Laurie deliberately ignored Ryan’s call and made it to her own office before having to deal with him. Her secretary, Grace Garcia, immediately sensed that she was not happy. “So, what’s wrong? I thought you were taking your handsome son out to breakfast.” Sometimes Laurie thought that Grace valued the idea of Laurie taking a much-needed break more than she worried about her own time off.
“How can you tell something’s wrong?” Laurie asked.
Grace looked at her as if to say, Did you really just ask me that? Grace had always been able to read her like a book.
Laurie dropped her bag on the desk inside her office, and a minute later Grace followed her carrying a cup of hot tea. Grace was wearing a bright yellow blouse, an impossibly narrow pencil skirt, and black sling-back pumps with five-inch heels. How she managed to carry anything without tipping over was a mystery to Laurie.
“Ryan saw me get off the elevator and made some crack about my coming in late,” she said, spitting out the words.
“He’s one to talk,” Grace exclaimed. “Ever notice how he’s never here on the mornings after he attends some high-society event covered on Page Six?”
Honestly, Laurie never noticed Ryan’s absence. As far as she was concerned, he didn’t need to be here at all until it was time to turn on the cameras.
“Oh, are we talking about Ryan’s double standards for office hours?” The voice belonged to Laurie’s assistant producer, Jerry Klein, who had stepped from the office adjacent to hers to linger near her door. As much as Laurie pretended to disapprove of the constant flow of gossip between Jerry and Grace, the truth was that the two of them provided some of her most enjoyable moments at work. “Did Grace tell you that he kept dropping by here, looking for you?”
Grace shook her head. “I was trying not to ruin her morning. She’ll see that guy soon enough. Tell me, Laurie, has anyone told him you’re the boss? He’s like a clone of Brett running all over this place.”
Technically, Grace was right. Brett Young was the head of Fisher Blake Studios. He’d had an enduring, successful television career. He was as tough as a boss could be, but he had earned the right to run his own ship, as tightly as he wanted.
Ryan Nichols, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. To be sure, before he turned up at Fisher Blake less than four months ago, he was an up-and-coming star in the legal world. Magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, followed by a Supreme Court clerkship. In just a few years as a federal prosecutor, he had already won the kinds of cases that were covered by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But instead of continuing to develop his skills as a practicing lawyer, he left the U.S. Attorney’s Office so he could become a part-time talking head on cable news stations, offering instantaneous analysis about legal issues and trial coverage. These days, everyone wanted to be a celebrity, Laurie thought.
The next thing she knew, Brett Young had hired Ryan as the new host of the series without consulting her. Laurie had found a perfect host in Alex and working with him had been a pleasure. He was a brilliant lawyer, but he recognized that Laurie’s programming instincts were what made the series successful. The fact that he was a skilled cross-examiner made him the ideal questioner for show participants who thought they could get through production repeating the same lies they’d told during the original investigation.
Ryan had only appeared in one special so far. He had neither Alex’s experience nor his natural skills, but he had not been nearly as disastrous as Laurie had feared. What bothered Laurie most about Ryan was the fact that he clearly saw his role at the studio differently than Alex had ever seen his. He was constantly finding ways to undermine Laurie’s ideas. He also served as a legal consultant to other shows at the studio. There was even talk about his developing his own programming. And it was certainly no coincidence that Ryan’s uncle was one of Brett’s closest friends.
So to get back to what Grace had intended as a rhetorical question: Did Ryan know Laurie was his boss? Laurie was starting to wonder.
She took her time getting settled at her desk, and then asked Grace to call Ryan and let him know she was ready to see him.
Maybe it was petty, but if he wanted to see her, he could be the one to walk down the hall.