Love at 11

Chapter One



TWO MONTHS EARLIER…



FROM: “Laura Smith” <[email protected]>

TO: “Madeline Madison” <[email protected]>

SUBJECT: re: story idea



Hi Maddy,



Thank you for your story idea about how dangerous blind spots behind SUVs have caused parents to inadvertently back over their own children––striking them down in their very drive—way. It’s distressing to hear that more than 72 kids died last year alone in this horrific manner.



But after talking it over with the promotions department, we think it’d be better if you could just stick with the “Cosmetics That Kill” story we assigned you last week.



Thanks! Laura



Executive Producer

News 9 —San Diego, CA



I pressed “delete” and leaned back in my squeaky cubicle chair, suppressing a long sigh of frustration.

Why was I even surprised?

After five years of working as an assistant producer at “if it bleeds, it leads” News 9, I knew I should have been used to the rejection of thought-provoking, legitimate stories in exchange for sensationalistic trash. I should have been content pitching the plastic surgery, the diet, the who-is-Paris-Hilton-sleeping-with-now stories.

I was a glutton for punishment.

I should have known that my boss Laura didn’t want to do a story about SUVs with dangerous blind spots. News 9 aired advertisements for those same SUVs during its commercial breaks. Paid advertisements. It was simple as that.

“Hey, Maddy, why the long face, girl?”

The voice of my coworker and best friend Jodi brought me back from my job-induced doom and gloom. Spinning around in my chair, I watched the five-ten blonde plop herself down at my cubicle-mate’s vacant desk and look at me with concerned eyes.

“Oh, nothing. Just the usual,” I said with a shrug. “Typical day at News Nine, San Diego.”

“Uh-oh.” Jodi grinned. “I know that look. What is it this time? Deadly Dishwashers? Perilous Pets? Killer Clay?” she mocked in her best TV newsman voice.

“Killer Clay was last month,” I reminded her. “This episode of the fabulous Household Products That Kill series features murderous makeup.”

“Oh dear,” Jodi said, feigning shock. “I’m going to have to rethink my whole morning routine.”

I swatted at her with the back of my hand.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I said. “It’s not that I’m against informing the public against the hidden dangers of Mary Kay and the rest. It’s just that as far as I can tell cosmetics simply don’t kill. Ever. Like, in the history of cosmetics there hasn’t been a single fatality.”

“Did you look up ancient Egypt? I read once that they wore makeup. Maybe someone crushed up a poison berry or something.”

I rolled my eyes, not even dignifying that with a response.

The problem was, the powers-that-be at News 9 didn’t care that cosmetics didn’t actually kill; it sounded good in the promo and that was all that mattered. If the station could convince the twenty-four- to fifty-five-year-old woman who planned to go to bed after she saw who got fired, kicked off the island, or brutally humiliated by an arrogant Brit named Simon, to stay up and watch the evening news, that was enough. And they believed scaring her half to death was the best way to accomplish this goal.

Five years ago, I, Maddy Madison, graduated from the ivory tower of journalistic ethics, Columbia University, ready to save the world. Expose the bad guys. Right society’s wrongs. Be the voice of truth in a sea of lies.

Boy, was I an idiot.

Anyone who thinks TV news has anything—and I mean anything—to do with journalism should take a major reality pill. Our business is entertainment. Period.

Except on those network TV magazine shows. Like 60 Minutes, 20/20, 48 Hours or my favorite—Newsline. Newsline did important stories. They uncovered scandals and weren’t afraid to name the bad guys. It’d been my dream to become a producer for Newsline ever since their star investigative reporter Diane Dickson came to speak at my high school ten years ago. She’d been so cool. So smart. So polished and important. So into real journalism and ethics and all that stuff. I’d hero-worshiped her ever since.

So, I continued to toil away at local news producing, honing my résumé videotape and hoping that someday I’d have enough experience to be worthy of walking the same halls as Diane and the gang.

Hey, a girl could dream.

“I’ve got some news that may cheer you up,” Jodi announced.

“Oh?” I asked, crossing my fingers for jelly donuts at the assignment desk.

“They hired a new photographer. And he’s to die for!”

“Perfect.” I grinned. “I’d been thinking of pitching ‘Fatal Photographers’ at the next story meeting. Do you think he’ll agree to be interviewed?”

“Hah!” Jodi laughed appreciatively. “But seriously, Maddy. He’s really hot.”

“Easy, tiger,” I warned. “You’re taken, remember?” Jodi, a dog freak, met the man of her dreams a couple years back on Dog Beach, a pet friendly patch of sand on the northern border of San Diego’s Ocean Beach. Her three male Great Danes came bounding over to sniff the butt of his delicate female Italian greyhound, and the rest, as they say, was history. The two got married a year ago and live happily ever after, squashed into a hair-infested, Great Dane/Italian greyhound-filled bungalow on the shores of Ocean Beach. Luckily, neither could afford much furniture.

“But you’re still single,” Jodi reminded me with a sly smile, brushing dog hair from her otherwise adorable black sweater.

Typical. She was always trying to set me up, so I’d have a fourth wheel to balance things when we all went out. In fact, she was so desperate for me to get a boyfriend she’d been less than selective with her set-ups than I might have desired.

I mean, sure there’s probably a woman out there for the guy who thought a replica Captain Kirk uniform was proper attire for a first date. And I imagine it’ll be quite simple for that man with a penchant for farting at dinner to find the woman who better appreciates his bodily functions. And the guy who was so cheap he made me write an IOU when I needed a quarter for the bubblegum machine? I bet his Mrs. Right’s just around the corner.

So when Jodi got that excited matchmaking gleam in her blue eyes, my guard immediately went up.

“What’s he look like?”

“Go see for yourself. He’s in the newsroom.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to go work on ‘Cosmetics That Kill.’ It edits Tuesday and I’ve yet to find a single person who will agree to be interviewed on the topic.” Jodi put on a mock pout. “Fine. Go ahead and work. But when Christine in sales snatches this one, you’ll be sorry you didn’t get to him first.”

I was saved by the bell—my phone rang. I hesitated before picking up the receiver: It was an inside ring, which meant someone somewhere in the building wanted something from me. This could be as simple as “Where’s the tease for last night’s story?” or as bad as “You’re fired, pack up your desk and leave.” That’s how it worked at News 9.

Curiosity won out over common sense and I put the receiver to my ear. “This is Maddy.”

“Madeline, this is Richard. Can you come down to my office for a moment?”

It was the news director. While Laura was the executive producer of our department, Richard was the big boss of the entire newsroom. He wasn’t a tyrant or anything, but no one wanted to be called down to his office. It was like being sent to the principal—and never turned out well. My hand shook a little as I set the receiver back in its cradle.

What could he want from me? Were the ratings for “Killer Clay” bad? Had he decided to replace me with a twenty-two-year-old natural blonde? (As a twenty-seven-year-old bottled blonde at News 9, I was already getting over the hill.) Or, maybe he was promoting me. Maybe for some incomprehensible reason he’d thought “Killer Clay” was Emmy-worthy and he wanted me to take Laura’s job.

Yeah, right. And maybe they’d raised the Titanic, too. The only way to find out was to go down to the newsroom. I rose from my chair, told Jodi I had to leave, and headed from our Special Projects alcove to the massive Newsplex below.

The Newsplex looked like something out of Future World at Disney World: very sci-fi, with neon lights zooming everywhere, a billion TV sets, strategically placed, and furniture that looked like something out of The Jetsons. It was a bit overwhelming, and I was sometimes glad to be stuck in tiny, overcrowded Cubicle Land on the fourth floor.

I scanned the room from the balcony before walking downstairs. The place was alive, as usual. Worker ants scurrying around to serve their queen, News 9’s main anchor Terrance Toller. (Yes, a guy, but very queen like, trust me!) Now in his sixties, the clinically narcissistic anchor defined the stereotype of male diva, and struck fear into the hearts of the young production assistants and writers who lived to serve him. One of his favorite tortures? Asking random questions moments before going live.

Example: Story is about a soldier’s death in Uzbekistan. Seconds before the commercial ends and Terrance is supposed to read the twenty-second blurb on the event, he turns from his camera-facing position and demands, “What’s the capital of Uzbekistan?” to the hapless writer who sits behind him.

It doesn’t matter that the death didn’t take place in the capital of Uzbekistan. It doesn’t matter that Terrance will never mention the name of the capital on air even if it did. (He’d never be able to pronounce it anyway.) If the poor writer doesn’t instantly have the answer to his trivial pursuit, she’s going to get it after the show. Needless to say, whenever Terrance took the anchor desk, all the writers had Google fired up and were ready to search.

I carefully made my way down the steep steps into the Newsplex. My pitiful salary didn’t afford me good shoes and I was forced to run around in ill-fitting irregulars from a factory outlet. They looked pretty cool, but the tops were already detaching from the soles. One wrong step and I’d stumble down into televised embarrassment.

That was the thing about the Newsplex. As it was the backdrop of the newscast, anything that happened behind the scenes was broadcast on live TV. I remember one time the overnight engineers set the house channel to some porn station and forgot to change it back. Let me tell you, the FCC wasn’t so happy when morning viewers got their daily breakfast news with a side of Ron Jeremy.

Richard’s door was closed when I arrived and I wondered if I should come back later. The idea was more than tempting, but I decided to brave it out with a timid knock.

“Come in.”

I slid my hand around the knob and opened the door. The news director sat behind his great mahogany desk, leaning back in an ultra-comfy executive chair. I duly noted his smile. So, this wasn’t bad news. Okay. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“Hi. You wanted to see me?” I asked, hovering in the doorway like a vampire waiting for my invitation to come in.

“Sit down, Madeline,” Richard said, gesturing to an empty seat—an empty seat beside the hottest guy in the known universe, I suddenly realized.

Oh. My. God.

Was this the new photographer Jodi had been talking about? “To die for” had been the understatement of the century. More like to die for, be raised from the dead for, and live an entirely new existence based on worshiping him.

He had shiny light brown hair, clipped short in the back, hanging a bit longish over his green eyes. Well built, but not huge, he wore Diesel dark-rinse jeans and a tight black T-shirt stretched across his chest, delightfully hugging his pecs and flat stomach. He gave me a smile that nearly made me melt into a soppy puddle on Richard’s floor.

Stop staring, Maddy!

I forced my eyes away and back to Richard, concentrated on Richard’s bulgy paunch of a stomach—a definite buzz-kill—and sat down next to Adonis.

“Thanks for coming down, Madeline,” Richard said. He never could come to terms with the fact that everyone called me Maddy since birth. “I’d like you to meet Jamie Hayes. He’s our new photographer and today’s his first day.”

I turned slowly to face Adonis/Jamie and attempted a friendly—but not too friendly—smile. He flashed his white teeth again and held out his hand.

“Hi, Madeline, nice to meet you.”

“M-Maddy,” I corrected before I could stop myself. I bit my lower lip. One did not correct men who looked that good. That was, like, Adonis 101.

“I’m sorry?”

I swallowed. Hard. Twenty-something years mastering the English language and I could barely spit out a sentence. “You can call me Maddy.”

He grinned again. “Maddy. I had a dog named Maddy once.”

I reminded him of a dog. Ugh. Did I look that bad? I tried to surreptitiously check my reflection in the glassed trophy cabinet behind him. My ridiculously expensive Hillcrest hairdresser had assured me my flippy do was artfully messy, but all I saw in my reflection was a blond Cousin It. And why hadn’t I worn something cute? Hip? What had possessed my bleary-eyed six a.m. self to choose the ugly green sweater that was currently draped over my body? And my three-year-old faded Express pants screamed last day before laundry.

After giving up on the reflection—I was never winning Fairest of Them All at this point—I realized Jamie was still holding out his hand. Doh. I was really making a great impression on the guy. I shook his hand and focused all my energy on ignoring the romance novel–like sparks that shot down to my toes when our palms came into contact with one another. I accidentally looked up and my eyes slammed into his sparkly kryptonite green ones. Like Superman, I was instantly rendered powerless. “Madeline.” Richard’s voice brought me back to reality. Happy for the interruption, I dropped Jamie’s hand like a hot potato. “How long have you been with us now?”

I stared at him, horrified to realize my mind was completely blank. Come on, this wasn’t the capital of Uzbekistan. How long had I worked here? Jamie’s proximity was doing bad things to my brain.

“Thr—er, four years, sir.” Wait, was it four? Or five? Let’s see, I started in June of …

“Right.” Richard noted something on a legal pad. “How would you like a change?”

“What kind of change?” I cocked my head in interest. I mean, he’d have to be more specific before I could answer that one. Like, if it were a flipping-burgers-at-McDonald’s kind of change, I’d pass. Big raise with exciting new responsibilities? I’m your gal.

“I’m starting a new franchise. An investigative kind of thing. It’ll be a vehicle for Terrance—that’s our main anchor,” he told Jamie, “to get his face out there more, though it’ll be completely producer driven. He’ll just read your scripts. What do you think?”

What did I think? I thought that sounded great! Who wouldn’t? It was a dream come true. My own segment—and an investigative one at that. A chance to help right the wrongs viewers faced each day. Sure, it would involve working with Terrance, but I could do it. How hard could it be? After all, he wouldn’t be that involved. He’d simply be reading what I wrote. Besides, I’d make any sacrifice to have my own segment.

“I’m honored you thought of me,” I replied in my most respectful voice. “I’d love to produce the new segment.” Maybe Newsline would notice me now. My idol Diane Dickson would call me personally. Ask me why I hadn’t yet applied. They’d send me a first-class plane ticket to New York. Wine me. Dine me. Beg me to work for them. And then I’d …

“Since you’ll be doing a lot of shooting, I figured it’d be good to assign you your own photographer,” Richard was saying. I immediately woke up from Newsline dreamland to even more delicious reality. He was assigning me my own photog? No more fighting with the other producers for five minutes of camera time, squeezed in between their supposedly more important shoots? This got better and better.

“Great,” I managed to spit out. “Thanks.”

“I’d like you and Jamie to start immediately. Why don’t you give him a tour of the station now?”

And immediate face time with Adonis? This day got better and better. Whatever I did in a past life to deserve this luck, I’m glad I got around to it.

“Sure,” I said, now teeming with self-confidence. I gestured to Jamie. “Shall we?”

He grinned, rising from his seat. “We shall.” Together we walked out of Richard’s office and into the Newsplex. I pointed out all the major sites—anchor desk, assignment desk, editing, etc. Introduced him to a few nosy coworkers (mostly women) who made their way over to pretend to ask me something and then casually question, “Oh, who’s your friend?” As if I’d be fooled by that old ruse.

I considered showing him the broom closets, just in case the mood happened to strike him in a closed-in, private area like what might happen on a soap opera, but then forced myself to stay professional. After all, I’d be working with the guy every single day. I didn’t have to rush things.

“And this is Special Projects,” I said as I led him into our upstairs alcove. “Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the Newsplex.” I brought him over to my cubicle. “You can hang here for a moment.” I gestured to the empty desk across from mine. “I have to check my e-mail real quick.”

The desk’s owner, a political producer named David, was currently on the campaign trail with Senator Gorman, the incumbent Republican Senator from San Diego. Seeing as Gorman was the most conservative guy on the planet and David probably the most openly gay, I greatly regretted missing witnessing the two of them hanging out on the same tour bus.

I signed in and scanned for new e-mail. I had eleven unread messages: five on enlarging my member, three offering to overnight me Valium, two in Chinese that might have been really interesting if I could read the language, and one which, were I considering buying a house, I’d be offered a super interest rate.

No reply from any doctors eagerly awaiting fifteen minutes of fame garnered by ousting those secret cosmetics that killed. Darn.

“So, do you like working at News Nine?” Jamie asked, interrupting my systematic deletions.

I tried to keep my face expressionless. I hated this question from newbies. They’d just started and, for them, this job was a dream come true. A chance to work in TV news in “America’s Finest City.” They might have slaved years to get to this place. I didn’t want to be the one to burst their bubbles, tell them the newsroom was a shithole with terrible managers and even worse journalistic ethics. That it was the bane of my existence, and I had only stayed so long out of an overwhelming fear of the unemployment line. I was pretty sure that a degree in TV wouldn’t elicit very many good job offers.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” I said nonchalantly. He’d find out soon enough. “Like any newsroom, it’s got its idiosyncrasies.”

He laughed, seeming to catch my meaning. “I see.”

“Where did you work before this?” I asked. I wondered if his newsroom was as bad as News 9.

“Actually, this is my first TV news job,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “I worked in LA before this. Doing movies. Documentaries. That kind of thing.”

“Really?” I asked, too enthusiastic before I could help myself. Come on, Maddy. At least a shred of dignity would be nice. “What movies?”

He listed off several very cool independent films. Wow, this guy got better and better. Not only was he good-looking, but he was talented, too. Total boyfriend material. Though way out of my league. He probably dated models.

“So, why are you here?” I couldn’t help but ask.

He sighed and stared at the ground. Oh, good one. I’d asked him something that made him uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to go into it,” I added.

“No, it’s okay.” He shrugged. “Basically, the projects dried up. The economy’s so bad now. I figured I’d get a ‘real job,’”—he made finger quotation marks—“until a new project started. Get some money saved up.”

I nodded. That made sense. Poor guy, though. He was going to hate working at News 9. I, on the other hand, was very, very happy about his arrival. I wondered how I could make my first move. Would it be too forward to shove him against the desk and have my way with him?

As I was pondering possible photog molestation, his cell rang. “Hello?” he said, after pulling an iPhone from his pocket and putting it to his ear.

He was so cool. So, so cool. And he was all mine for at least eight hours every day. How did I get so lucky? I casually gave him another once-over as I waited for him to finish his conversation. God, he was cute. Long eyelashes, high cheekbones, a full mouth that was perfectly kissable. Just a hint of five o’clock shadow scruffiness to keep him from looking too pretty.

He glanced over at me and I felt my face heat with embarrassment. Did he know I was checking him out? He gave a brief smile, then made a gun out of his forefinger and thumb and mimed shooting himself in the head. Whoever was on the other line, he didn’t want to talk to. Maybe it was his mother. Or maybe it was his psycho ex-girlfriend. Or …

“Yes, dear. I know our wedding’s in three months. That’s plenty of time,” he said, blowing out a deep sigh of frustration.

Or, dammit, maybe it was his fiancée.