Joanna smoothed out the rough spots in their affiliation, they brought each show to its ultimate pace and look. Fabulous Homes entered its second season, and Joanna and Carter began to reap rewards: great leaps in salary, network bonuses, industry awards, a fine fat share of fame and fortune. But that wasn’t why theyworked so relentlessly. The truth for both of them was that they loved their work, loved working more than anything else in the world. No matter how they muttered and cursed about the endless hours they put in, producing FH together was a pleasure so intensely rich it was almost sexual.
But not overtly sexual. That was never Carter’s style. Joanna observed time and again how his startling good looks drew stares and smiles from women he passed on the street and in offices and restaurants and airport terminals, while Carter never responded or even seemed to notice. He didn’t flirt with or even react to the most seductive invitations from various women who worked at the network.
Still, because they spent so much time alone with each other traveling across the country in planes and limos and in vans with camera crews, they gradually developed a comfortable alliance that was nearly a friendship. When Joanna told Carter a little about her lonely, nomadic childhood, Carter confided in return what few others knew about him: he had been dirt-poor and had struggled to get his education at a state college in the Midwest. He did not work as hard as he did only for the money, but money was terribly important to him; it meant security.
During the first year of her show, Joanna didn’t really have a private life. She spent every minute working, or sleeping until she went back to work. She was completely happy, and then one morning she boarded a 727 to Jackson Hole and discovered Carter’s assistant, Hank Cunningham, on the plane instead of Carter. A network emergency had kept Carter in New York. Hank was personable, pleasant, and efficient, and the production went along smoothly enough, but something was lacking. As they flew home after their week’s work, Joanna closed her eyes and leaned against the seat back and realized that without Carter around, much of the excitement and zest—the electric deliciousness—was missing.
She realized she was in love with Carter.
But wait, she told herself. Was it really love, or something more complicated, mixed of admiration and gratitude?
Earlier that month CVN had held its annual banquet in a ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria. There had been a feast and speeches, and there had been awards, presented at the head table. Silver-haired, whiskey-voiced, sequin-drenched Bea Blake, the doyenne of cable TV and one of CVN’s CEOs, read out the name of the producer of that year’s bestnew show: Carter Amberson for Fabulous Homes . The room filled with applause as Carter was pecked on his cheek by his serene wife and as he made his way to Bea Blake’s side. He wore a tux with diamond studs which glittered when he reached the podium, where the light glinted off his blond hair like the sun off a suit of armor, and there was something medieval about him in his lean aristocratic fineness and in his bearing.
And in his courtliness, too, for instead of reaching for the silver award shaped like a globe with a garland around it, Carter leaned to the microphone and said, “I cannot accept this award. It belongs to Joanna Jones. She conceived the show, did the first research on it, wrote it, structured it, hosted it, and she is the one who has been its artistic guide. I have been only her coproducer, her assistant.”
Bea Blake stood with the trophy in her hand and her mouth open in shock. No one had ever refused an award before or challenged the judgment of the executives who decided who would receive them.
“I would like to see this award given to Joanna Jones,” Carter declared, turning his powerful gaze on Bea Blake, who was pretty powerful herself.
“Here, here!” Jake called
But not overtly sexual. That was never Carter’s style. Joanna observed time and again how his startling good looks drew stares and smiles from women he passed on the street and in offices and restaurants and airport terminals, while Carter never responded or even seemed to notice. He didn’t flirt with or even react to the most seductive invitations from various women who worked at the network.
Still, because they spent so much time alone with each other traveling across the country in planes and limos and in vans with camera crews, they gradually developed a comfortable alliance that was nearly a friendship. When Joanna told Carter a little about her lonely, nomadic childhood, Carter confided in return what few others knew about him: he had been dirt-poor and had struggled to get his education at a state college in the Midwest. He did not work as hard as he did only for the money, but money was terribly important to him; it meant security.
During the first year of her show, Joanna didn’t really have a private life. She spent every minute working, or sleeping until she went back to work. She was completely happy, and then one morning she boarded a 727 to Jackson Hole and discovered Carter’s assistant, Hank Cunningham, on the plane instead of Carter. A network emergency had kept Carter in New York. Hank was personable, pleasant, and efficient, and the production went along smoothly enough, but something was lacking. As they flew home after their week’s work, Joanna closed her eyes and leaned against the seat back and realized that without Carter around, much of the excitement and zest—the electric deliciousness—was missing.
She realized she was in love with Carter.
But wait, she told herself. Was it really love, or something more complicated, mixed of admiration and gratitude?
Earlier that month CVN had held its annual banquet in a ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria. There had been a feast and speeches, and there had been awards, presented at the head table. Silver-haired, whiskey-voiced, sequin-drenched Bea Blake, the doyenne of cable TV and one of CVN’s CEOs, read out the name of the producer of that year’s bestnew show: Carter Amberson for Fabulous Homes . The room filled with applause as Carter was pecked on his cheek by his serene wife and as he made his way to Bea Blake’s side. He wore a tux with diamond studs which glittered when he reached the podium, where the light glinted off his blond hair like the sun off a suit of armor, and there was something medieval about him in his lean aristocratic fineness and in his bearing.
And in his courtliness, too, for instead of reaching for the silver award shaped like a globe with a garland around it, Carter leaned to the microphone and said, “I cannot accept this award. It belongs to Joanna Jones. She conceived the show, did the first research on it, wrote it, structured it, hosted it, and she is the one who has been its artistic guide. I have been only her coproducer, her assistant.”
Bea Blake stood with the trophy in her hand and her mouth open in shock. No one had ever refused an award before or challenged the judgment of the executives who decided who would receive them.
“I would like to see this award given to Joanna Jones,” Carter declared, turning his powerful gaze on Bea Blake, who was pretty powerful herself.
“Here, here!” Jake called
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