Blaise was off for the week between Christmas and New Year, and she spent time with Salima and Simon. They went to concerts and out to dinner, and took Salima skating in Central Park. She loved it. The three of them had a great time together, and Salima went to two recitals at Juilliard with Lucianna and met some of the students. She came back more excited than ever about the school and could hardly wait to audition. The time flew by, and Blaise’s vacation ended all too quickly.
The first two weeks of January were totally crazy for Blaise once she went back to work. She had three major trips planned, one to California and two to Europe, and each of them only for a few days. And as always now, Teresa stayed at the apartment to help Simon with Salima, and each time Blaise returned, he was thrilled to see her. And by midmonth she was exhausted. She was traveling too much, but the interviews she was doing were important. All of her recent ones had already been aired, and had done well. And the night she got home from her last trip, Susie Quentin’s live special was on, with her interview with the first lady. It had been the talk of the network for weeks. Blaise sat down to watch it with trepidation, and Simon joined her a few minutes later right before it came on. He didn’t want to miss it either. He knew how nervous Blaise was about it. Andrew had sent Blaise a text about it, as though she wouldn’t know it would be on. She particularly wanted to see it to see how stiff her competition was. This was the big opportunity the network had given Susie to shine, and Blaise knew that if Susie did well with it, her own future could be impacted. A star could be born that night, if Susie knocked their socks off. Blaise knew she would be fighting for her position at the network every day from then on. It was tough enough as it was, without adding more pressure. Blaise looked intent and tense as Susie and the first lady came on, from a sitting room at the White House.
The interview opened with Susie explaining who she was, and saying how happy she was to be at the White House with the first lady, which Blaise told Simon she thought was hokey. No one cared who the reporter was, she explained, especially at Susie’s stage of the game, they were just a vehicle to draw out their subjects, and ask the questions everyone wanted to know. She was the mouthpiece for the viewing public, their alter ego. But she had a massive ego of her own, and it leaped at the viewers right through the TV. She was all about Susie, and eventually addressed the first lady. Her first question was inane. Her second one was worse. And for her third one, she made a blunder and asked the first lady how she had liked living in Virginia before the White House, and what that time had meant to her. The question was only interesting because the first lady had never lived there, her predecessor had. Susie was an administration late.
“Oh my God,” Blaise said, wincing, “how did she manage to screw that up, and who the hell did the research?” The first lady looked confused on the air. Simon was amused by the flow of editorial comments from Blaise.
Susie then went on to ask her if she thought her husband had ever had an affair. Blaise nearly choked and stared at the TV in disbelief. She had done nothing to warm up her subject and put her at ease. So far she had bored her, made a ridiculous mistake about her living in Virginia, and had just embarrassed her on prime-time national TV in front of millions of people. The first lady did not look pleased, to say the least. She looked poised but pissed. And Susie was clueless, as she waited for an answer to her question.
The current president was a seriously religious man, who was known for his moral standards and puritanical values. He might have been a hypocrite, but Blaise didn’t think so, and his wife sure as hell wouldn’t admit it if he was. He was a very straitlaced man, and all Susie had accomplished was seriously angering the president’s wife, who looked stunned after Susie asked the question and quietly answered, “No.”
“I’ll say one thing, she’s got balls,” Blaise said about her rival. She was beginning to look seriously foolish, and Blaise nearly fell off the couch when she asked the first lady if she’d ever had an affair herself. She was turning her special into tabloid TV and had copied Blaise’s occasional harsher, controversial edge without the judgment, brains, and charm.
“Oh my God,” Blaise groaned with both hands on her head. “She belongs in an institution. Is she nuts?” The first lady was sealed up tight as a drum after answering no to that question too, and the interview might as well have ended there. From then on, she answered in monosyllables, and fielded every question as she’d been taught to do by experts.