Free Me vs. Me by Sarah Mlynowski Page B

caffeinated and thus prepared to face another phone call, I get Heather’s voice mail (“I’m really sorry but—”) and then reach Bernie. He tells me he’s already hired my replacement.
    That was fast. So much for being indispensable.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he says, “but let me know if you’re interested in freelancing.”
    Nothing is worse than going from a full-time producing gig to freelance producing. It’s like going from teaching to substituting, or full-time girlfriend to 2:00 a.m. sex buddy.
    Guess I’ll try to find myself a new car.
    Â 
    Nothing says early November like postelection coverage and, with a full day of airtime to fill each day, TRSN has been doing it to death. Without a major federal election this year, Tuesday’s brainstorming session becomes a contest to see who can come up with the strangest story angle. There’s the standard surprise winners and losers, the perennial favorites being tracked as possible presidential candidates and of course those oddball stories from the “flyover states” (I visibly grimaced when Curtis used that expression) like the dead guy elected mayor.
    I send out some e-mails, and by the afternoon meeting I know I have a winner.
    â€œListen to this,” I say after the room gets quiet. “Apparently in a small six-hundred-person Colorado town south of Denver, a group of college students got a mayoral candidate on the ballot from a new, unknown party called the Progressive Democratic Party. They won by campaigning on a premise of promising to reduce the smell and noise from cow herds—I’m guessing a hot-button issue in town. But I have it on good authority that the party’s real goal is to legalize marijuana.”
    Many of the people around the table groan. TRSN is even more old-school than CBS, and I suppose the politics of the newsroom might not be that progressive, either.
    â€œCan you get the story for tomorrow’s show, Arizona?” Ron asks.
    â€œAlready on it,” I answer. I really don’t know what I was so worried about.
    Â 
    On Tuesday night, I go shopping. My heels just aren’t going to work at the station. I need a pair of cute flats like everyone else’s. Even as a producer, I am not above running tapes from room to room, and appropriate footwear is definitely needed.
    I also need to lose ten pounds. Everyone here is absurdly skinny. The reporters. The cameramen. The doormen. The lunch lady.
    Heather retreats from her room to flip through my purchases. I voice my weight concerns and she recommends I try the Pilates studio down the street from our apartment. I think she might be onto something and book an appointment for tomorrow night. She also recommends a therapist, but I’ll hold off on that one for a while. At the moment, I’m preferring denial to certain institutionalization, thanks.
    Â 
    On Tuesday morning in Arizona, I drop off Cam at work and head over to the Barnes & Noble in the truck. I hate driving the truck. But thank goodness Cam spent eighteen hours last summer teaching me to drive stick or I’d really be stranded this week. Until I find a new car, anyway. I buy Ron’s autobiography, My Report: The Lessons I’ve Learned by Ron Grighton , and my first bridal mag. Since I don’t want to let Alice bulldoze me into getting everything she wants, I feel I should arm myself with some info before I get to her place. Then I order myself an iced mocha something, find an empty seat and flip through the glossy pages.
    By page ten, I am exhausted. It seems that there are many, many things one has to do to have a wedding.
    Set a date! Alice wants May. May is fine. I have nothing against May. See? I can be conciliatory.
    Create your budget! Who’s paying for this circus, anyway?
    Decide if you want premarital counseling. Maybe we can use Heather’s therapist.
    Decide if you need a prenup. Don’t even joke about