“Chip?” Isabel spoke into her microphone at a whisper and barely moved her lips, which were now magenta, the blue fear freezing out the slash of her red lipstick. “Do I have five seconds to make a quick call? It’s important.”
“We’re in standby mode so technically no, but since we’re waiting for the break to drop out of programming… if you do it quickly…you’ve got about seventeen seconds until we’re on alert. Go.”
Isabel had already dialed the first nine numbers into the phone behind the anchor desk. She pushed the tenth on Chip’s go-ahead.
“Hi, it’s me,” she said softly. “Just wanted to tell you two to watch ANN right now.”
Her face fell as she listened into the phone. “But where is he? Oh. Okay. Well, bye.”
“Okay, Isabel.” The voice in her ear was steady and commanding. “We’re going live in one minute. Stand by.”
Isabel sat up straight in her chair and nervously touched her sprayed hair.
“Isabel, you all set?” Ted was just behind the TelePrompTer facing the anchor desk.
“Yes,” Isabel replied, looking down at her copy (a backup in case the TelePrompTer were to break down). There was already an imprint of her sweating hand on the printout.
Isabel’s heart pounded even harder when the voice of her producer came back into her ear: “Thirty seconds, Isabel. Stand by.”
Isabel watched Ted hurry in to the control booth from behind the camera.
“In ten, nine, eight, seven—cue music—five, four, three, two.” Good producers never say “one.”
Isabel looked into the camera and, for the first time in her career, froze.
Chip’s voice was urgent in her ear: “Isabel! You’re on!”
Nothing.
Isabel was no longer at the anchor desk, she was in a parallel universe, one in which Donna Summers sang the same song over and over and Isabel was able to watch herself spiral down a dirty tunnel and yet was powerless to stop her descent, her arms frantically grabbing at the sides of the darkening cone, trying to catch hold of a slippery side. Viewers, alerted to the emergency cut-in by a fancy graphic and urgent music involving trumpets and French horns, were now turning to other stations.
Ted Sargent ran out of the control booth toward the anchor desk, just off camera. “Isabel!” he hissed angrily.
Nothing.
He ran back into the booth and yelled to the producer. “Throw up a graphic! Something! Cut to black! Jesus fucking Christ!” Ted looked up at the monitors running the other network broadcasts and saw that all were on the air with Special Reports about Diana. CBS was running video of her on an amusement park ride with her two sons. NBC had somehow gotten Tom Brokaw into the anchor chair in time. As precious minutes ticked by, ANN was missing the story. And with the evening news anchor out of town, all the network had was Isabel Murphy, who was spontaneously combusting on national television.
“Isabel, what the hell is going on?” Ted was one step away from reaching across the anchor desk and strangling his only hope. “Isabel! Jesus Christ, Isabel! Snap out of it!”
Isabel watched Ted’s small calamari lips moving. His voice tangled up with others talking at her and confused her.
Chip, the man behind the voice in her ear, was in front of her. “Isabel? Do you need a doctor? What’s going on?” Normally unflappable, Chip was nearly as frantic as Ted. This was the kind of thing that lost people jobs. Possibly the biggest news story of the year and Isabel was single-handedly wrecking the network’s reputation.
“Isabel, you have got to listen to me.” John Goodman, the senior producer on duty, was towering over her. His words were measured but powerful. “You have got to go live right now, do you understand? Whatever is going on, we can fix it when this is over. But right now, you have got to go live.”
Isabel brought John’s stern face into focus.
“Okay,” she whispered through ventriloquist’s lips. No one heard her but John.
“Okay? You’ll do it? Okay?” he double-checked while nodding to Ted and Chip.
“Okay,” Isabel said meekly.
Chip ran back into the booth.
He had left her earpiece on so she heard the voices thundering at one another in the control room. “This is a mistake, Ted. I
“What, she’s not used to
“Okay, Isabel, let’s try this again.” Chip had regained his composure. “In thirty seconds.”
“Nice and easy.” Chip was trying to soothe her.
“I have to protect my reporters, Sargent,” Isabel heard John challenge Ted. “And I’m telling you, this is not a good call to make with Murphy right now! Where’s Roberts? Get him in here.”
“Fifteen seconds.” The knot, ever-tightening in Isabel’s stomach, threatened to erupt in vomit. “Ten, nine, eight, seven—cue music—five, four, three, two…”
With the camera trained on her, Isabel opened her mouth to speak but closed it when no words came out.
“No fucking way!” Ted shouted in the booth. “Go to a graphic.” As Ted barked orders, Chip tried to coax Isabel one last time.
“Get her off the air!” Ted yelled. Isabel flinched at the volume of the words still piped through her ear. “Get her off the fucking air! She’ll never make air again, if I have anything to say about it. Not on this network. She wants to go down, fine. But she’s not taking this network with her, goddammit!”
“If you threaten her, I swear to God I’ll make your life miserable,” John warned Ted.
“She’s over. She’s finished,” Ted ranted.
“If she is it’ll be
“Do I need to remind you who you’re talking to, Goodman?” Ted’s voice a decibel lower.
“Just give her some room right now. Agreed?”
Ted looked through the glass door into the newsroom. His assistant was running across the room to him.
He opened the door. “What? You reach him?”
“He’s five minutes away,” she panted.
