Star Time (50 page)

The assistant director’s shoulders sagged a bit under the tuxedo, but after all, this was Marian Marcus. He assured her he didn't mind a bit.

Marian tried to catch as much sleep as she could on the red-eye to New York for the Monday morning meeting. Derek had driven her to the airport. A week had passed, and they had seen each other every night. Only with the greatest effort had she torn herself away from him for the two days the trip would require.

She had just enough time for a shower at her suite at the Plaza and to
freshen
her makeup before slipping on a pants suit and hurrying to the FBS Building for the meeting with Greg and Arnold Mandel, who was already in Greg's office when she arrived.

Greg introduced her to a Vietnamese American named Jimmy Minh, whom she learned had just been promoted to head of Research. Jimmy revealed that Arnold Mandel's show,
What's
the World Coming To?
had
tested much better with a home audience, as he had predicted it might. "It had some high negatives, but those who liked it really liked it."

The response had tested particularly well among the desirable 18- to 34-year-olds. Although that was encouraging, Jimmy warned that
Arnold would have to tiptoe along a fine creative line to reduce the offensiveness enough to capture viewers who seemed to be on the fence, but could be won over.

Ev
Carver reported that the ad agencies had shied away from the show, preferring to wait until it had proved itself. When pressed for an on-the-record opinion, he advocated not picking it up for that reason and because it would almost certainly arouse the affiliates' animosity.

"Even so," Greg disagreed, "with all the series we want to replace, if we put it into some really dead time slot, what the hell
do we
have to lose?"

Marian agreed. "I say we go with it late—maybe Wednesday at ten—when we can't be accused of corrupting children. We do a lot of publicity to warn people about how controversial it is

that will probably attract a lot more of them than it
dissuades
. We try to calm the affiliates' fears while building a cult audience, and we hide out in a bunker for while we wait for the results."

Greg chimed in, “How about running it at nine and going for something lurid at ten, maybe a more upscale version of
The Guts of the Story
?”

Marian grew excited. “I’ve been thinking about a reality show entitled
Porn Star Spouses.”

Jimmy liked both ideas. "Nothing else is on that night geared to that kind of viewer. We can do an audience-flow survey to see how many would stay with us."

Arnold, who had feared the show would never get on the air, now argued that Greg was in too much of a hurry. No scripts were yet ready. He wanted to premiere the show in the fall.

"This show will get lost in the fall," Greg maintained. "If it's to have any chance at all to find an audience, it has to go on now, when people aren't confronted by dozens of new choices."

"Jesus, you're really serious." Arnold reflected for a moment. "It will be a crushing schedule. I'll have to write next week's script while this week's is shooting."

Greg smiled. "Think of all the money you'll save because you won't have time for your psychiatrist."

"Can you believe it, Derek Peters? And Derek really
is
wonderful. Not fantasy now. We've spent every night together since we met." Marian was aglow.

She and Chris sat across the table set up by room service in Marian's suite at the Plaza.

She gushed, "After all these years, he's come into my life?"

Chris grinned.

In the oddest way, Marian noticed, but was so full of happiness about her news that she rushed on. "His acting career hasn't gone well. He lives from hand to mouth. He drives two hours into L.A. every day because he rents a room in some little farming town for practically nothing. If his car should break down, he probably hasn't got the money to fix it."

"But I'll bet you've simplified that long drive for him, by letting him stay overnight at your place. You're a humanitarian."

A peal of laughter rang from Marian's throat. "All right, I did tell him that it was dangerous for him to drive back so late at night and why
shouldn't he
just stay over."

"And now you're getting used to it."

Marian nodded. "I've never been so happy. All my adult life I've come home to an empty place and forced myself to make dinner and . . . Well, you know. But he's now working days, and waiting for me when I come home. He can't wait to see me, and I can't wait to see him. The other day we were having sex while the pasta was boiling over. Crazy."

"That's the way it should be."

"Those nights when Ken comes back from Washington must be like a vacation for you guys."

Marian noticed the shadow pass behind Chris's eyes. With Marian, Chris did not try to hide it.

"Uh-oh," Marian sighed, "
something's
rotten in Paradise. You're unhappy."

A soft smile slowly suffused Chris's expression. "On the contrary, I'm the happiest I've been in a very long time. It's just that the cause isn't Ken."

"Then I really do mean that 'uh, oh.'
Another man?"

Chris pondered awhile. "You're the only person in the world I would tell this to. Someone I've known a long time."

Marian emitted a deep sigh. "Greg
Lyall
has you wrapped around his little finger again."

"It isn't like that. It's just that the same old feelings come over us when we're together.
As if Ken and Greg's wife and all the time in between never happened."

Marian eyed her friend sternly. "But they
did
happen, Chris. They happened, and when Greg left you, you were devastated. He saw a chance to get ahead and all he thought about was
himself
."

"I know," she replied softly. "But I think I understand better now why he did it."

"Oh, Jesus!"

"Look, I don't forgive it, but I understand it."

"And what about Ken and Crown Princess Roderick?"

Pain was apparent now in Chris's expression.
"For the present nothing."
She explained how everything depended on Greg's plans for FBS working out by the end of the year.

"Thanks for the extra pressure," Marian responded with wry sarcasm. "Now both of us are chained to whether he can pull it off."

"Don't you think he can?"

Marian thought for a moment. "I think he's smart and charming and has a sense of what it will take to get the network where it should go. He probably means well, too, when he can afford to. For God’s sake, he changed my life. But for you, more than your career's at stake."

Marian broke the silence with another thought. "In the meanwhile what happens? Do you think you're the type who can live with one man while having an affair with another?"

Chris shrugged; she did not know. So many questions confronted her. "I didn't choose this. I wouldn't have chosen this for anything. I just can't help myself."

Marian hugged her friend. "They get into your bones early, and no one else seems right after that."

"'The
fabulous, flawless Derek Peters!'" Chris recalled with a laugh. That was what the two of them jokingly used to call him.

Marian remembered another epithet they used to use.
"'And that bastard Greg
Lyall
!'"

"That new show about the future is detestable!" Barnett proclaimed in disgust to his son-in-law.

Greg assumed he was referring to Arnold Mandel's new show, which had just premiered.

"The same old product won't sell anymore," Greg answered. "Look at the hits. Even the traditional comedies are laced with bathroom dialogue and off-the-wall characters. The hero of
The Shield
is a brutal cop. What about
Lost?
No one can figure out what that one is about. Have you seen
Mad Men
? Would you have believed a show about advertising executives decades ago would be a hit?”

“It’s the clandestine
sex,
They're in and out of each other's beds like rabbits.”

“Agreed.
Arnold's show also has sex in buckets, but it’s also honest, funny, and may just be audacious enough to hook young people into watching."

The two men sat in the large salon at the rear of Greg and Diane’s country house, looking out on a lawn that sloped down to Long Island Sound. Late April had brought greenery and flowers in garden beds and along walking paths. Diane sat at a desk to one side half-listening while attending to her own matters.

"But it’s hate material.
One more thing to divide the country.
If I had known that’s what you’d be putting on the air . . ." Barnett let the sentence hang.

Greg knew Barnett to be a thoroughly amoral man, except where family was concerned. At times, Greg suspected, even an immoral one. He conjectured that his father-in-law's ethical grievance about
What's
the World Coming To?
had
to be a stratagem aimed at a different objective.

"People seem to be finding the show," Greg answered pragmatically, "younger people who could be renting movies or watching shows on cable or the Internet."

"The Internet is for email and news. I made sure our local stations had news websites."

"Barnett, you can also find comedy series and dramas, suspense, travel shows, you name it, all over the Internet. And young people
are
finding them. Soon that content will also be available on TV sets and will be fighting us for the viewer's screen time as surely as silent movies led
to sound. If we aren't in it with both feet, we'll find ourselves on the outside looking in."

Barnett changed the subject to what had been the true aim of his criticism. "You'll be pleased to know I'm feeling like my old self again. The doctor says he wouldn't be surprised to see me putting in a full day's work soon. I've been thinking I might sit in next week when you're watching the new pilots. Keep my eye on some of those hotheaded decisions."

So, that's it, Greg realized. Your health crisis is over, and you're bored. You want to get back in the game again. Greg noticed out of the corner of his eye that Diane's head was raised like a hunting dog's, watching, listening.

"I'm not letting FBS play it safe anymore," Greg made clear. "That hasn't worked, but I can't do any worse than we've been doing. You said it was my ball game now. But it's also a different ball game."

"I've never been afraid of responsibility," Barnett retorted, but added, "Your contract puts those decisions into your hands. I wouldn't want to be accused of going back on my word."

That nicety had never stopped Barnett in the past, Greg observed, but said aloud, "I appreciate the confidence."

Diane's head lowered again to her own work.

Barnett changed the subject again.
"Ken Chandler talked about
some legislation we’re trying to get through Congress that would force carriers to drop pirate websites and punish users who are pirating our shows. I think maybe I'll look into that.”

Greg guessed that Barnett had retreated because he didn't yet feel up to trying to comprehend and judge entertainment that felt increasingly alien to him, but although he hadn't admitted it, he was also probably objective enough to see its increasing presence in successful network lineups. Greg's younger vision of entertainment, he might even suspect, might be more perceptive than his own. Dabbling in possible legislation was far easier and less personally troubling. But Greg found the prospect of his forming a tighter relationship with Ken Chandler disturbing.

Diane suddenly spoke up. "Greg, I'm inviting Ken and Chris to a small dinner party. I want to follow up on the children's hospital. You can approach him on this pirating matter."

"Let's keep business and friendship separate," Greg replied. "Make a separate lunch date with him or go to his office. I'll do the same."

"Nonsense.
Dinner at our apartment would be perfect. The man was thrilled when we invited him to the country house. He's a poor boy who can't quite believe he's rubbing shoulders with our people in our circles."

After a decade of marriage to you, Greg thought, I'm finally included in your circles. Too
small a victory come
too late.

Diane phoned Chandlers' home. Ken answered, and they agreed on the date.

"It doesn't work. I'm telling you it doesn't work."

Biff Stanfield was nearly insane with worry. He had watched the rehearsal just before the initial take of the first scene between Sally and Chad and had nearly thrown up. The woman character he had created so carefully now seemed as contrived as a Saturday-morning
cartoon,
Chad's as stiff as an ironing board.