Free Morning Glory by Diana Peterfreund Page A

little pieces of soggy newsprint. And honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
    But as always, she had her game face on. She beamed with fabricated fascination at our crafts expert as the woman explained why the Daybreak set was littered with strips of paper, bowls of glue and water, and entirely too many lumpy, garishly painted objets d’art.
    “What’s great about papier-mâché,” chirped the crafts expert, whom I was beginning to suspect must be on some kind of heavy-dosage mood elevators, “is that it’s inexpensive and it uses things you already have around the house. You can make globes, hats”—Colleen’s expression flashed a microsecond of horror at the thought of having papier-mâché touch her blond coif—“even piñatas!”
    “Wow, piñatas!” Colleen smiled broadly for the camera. “Now, ‘ macher ’ means ‘to chew’ in French, but we’re not going to eat any of this, right?”
    “Of course not,” said the crafts expert. They both started laughing inanely. I made a note to kill jokes even half as stupid as that one.
    “Coming up next,” Colleen said. “You’ve heard her sing. Well, today we’re going to hear about her sweet tooth. Join us as we bake brownies with Celine Dion’s personal chef.”
    I wondered if anyone out there was buying the idea that Celine Dion would willingly ingest a brownie.
    “All that and more, coming up on Daybreak .” As the camera light switched off, Colleen’s smile was replaced with a look of pure disgust. “Someone get this off me!” she said, flinging out her goop-covered hands. A prop manager rushed forward with a packet of wipes.
    “Okay,” I said, joining her on the set. “We don’t have time for a sit-down on the last piece, so we’ll just run the package—”
    “You okay?” Colleen stretched out her freshly cleaned hand as if in comfort.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Don’t beat yourself up.” Colleen’s tone was dismissive. “You were never going to get him. We all know that.”
    Huh?
    She caught my expression. “Pomeroy,” she clarified.
    “How did you know about that?”
    “Everyone knows,” she said. “You fired my coanchor. You don’t think I’ve been keeping tabs on what other trained monkey you plan to bring in here?”
    “Mike Pomeroy’s not a—”
    “True, but he wasn’t going to come and work at this little dog and pony show, either. Especially not when he’d have to work for someone like … well, you.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “Don’t get me wrong,” Colleen said, checking out her nails to see how much damage her arts and crafts had wrought. “He was a bold choice on your part. I, for one, would have welcomed him with open arms, but—”
    She stopped dead and stared over my shoulder. I suddenly noticed that the entire studio had gone still. Had the camera gone live? Were we sharing this little conversation with the population of the world—or at least, with the few who tuned in to the show?
    But no. I turned, and there stood Mike Pomeroy, as out of place on the Daybreak set as a wild animal in the middle of Park Avenue.
    He was making my staff every bit as skittish, too. I slowly walked over to him.
    He spoke without preamble. “I’ve won eight Peabodies, a Pulitzer, sixteen Emmys, I was shot through the forearm in Bosnia, pulled Colin Powell from a burning jeep, put a washcloth on Mother Teresa’s forehead during a cholera epidemic, had lunch with Dick Cheney.”
    “You’re here for the money,” I said.
    “That is correct.”
    I extended my hand, and Mike grudgingly shook it. “So,” I asked, as the stage manager started counting back down to on air, “do you happen to have footage of that thing with Mother Teresa? It would make great promo.”
    Colleen gaped at us. “Oh, fuck .”
    The camera’s on-air light went hot. She snapped into her stage persona, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and addressing our four viewers. “Welcome back to Daybreak , folks.”
    Welcome back , I thought, and