Down the long hallway from Eliza’s office, Keith Chapel sat behind his desk and doodled on a yellow legal pad. At the top he had written A FRESHER LOOK, and beneath it he was listing the story ideas he had lined up for production over the next two months.
The new series was scheduled to begin right after Labor Day. Weekly packages would air each Wednesday during the Evening Headlines, with Eliza Blake reporting on a story that was of particular interest to her. It was being sponsored by a Wall Street investment firm which was paying to get a special mention at the beginning and end of each report. So there was big money to be made for KEY News and the pressure was on to make sure the series was a success and thereby renewed.
Keith pulled a stick of Doublemint gum from one of the packs he kept in constant supply in his desk drawer. As he unwrapped the silver paper, he noticed his fingernails with disgust. They were bitten down to the quick. Pathetic.
But there was no way he was going to quit biting his nails anytime soon, he reasoned with himself. Not with this FRESHER LOOK project and Cindy seven months pregnant and growing more miserable every day.
He popped the chewing gum into his mouth and groaned inwardly as he remembered the scene at home last night. Cindy had been complaining again about how fat she was, crying that she couldn’t see her feet anymore when she tried to look past her protruding stomach as she stood in the shower. And then, when she sat down on the toilet seat to dry her legs and feet off, she thought her toes looked like little sausages ready to pop if pricked by a fork, they were so full of retained water. August was no time to be in the late stages of pregnancy. Cindy vowed that she would never, ever do this again. This would be their only child.
Keith had tried to console her. She still looked beautiful to him and there were just two months to go, he reassured her.
“Easy for you to say,” Cindy ranted. “Your life hasn’t changed one bit. You still slide into your clothes every day, you still eat everything you want, you can sleep at night, you aren’t having nosebleeds and you have no idea what sciatica feels like. No one is kicking at you from the inside and you don’t have to run to the bathroom every twenty minutes. I don’t see any stretch marks growing across your stomach!”
At first she pulled away as he tried to put his arms around her, but then she had dissolved into tears as she buried her blond head in his shoulder. She sobbed and apologized for being such a shrew. She wasn’t herself, she promised. Of course she was happy about the baby, but she just hated being pregnant.
“I wish I could make it easier for you, sweetheart,” Keith whispered, as he kissed her wet cheeks. “I love you so much and I know we are going to get through this together.”
It was true. He did love her. Had loved her from the first time he saw her. He had never been so attracted to a woman as he was to Cindy, and he still was, pregnant or not. He lifted her chin and kissed her on the mouth. At first she had responded, so he was encouraged to continue, hoping that it would be different from the last few times he had tried to make love to her. There was absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t, the doctor had told them. But Cindy, always so willing pre-pregnancy, had lost all desire. Keith was going out of his mind.
He tried to the force the issue, hating himself for it. If she didn’t want to, she didn’t want to. Wasn’t she going through enough already? What kind of animal was he that he couldn’t control himself?
He could see by the fearful look in her wide brown eyes that it was not going to go well. He should have stopped. But he didn’t. And then, instead of falling peacefully asleep in each other’s arms, they had spent the night on extreme opposite sides of their queen-sized bed, their backs turned coldly to each another.
This morning they hadn’t spoken. He knew Cindy was awake when he had left for the office, but, wanting to avoid him, she had stayed in bed until he was out of the apartment.
Keith was reaching for the telephone to call his wife when Range Bullock appeared at the office doorway.
“How’s it going?” asked the executive producer. “You’re looking awfully glum. Anything going on I should know about?”
Keith was tempted to spill his guts about the stress at home, but his instincts told him Range wouldn’t want to hear it, might even think less of Keith for it. Range wasn’t interested in his producers’ personal lives unless he felt they were getting in the way of job performance. Keith sat up straighter in his chair and tried to look more upbeat.
“No. Nothing’s wrong. That’s just my look of extreme concentration.” He forced a joke. “I’m actually working on the FRESHER LOOKS. I want them to be great.”
Range walked into the office and took a seat on the couch against the wall, staring at Keith intensely.
“How are they coming?”
“Well, I think you’ll be pleased with the first one. Eliza has tracked it already and the editing is just about finished.” Keith prayed that the executive producer would be satisfied. Bullock had a high standard for all the pieces that appeared on his broadcast. But with so much advertising money on the line for these FRESHER LOOK pieces, Keith knew that Range was going to be extraordinarily critical.
Range nodded as he ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “That’s the one about the child-care night-mares, right?”
“Uh-huh. We’ve got some really powerful, and bizarre, hidden-camera video of kids being abused by their caretakers, and great sound from overwrought parents. We’re also getting into what parents can do to try to make sure it doesn’t happen to them.”
“Love it,” declared Range, slapping his hand on his leg. “That’s what we want to achieve whenever possible in these pieces. They can’t all be ‘feel-good’ stories. I want our viewers coming away with a feeling that they want to tune in to us again because we’ve given them news they haven’t gotten before, news that makes them think and reflect. And always,” Range continued adamantly, “I want these pieces to showcase Eliza. We want lots of her on-camera involvement in these stories.”
“Gotcha.”
Range rose from the sofa and put his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You’re the right man for this job, Keith. I have confidence in you.”
As he watched Bullock leave, Keith wished he had more confidence in himself. Lately he wasn’t feeling like much of a man at all.