“Colton!” Mark called out to our director with an impatient groan, and we each sat up a little straighter and perfected the angle at which his gray-slacked knees and my pantyhose-encased ones faced each other.
Colton raised his hands in acknowledgment before shouting, “Carl!” in the second before the red light illuminated once more. Poor Carl. It wasn’t his fault the new guy under his skilled tutelage kept looking at the wrong clock. Even I had to admit the main stage of studio 2-A was a confusing place to be, timewise. Sunday night, before my first episode, I’d dreamt that all the different digital clocks—ticking down until we were live, ticking up until commercials ended, and in some cases communicating something only Colton seemed to understand about local affiliates versus the network—were accompanied by the theme music from 24. When my 3:30 a.m. alarm clock went off, I woke up in a panic, certain I had prevented Jack Bauer from saving the world because I couldn’t remember my employee code for the Xerox machine before the day ran out.
“I think everyone will agree, Brynn, that you didn’t take long to make a mark here on Sunup.” Mark carried on as Carl indecipherably lectured the protege who got him yelled at.
“Do you mean me or the footprints I left behind after we got back in the van at the zoo?”
“Both!”
We laughed together in that way only two coworkers who barely know each other but are trying to convince America they are the nearest and dearest of friends can.
“Well, regardless,” I resumed, reading the continuation of our “spontaneous” witty banter. “This week has been one I’ll never forget. I’m grateful to you, Mark, for being so welcoming. You’ve shared this couch with so many legendary cohosts through the years, and I know that each one of them no doubt felt as I do now—honored and more than a little bit awestruck to be sitting here next to you.”
Oh, give me a break. Awestruck? Mark is a nice enough guy, but have we forgotten that his storied career was launched by “Pet Disasters with Mark-Paul Irvine” on a public television station in Cleveland? Or, for that matter, that he was Mark-Paul Irvine until Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell beat him to stardom?
“And to you, the viewers . . . I can’t tell you what it means to this homespun, small-town girl to know you’ve put out the welcome mat.” Not this again. “Growing up in the precious, rural community I call home, I just never dreamed that one day I’d get to become friends with all of you. People from every walk of life, all across this great nation of ours. I couldn’t be more grateful.”
“And we’re grateful for you, Brynn. And speaking of dynamic duos—”
Were we, though?
New Guy scrolled the lines in front of us. And scrolled. I’m not sure where Mark’s line had come from, but it was gone in a flash. And then all of it was gone in a flash, leaving a black screen in front of us.
Mark froze.
Oh, poor New Guy. The next time I saw him he would be Unemployed Guy, I suspected. Maybe Zamboni Driver at Madison Square Garden Guy.
In less than two seconds of awkward dead-air time, Colton whisper-yelled at Carl and Carl shoved New Guy out of the way, leaving camera two unmanned so he could take over at the teleprompter, while I heard an urgent “Brynn! Get us to break!” in my earpiece.
And yet, no one seemed to have any concerns about the fact that our cagey veteran, the senior man on the morning news-entertainment team at the highest-rated network in the country, was sitting there speechless and shuffling next to me, completely undone by the lack of a script and a hiccup in production.
Before we’d hit the three-second mark on any of those clocks, I smiled at the red light on camera four. “Dynamic duos besides us, you mean?” Camera four was awkward at the angle we were sitting, but Orly at camera one was geared up and ready to go to Maria at the news desk, and everyone else was caught up in the complete meltdown of broadcasting professionals in the middle of the room. Seriously, how many people did it take to make sure Mark Irvine knew how to say goodbye? The world’s oldest-living triplets were probably still in the building after our interview with them. Maybe we could call them in too.
“That other dynamic duo, Elena and Hayley, are making their way to their couch, so it’s almost time for us to hop back in the Sunupmobile and head back to the Sunupcave.” I patted Mark on the shoulder and nudged him to turn to our right and focus on camera four with me. “But we’ll see everyone again soon, right, Mark? Same Sunup time . . .”
Mark nodded at the camera and grinned. “Too right. We’ll be back to wrap up right after this from your local station.”
Same Sunup channel. Same Sunup channel! How much more perfectly could I have possibly lobbed that pitch to him?
The light on camera four went off, and I exhaled and relaxed against the back of the couch. “Yikes,” I muttered to Mark. “Who needs coffee with adrenaline bursts like that?”
He stood up in a huff and shouted to the ever-growing huddle. “Colton!”
I glanced at Colton, who responded to Mark’s bellowing with a forced smile for his star. “I know, Mark. Sorry about that. We’re working on it.”
Greta hurried over to me with powder for my nose. I felt the trickles of sweat running down my back, undoubtedly ruining a perfectly-gorgeous-five-minutes-ago Jason Wu silk blouse, and I had no doubt my face was showing the perspiration just as much.
“Eddie had the bad luck of antiquated equipment taking its last breath in one of the first moments he had actual responsibility,” Greta informed me quietly with a pained expression on her face.
“Who’s Eddie?” Mark asked as Deb touched up his face. Without makeup, the man had the complexion of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.
“Eddie,” I stated calmly. “The new production assistant.”
No, I hadn’t known New Guy’s name either, but if you weren’t even capable of using context clues, you deserved to be shown up in front of the crew, at least a little bit.
Not that Mark was only shown up a little bit today.
Greta fluffed my hair and winked at me before backing away. I smiled back at her, as humbly as I could, straightened my skirt, and prepared for one final sign-off segment.
“So I bet you’re actually from Philadelphia or somewhere, aren’t you?”
I did a double take toward Mark. “I’m sorry?”
He looked down at the lapel of his suit jacket and picked off a minuscule piece of lint. “You’re always talking about your small town, rural roots—”
“I do seem to do that a lot, don’t I?” I grimaced.
“I get it. It works. I just think you could stand to tone it down a bit. It was cute when you were third hour, but we cover serious news here.” He looked over at me and grinned, and I resisted the temptation to remind him we’d built a snowman with the Biebers on Tuesday.
“You know as well as I do, Mark, that Colton decides what the audience should know about me. If the down-home thing is what viewers respond to, that’s what they’re going to have me talk about.”
He tsked and tightened the knot of his tie. “Rookie mistake. Yes, you read the lines they give you, but when the camera stops rolling, you must lay down the law. If they want you to be ‘down-home’ and you refuse, they’ll change tack.”