Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

“We won the demo last week,” Eliza announced. There were gasps in the newsroom—actual, audible gasps. That meant we had drawn more viewers aged twenty-five to fifty-four than any other cable news program in our time slot. That meant we had beaten not only MSNBC but Fox and CNN, too.

“When was the last time this happened?” I asked Jamie.

He grinned. “I don’t think this has ever happened.”

“Fuck me!” Rebecca shouted. She was pacing excitedly in her office, hollering at the speakerphone. “Ginny! Jesus Christ, did you see this?”

That night, after the broadcast, Jamie and I went for drinks at the bar around the corner. It had been a long time since we’d done this, just the two of us. Stella had seen to that.

“Do you think you eventually get used to this feeling?” I asked. “Like, if you work at the Today show, does this become boring?”

“I have no idea,” Jamie said. “I’ve only ever worked here.”

“Kiddie Cable News,” I said. An old nickname. Ten years ago, when KCN was started, the quality had been so uneven that it seemed like children were running the place.

“It does feel good, doesn’t it?” Jamie said. “Stella must have been happy. You told her?”

I shook my head. “We haven’t been in touch since I left.”

“Really?” Jamie raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’m sure she saw the news. She has a Google alert on herself. I’m kind of surprised she hasn’t called.”

“Why?”

“To gloat,” he said. “It’s strange. She was calling all weekend—I had to put my phone on silent—but then she just stopped. The last thing I got was this cryptic text on Saturday night.”

“She was probably just embarrassed.” Jamie was pulling out his phone, and my heartbeat accelerated. “She knew you were ignoring her.”

“Okay, here it is. We won’t be seeing each other again, so save the crap for someone else.What the hell does that mean?”

“She’s dramatic,” I said. “You know that.”

Jamie looked pensive as he swiped a tortilla chip through a dish of salsa. “I should call her. I should congratulate her. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Wait,” I said, as he stood from the table. “Jamie. Wait a second. Be careful.”

He laughed at the look on my face. “I think I can handle it. This’ll only take a minute. I’ll just say—”

But then he pulled the phone away from his ear and frowned at the screen. “That’s strange,” he said. “Straight to voice mail. It didn’t even ring.”

“Huh.” I reached for my beer and took a large gulp.

“Stella never turns her phone off,” he said, perplexed.

“The service can be spotty up in Maine.”

“Yeah,” Jamie said, sitting back down. “That’s probably it.”

Tuesday, around lunchtime, my phone rang.

I drew a deep breath and answered. “Hi, Mrs. Bradley.”

“Have you heard from her, Violet? She won’t respond to my texts. I’ve been calling and calling but her phone just goes to voice mail.”

“That’s so strange,” I said.

Here it was. The next stage was beginning, and I felt oddly calm.

“I’m starting to worry,” Anne said. There was a push-pull in her voice. Creeping panic, and the parallel self-insistence that it would be fine. It would be fine. We had been through this before; Anne didn’t want to overreact. “I called Ginny. Stella e-mailed her on Saturday night. Something about wanting to take some time to herself. Which is fine, I suppose, but why wouldn’t she have her phone on?”

“Jamie tried calling her yesterday,” I said. “It didn’t ring then, either.”

“That’s not like her, is it? She always calls me back.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you remember that Christmas, when she left. None of us could get hold of her for, what, a whole week?”

“Do you think that’s what happened here?”

“It could be,” I said.

“Well, as long as she doesn’t miss Thanksgiving next week. But she wouldn’t do that.” Anne’s brittle laugh was meant to reassure herself. “That’s a bridge too far, even for Stella.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll be back by then.”

Winning the demo called for something bigger than celebratory pizza in the newsroom. Eliza considered waiting for Stella’s return, but these victories went stale quickly, and besides, no one could get hold of her. On Friday night, after the broadcast, Eliza rented out the back room of an upscale Japanese restaurant. There was an open bar, waiters circulating with glasses of sake and delicate squares of sashimi, a chef making hand rolls to order. It was like the Christmas party—the same cast of characters, the same level of indulgence—but this was infinitely sweeter. Christmas you celebrated because the world kept turning and inevitably it was December again. But this feeling could be arrived at only by victory. There was no one else in the world celebrating exactly what we were in this moment.

I was standing with a few other producers, listening to Rebecca talk about the time the House Speaker tried to hit on her mid-interview, when she cut herself off and said, “Excuse me for a moment.” She wove efficiently through the crowded room and greeted the two people who had just arrived: Ginny, and a distinguished-looking older man. He was tall and elegant in his blue blazer, but there was a cane by his side, and the hands that grasped it looked spotted and arthritic.

Jamie leaned over and said to me, “That’s Mr. King.”

“ The Mr. King? Of King Media?”

“The lion in winter,” Jamie said. “This is the first time I’ve seen him in person.”

Mr. King was an Oz-like figure, powerful but never visible, a name only invoked by those at the highest levels. He was the one boss that nobody made fun of. I couldn’t quite believe that he was here, in the flesh, in the room with us. It was almost hypnotizing.

He had a raked forehead and a serious gaze fixed on Rebecca, who seemed to shimmer from his attention. Working at KCN the last three and a half years had required me to constantly reassess my understanding of power—the scale of it, and where it really lay. When I was a lowly intern, someone like Jamie seemed to possess everything I could ever want: a desk, a title, a salary. But there were trapdoors in the ceiling that led to another level. There was Eliza, who commanded an entire newsroom. There was Ginny, who had the final say on what made it to air. And then there was Mr. King. Our entire world was, for him, merely one piece of the pie. He had probably just come from dinner at the Four Seasons or the 21 Club, stopping on his way back to his Fifth Avenue penthouse. Even if he stayed at the party for five minutes, standing by the door while his town car idled outside, that was enough. It signaled that this was, in fact, a big deal.

The interns and assistants in the room didn’t notice him. It was only the senior staff—Eliza, Rebecca, Jamie—who tuned their antennae to his presence. What a strange feeling it must be, I thought, to move through the world like that. To possess a power that remains invisible to any ordinary person passing on the sidewalk. How many people in America could identify King Media with a real person? A fraction of a percent. His low profile was probably strategic. What had he done to get to this place, to this hard ceiling of power? What had he left in his wake? Mr. King said something to Rebecca, and she laughed. I wondered what they were talking about—the ratings? Or their mutual friends, or their plans for the holidays? It was only when I stopped staring at him that I realized that Ginny, next to him, was staring at me in turn.

A shiver passed up my spine. I smiled as she approached, but her expression remained cold.