Eve thought for a few seconds. “How about this? We’ll switch and have the town-hall show tomorrow, so run the usual teaser tonight. Instead of having the audience react to her talking about how men and women hide their motivations when they deal with the opposite sex, why don’t we tape segments of people telling their stories, and Dr. Birdsall can analyze what’s really going on when she comes on Friday.”
“Brilliant,” Nicole breathed.
“Bill it as a two-parter, a before-and-after, whatever you want. We’re good at making something out of nothing. You can handle it.”
“Thanks, Eve.” She vanished into her office, leaving Eve with her thoughts until she had to go into makeup.
Part of her admitted that it was crazy to talk to Mitch the way she did during these stolen hours. He was on the same side as the dark forces, i.e. the networks. But on the other hand, she was sure she’d go around the bend without his calm views on what amounted to a crisis situation.
Who else understood what she was going through? Who else seemed to know exactly what it took to change her perspective or set her heart at ease when her mind was blasting away at a hundred miles an hour?
She knew it was foolish and couldn’t last, but she put Mitch the Scout into a compartment labeled Business and put Mitch the Sexy Confidant into one labeled Friend. Okay, so it had a little subheading called Possible Lover in very tiny font below that. But anyway, there she’d keep the two of them until she was forced to combine them.
In the meantime, she was going to take his advice. The script that had been so troublesome on the weekend went off better than she expected. When she got back from taping, she sent out a scheduler message to the computers and PDAs of all her staff. She had just enough time to work up a business case before everyone gathered in the conference room for what they thought was the production meeting. She was going to tack another item onto the agenda and find out once and for all if her team was going to melt away on her, or stay just that-a team.
IF JENNA HAMILTON had been ten years younger, she’d have been running after Dylan Moore before he knew what was up. But since Kevin Wade had been haunting her dreams for the last couple of weeks, she was content to give Dylan an appreciative smile as he ushered her out of the lobby and past the studios.
“Everyone named in the suit is in the conference room already,” he told her. “Eve asked me to convey her appreciation for fitting the meeting into your schedule.”
“No problem,” she murmured. “You’d be surprised how much the case is on my mind anyway.”
When she entered the room, Eve stood to greet her. “Jenna, I’m so glad you could come. You remember everyone, right?”
In a single sweep, Jenna catalogued the people whose names had become as familiar to her as her own. Cole Crawford, the producer who’d been with Just Between Us since its inception. Twenty-four-year-old Zach Haas, the camera operator. California girl and story segment producer Nicole Reavis, whom she’d already met, and Jane Kurtz, who did makeup-maybe not the flashiest job, but Jenna had a feeling that Eve Best depended on her for a lot more than that.
Cole tilted his chair back and crossed his arms comfortably over his chest as Jenna sat opposite him in an empty chair. “Gee, boss, I wonder what this could be about?”
Eve gave him a winning smile. “Very funny. You’ve seen the reps from three networks around here. You’ve seen the show’s ratings, not to mention the press we’re getting. I figured we could use a powwow to catch everyone up and strategize a bit.”
“And for this we need a lawyer?” Nicole glanced at Jenna. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Jenna.”
Jenna smiled at her. “Thanks. As CATL-TV’s corporate counsel, I’m only here to give y’all information and advice if you need it. We’re all playing on the same team, so your concerns are my concerns.”
“So, let me tell you what I know, and then you can tell me-” Eve paused “-whatever you know. Or want to know. Or anything else you have on your minds.” She glanced around the table. “Let’s talk about the networks first. As you know, Mitchell Hayes from CWB came to see me last Friday. We’ve met a couple of times since then.”
“Does that mean they’re the front runners?” Jane asked. “You haven’t met more than once with the others, right?”
A flush that wasn’t the result of Jane’s makeup tinged Eve’s cheeks. What was that about? Jenna wondered.
“Only because they haven’t been in Atlanta as long. Mackenzie Roussos from SBN got here Monday, and then Chad Everard from CBS showed up this morning. I’ve heard what they have to say and had Dan’s input, as well.” She passed out a sheet of paper with four columns of bullet points. “What I don’t have is your input, and no decision gets made around here without it.”
Jenna took her sheet. It listed all three networks’ proposed deal points, boiled down to their essence, as well as groupings of pros and cons. “Very nice.”
Eve shrugged. “We can’t talk about the future unless we all have the facts. So. I’ll go straight to the bottom line. We have three options. One, we say no to everybody and stay in Atlanta at CATL-TV as we have been. We enjoy what we’ve achieved and build on it. Two, we accept the offer of either SBN or CBS, and pack up and go to New York.”
Zach, Jenna noted, lifted his head like a puppy scenting the great outdoors. Jane frowned, Cole’s arms crossed more tightly, and Nicole looked mildly interested. Hmm.
“Or three,” Eve went on, “we accept CWB’s offer, which is substantially lower than SBN’s, and stay here as one of their affiliates. They’re a young network, still growing, so they don’t have the advertising weight the bigger ones do. But we will have national coverage in the small and medium-sized markets, though it’ll take a while to penetrate the big ones.”
Jenna broke the silence as six people considered the sheet of paper. “In case any of you are factoring the lottery win into this-which I’m sure you are-” She hesitated for a second. “Don’t. Ms. Skinner has informed me through her attorney that she’s not prepared to settle for anything less than an equal share of the prize money. That means we will be taking the case to court. Please consider the networks’ offers independently of any funds you might or might not receive from Lot’O’Bucks.”
Zach groaned, and Cole uncrossed both arms with such force he smacked the arms of his chair. Nicole jumped, and Eve frowned.
“You guys, we knew this,” Eve said. “I’ve told a couple of you that counting on the lottery money when it’s been challenged is like counting on it to snow on the Fourth of July. We’d be stupid to put our lives out on a limb-not to mention our finances and futures-for something that may never happen. That’s why we need to move forward together on this. I want to know how you feel about the networks’ proposals.”
“I’m for New York,” Zach said immediately.
“I’m not,” Cole threw out with the force of an air gun. “I’m not uprooting my girls and dragging them off to a place that may as well be another planet.”
“Yeah, but think of the career opportunities,” Zach said. “You could give them the kind of life they’d never get here.”
“What, away from their family and friends? And what am I supposed to do with them while I’m working the hours that we do? Nuh-uh.” Cole’s arms crossed again, and this time they weren’t relaxed and comfortable. “No networks for me. I’ll stay here and produce a different show, if I have to.”
“Jane?” Eve looked at the end of the table. “What’s your opinion?”
“I’d have to think about it for more than five minutes, but my instinct is to go with CWB and stay put. Yeah, the coverage isn’t as great, but we’ve worked up to regional success. We can work up to the big-city markets, too.” Jane glanced at Nicole, who sat on her left. “What do you think, Nic? You’re the one with out-of-state experience.”