Читать книгу Boss Girl - Nic Tatano - Страница 7

ONE MONTH LATER…

Getting all the girls to move to New York in May wasn't a problem, though we all had to work on Rica a bit when it came to finding new living accommodations. Jillian and Neely both settled in on the Upper East Side near me, each renting a townhouse. For whatever reason, Rica actually considered moving back to Brooklyn. Neely finally hit her with a dose of her own medicine one night and yelled (or tried to yell) "fuhgeddaboudit", which was so long and drawn out it didn't carry the same punch as it did coming from a New Yorker and sounded more like a Southern belle come-on to a man searching in vain for a condom. ("Sweetie, just fuhgeddaboudit and get on top of me before y'all start floppin' around like a catfish.") Rica finally relented and agreed to live in Manhattan, on the condition that Neely, as she put it, "Leave my slang alone, and I won't try to say y'all." Though Rica's y'all sounded more like a plea for help from an adenoidal patient in the office of an ear, nose and throat specialist.

Living arrangements taken care of, now to the hard stuff. Building a news department from scratch, I've done. Building a twenty-four-hour network, well, that's another story. Thankfully Madison and Amanda had taken a lot off my plate, renovating our new home while coordinating the things like sets and equipment. They told me to focus solely on hiring air talent.

(Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in television news, people in front of the camera are referred to as "talent", regardless of whether they possess any. Often they don’t, but then again this isn't rocket science. I can't remember the last time I heard the word "journalist" in a newsroom. So in reality, it really is a lot like Hollywood.)

We put our four pretty heads together and figured we'd need two dozen full-time anchors to cover all the shifts and allow for sick days, mental health days, vacations, etcetera.

Twelve mature female anchors with experience.

Twelve trophy bucks to sit next to them, read, and look good. In case you hadn't guessed, no experience necessary. (Don't look at me in that tone of voice. The pageant fembots have been operating under those rules for years.)

And once the word got out that we were staffing a new network and had two dozen openings, the floodgates of the United States Postal Service, FedEx, and UPS opened in a nanosecond.

Every former female anchor who had been put out to pasture at thirty-five dusted off a resume tape and overnighted it to me.

Every male anchor over thirty who thought of himself as distinguished or authoritative or experienced sent a tape. Which meant just about every man in an anchor position in the United States.

Jillian took care of sorting the mountain of tapes that filled the mailroom. She promptly threw every tape from the men over thirty in the trash. Men under thirty were put aside. The reverse was true for the women. By the way, I'm always amazed at the way women, especially those with pageant or modeling experience, apply for jobs. They don't seem to understand, we are hiring people to work on television, yet they send eight-by-ten glossies, bikini shots, modeling portfolios. Geez, do they think we're gonna hire people based on their looks alone? (Okay, don't answer that.)

Anyway, we weren't close to being done. We now had to start sorting out the hundreds that were left. Though I'm using the term "sorting" in a way you've never encountered.

(At this point you're about to see how incredibly shallow news executives are. We make guys at a singles bar look deep and thoughtful. And we learned all this from men, so please, don't blame us.)

We took all the tapes (actually, they were mostly DVDs with a few scattered VHS cassettes) to the conference room, ordered pizza and beer for the evening, and began our own personal gong show.

What, you're thinking we're going to sit down and watch twenty minutes from every job applicant and evaluate their journalistic abilities? Rate them one-to-ten on things like interviewing skills and mastery of grammar?

Pfffft. Ah, grasshopper, you have much to learn before you may roam the earth.

You could have the interviewing skills of Mike Wallace, but if you look like Jabba the Hutt you're gonna get gonged. Of course, every News Director in America will deny this because they'd get sued out the wazoo, but if it comes down to a choice between a credible Quasimodo and a woman who looks like she could suck a golf ball through a garden hose without smearing her lip gloss, the woman who can pass the oral exam wins every time.

The rules of a television news resume tape gong show are similar to those of a courtroom, in which lawyers have peremptory challenges when choosing a jury. If an attorney doesn't like a prospective juror, said attorney can send that person packing without justifying the reason. But lawyers have a limited number of jurors they can dismiss without cause. In teevee land, any manager can veto an unlimited number of candidates for an unlimited number of reasons.

And we always have cause.

And it's always, always, always superficial.

Too fat, too old, too young, too wrinkled, bad teeth, bad hair, wrong color hair, not enough hair, big ears, Samsonite under the eyes, no chin, too many chins, no neck, pockmarked complexion, too flat-chested, too top-heavy, too bottom-heavy…

Got it? Ready?

Now a gong show has to be a well-oiled machine if you're going to deal with hundreds of resume tapes in a short time. So I'm at the front of the room, about to feed tapes or DVDs into the machines, while Jillian and Rica sit on opposite sides of the table poised to fire away, gongs at the ready. Neely has set up three large cardboard boxes on the credenza at the other end of the room and is stationed next to one of those five-foot giant plastic blue dumpsters on wheels. She has labeled the boxes "hot damn!" "doable" and "exponentially cute."

Two steaming pizzas loaded with every imaginable topping sat on one corner of the table and made the room smell like an Italian restaurant. The scent of garlic hung in the air along with the anticipation we all had of finding twelve Mister Rights. (We would take care of the women tomorrow. And we're just as brutal on our own gender, lest you think we're gonna hold anything back. But now that the rules have changed, we have actually gonged the pageant fembots without looking.)

It was going to be a long night. I twisted open my bottle of ice cold beer, grabbed a slice of pizza and took a bite of the hot pie before tossing it on a paper plate. Rich sauce did battle for my taste buds with sausage and mozzarella cheese as I grabbed the first DVD. "You guys ready?" I asked, talking through the pizza.

I got three nods and grunts from the girls who were as impressed with the pizza as I was and were shoveling it in.

(Note to television viewers: the hardest video to get isn't some politician cheating on his wife or a corporate CEO taking a bribe or even a UFO landing. The toughest video to get is that of women eating. Take a camera to a shopping mall, park it in the food court, aim it at the tables and the eating magically stops among females. If you left the camera there, all the restaurants would go out of business. Take the camera away, and you've got the scene in this conference room. Four women chowing down like they were about to be contestants on Survivor.)

I shoved the DVD into the slot and unfolded the corresponding resume as I waited for the disc to load. "Leading off… Todd from Wichita," I said. The monitor filled with the image of a mid-twenties man who already had the beginnings of a second chin to accessorize his lovely receding hairline. I glanced at his paper resume. "Three years as a reporter, one as an anchor."

"None on a to-do list at this network," said Rica. "Gong."

The other two nodded. I ejected the DVD, put it back in its plastic box, and slid it down the table. Neely grabbed it like she was pulling a cold draft off a bar counter and deftly deposited it into the trashcan in one sweet motion.

"Next up, Carl from Idaho." Tape in machine, man with noticeable overbite appears on screen.

"Gong," said Jillian, before five seconds had elapsed.

"Looks like he could eat an apple through a picket fence," said Neely.

I slid the DVD down the table. Neely grabbed it and made an exaggerated slam dunk with it into the trash.

I shoved a VHS cassette into the VCR. "Next up, Walter from Peoria."

"C'mon, Walter!" said Jillian, shaking one fist like she was warming up the dice at a crap table. "Momma needs to check some references."

Walter's moon face and bug eyes filled the screen and told us why he was still in Peoria.

"I don't need to check 'em that bad," said Jillian.

Neely made a cross with two fingers like she was warding off a vampire and leaned her head back. "Gong. Good God, y'all, that face could stop a clock."

"Bless his little heart," added Rica, without missing a beat. Even Neely laughed. I slid the tape down the table and she grabbed it with two fingertips, held it at arm's length like some lab experiment from a bachelor refrigerator, then dropped it in the trash.

"Not off to a very good start," said Jillian, slugging down her beer.

"Fear not," I said. "We have hundreds more from which to choose."

"It has occurred to me," said Neely, leaning on the end of the table with both elbows, "that this would be even more fun if we had an honest to goodness Chinese gong."

"If you can find one, I'll authorize the expense," I said, sliding another DVD into the machine. "Mario from Colorado."

I reached for another slice of pizza as I heard the disc whirring in the machine.

I didn't hear anyone call for a gong.

"Hello there, Mario," said Jillian, with a little lust in her voice.

The monitor was filled with a lean, rugged face that sported dark brown hair and eyes to match. The man's voice was pure dark silk pouring from his mouth, a deep baritone you wouldn't expect from someone under thirty. Kind of a Sylvester Stallone type, without the accent.

"No gongs?" I asked.

"He's a possible," said Jillian. "What's his story?"

I glanced at his resume. "Three years anchoring in middle-of-nowhere Colorado."

"Put him in a box," said Rica.

"Which one?" asked Neely.

"I think he goes under doable," said Rica.

"Agreed," said Jillian.

I slid the tape down the table. Neely grabbed it and gently put it in the appropriate box.

Rica turned toward Neely. "Would you explain exponentially cute again?" she asked, as I popped another DVD in the machine. "I'm still a little confused."

"It's a guy who is beyond cute," said Neely, sipping her beer. "Cute to the tenth power. Not scorching hot, but incredibly good looking with an underlying boy-next-door appeal. If the boy next door regularly showed up in your bedroom wearing a Chippendales outfit, carrying two cans of Reddi-wip and a riding crop."

"And hot damn is the same as scorching hot?" asked Jillian.

Neely nodded. "One and the same. Top of the line."

"Michael from California is next," I yelled, trying to bring order.

A blonde, blue-eyed anchor in a pastel suit filled the screen. He looked more suited to a surfboard than to a news desk.

"Eh, doable," said Rica.

"I was thinking exponentially cute," said Neely.

"Doable," said Rica and Jillian in unison, as I slid the tape the length of the table.

"Let's see if we can get two in a row," said Jillian.

"Say hello to Bill from Bristol, Tennessee," I said, as the tape rolled.

"Good face for radio," said Rica, about two seconds into the tape.

"Bless his little heart," cracked Jillian, getting into the Southern spirit of things.

"Edward from Florida," I said. The screen filled with an extremely tall, extremely skinny man.

"Looks like an advance man for a famine," said Neely. "Gong."

Twenty tapes later (including one which featured co-anchors that left some doubt as to which was the man and which was the woman and was followed by Neely's tomahawk jam of it into the dumpster) I finally popped in a tape and watched a glob of pizza almost fall out of Rica's mouth.

"Whoa," said Rica.

Twenty-seven-year-old Vance Hiller's face jumped off the screen and grabbed our undivided attention. With no anchoring experience, the tape featured the reporter out doing a variety of stories in the field, one of which included him in a pair of tight running shorts that revealed tan, sinewy legs. Tall, slender but well built, nearly black hair and piercing sea-foam green eyes which peered out of a face that was all angles and planes.

"Is he real or computer generated?" asked Jillian.

"Really, it looks like someone designed him," said Neely. "He's a virtual reporter. But I wouldn't mind checking his virtual references."

"Gongs?" I asked. (Kidding of course.)

"You outta your friggin' mind?" said Rica.

I slid the DVD down to Neely and she placed it in the "hot damn" box without any argument. She patted the box's first occupant for good measure.

By eleven thirty we'd gone through more than four hundred resume tapes, two large pizzas, two six packs of beer, and had seen Neely toss tapes into the dumpster with incredible flair. (We all agreed her jump shot was impressive, but the behind-the-back swish into the trash with an anchor from West Virginia could have been a hit on YouTube.)

"Done," I said, plopping down in the chair. The dumpster at the end of the room was overflowing with DVDs and VHS tapes.

"So where do we stand?" asked Jillian. "What's the grand total of the guys who are left?"

Neely looked through each box and began counting. "There are half a dozen hot damns… four exponentially cutes…. and twenty who were considered doable."

(It should be noted there would have been twenty-one doables but Neely unceremoniously dumped the first surfer dude when she found another California anchor she liked better.)

"So," said Jillian, "Where do we go from here?"

"Fly them all in as soon as possible and get rolling on the interviews," I said.

"Hang on a minute, guys," said Neely. "I'm a little concerned."

"About what?" asked Jillian.

Neely picked up a DVD from the doable box and held it up. "There is a great deal of quality that separates the hot damns and the exponentially cutes from the doables," she said. "If I know I can have someone from the first two boxes, I don't really want anything from the other box."

"You know, she's got a point," said Rica. "If I'm stuck in the Peoria airport, then a doable is… well, doable. But if there's lobster on the buffet, I sure as hell ain't eatin' tuna salad."

Jillian nodded. "So if I've got this straight, we should ditch the doable box or our viewers will be stuck eating tuna fish instead of fantasizing about someone who is exponentially cute."

"I'm not even gonna try to figure that out," I said. "So just dump the box."

Neely took the box and sent twenty careers careening into the dumpster.

Which left us with ten guys we really liked.

To fill twelve slots.

Do the math.

We're hittin' the streets.

* * *

"I heard you had a gong show last night."

I looked up and saw that my first visitor of the morning was Scott Harry, who was standing in my doorway, hands in pockets. What a surprise, he didn't look happy. "Hi, Scott. What can I do for you?"

(Oh, by the way, gong shows are no secrets among the rank and file. As for Scott, I know exactly what he wants, but I'm going to make him say it. He wants to be part of the network, so bad he can taste it, but we're keeping him right where he is, taking care of local… and his spot on Madison's to-do list. However, I can't let him know that he hasn't a prayer of getting on the network, so the carrot must be dangled at a discreet distance.)

"I assume you're getting around to staffing the new network."

"Yep," I said, pausing to take a sip of my coffee, which had gotten cold. "Lots of people to hire and not much time to do it."

Oh, you should see his face. It's killing him. He looks like a man who's been constipated for a week only to find out all the laxatives have been pulled off the market by the FDA.

"I…uh…" Scott stopped and walked into the office, taking the seat directly in front of my desk. (The chair is a low-boy, by the way, two inches shorter than normal. A little psychological advantage.)

"Yes? Something on your mind?" (I wear my best "playing dumb" look. All women are born with this innate capability. It's embedded in our DNA, just like the shoe chromosome. The equivalent for men is the not-listening, bobblehead nod.)

His shoulders were hunched and his neck taut as he looked at me with his now patented "wounded doe" face, despite his lack of brown eyes. "I was hoping to be considered for one of the anchor slots on the network. I mean, I love working local, (forced smile) but this is a great opportunity."

"Don't worry, Scott, you'll be considered." (I'll have to ask Neely what the penance is for a blatant lie.)

Scott exhaled and the tension melted from his body. "Thank you. I mean, I hadn't heard anything. So I assumed—"

Watch this. "So how are you enjoying your time with Madison?"

Ah, such a joy to watch the color drain from his face like the last strawberry Slurpee coming out of the machine at Seven-Eleven.

"She's very nice. But… I miss you."

Aw, shit. And the day had started off so well with Jason and I doing our little Cirque de Soleil number before breakfast.

I got up and walked around the desk, leaning on the edge and extending my legs so that they nearly touched his. If he was going to screw with my day, I was going to torture him. "Scott, we've been through this. Several times. Our relationship is purely professional."

"I just—"

"What are you gonna do, Scott? Try another trip to the tabloids? Did you really think anyone would see a man who has to sleep with his hot boss as a victim? Every guy in New York thought you were an idiot to complain. And then half of those called me wanting a job here."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Just keep Madison happy." (And I know she's happy from her note that read, "Thanks for the leftovers.")

"Just Madison?"

"Yes. Madison is a great gal with a rockin' body and you should consider yourself lucky that I don't make you sleep with Carla the producer."

His face tightened and I could tell the image of the overweight troll in a state of undress was flashing through his mind.

"Now go," I said. "Do your job, keep Madison entertained, and we'll keep you posted on the network gig."

He got up, turned and shuffled out of my office without saying a word.

Men.

* * *

The term "meat market" is a throwback to the eighties, but never seemed more appropriate as we occupied the corner table in the back of one of Manhattan's trendiest bars. The electricity in the place sent a charge through my body, while various expensive colognes and perfumes made the room smell like a walk through the Bloomingdales fragrance department where the Stepford girls spritz you. In reality, our hunting expedition tonight wasn't much different than trying to pick someone up. The men and women in the bar were looking for someone attractive to sleep with, and I was looking for someone attractive to sleep with, under thirty, who could read a teleprompter and knew that Ted Kennedy had never been shot. I sipped my Bailey's and tried to unwind as the cream with a bite ran down my throat, but things were getting too exciting. Tomorrow New York's top modeling and talent agencies were going to fill our office with male models and actors. (I know, I have such a tough job.)

"What time do we start tomorrow?" asked Rica, not looking at me but scanning the crowded uptown bar for any hot prospects. One attractive man in his forties smiled at her, but was repelled by the force field of her death stare. He bounced off, shook his head, and headed out the door, letting in the sound of New York's heartbeat: car horns and police sirens.

"Nine o'clock," I said. "We'll do a preliminary screening, then call back the ones we like for reference checks."

It was wall-to-wall people and noise but one man at the bar somehow managed to connect with Jillian across the packed watering hole. "Oooh, I just got a shiver," she said.

"Which one?" asked Rica, trying to follow Jillian's line of sight.

Jillian nodded toward the bar, her eyes still paralyzed by the man's stare. "Sitting at the corner talking to an older guy but looking right at me. Gray pinstripe vest. Dark hair. Light eyes. Five o'clock shadow."

Rica glanced around, trying to look through the wall of people. Finally she spotted him. "Damn, he's cute."

"He's even beyond exponentially cute," said Jillian, suddenly possessing Neely's dreamy-eyed look. "It's a whole new level of cute."

Rica turned to me. "Waddaya think, Syd? Should we go talk to him?"

I was about to answer "yes", when the man hopped off his bar stool and headed across the floor to the men's room. I finally got a good look at the total package and my smile faded.

He was short. And I mean really short. Five-three, five-four tops.

"Aw, dammit," I said.

"What?" asked Rica.

"He's just a little thing."

"So?" asked Neely. "He's an exponentially cute little thing. We just sit him on a Manhattan phone book and tilt the camera up at him when he's on set."

"You're missing something. That plays havoc with our plan to have our anchors stand during part of each hour," I said.

"No, you're missing something, Syd," said Neely, just as our waitress arrived.

"Another round, girls?" asked the tall, slinky brunette in the short black spaghetti strap dress.

"Make it so," I said.

The waitress, who looked around thirty, wrote our drink order on her pad, shoved a pencil behind her ear and was about to leave when Neely touched her arm. "Excuse me, can we ask you a couple of questions?"

The waitress shrugged. "Long as they're quick," she said. "I got a lotta tables."

Neely looked back at the men's room just as the man emerged. "How tall are you?" she asked.

"Five-eleven. About six-two in these heels. Why?"

"See that guy walking to the bar?" Neely pointed at him. "Real cute, dark hair."

The waitress craned her long, slender neck around the crowd and squinted. "You mean the little guy in the dark vest?"

"Yeah," said Neely.

"What about him?"

"Would you ever consider going out with him?" asked Neely. "I mean, being as tall as you are, do you find him attractive?"

"I'd do him in a New York minute," said the waitress, licking her lips. "He'd make a great Friday night snack."

"You don't have a problem with a man that much shorter?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Hell, I date shorter guys all the time. Most of the ones taller than me are pretty stuck on themselves. The shorter ones try harder, they're more polite. Better personalities and sense of humor. And they don't try anything funny 'cause I'm bigger than they are." Suddenly she put her tray down on our table, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. "Plus, I'll let you in on a little secret. They obey."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"They're so afraid you'll ditch them for a tall guy they'll do anything you want. I guess I feel more in control with a guy like that. It's sorta nice being the man in the relationship, if that makes any sense." She looked back across the room at the man, dark eyes suddenly steamy with lust. "But yeah, I wouldn't mind bending him across my knee and spanking that tight little ass."

Interesting mental picture I hadn't considered.

"Thanks," said Neely.

"What's the deal?" asked the waitress, picking up her tray. "You guys taking a marketing survey or something?"

"We work in TV," I said. "Just keeping in touch with how women think."

"Let's put it this way. They're all the same height lying down," said the waitress. "I'll be right back with your drinks." She turned and headed back to the bar.

"Syd, we are really missing something here," said Neely. "If we want to convey the notion that women are in charge, why can't a few of our female anchors be taller than their male co-anchors?"

"She's got something, Syd," said Rica. "A lot of women wouldn't mind takin' that guy home, even if he is a munchkin. And look at Jillian. She looks so possessed I'm gonna have to call a priest."

I turned and saw that Jillian was in some sort of schoolgirl trance, which I might expect from Neely. But Jillian, I'd never seen her this way. The cool, always in control girl looked like she was in the ninth grade suffering from her first crush. "Jillian? Earth to Jillian?"

"Huh?" she said.

"Have you heard a word we've been saying?" I asked.

"Yeah. Sort of. Not really," she said, still staring at the man.

I looked up at the guy who had returned to the bar. He shook hands with another man who handed him an envelope, then paid his bill, picked up his drink, and headed for our table.

"This oughta be fun," said Neely, cocking her heard toward Jillian. "Woman hit by Cupid's arrow. Film at eleven."

"Someone reel in her tongue before he gets here," said Rica.

I elbowed Jillian who snapped back into reality just as the man reached our table. He stood between Jillian and Neely but it was obvious he had his sights on Jillian.

"Hi, I'm Shawn Carlyle," he said.

Whoever said good things come in small packages must have been talking about this guy. Mid-twenties, perfectly proportioned, slim hips, broad shoulders accented by a tailored white French cuffed shirt. Turquoise eyes you could get lost in. Rugged square jaw, long dimples covered by a day's growth. And yes, a tight little spankable ass.

Yeah, I'm starting to see Neely's point.

Jillian was still too busy staring to answer, so I picked up the ball. "Hi Shawn. I'm Syd, and this is Rica, Neely and Jillian."

"So, girls night out?" he said.

"This is actually an extension of a business meeting that started this afternoon," I said.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," he said.

"No problem," Neely said. "We like to mix a little pleasure with business. We'd just wrapped up the business part anyway, so you can hopefully provide the pleasure."

"You guys all work together?" he asked.

"We run the news division for CBN," I said.

"That sounds like a neat job. I took a journalism course in college and it seemed like a lotta fun."

"So what do you do, Shawn?" asked Rica.

"I work on Wall Street," he said, eyes suddenly filling with a tinge of sadness. "I've been there three years since I got out of college and it feels like thirty."

Jillian still hadn't said a word, hadn't stopped staring, and her freckles were lit up like they were on fire. He glanced back in her direction and shot her a quick smile.

"Not happy with the career?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I just need to find something else to do. I'll be dead by forty if I keep this up. And honestly, my heart's not in it. Money's good, but I'm not happy. It may look exciting on TV, but the job just wrings you out."

"Well, you know," I said, "we're in the process of hiring a bunch of people for our new cable network. In fact, we start interviewing local candidates tomorrow."

"I read about that on Page Six. I already watch your local news. You guys do a good job."

"You like our news?" asked Rica, furrowing her brow.

"Yeah," he said. "You guys keep it simple. No agenda, no one trying to tell me how to think or how to vote. No one trying to shout someone else down during an interview. And the women on your station are credible, not a bunch of beauty queens. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're extremely attractive, but I get the feeling they actually know what they're talking about."

That click you just heard was Mister Edison turning on a thousand-watt light bulb over my head.

There's a young male audience for our product. Who knew?

The guy was not only extremely cute but smart. I wanted to know more. "Have you ever been in front of a camera?" I asked.

"No. Why?"

"Like I said, we're hiring a lot of people."

He smiled and looked down at the floor. "I'm sure I don't exactly fit the traditional anchorman profile."

"We're very untraditional, in case you hadn't noticed from watching our newscasts," said Rica.

"Well, yeah, I guess you are," he said.

"Speaking of untraditional, what made you walk over here?" Rica asked. "We're not exactly girls right out of college."

His hands went into his pockets as he slouched, and suddenly I saw a sheepish teenager about to ask a girl out. "Well, I knew it was a long shot, with me being… well… me. But I… how do I put this without offending you?" He pulled one hand from his pocket and placed it on top of Jillian's, patted it a few times, then stared directly at her. "The, uh, women my age aren't terribly… stimulating."

Jillian gulped. Her longing eyes faded deeper into a dream state, as her head tilted to one side. She still hadn't said a damn thing.

He pulled an envelope from his pocket and held it up in front of us. "Listen, I have an extra ticket to a new Broadway show this evening. It's a musical. My boss couldn't go and he just gave them to me. And…" he turned back to Jillian. "I just thought you looked like the kind of classy woman who might enjoy a night at the theater. No strings attached. I'll take you right home afterwards. But I insist on stopping for cheesecake after the play."

Cupid was still apparently holding down the mute button on Jillian, but a smile grew across her face. I was about to grab her head and move it up and down like a bobblehead doll when Neely saved the day.

"Jillian loves Broadway musicals," said Neely. "And we can vouch for her; she's very classy."

"Uh-huh," muttered Jillian, looking like a willing subject from a hypnotist's show.

The sphinx speaks!

"Tell you what, Shawn," I said. "We're pretty much finished up here with the business stuff so why don't you take Jillian to that play and on the way she can tell you about the opportunities at our network. Maybe you'd be interested."

He looked at Jillian. "That okay with you?" he asked.

The waitress was right. He was asking permission.

This stuff isn't in the tall girl playbook. How in the hell did I miss this?

"Yeah," she said, voice cracking.

He looked at his watch. "Okay then, we'll need to get going if we're gonna get a cab," he said, and extended a hand out to her. She took it, hopped off the bar stool and stood up next to him, towering over him in her four-inch heels. The top of his head reached her shoulder. He looked up at her like he'd just won the tall strawberry blonde lottery, then turned back to us. "It was nice meeting you all. Maybe I'll see you again."

"That would be nice. Good meeting you, Shawn," I said, as they turned and left.

"And you thought all our viewers were gonna be women," said Rica.

I watched them leave the bar, her arm around his shoulder, his arm around her waist.

More important, a whole bunch of guys in their twenties looked past the vapid, mini-skirted bimbos that filled the bar and stared at Shawn with envy.

So much for blowing off the male demographic.

* * *

The walk through the large reception area was like going through a buffet line of men. Models and actors filled every chair, while a few stood and lined the walls. I made my way to the meeting room just off the front door that we'd designated for interviews. A cloud of cologne filled my lungs. Our middle-aged, impeccably coiffed, blonde receptionist, the only woman in the room, was obviously enjoying the attention she was getting as two of the men leaned on her desk and were chatting her up.

Oh, this was going to be fun. A quick glance around the room told me there were plenty of possibles in this bunch.

I reached the door to the meeting room just as the receptionist buzzed me through, turned around and said, "Guys, we'll be starting shortly." They all straightened up as I headed through the door.

Inside, I found Rica and Neely already in place at the long maple table which dominated the room, enjoying coffee and donuts. The deep red walls were bare, faded squares showing the previous locations of prime-time posters that Amanda had thankfully ditched.

"Pretty nice-looking bunch out there," said Rica. "Not too shabby at all."

"I never knew New York had so many hot men," said Neely.

"Between Madison Avenue and Broadway, what did you expect?" I took a seat at the end of the table, next to a black metal cart on wheels that held a monitor, a DVD player and a VCR. "By the way, anybody seen Jillian?"

The door opened and she appeared on cue, newspaper under one arm while carrying a dark leather portfolio. "Morning, guys," she said, trying to hold back a smile as she made her way around the room and took a seat next to Rica at the far end of the table.

Rica immediately turned to face her. "So?" she asked.

"What?" said Jillian.

"How was last night?" asked Rica.

"Pffft," she said, with a wave of her hand. "The play was a disaster. We left at intermission." She then pulled a blank legal pad from her portfolio, placed it on the desk in front of her, and pretended to stare at it. "Terrible choreography. Just terrible. I can't believe they can get away with that on Broadway."

"What a bunch of horseshit," said Rica.

"What?" said Jillian.

"You know what we mean," said Neely. "How was your Pocket Chippendale?"

I smiled at Neely's dead-on description of Shawn, leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms as Jillian began to squirm in her seat. "Yeah, Jillian. Did you manage to speak the rest of the evening?"

"You guys leave me alone," she said, blushing. "And yes, we talked quite a bit. He's very sweet, incredibly smart. Perfect gentleman. And his references are impeccable. By the way, you should know that not everything about Shawn is proportional."

"Really," I said, raising my eyebrows. "What a pleasant surprise for you."

"You have no idea what you're missing, Syd," said Jillian. "You need a Pocket Chippendale of your own."

"That good, huh?" asked Neely.

She nodded. "Oh yeah. He tortured me for an hour on the couch and finally I couldn't take any more, so I just threw him over my shoulder like a cave girl, carried him to the bedroom and took him. You have no idea how empowering that is."

Rica's mouth dropped. "You actually carried him to the bedroom?"

"Sure. I'm really strong, and he's pretty light." She flexed her muscles, revealing well-toned biceps, and lowered her voice. "Me woman, you sex object."

"So the waitress was right?" asked Neely. "You enjoyed your little snack?

Jillian nodded. "Very much. And he obeys like a trained seal. Does whatever I ask. Worshiped me like a goddess."

"You are a goddess," I said. "Is he anchor potential?"

"Yes, and he's very excited about the benefits package."

"Can you keep him in line?" I asked. "You know about the problems I'm having with Scott."

Jillian shrugged. "If he needs a reminder, I'll just give him another spanking."

"You actually spanked him?" asked Neely.

"He was a bad, bad boy," said Jillian, eyes gleaming, while both eyebrows went up.

Rica started fanning herself with her pad. "Syd, can you turn up the air in here?"

I got up and moved toward the thermostat. "Okay, I guess we'd better get started with the interviews."

* * *

"It occurs to me," said Neely, pulling her chair up to the table, "that this is just like a reality show. We are lined up here at this table, facing a single chair in the middle of the room and we'll rank each contestant on a scale. The winners move on, the losers skulk out or throw fits. We ought to put a reporter in the outer office to interview them as they leave."

"I wanna play the British judge," said Jillian. "They always have some guy from London on the panel, who says something like, ‘Your performance tonight was just ghastly' with that accent, before they send the poor sap on his way."

"That might be a line you should save for the hotel," I said.

"I hope I never have to use it," said Jillian. "You guys ready?"

"Let's rock," said Rica.

I punched a button on the intercom.

"Yes?" said the receptionist.

"Start sending them in," I said. I turned to the girls. "Remember, the code word for gong is doable."

They nodded. The door opened and a tall, very beefy man in his mid-twenties entered the room. "Good morning," he said, brushing his wavy dark hair out of his eyes. "I'm Brian Fairfield. I'm an actor and model here in New York."

And you're a model for… let me guess… Michelin Tires?

"Good morning, Brian," I said, gesturing toward the chair. "Please have a seat and tell us about yourself."

He moved toward our table and handed each of us a manila envelope, then sat down. "I brought each of you a portfolio from my agency. I've been doing print ads for quite a while, though I did audition for a television commercial last week. I'm hoping to break into TV."

I slid the portfolio out of the envelope and opened it.

One side featured a full eight-by-ten headshot of the model, a beautifully lit photo that had obviously been air-brushed or Photoshopped or whatever. It didn't look anything like the guy sitting in front of us. The piercing blue eyes in the photo weren't nearly as dark in person. The other side featured three photos from different ads. He wore a tux in one, a bathing suit in another, and a sports jacket in a third.

He also looked like he'd gained a good bit of weight since the pictures were taken. The face was much fuller now, the beginnings of a second chin evidently having cancelled out the jawline that was so prominent in the photos.

"How old are these photos?" asked Rica.

"About three years," he said. "I, uh, haven't had a gig in quite awhile."

"Do you think reading a teleprompter is something that's… doable … for you?" asked Neely, accenting the code word for my benefit.

"Sure," said the man.

"Thank you," I said, getting Neely's vote. "We'll be in touch."

The man's head dropped, he exhaled audibly and a sad look grew on his face. "Ohhhh… kaaay. Well, thank you for your time, I guess." He got up and left the room.

"That didn't take you long," said Jillian. "You could have at least asked him a few more questions."

"He'll be a doughboy in two more years," said Neely. "If he wants to break into TV he can get a gig selling crescent rolls. Why waste time with him?"

"I still like gong better," said Rica.

The parade continued, with plenty of hot damns and exponentially cutes sprinkled in the mix with those who looked closer to their driver's license photos than the ones in their portfolios. We got into the spirit of the chase by getting creative with the code word when we needed to gong someone.

From Rica: "I'm sure an anchor position might be doable if you spend three years behind the scenes. We do have some entry-level gopher jobs." (The guy left skid marks.)

From Jillian: "I'd be curious to see how you'd look if you dyed your hair bright red. Would that be doable?"

From Neely: "As we say in the South, if it's doable, it's worth doin' right."

By noon we were almost done and had at least nine viable candidates. And that wasn't counting the people with actual television experience who were flying in later.

Then the door cracked open and the man who entered seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room.

About six-three, with ripped arms straining at the sleeves of his baby blue, short-sleeved polo shirt, while his pecs tried to escape the fabric. Thick, dark brown hair, deep-set hazel eyes, square jaw, slightly crooked boyish grin that led you to believe he was up to something. If there was such a thing as a cross between hot damn and exponentially cute, this guy was it. "Hi, Denton Hale," he said. He handed me a DVD, resume and portfolio, then grabbed a chair and took a seat.

"Denton, I'm Sydney, and this is Rica, Neely and Jillian." (Incidentally, you should know that even though I didn't expect any gongs, I do retain supreme veto power in extreme circumstances. Just in case one of them loses her mind.) I opened the portfolio and had to fight to keep my eyes from bugging out as the pictures jumped off the page. After about ten seconds I heard this clicking sound as Rica's fingers tap danced across the table and deftly snatched the portfolio and dragged it down the table, where Jillian and Neely leaned over to take a look at the man who didn't appear to have a visible flaw or an ounce of fat.

"Those are from my print ads this year," he said. "The DVD has my television work. Mostly exercise equipment infomercials and some voiceovers. You might have seen me if you're up in the middle of the night."

I popped the disc into the player and the monitor filled with Denton Hale extolling the virtues of a new home bodybuilding system. I assume he was pitching the thing, because I never actually heard the words. I was too busy locked on a glistening body that had been cut from suntanned marble by Michelangelo. I looked down at the girls and knew there would be a battle later on to decide who Denton Hale would get to bench press at the Plaza.