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Wait? What?! You guys are ready?! I’m not ready. I don’t want to raise a protest so I just allow myself to be escorted onto the set.
The as**sistant producer places me in a seat. Lights are pointed at my face. A make-up person touches me up. People buzz around me yelling, “Two minutes to air.” Fuck! I feel like I am about to get prepped for my own execution!
An attractive blonde woman walks up to me. She is instantly familiar to me. I’ve seen her on CNN hundreds of time. She walks up to me and says, “Hi Sarah, I’m Lenna Thomson. So it looks like you have had an eventful couple of weeks in New York,” the interviewer says.
“Are we on TV yet?” I ask nervously.
The anchor laughs at me. “No. No. We’re in commercial. We’ll be on the air in 60 seconds.”
I begin to panic. I am having trouble breathing. I want to throw up.
“Thirty seconds!” a voice yells out in the distance. Lenna Thomson sits herself on a chair across from me and reviews a couple of pieces of paper placed in her hands. “So you have only been working for Mr. Peak for under a month. It looks like you move fast,” the anchor says with a smile.
I can feel myself sweating. I can’t do this! I have to get out of here. I am going to ruin Mr. Peak’s business. “Fifteen seconds!” a man yells as the camera crew takes their positions around us. Lenna Thomson quickly checks her hair in a compact mirror before staring into one of the studio cameras.
“Five seconds!” the voice yells. The whole studio drops to dead silence. I can hear my heart beating against my chest. A see a red light go on over the cameras. Oh my God. Are we on the air. Are the cameras on right now?!
“Welcome back to The Midday Show. Right now, we have an exclusive interview with New York Socialite Sarah Sulamari. As you may have already heard, bad boy director J.T. Marcos was taken to the hospital after a violent altercation with Sarah’s billionaire boyfriend Ryan Peak. Mr. Peak also happens to operate his thirty billion dollar hedge fund right here in the Time Warner building where our CNN studios are located. So how are you doing today, Sarah?”
Nothing. Not a single word is coming out of my mouth. Lenna looks at me for a moment. Then I mutter, “I’m doing fine. Can I have some water?” I ask.
“That is the first time I have had a guest ask for water at the beginning of an interview.”
A production as**sistant quickly hands me a bottle of cool spring water. I take a drink. Already this interview is taking a turn for the bizarre. The interviewer seems a bit taken aback by my actions.
“Thanks. I think I feel a little better,” I mutter.
“So what exactly happened at your boyfriend’s palatial townhome? From what we understand, J.T. Marcos was there to offer you a starring role in his next film when things went wrong.”
“People refer to J.T. Marcos as a bad boy director. Well, he was being a bad boy.”
“So that’s when your boyfriend, the very big and very rich Ryan Peak, choked him.”
“I am not going to comment on what happened.”
“You can’t deny that Mr. Peak attacked him, right?”
Oh boy. What do I say? I don’t want to get my boss in trouble. The last thing he needs is to have this interview be about him. I need to deflect. My mind races at a thousand miles a minute. I look at this anchor who seems ready to tear me apart.
“I already told you that I am not commenting on it,” I say in a more stern tone.
Lenna’s smile disappears from her face. Uh oh. I just realized that I made a mistake. She is a pro. She is coming in for the kill. “Okay, if you are not going to address what happened to J.T. Marcos, let’s talk about you. Less than a month ago, you started a job at the Peak Fund. Today, you are dating the billionaire owner. How did you make that happen?”
“I didn’t make that happen. We just fell for each other,” I say defensively.
“So did you come on to him or did he come on to you?”
“We were mutually attracted to each other.”
“Oh come on. You’re telling me a billionaire hedge fund CEO just happened to scoop you up from the secretarial pool like a Cinderella story. Now, you are an attractive woman. But you are not - and let me just be honest here - a supermodel.”
“Well, you are not a serious reporter. Look at all of the problems in the Middle East, the housing crisis in the U.S., the problems in the economy, the trouble in the Eurozone. Do they not give you the serious stories or do you just interview New York Socialites!” I ask angrily.
“Young lady. I’ve been to Afghanistan. I’ve been shot at in Egypt. I’ve covered famine in the Sudan. What have you done in your life beside bed a billionaire?!” the female anchor asks sternly.
