Page 11 of Making It Live!

Bruce took the folder back."Welcome to the Beacon Broadcasting Company, Jimmy.And remember — not a word.To anyone."

After he left, I stared at the risotto I hadn't finished and pulled out my phone.

Jillian picked up on the first ring.

"Tell me everything," she said, because that was how Jillian answered the phone regardless of context.She could be at a funeral and she'd still answer with tell me everything.

"I took the job."

The sound that came through the phone was not a scream.It was a frequency only dogs and best friends could detect.I held the phone six inches from my ear and watched a waiter flinch from across the dining room.

"JIMMY!OH MY GOD!I KNEW IT!I'M SO PROUD OF YOU I COULD DIE!"

"Please don't die.I just sold my soul and I'm going to need someone to talk me off the ledge."

"Ledge?Baby, you just jumped off the ledge and grew wings!"Her voice shifted into the register I recognized as Jillian In Command."Okay.Here's what's going to happen.You are going to march yourself over to the Shops at Columbus Circle and meet me at Nordstrom.We need coffee.I’m already two blocks away."

I closed my eyes."Jillian."

"You also need clothes, Jimmy.Real clothes.And we're doing something about your hair.”

"Do we have to do this?"

"Thirty minutes."

The line went dead.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later I was in a salon chair wrapped in a black cape, staring at my reflection like it belonged to a complete stranger.

This was not the plan.The plan had been coffee.Jillian had said coffee.She'd said "Nordstrom, meet me there," and what she had meant, apparently, was I've already booked you an appointment and you're getting your hair done whether you like it or not.

"Stop making that face," Jillian said from the chair beside me, scrolling through her phone like a woman who had not just ambushed her best friend.

Jillian Morris was five foot two, devastatingly put-together, and possessed the organizational instincts of a four-star general — which served her well at the Mayor's Office of City Legislative Affairs.She spent her days wrangling council members and her evenings wrangling me.Jillian was also the only person on earth who could bully me into things I didn't want to do, which was how I'd ended up in this chair instead of home questioning every decision that had led to this moment.

"What face?"

"The one you make when you're about to bolt.I've known you since freshman year at Columbia, Jimmy.I know the bolt face.Sit still."

The stylist — a tall, angular man named Dominic, shirt unbuttoned to the fourth button, cheekbones that could cut glass — had both hands buried in my hair, working through the curls with an expression that could only be called diagnostic.Like a mechanic popping a hood and realizing it was worse than he'd thought.

"When was the last time you had a professional cut, sweetie?"he asked.

"Define professional."

He lifted a curl, stretched it out to its full shoulder length, and let it spring back like a window shade."Mm-hmm."He picked up another.Released it."Mm-hmm."Then he gathered a whole handful at the back, where the curl knotted up tightest, and held it up like a scientist examining a contaminated sample."And this.This whole situation back here.The frizz, the knots — half of this is curl and half of this is neglect.I need you to tell me which products you've been using."

"Shampoo," I said defensively.

"Which shampoo?"

"Whatever's on sale."

Dominic stared at me in the mirror."You have shoulder-length auburn curls — the kind rich women pay four figures to fake — and you've been washing them with whatever's on sale?"

"Sometimes whatever's in the shower."