The First Day of the Conference
A line of treadmills overlooked a bank of windows, but the view wasn’t very inspiring. Just a hospital parking lot and a highway. At least there were a few palm trees.
It was 6:30 a.m., and I had forced myself out of bed to get the ol’ ticker thumping before the News Coverage Summit kicked off. My doctor had warned me that my blood pressure was creeping up, and I was committed to taking off a few pounds this year. It was my New Year’s resolution. Granted, it was only the third week of January, but I had been pretty good. Couldn’t let a conference get in the way.
Pearl Jam provided the soundtrack as I pumped my legs on the tread, feeling beads of sweat starting to form. The long flight from Atlanta had done a number on my body yesterday, but I had gotten to the hotel by late afternoon and even had time for a massive NY strip dinner with two double-baked potatoes and dessert, followed by a few cocktails in the bar. Met some fellow news directors from around the country who were in for the same thing. We all had a couple of laughs. I felt energized and was looking forward to meeting more people. Those of us in charge of newsrooms tended to be in our own little orbits; we didn’t socialize much in our cities, mostly for fear of sharing information that shouldn’t be shared. It was a competitive and secretive society. This conference felt like a chance to mix and mingle. Given that I was newly single, I was itching for a one-night stand too, and I couldn’t wait to scout the chicks just in case something could develop. It had been way too long since I had a good one-night stand.
As I cranked up the incline and the music pulsed in my ears, my thoughts jerked back to one of the last things Katrina had said before she left me: that I should give her wedding ring to the TV station because I was married to it and not her. That still pissed me off.
True, I put in marathon-long days, but it was to help us as a family as much as anything. Would she be able to afford the private school for the kids and her “me days” of pedicures and shopping if I weren’t working so much? I didn’t think so. Now she would receive child support for Brittany and Brett and get her own house.
My fists balled up as I increased the speed on the treadmill, thinking of her dating some new guy but still living off my money. We had our differences. I might have cheated on her a few times, but who could possibly be loyal to one person their whole life when the world was filled with so many tempting possibilities? And, frankly, who was to say she hadn’t cheated on me?
We had a few fights too, but was it my fault she could be so hotheaded? Sure, I’d pushed her a few times. That wasn’t a big deal. She threatened a restraining order but thankfully hadn’t gone through with it. That sort of thing could kill my career. I think she knew it would stop her flow of income too, which was why she didn’t do it. She just left me instead.
I had the kids on weekends just once per month by my choice. Kids were a pain in the ass. Daddy, I want juice. Daddy, I’m tired. Daddy, I’m hungry. Daddy, I hurt my knee. Katrina was the woman; she could deal with that sort of crap. I even cut the hours I was with the kids so that I didn’t pick them up until late afternoon on a Saturday and returned them Sunday right after breakfast. Even twenty-four hours as a single parent would have been too much.
To be honest, I was thrilled to have my freedom almost entirely back. Freedom to date, to sleep in when I wanted, to drink as much as I felt like without her checking the recycling bin to see how many beer cans were in it. Screw her. I had bigger things to think about than stupid Katrina or the kids.
Turning the incline down, I looked at the clock on the wall. Time to get ready for the conference. Slowing to a fast walk, I changed the music to Coldplay for the cooldown, and my thoughts drifted to what the hotel restaurant might offer for breakfast. My secretary had said I should do avocado toast given that I was in California, but that sounded awful. No thanks. Eggs, hash browns, toast, and bacon for me. I needed to feel full after every meal.
Grabbing a stiff, bleachy-smelling towel from the stack by the door, I wiped sweat off my forehead and looked at myself in the wall of mirrors opposite the windows. I tried to suck in my stomach. That gut had been inching out for the past five years. I was fifty-two years old, still had a boyish face, people told me, but I felt every ache and pain too. Would probably be sore from this running. I should stretch, but who had time for that? I gave it a cursory fingers-to-toes followed by a twist in each direction and decided that was enough. Stretching was for ballerinas. Dropping the towel in the laundry hamper and leaving the gym, I strode back to the elevator to get to my room.
The shower had a rainforest head and side jets, and the hotel provided bodywash and two options for shampoo and conditioner in pump containers in the shower stall. I emerged smelling like eucalyptus. Standing naked in front of the massive bathroom mirror, I thought about how good I looked, minus that extra belly fat I was working on. But my arms were toned and my face was damn handsome. My hair, barely gray or thinning yet, was my calling card, and if I ever started to lose it, I had plans to pay whatever it took for hair plugs.
Reaching for the shaving cream, I did my full shaving process, then plucked a few nose hairs from my nostrils and clipped my sideburns with tiny scissors I always brought along. Briefly, I contemplated texting my assistant news director to see how everything was going back in the A-T-L, as I liked to call Atlanta, but then thought, fuck it. I could view this as a vacation as much as anything, right? Why be bogged down with the minutiae of the newsroom? Married to my work? I’d show Katrina. I even avoided the San Diego morning news shows and instead turned on ESPN.
My clothes were zipped into travel bags, pressed and ready to go, thanks to my secretary. This first day I would wear a suit coat that was monogrammed with my initials, as were all of my work clothes. I paired that with a Ralph Lauren V-neck T-shirt, pressed slacks, and Hugo Boss shoes. Fastening my chunky silver watch, adding gel to my hair and smoothing it down, I grabbed the leather over-the-shoulder messenger bag I had gotten from one of the best tanneries in Rome and headed down for breakfast.
The eggs were a bit overdone, but the hash browns, toast, and bacon were good. I downed it all with two cups of black coffee—no milk, no sugar (sugar was for little girls, my dad had always said)—and I was feeling jacked up and powerful as I strode into the ballroom ready for the conference. A table was set up to the left with name tags strewn across it.
“Good morning, can I help you find your name?” asked a young woman with short hair who I guessed to be an intern. She had a mega-busty chest but wasn’t that attractive. Anyone wearing a nose ring always turned me off, but I put on my best news director voice and bellowed:
“You sure can. Trent McCarthy, reporting for duty.”
“McCarthy … M…” She scanned the sea of tags. “Oh, here you go. It has your assigned table on it. Can you sign in, please?”
She pointed to a sheet. I scribbled my name in a bold cursive that had a giant T and an even bigger M. It overtook the little box I was supposed to sign in and bled into the boxes above and below me.
“10-4, done and done. You’ve been very helpful. Thank you…” I looked at her name tag as an excuse to get my eyes from her nose ring to that chest again. “Willow. You have a great day now, and if I see your boss, I’ll tell him … or her … that you deserve a raise.”
I gave her a wink and a smile to show her that by saying “or her” I was not sexist.
“My boss is a gender nonconformist and goes by ‘them,’ but thank you,” Willow replied. I thought I saw her smirk.
I turned quickly on my heel, muttering: “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” All this lib-tard BS. Boys were boys and girls were girls. You couldn’t mess with nature. I would never call anyone “them” or share a bathroom with a person who couldn’t decide what sex they were. Screw Willow and her whole generation.
The room in front of me was already buzzing with people in a get-to-know-you mode. There was a lot of handshaking and plenty of “nice to meet yous.” The outfit of choice was work professional, women mostly in smart-looking pants outfits, men in suit coats or button-down shirts. No one wore jeans. Not a lot of color variation either—mostly muted tans, grays, darker greens, and navy blues. I fit right in, just the way I liked it. The space smelled of aftershave, perfume, and coffee. A good number of people still had disposable cups from the Starbucks in the lobby in their hands.
Glancing at my name tag for my table assignment, I made my way to table four. It had four chairs around it, all set in a semicircle facing a stage. Only one person was already there, a tall Black woman wearing small gold earrings and a dark blue pantsuit. I extended my hand.
“Trent McCarthy, NBC6, Atlanta. You are?” I stole a look at her name tag, but it was truly just for the name tag. Her chest didn’t interest me at all. She had to be at least sixty years old.
“Dorothy Robinson, Boston,” she replied in a voice so deep that it surprised me. “I’m a former investigative journalist. I’ve been at the ABC affiliate for over thirty years, news director for the past eight.”
“Very nice,” I replied. We made a little small talk. Something in the way Dorothy spoke seemed as if she thought I should be impressed by her. I wasn’t. Instead, I was eager for new company, and I got it as another person arrived. This time it was a guy. He was small and wiry, with curly hair and glasses.
“Hello, my name is Alan Kozinski, WNJT, Kalamazoo.”
I sized him up immediately to be a small-market geek who would probably live in Kalamazoo forever. He was the kind of guy I would never be friends with. I was a Sigma Tau. We weeded out dudes like him every year. But wanting to be nice, I did what I always did when I met a new guy, clapping him on the back and talking sports.
“Michigan, huh? You think they’ll make it to the Big Dance?”
“The what?”
“The N-C-Double-A tournament.” What moron didn’t know the Big Dance? “Michigan is solid this year, Al.”
“Oh, basketball, yeah. The University of Michigan is in Ann Arbor,” he said. “It’s on the other side of the state.”
“Is it?” I had gone to school at Illinois, a place I had chosen for its frat and party scene, but aside from a few trips to Chicago, that was the extent of my Midwest knowledge.
“Well, trust me, Al, my pal. Michigan has a chance this year. You keep an eye on them. That center is built like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.” I fake dribbled and took a hook shot to emphasize my point. “You do know who Kareem is, don’t you?”
He nodded but turned and started talking to Dorothy. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Glancing around, I spotted a woman headed our way, and my eyes stayed on her, hoping she might be our final tablemate. She stood out right away because she had on a bright pink blazer in the sea of monotones, and a shorter black dress that showed her knees and calves. Her shoes kind of looked like weird sneakers. Her hair was brown, slightly wavy, and hung past her ears and just down onto her neck; she had a pretty face. Sure as shit, she was beelining right for our table. My lucky day.
“Are you the fourth person at table four?” I asked in what I considered my “welcome to the party” voice. She hooked a light blue purse on the back of the chair. I could smell a flowery perfume.
“Yes,” she said. “My name is Stephanie Monroe.”
Immediately I decided she was the one I would hit on at this conference. I hadn’t seen anyone hotter than her in the room.
“Trent McCarthy, NBC6, Atlanta, and it certainly is nice to meet you, Stephanie,” I said, scanning her entire body head to toe. That was always a good opener with hot women; it made them feel sexy.
After introductions all the way around, Stephanie, Alan, Dorothy, and I settled into our seats, and the emcee walked up to the stage and clinked a fork on a glass.
“Welcome, one and all,” she bellowed. “We are so excited to have you at the News Coverage Summit. I hope you all had a good trip to beautiful San Diego. We have a jam-packed few days for you, so let’s get going!”
We spent the next two hours hearing from speakers who shared all kinds of data and PowerPoints. Dorothy and Alan took scrupulous notes. Stephanie and I didn’t. I started to get bored and pulled my phone out a few times, trying not to look like I was checking feeds. I noticed Stephanie also did the same twice but quickly placed her phone back in her purse.
I fiddled with my watch; I daydreamed a little. Most of what the speakers were saying was not computing with me anyway. I liked the way we did things in our newsroom. Some speaker was not going to change me.
For the final stretch before lunch, we were instructed to turn to our tablemates and share some things that were working in our own newsrooms. I cleared my throat and decided that naturally I would be the one to start. I was clearly the leader at table four.
“Dorothy … Alan … Stephanie.” I took a moment to point at each and look them in the eye. “In Atlanta, I run a tight ship. I’ve learned over the years that if you give an inch, most will take a mile. It’s also important for the boss to be decisive, so I choose what we’re covering each day and stick to it. Crime is rampant, and we’re known as the breaking news station. People turn to us for that, and we have to live up to it. It bleeds, it leads. You know what I mean, right, Al? How about you, how do you run things up there in the Zoo?”
I was proud of myself for coming up with a nickname for Alan’s home city so quickly and grinned at him. Alan pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a long look.
“Well, we actually take the opposite approach from your style,” he said in a voice that I could only describe as wimpy. “We try to hear all viewpoints in the newsroom about what we should cover. I think that makes for the best newsroom atmosphere. It should be a democracy, not a dictatorship.”
I tried to suppress my disgust. That tactic would never work or get him to a larger market. No wonder he was stuck there in Podunkville. Next Dorothy chimed in.
“We’re trying community journalism in Boston. We have assigned reporters to specific neighborhoods and they are embedded there. Some even live in those neighborhoods. We do what we call ‘hometown stories’ and profile restaurants and people in addition to breaking news, politics, and, yes, crime. But crime is not our focus. I think people want solutions-based journalism, not just an amplification of problems. We’re actually trying not to run out breathlessly to every breaking news scene. Just because crime happens and is the low-hanging fruit doesn’t mean it automatically gets anointed to the top spot.”
A second pussy station, I thought, and turned to fully face Stephanie. Her cleavage was peeking out of the black dress, and I tried not to be obvious, but I thought I saw a hint of a lacy bra. Damn. It had been too long, an escort for a few hours in my room in Vegas six months ago notwithstanding.
“So what about you, Steph? How do you do it in Mad-town?”
“Umm,” she said. “We kind of do a little bit of everything you all said. You know, we just do our best to cover the news every single day.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “But like, what is your style?” I wouldn’t let her get away with an answer like that. I was a journalist, damn it. I would dig deeper.
“My style?”
“Yeah, as a news director,” I added, taking a swig of water from my glass and staring her down. She would give me a decent answer if I had to wait all day. “Are you someone who likes to … punish others? Or do you prefer, you know, a softer touch?”
I winked at her, wondering if she would get my subtle hints, if she’d flirt back. After all, she clearly had to think I was the hottest thing in this room too.
“Oh, ummm.” She shifted in her seat. “Well, my style is to be nice to everyone—but tough when I need to. I can do it all.”
We all just kind of looked at her. She didn’t have much of a way with words, that was for sure, but she was definitely cute in a room filled with dudes, Dorothy, Willow, and a bunch of other aging or pudgy women.
“Excuse me,” Stephanie said. “I have to run to the restroom.”
Grabbing her light blue purse from the chair, she strode across the room and out the door by the name tag table. I watched her go. Long legs, tight rear. She really was sexy. If I could just get her to loosen up a bit. Maybe at lunch.