hands hanging. Well, here it was, delayed adolescence kicking in, plus a shitload of anger, and somewhere in the mix—Maddy tried to stifle that thought—a hint of hereditary damage?
Her fine reasons failed to satisfy. Something in her world felt out of joint. That bomb Nick had dropped about a baby. She was suddenly convinced he’d never mentioned any Nessa Trent-Jones before that evening in Nohant.
At the door Laila hesitated; turned and looked at Maddy. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
“What everything. What is going on here!”—but she’d vanished down the stairwell.
STRAIGHT OFF THE ELEVATOR, she saw the huddle like the folded wings of buzzards.
“Wait’ll you hear what happened while you were tripping through the poppies,” Sam said. White-lipped smile. “Charlie Unger’s out.”
Oh, shit, her dream of a boss. She’d caught the early rumblings of course, but in France managed to put all vexing thoughts on hold.
“Bern Conant’s our new executive producer.” Sam rolled his eyes at Maddy: Tried to warn you . . .
“Bern Conant, Lord help us.” Remembering last night’s cryptic message on her machine. Conant was the new breed of broadcast exec as high school dropout, postliterate, mesmerized by ratings. She leaned a shoulder against the cinder-block wall, feeling its texture of petrified cottage cheese through her blazer.
“Guess they’re grooming the local yokel for bigger things,” Sam said. “Welcome back, darlin’! Let’s hope our boy’s not dumb enough to monkey with your segment.” He steered her down the hall. “While you were away, Video Kitten badgered the powers to let her narrate a story on Hootie and the Blowfish. And in the rough cut of your Domna Scotti, she went with the least flattering shots. Watch your back.”
WELCOME BACK, INDEED. Maddy took refuge in her office, a bright, ordered place hung with photos: she and Byron Janis and other music luminaries; Laila and Nick on the beach; a treasured Laila painting from second grade of a mother and baby shark, “from your one and only daughter” . . . Jesus, Bern Conant. Station manager from local, dubbed by the industry “Conan the Barbarian.” He’d been associate producer on the morning news, and now, it appeared, the powers had judged him ready for his own show. Chronicle would beef up his bona fides before they handed him the evening news. Conan was known for looking at a story and taking out the best part. And when Martha Graham died, he’d assigned a piece on Martha Raye, the dentures queen. If they wanted to boost ratings by going tabzine, they’d found their man.
Heart leaden, she backhanded pitches and press kits into the trash. From one flyer leapt the name Anton Bers. God, they’d practically grown up together at Juilliard, she and Tony Bers. He’d been a prodigy and goofball who scorned scales and “practiced” by ripping through his favorite composers. Tony went on to win the Leventritt and join the exclusive preserve of pianists touring the world’s capitals—then, like many a gold medalist before him, tumbled from the heights. Injured his right hand, went the story; performed left-hand repertory for a while. Now the wunderkind had washed up in Monmouth, New Jersey, playing chamber music in the local Episcopal church. She sighed, engulfed by a world of regret.
Anton’s covering letter pitched a story about the current explosion of chamber groups. “Let’s talk soon.” She pictured the caption in a recent cartoon in the New Yorker: How’s never. Would never work for you?
Now, none of that . . . You needed a gauze mask to avoid catching the arrogance that was epidemic among New York’s players. And self-importance: marketing chlorophyll toothpaste for Procter & Gamble held the gravitas of religion. What she ought to do was invite Anton, for old times, to Conscience Point for a session of four-hands. And then they’d brainstorm how to spin his story idea. Of course now, under the new regime, she might be less of a player.
She’d somehow felt immune to the seismic shocks rocking broadcasting; eleven years on the show, she’d become a fixture; everyone was expendable, of course, but she perhaps less than others? She gave good value, Nick was right: concert pianist with an inside track on the arts who could write—plus poster girl for graceful aging with a devoted female following. Charlie rarely vetoed her ideas. He offered her TV’s most precious commodity: minutes. He’d become a lone holdout against the prevailing dumbing-down, going for think pieces and arts coverage for the literate. He’d made Sunday Chronicle the class act of network television, the cultural companion to 60 Minutes. And now? In one moment the palace Charlie had built could blow off like a heap of silt.
The world around her was growing curiouser by the minute. Maybe this the true onset of middle age, this loss of control and encroaching chaos.
She heard her friend, a correspondent they’d just cut loose: I figured I was going to spend my whole life in this business. This was home, Mother Network. But somewhere along the line I forgot that you’re always dependent on whatever exec is in charge. You could always be out on your ass, any day, easy.
You’ll work someplace else, Maddy had said.
Yeah? Who’s gonna hire a woman over fifty? You know, it’s like we get a moment out there. And if we’re lucky and smart, it’s a good long run. But then you’re out, the next generation moves in, and it’s someone else’s turn.
But suppose you were a rotten sport and declined to bow out. Supposed you wanted an open-ended run. An unlimited engagement. Pianists performed till they dropped; Shura Cherkassky played Carnegie Hall at eighty; the great Horszowski tottered onstage, half-blind. at ninety-eight. And what of prostate city over at 60 Minutes?
She thought, I’ll be damned if they’ll shove me offstage. I won’t move over till I fall over.
SCRIPT IN HAND, Maddy headed with her brisk step for Bern Conant’s office, the only one on the sixth floor with windows. (Cinder-Block City, they called CNB’s dreary quarters in a former Wonder Bread factory.) A blowup of Madeleine Shaye smiled from a bank of network notables on the wall. Almond eyes, alluring overbite—Israeli? Magyar? unbrandable; subtly subversive among the lemon-chiffon blonds. She passed the familiar sign on Sam’s door: “When I grow up I want to sit in a dark room and have people look at the back of my neck.” They would screen the rough cut of her piece—she, Sam, Juno, and the senior producer—and get Conant’s comments. Lop and shift graphs, turn the wrap-up into the lead . . . She’d always enjoyed this sculpting.
She harbored a special fondness for her Domna Scotti piece. The famed diva rose too young, too fast; sang too often, dropped too much weight. Then fell for a master of the universe, who dumped her for a Russian model. Now Scotti lived in relative obscurity, teaching and singing in regional opera. The story celebrated a life in music as its own reward and took a whack at the infatuation with a few superstars.
“Lessee, how long does she run now?” Bern mumbled.
“Four,” said Juno.
“Four?” said Maddy. “Last I looked it was seven—”
“We should get down to three and a half,” Bern said.
Old joke: one TV reporter to another: What’s your story about? Answer: About a minute thirty. “No way, material’s too good,” Maddy said.
“I don’t give a goddamn if it’s Christ resurrected—” Recalling whom he was talking to, Bern lifted his upper lip in a smile. “It is good stuff,” he said in a phlegmy burr, and popped in the tape.
Maddy shook her head in disbelief. It was just Domna scarfing pills, the failed suicide, kicking drugs in a London hospital, salvation ta-da! in the arms of a good man—and no music. “This looks like a telenovela, I’ll lose my credibility in the music world.”
The others stirred uneasily; imprudent to start life under the new regime by breaking an office commandment: Be a team player.
“I mean, for Pete’s sake, give us more than two bars