David Handler - The sour cherry surprise

Energized by his workout, he bounded out the front door of the club into the bright sun beating down on Columbus Circle, a buoyant spring in his step that was like Astaire walking on air. Equinox had two other branches downtown but Mitch no longer lived downtown. His old apartment on Gansvoort in the now impossibly chic meat-packing district was being converted into an impossibly chic French bath and bedding emporium. He’d just moved into a ground floor apartment on West 105th Street with a wood-burning fireplace and a deep, narrow garden where he could continue to grow herbs and Sungold tomatoes like he had out on Big Sister. Clemmie, his snuggly Dorset house cat, had happily gone Manhattan with him. But Quirt, his lean outdoor hunter, had run and hid in the woods. So Bella Tillis, who’d rented his carriage house, had inherited Quirt when she took over the place. Quirt was really more Des’s cat anyway.

It was 11:30, but by no means the start of Mitch’s day. He’d been up since dawn writing his review of the new Nick Cage film and generating fresh content for his Web sites and polishing up his proposal for Ants in Her Plants, the new film reference guide that he hoped would do for screwball comedies what his first three bestselling guides-It Came from Beneath the Sink, Take My Wife, Please and They Went That-a-Way-had already done for sci-fi, crime and the western.

Mitch’s feet still wanted to take him to Times Square, but the newspaper had relocated to a new complex on West 57th Street and Ninth Avenue when a giant media empire gobbled it up earlier that year. Lacy Nickerson, the distinguished, old-school arts editor who’d lured Mitch to the paper from a scholarly journal, had been ousted in favor of Shauna Wolnikow, age twenty-eight, who went by the title of intergroup manager, not editor. Shauna’s mandate was to platform Mitch’s career, which meant turning him into a multimedia content provider for all of the empire’s outlets. He was now a highly visible on-camera personality for its twenty-four-hour cable news network. Contributed film reviews and on-air chat time to its talk radio network. Hosted a weekly online interactive chat group. Maintained a daily blog. And ran an advertiser-supported Web site tied in with his reference guides, where he provided capsule reviews, DVD picks, movie trivia and all sorts of amusing video downloads. Thanks to Mitch, cineastes across the globe could now, with a mere click, catch Troy Donahue singing the theme song to Palm Springs Weekend. Shauna had also taken to flying him around the country for speaking engagements before college film societies in places like Houston and Columbus-where the empire happened to own television stations that were just dying to have Mitch appear on their local morning news shows.

Even though Mitch had always been much more at home in a darkened screening room than in the limelight, he was throwing himself into his new career with enthusiasm. But it was a bit of whirlwind. He was so busy he barely had time to watch the movies he was reviewing. He definitely had no time to play the blues on his beloved sky blue Stratocaster anymore.

Yet here’s something he noticed as he made his way through the crowd of humanity on West 57th Street: He was a Somebody now. People recognized him. Good-looking young women checked him out with frank interest.

And here’s a thought he couldn’t chase from his head: When Des sees me on TV she’ll be sorry she picked the other guy.

The first thing he did was head straight for the fourth floor radio booth to tape his Nick Cage review. Then he dashed into the TV studio to be fitted with a lapel mike and earpiece for his five-minute spot on Midday Live. The studio looked every bit like a newsroom, complete with desks and computers. Beyond an artfully placed glass partition, people with rolled up sleeves were rushing around doing important, newsy things. But the studio was actually a made-for-TV newsroom that had been erected inside of the real one. Those people with rolled up sleeves worked next door in the sports department. At first, this bit of on-camera fakery had unsettled Mitch. He’d felt like an actor playing a role. But he’d done it so many times that he was used to it.

And now the Los Angeles-based host of Midday Live, a yummy young hairdo whose most recent gig had been Miss Hawaii, was doing Mitch’s lead-in on the monitor before him. Then the green light came on and, bam, Mitch and she were on the air live, bantering like two best friends about the upcoming summer blockbuster season. She wondered him if there was a theme to this season’s crop. “I’m calling it the summer of the sequel,” Mitch replied. “Which, ironically, makes it a sequel to last summer’s blockbuster season.” Any predictions? “No must-sees until the new Brad Pitt in August.” Any recommendations? “Yes, stay home and rent a DVD of Breathless with Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg,” Mitch advised. “Then fly to Paris for a long weekend.” She asked if she could come with him. He said absolutely-if she promised to buy the escargots. She told him she wasn’t sure she was ready for that kind of commitment. He called her a chicken, flashed her his new smile and they were over and out.

Then Mitch was on his way downstairs to meet with Shauna, who’d left word that she wished to see him. Mitch’s new editor-make that intergroup manager-was a cross between Tina Brown, Parker Posey and Satan. Previously, she’d been the brains behind a snarky entertainment webzine that had made the empire a fortune. Shauna was pale, hyper and freakishly thin. She wore a nose stud as well as a collection of heavy, clangy silver bracelets on both wrists. Purple highlights in her lank blank hair. She was dressed in a cropped pink T-shirt, skinny black jeans and Converse Chuck Taylor high-tops. On her cooked spaghetti of a left bicep was a tattoo that read: Me. Some kind of postmodern wink-wink that Mitch didn’t entirely get. For him this was not unusual with Shauna. She often gave him the impression that the two of them were in on a joke that he didn’t understand.

Her office TV was tuned to Midday Live.

“You, sir, are starting to pop,” she exclaimed, flicking it off as he came in her door.

“Thank you,” Mitch responded. “I think.”

“No, no. Popping is good. Popping is exciting.” Shauna spoke in clipped bursts. Everything with her was an exclamation. “I have awesome news. They’re giving you a half-hour show. Every Saturday morning. You’ll review the new movies, show clips, interview the stars. The suits in L.A. want you out there this week to meet. Your assistant has your itinerary. Your agent has their offer. It’s a go, Mitch. They’ve already assigned you a producer. You’re not saying anything. Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Mitch sank into the chair opposite her, wondering how he’d find the time. He was already stretched thin. He’d have to hire another full-time assistant for sure. Maybe a Web intern to take over his online load…

Shauna studied him across the desk, her eyes narrowing. “What do you think of L.A.?”

To Mitch Los Angeles was the very definition of hell on earth-Levittown meets The Day of the Locust. “Why?”

“They want you to tape out there. From now on, you’ll be L.A. based for one, possibly two weeks a month.”

“Not a chance. I’m a New York critic.”

“We don’t think of you as region-specific, Mitch,” Shauna countered. “You’re national. And we want you embedded within the Hollywood community. Here’s what I’d love to see you doing: Asking ten Hollywood heavy hitters to name what movie they’d choose if they could only watch one movie before they died. Can’t do that from here. Don’t have the access. Out there, you go to a red carpet premiere with a camera crew and nail all ten in nothing flat.”