to report on the breaking news, and by the excited looks of the stage crew, I could tell our ratings were high. But beneath the excitement, my insides roiled with the panic that had arrived that morning in the form of an upcomingFrom Yes to I DoAction Plan calendar invite with Yvonne.
Off-screen, Phoebe and Josef stood by the camera bay, waiting to be cued on. Phoebe’s arms were crossed, her mouth set in a straight line; Josef was on his phone, as usual. His contract was in renegotiation for one more year.
I lifted my chin. “We’ve been given the choice to know our fates, and now, just one month after that change, every legal adult worldwide can join us.”
[.>
.>]
After my tag, I de-miked and thanked the camera people. “Debrief in an hour on tomorrow’s Du Jour,” the production assistant said to me.
Debrief prep used to be my specialty. “Right. Can you remind me which story is tomorrow?”
The PA checked a list. “This one is the, uh, proposed rearrangement of arranged marriage systems in parts of India. Something about cataloguing Soulmails and ranking them.” Phoebe swished by us then, the embodiment of a walking scoff.
“Thanks,” I said. I waved to Josef.
“Don’t mind her,” Josef said, thumbing in Phoebe’s direction. “You’re a natural.”
The waist of my shift was damp, and my lips felt cakey. “I’m not sure. Are naturals supposed to be this sweaty?”
He gave a low laugh. Up close, he looked the same as he did on camera. He was at least fifty, but his skin was smooth as glass, and I was fairly confident he didn’t have pores. “You were a story writer here first,” he said. “Yes?”
I nodded. “Guilty.”
He crossed his arms, rocked on his heels. His shirt was tucked in, crisp and tight. “So you know already.”
I flipped through my mental index to figure out what he meant. “I know?”
“You completed the first two branches of story. You gathered information, and you used it to share experience, share emotion.”
I tilted my head. “And?”
He shrugged. “Now you’re the teller. You entertain. You’re on the third branch, and three is the most magic of numbers.”
“Every writing teacher I’ve ever had said that.” I shifted into my left hip to take the weight off my right knee and lifted my heel from the back of my stiletto, where a blister was forming. My hip pinched from the strain of putting my full weight to it, but it was better than risking a flare of knee pain. This was my body’s forever struggle, sacrificing the uninjured for the injured.
“Keep it up. My agent said to thank you,” Josef said.
I frowned. “Why?”
“You pumped this network up,” Josef said. “Unpredictable, but understandable in retrospect, that audiences wouldn’t have trusted this info if it came from a recognizable face.TODAYandGMAare too big to put a stranger on, and we weren’t set up for success that day. This was like... ”
“Lightning in a bottle,” I supplied. Ben Franklin’s famous experiment, catching electricity in a glass jar. A circumstance of chance, one I couldn’t believe I was embroiled in.
Josef raised a single brow. “I see why you scare Phoebe.”
The knot in my gut loosened one notch. For years, I’d watched him go from bubbles on camera to quiet off-screen. He’d never been anything but polite to me, but we weren’t exactly breaking bread at a Thanksgiving table.“Me?”
“You’re just like me,” he said. “Lucky.”
“Well, goodie.” Samantha jabbed a button on the Nespresso machine on her desk, a network exec-level holiday gift from two years ago. “This makes my job easier.”
