Gloss. Jennifer Oko

thank you enough. My husband, Michael Oko, continues to amaze me with his patience, his kindness, his enthusiasm and his belief in me. And it is Jasper and Laila who have helped me see all the blessings and joy.

      Thank you.

      gloss (glôs) n.

      1 A surface sheen, often referring to cosmetics used to enhance the lips.

      2 A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.

      3 A smooth-coated, slick media format.

      The obscure we eventually see.

      The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

      —Edward R. Murrow

      PART ONE

      gloss (glôs)

      n.

      1 A surface sheen, often referring to cosmetics used to enhance the lips.

      2 A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.

      3 A smooth-coated, slick media format.

      The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

      —Edward R. Murrow

      PROLOGUE

      I DIGRESS.

      When I was little, the adults laughed and said I had a vivid imagination. It was a good thing. But by the end of my elementary years it was a source of heated conversations in parent-teacher meetings, and then, by high school, it became a source of parent-psychologist conversations, leading to parent-neurologist conversations, leading to a career as a television news producer, and ultimately, to where I am now. Which is to say, my tendency to take off on flights of fancy, and my general inability to focus ironically brought me to a place of fancy-less focus: the Federal Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia. My lawyer grins Cheshirelike and insists we will win. No fear, he says, this will end soon, you will write a book, a movie deal will be in place and, years from now, you will look out over the veranda of your Hollywood Hills home, sipping chardonnay and laughing at this little adventure. Wake me up after the second coming, I tell him, when I’m in a good mood. Most days I tell him to shut up and give me whatever paper it is that I need to sign.

      I wasn’t always this surly. In fact, I’m not always this surly. I like to think of myself as personable. My fellow inmates seem to like me. They say things like “you ain’t so bad (dramatic pause) for a white girl.” And, when we are dancing around the cell block to entertain ourselves (my friend Galina in the neighboring cell can scat like she is channeling a Slavic version of Betty Carter), they tell me I move like a sista’ and that I could easily have a starring role in a hip-hop video. I’m not sure if I’m flattered or not, but I think many of my outside peers would savor that as a compliment. The whiter you are, the more privileged your background, the more being “ghetto” is supposed to be a coveted commodity. I never understood this trend, the rich boarding school boys with droopy pants, walking with the lilt of a drug lord thug. Wispy wheat-haired lasses showing their palm and saying in a staccato cadence, “Talk to the hand.” I appreciate the grit and flavor such mannerisms represent, but wouldn’t it make more sense for people to want to mimic the rich and powerful? Of course, I’m not sure which would be more absurd, a prep-schooled, Ivy-educated, wavy-haired, nose-sculpted young woman like myself trying to talk jive (if jive is still spoken) or a middle-class, third generation mixed Eastern European young woman, also like myself, trying to act like a Vanderbilt.

      Like I said, I digress. But that is actually not so off point. Because really, what got me here, into cell block six, had a lot to do with people (yours truly included) trying to appear like something they are not: morning television.

      Dear New Day USA—

      I watch your show everyday and have for years. But yesterday, I noticed that Faith had changed her hair style. I don’t like it. She looks much better with a side part.

      Sandy Franklin

       Winona, WI

      CHAPTER ONE

      “THIRTY SECONDS TO AIR!” THE STAGE MANAGER skipped over the wires strewn about the floor and jumped behind the row of semirobotic cameras.

      “Shit!” The frail makeup artist rushed forward, armed with a powder puff, and dived for Ken Klark’s shiny, pert nose. The white dust settled and she was gone, out of the shot.

      “Ten seconds!”

      Klark stroked his chiseled chin, smoothed back what there was to smooth of his ever so trendy, close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, and ran his tongue over his neon-white teeth. Four thousand dollars in caps right there. He had expensed them to the network, which did not contest.

      “Five seconds!”

      He tugged his dark blue blazer behind him once more and sat up cocksure.

      “Three! Two!” On the unspoken count of “One” the stage manager mimed a gunshot at Klark, who smiled, leaned a bit forward, waiting a beat for the zooming camera lens to settle on him.

      “Good morning, everyone! It’s a New Day, USA!” he said. “Today is April 4th, and this is ZBC News. I’m Ken Klark.”

      “And I’m Faith Heide.” A small, bobbed blonde in a fitted red sweater popped up on the screen, emitting a girl-next-door smile into eight point five million homes.

      And I’m fucked, I thought as I ran into the control room behind the set, twenty minutes late. You are supposed to check your graphics and chyrons before the show, not when it’s already live on the air.

      The eyes of the executive producer were illuminated by the wall of monitors at the front of the darkened room, making it particularly intimidating as he turned them toward me for a brief moment, adding pressure to my dangerously undercaffeinated brain.

      It was never a good thing to enter the control room without having had at least a sip of morning coffee, because even with the dimmed lights and hushed tones, the place was electrically charged. Figuratively, I mean. Of course it was literally, too. I often thought they turned down the lights not because it was easier for the director to focus on the monitors, since the darkness cuts down on the glare, but because sometimes it seemed the energy emitted by live television was too powerful to face front on. Think about it. For something to have enough energy to hold the attention of someone as far away as, say, Huntsville, Alabama, imagine the energy it has when up close and personal.

      I tiptoed over to the row of graphics terminals.

      “Maria,” I whispered to the unionized (and therefore to be treated very nicely) woman whose job it was to hit the button to call up each title as the director asked for it. “Can I check my chyron list at the break?”

      She didn’t respond, but I knew she heard me. So I hovered, counting down the seconds to the commercial interruption, at which point I knew, because we had been through this before, she would wordlessly, if slightly aggressively, punch up the titles on the computer so I could make sure that none of the characters in my piece would have a misspelled name show up underneath them on the screen. I did this because such an error is one of journalism’s cardinal sins. No matter how moving, how well-crafted, well-researched, well-written, well-produced your piece, be it an article or a lower-third graphic for a segment of fluff, spelling someone’s name wrong was as good for your career as if you got caught sleeping with the big boss’s husband. Actually, that’s a bad analogy. In network television, most of the big bosses have wives.

      “It’s P-u-r-n-e-l-l,” I said. “Not P-e-r-n-e-l-l.”

      “That’s what you sent us.” She didn’t turn to look at me when she said this.

      “I know. That’s why I’m here. We have to fix it.” I was talking through my teeth, but trying to sound sweet and sympathetic all the same.

      “Whatever,” she said, typing in the correction one rigid finger at a time.