Free Morning Glory by Diana Peterfreund Page B

don’t touch that remote. Things are about to get interesting .
    .  .  .
    “I’ve taken the liberty of bringing along this rider to my contract,” Mike said, handing me a not-insignificant stack of papers.
    “A … rider?” I stuttered.
    Still on air, Colleen did her best to read from the teleprompter while eavesdropping on our conversation.
    “Of course,” said Mike. “After all, you’re forcing me into this through the terms of my contract. I thought I’d return the favor.”
    “I see.” I flipped through. Ten pages. Ten . Lenny was going to kill me.
    “Please note those are champagne mangoes there on page six,” Mike said, practically cheerful. “Not Haden. Way too stringy for my tastes.”
    “Mangoes,” I repeated blankly. And leather furniture on page three. And was this … a budget for neckties?
    “Which way to my dressing room?” Mike Pomeroy asked. This had better be worth it , I warned myself.
    “Stay tuned,” said Colleen, a little too quickly, “for tips on how you, too, can fight the battle of the bulge.”
    I wondered if those tips included tropical fruit?
    The next few hours were eaten up in a whirlwind of activity as Lenny, the Daybreak assistants, and all the interns we could round up scuttled around trying to redo Paul’s dressing room—step one: jettison the cot—and fulfill the terms of Mike’s ridiculous rider. I knew that every last one of them would spend the evening complaining to their significant other over a glass of beer.
    I didn’t care. Even if I had a significant other, this would be the first time since I took the Daybreak gig that he wouldn’t hear me whining. I’d bagged Mike Pomeroy . He was going to anchor my show.
    My. Show.
    “ My show,” Colleen said to me as soon as she was off the air. “What are his demands, exactly? My past anchors and I have always had a pretty equitable split when it came to what topics we cover. Is he going to cook? Do fashion segments? Gossip?” She flung out her hands. “Papier-mâché?”
    “Well …,” I said. We were walking down the hall toward her dressing room, and I was trying to keep her rant to a low roar, at least until we were safely behind closed doors.
    “Is he going to have three-year-old octuplets barf on him like I did last year?” she wailed.
    I ushered her into her dressing room. “Colleen,” I said. “The thing I respect most about you is what a team player you are.”
    “Oh God.” She plopped down on the chair in front of her vanity. “I don’t like where this is going.”
    “And you know as well as I do that Mike Pomeroy is going to raise the profile of this show a great deal.”
    “So I’m chopped liver, that’s what you’re saying.” Colleen spun in her chair and looked in the mirror. “Maybe if I had crow’s-feet and a penis and had pulled Mother Teresa out of a burning jeep or whatever …”
    “Colin Powell in the jeep. Mother Teresa in the cholera epidemic.”
    “Colonel Mustard in the library with a revolver!” said Colleen with a wave of her hand. “Who gives a shit! Don’t tell me—millions of viewers, right?”
    “One can only hope,” I said.
    “You know what I hate?” she said. “That male anchors can keep getting old and what they gain is ‘gravitas.’ ” She made air quotes. “What I gain is falling Q ratings.”
    I gave a sympathetic head nod.
    “I’m a journalist too, you know,” she said.
    Of sorts. But now was the time for mollification, not explaining to Colleen the difference between a Pulitzer winner and a pageant queen. “Here’s the thing. Back in the eighties, someone gave him story refusal rights, so—”
    Colleen paused in the midst of checking her eyelids for forbidden creases. “You’re kidding me. He does know this is morning television, right?”
    “I’m sure,” I said, hoping I sounded far more convinced than I felt, “that over time, he’ll want to do a broad range of stories.”
    Colleen laughed mirthlessly. “Face it,