You learn to cope or you get out. Harassment is CDB-cost of doing business-if you’re a female in Television Land. A little garbage mouth helps. I learned early how to do the boy patter, what would help me pass and what wouldn’t. Most of the women I know in this business cuss like soldiers, skim the sports pages enough to blend and would personally scoop out their eyeballs with plastic spoons before they shed tears in public.
What was Gatt expecting me to teach this kid?
A quick knock was followed by a bright blond head around the door. “Hello?”
“Come on in, buddy.” Gatt took a swallow of his candied coffee and waved.
Welcome, Ainsley Prescott-poster child for the Aryan nation, all flaxen haired and sweet smelling. He flashed me a mouthful of sparkling teeth and popped out his hand to shake.
I turned back to Uncle Gatt. “I don’t work with stand-ups.”
The kid’s perfect smile down-shifted from eager to encouraging. The offer of his hand was not retracted.
“Ainsley’s not talent,” Gatt assured me. “He wants to camera.”
“I want to
“Sure you are.” I forced myself to smile back and take his hand.
Nearly six-foot in my boots, I’m tall as the average American man and could probably bench press him too, if he’d stick around long enough. I usually get a pretty good feel for a guy by eye-balling him in the clinch and watching for flinch.
Ainsley didn’t flinch. He tipped his head nearer my ear and in a private voice added, “Cool pants.”
Gatt beamed, the picture of a satisfied matchmaker. “Look, Ms. O’Hara, you want this job, Ainsley gives the tour, shows you to the truck and you two go get to work. Our first feed is next Wednesday. So there’s-”
“-less than a week to produce the story.” Typical.
“That’s right.” Gatt started making himself busy sorting his stack of phone messages. I was being dismissed. He had me and knew it. “You don’t want the job, say so now. I got a conference call in five minutes.”
I looked the kid over again. He wore razor-pleat khakis and a white button-down shirt so squeaky clean-cut it hurt my teeth. Most camera jocks lumbered around in size double XL athletic wear. Ainsley barely topped six feet, had the beanpole build of a young man who hadn’t fully grown into his feet and the smooth blue-eyed complexion of the perennial ingenue. How was he going to handle fifty pounds of camera equipment at a jog?
Ainsley’s head flipped back and forth between Gatt and me, looking for one of us to say something. His smile faded on a sigh of resignation. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, elbows locked, exactly the way my eight-year- old niece, Jenny, does when she’s worried.
What the hell. I’d made a career of specializing in disasters.
“All right. I’m in.” I accepted Gatt’s deal with a grim nod.
Gatt looked relieved. “Great. You’re hired. I’ll get Barbara going on the paperwork. You have a look around. Make some calls. Like I said, we need something in the can by next Wednesday.”
Looking at Ainsley, all I could think was I’d have to change my damn hair color. Side by side, we’d look like the freaking Bobbsey twins.
“Awesome,” Ainsley said. The smile was back.
“Go show her around, buddy.” Gatt winked. The boy’s charm wasn’t lost on the uncle. “O’Hara, I’ll set you up with the GM for a meet-and-greet later, and get your offer finalized today.”
“Anybody pitched you a story idea for this week?” I asked.
“Nope. Network’s got some ideas. You’ll want to call them first. Reminds me-I logged a weird call this morning, right before you came in. Out west somewhere, Amish land. People love those Amish-in-trouble stories. Why don’t you go check it out?”
“Amish? There are Amish people out here?” I tried not to sound panicky. “I thought they only lived in remote rural areas.”
Gatt’s cock-eyed glare begged the question,
Hanging around the office waiting for network to call back and pitch me a “crime, sex or movie star” item did not sound like a good plan to me. Seeing Ainsley the Wonder Boy in action might be a good idea before a real shoot landed on us.
It didn’t take long to pin down the necessary details. Ainsley was happy to lead the way. “Our Amish community isn’t really that nearby,” he assured me. “It’s actually way out to the edge of the county, at least a half-hour drive west and south.”
“A half hour?” I repeated, trying to adjust to the thought that I now lived closer to an Amish settlement than the city. It took an hour to get into downtown from out here, when the traffic didn’t suck. “That far?”
“Few miles past the Walmart. But there’s a Mennonite church right over in Lombard if you’re looking for something closer. You want to see the remote truck first? It’s pretty sweet.” Ainsley pointed me up the hall. “I knew this one Amish guy who got special permission to go to my high school. He was there a year. Had to ride a bus for an hour and thought it was the greatest. Hard to believe, huh?”
We turned a corner and walked past the cubical shanty town that housed sales, accounting and the promotions departments. Ainsley offered a
Maneuvering our way through the building, the kid pointed out the station’s highlights. “Through here’s the kitchen…doughnuts…pop machines…oh, and the bulletin board where we keep the take-out menus.”
“College boys are walking stomachs.”
“No way,” he told me. “I’m no college boy. I’m done with school.”
“Really? Where’d you go?” There were a couple of good schools nearby. A credential I could trust would be nice.
“Pretty much everywhere.” His confession melted out, sticky and sweet. “I, um, had a little trouble in school.”
“You flunk?”
“Not exactly.” The words stretched twice their usual length, long enough to include a whole range of possible mischief. “Got kicked out. Twice.”
“Twice.” I nodded. “That takes some effort.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t seem too upset about it. “Nothing for you to worry about though. I finished all the core courses in broadcasting and camera. I’m fully trained.”
“Sure you are.”
Freelancing a new job, I usually feel excited, ready to dig in, ready to work. It was different to be filled with thoughts of doom.
Ainsley, on the other hand, could not believe his luck. Taking out the remote truck on our first day. He scored points for loading the cameras with the proper awe. The remote “truck” was technically a van, with a decent bank of machines inside-playback, switcher, monitors. Some of the places I’ve worked would have considered it a state-of-the-art editing bay. He was right, it was sweet.
“Looks good. Let’s get going, College.” I slammed the rear doors after a quick inspection and climbed in beside him on the passenger side. “Stop in the front lot on the way out, would you? I need to grab my cameras.”
I always carry both still and video camera equipment to a shoot. I started as a photographer which is unusual these days. I never set out to be on-screen talent. I prefer to let the pictures tell the story. Sometimes on location, I can get straight photos where I can’t get tape. With a splice of quick-cut, pan-tilt, I’ll incorporate the photos into the final story. It’s a distinctive look, one of my signatures.
“If the Amish thing doesn’t heat up, you can show me around town. But I do need to be back at the station by say, two-fifty this afternoon. You know where we’re going, right?”
“Sure. I’ve lived in Dupage County my whole life,” Ainsley admitted without a trace of embarrassment. “Wow. Is that your motorcycle?”
“Yeah.”
“How old is that thing?”
“Older than me,” I answered flatly. “Older than television.”
