The Last Good Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

necessity, his is legendary. We both knew he didn’t want me here, sharing the show that had been his alone for the last six years. Everyone knew that.
    Quinn sat down and waited for Perry to finish with me. “So,” he said, “today’s the anniversary of the California earthquake. Last time I checked, they were still arguing about whether to show the famous ‘dead woman on the freeway’ footage.”
    â€œThe one with the mutilated arm sticking out the window?” I asked. “I was in Providence when that happened. We didn’t show it, but the rival station did. And let me tell you, they whupped us in the ratings.”
    â€œThat was local. You’re in national now. Decisions have more far-reaching implications,” Quinn said. He turned to Perry. “What do you think of this tie? The colors looked brighter in the store. Is it too dull?”
    Perry picked it up and fingered the cool heavy silk. “It’s perfect.”
    â€œArmani.”
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    W ITH MY HAIR and face in place, I went to say hello to the people in the control room. I walked up the back stairs by the side of the studio and entered the long narrow room, where two levels of desks and computers sat facing a wall of forty monitors. The engineers and assistant directors were just settling in for the newscast. Tony DeFranco, whose job was to slug in the by-lines beneath the faces on the news, was the first to look up. “Well, L.B., good to see you.” He wiped a sprinkling of fine white powder from his jelly donut off his hand and offered it to me. It was a good sign that I already had a tag, L.B.
    â€œHow’s it going?” I learned from the very start, a number ofcities ago, that these men and women who others never saw could make me look good, or not. I needed all the help I could get.
    â€œJust fine, ma’am.”
    â€œMa’am? When did I become a ma’am?”
    â€œWhen you went from local to national.”
    I smiled, shook a few more hands, and left.
    When I got back to my office, about sixty percent of the newscast had been completed. I began to read the stories that were tagged for me out loud, playing with intonations, “The thirteen-year-old boy doesn’t consider himself a hero. The thirteen-year-old boy doesn’t consider himself a hero .”
    Over the loudspeaker that reached every corner of the newsroom, I heard the announcement, “Five minutes.”
    My foot began to jiggle rapidly up and down beneath my desk. I turned off the computer, went to the locked file cabinet, got out a pair of gold button earrings, put them on, took them off, put them back on, and left my office.
    No one in the newsroom looked up, no one talked to me as I made my way to the studio. Everyone has their pre-show ritual, ridiculed but respected, and this is mine. I pumped my fists again and again until my knuckles ached.
    All I could think of was this: Don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up.
    Â 
    T HE STUDIO WAS dark save for the brilliant white lights trained on the small set itself, the desk with its built-in video monitors and two chairs anchored in the harsh white light, a separate constellation. The air surrounding it was black and icy, the air conditioning cranked as high as it would go to counteract the heat under the lights. The cameramen wore sweaters and leather jackets. I stepped carefully over the thick black cables on the floor and said hello to the studio director, Al.
    â€œWelcome to the nuthouse,” Al said.
    â€œThanks.”
    I walked up to the set and settled into my chair, into the warmth of the lights. I glanced down at the three video screens inset in the desk, and then up at the TelePrompTers, at the cameras aimed at me, and at the clock, ticking away the seconds in red.
    I touched the edges of the desk, the papers.
    I plugged my tiny headphone into the desk and heard Susan Mahoney up in the control room say hello into the