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Authors: Cathy Lamb

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BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life

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“
G
ood morning, Madeline.” Tracy Shales, the host of
Portland Sunrise,
smiled at me, perky but not annoyingly so.

I could barely move my face. I’d been in makeup and had so much foundation on, I thought it would crack. They’d also straightened my hair.

“You have so much curl,” the stylist gushed, wrapping it around her fingers, which gave me the shivers in a very, very bad way. “Let’s leave it natural.”

“No, thanks.” I pulled the curl out of her hands before an avalanche of memories snuffed the life out of me.

She tried again. “But they’re sexy, glossy.”

“Absolutely no curls.” I pulled them from her hand again, my breath getting stuck in my body, somewhere behind my intestines. I did not want curls. Never.

“Good morning, Tracy, thank you for having me.” I smiled, and tried not to look directly at the cameras. The audience was filled with women, most between the ages of forty and sixty.

“As Oregon’s and America’s most loved life coach, we know you’re busy, and we appreciate you being here.”

“It’s a pleasure.” I hoped that the makeup would hide my fear. Not my fear of being on a television show, of which I had none, but the fear that lived in my stomach always like a knife-wielding vulture.

“So, Madeline.” Tracy leaned toward me. We were in red chairs facing each other. “Tell us about your work. What do you offer people?”

“I offer them a way to gain back their freakin’ sanity.”

“What do you mean, freakin’ sanity?” She knew, I’d told her about it, we were part of a gig. The Tracy–Madeline gig.

“I mean that women’s lives can be Godzilla awful whether through circumstance or lousy choices, and they need to get their sanity back and start living a kick-ass life with adventure and creativity and fun and deeper thought about who they are and where they’re going.”

“Lousy choices?”

“Sure. I know that will offend a lot of your viewers, Tracy, but it’s true. Women often make lousy, blood-sucking, life-draining choices. They screw up. I’ve screwed up. We all screw up again.
Truth
is what I’m after with my clients. I tell them the truth. If they’ve made lousy choices, I’m honest. I lay it on the table and say, ‘Hey, screwball girl, admit that your choice was so poor, you would have made a better decision if you were tossing back vodka tonics while standing on your head. Now how are you gonna turn this choice around?’ Then we go through the steps she needs to take, and if she waffles or is vague, I tell her she needs a slug to the brain, to toughen up, and make those hard choices, even if it drags her bouncy fanny to a place she doesn’t want be.”

Tracy smiled. She liked an outspoken guest. “Don’t be boring,” she’d told me.

“My fanny doesn’t like to be in a place where it’s uncomfortable,” Tracy said, wiggling in her seat. The audience laughed.

“No one’s fanny likes to be there. We’re protective about our fannies. We like our fannies and we don’t like change if it’s going to require us to rip our fannies apart. I believe in truth, direction, and encouragement. I call it Mind-Splitting Truth, Door-Die Direction, and Self-Examining Encouragement.”

“Wow. Now that’s edgy. Let’s try one of those slang things on me.”

“Okay, Tracy.” I smiled, crossing my legs. Whoodalehoo. This part would be fun. Fun and fun, as Adriana would say. Tracy and I had planned it
all
out. “How are things going at work?”

“You saw this morning in the makeup room how things are going, Madeline.” She allowed a bit of a snip into her voice.

I sure had. After my makeup was done, I went to the bathroom carrying my purse to make sure my monthly curse was all taken care of. As I was coming back in, Thacker Blunt knocked and entered. I stepped back into the shadows so he couldn’t see me while he ranted and raved like a sick bull. At the very start of the rant, I thought it would be exciting to whip out my mini, high-tech tape recorder and record him, so I did. When he stomped out I turned off my tape recorder and rejoined Tracy.

We agreed that today was the day to fry her boss like a gasping fish and then boil him alive.

“What I saw today, backstage, is that your boss, Thacker Blunt, the station manager, came in and proceeded to tell you that you had a ‘big ass’ and threatened to run your big ass out of town if you didn’t figure out ways you could be younger and hipper on your show.”

“That hurt.” Tracy’s eyes filled with tears. We had discussed this part. She was to be brave and strong and womanly, but definitely hurt. Almost mortally wounded!

I shoved my laughter back down my throat. “I recorded his diatribe.”

“You did?!” Shocked face by Tracy, that brilliant actress!

“Let’s listen to the tape so the audience can get an idea of the type of illegal harassment women, and sometimes men, face in the workplace. Folks, this is Thacker Blunt on the other end of the conversation. He’s the station manager.” I hit play.

The audience leaned forward, eager, a bit confused. The station manager had been recorded? They were playing it live, on air?

“Listen up, Tracy.” Thacker’s voice was rough and aggressive as it torpedoed around the studio. “This deal with Tawni strained things for me, got things stirred up, and I blame you, and I don’t like your part in it.”

“My part?” Tracy said.

I glanced at the audience. They were, no kidding, on the edges of their seats.

“Yes, your part.” That was Thacker. I nodded at a gal backstage. She had a grudge against Thacker. She flashed a gigantosized photo of him behind us looking smarmy. “You know how you manipulated that situation.”

“I didn’t do anything to manipulate it,” Tracy said.

“Yes, you did. I put Tawni on your show because we needed to appeal to young women and young men. We needed thin, we needed pretty. We needed sexy. Not you, and you kicked her out.”

I heard gasps in the audience. Women do not like bimbos who are pushing them out of jobs and marriages.

“I didn’t kick her out. The viewers could see that I was being kicked out.”

“Look, Tracy. You’re getting older. You’re too heavy. You’re not in style. We need to catch the young ones.”

An audience member gasped and shouted, “What a prick!”

The audience at home heard that.

“So you want to fire me because of my age?”

“That’s between you, me, and the chair.”

“I could sue you for that comment.”

“You could, but I would deny that I made it. Your word against mine.”

The tension in that studio was thick and getting thicker. Like fury does when it comes alive.

“You’re here because all your old, middle-aged menopausal friends called in to the show and saved your ass and Tawni made some unfortunate comments about fat women. I mean, shit, fat women shouldn’t be wearing designer clothes. Their rolls make them look like hot dogs. It’s gross.”

One woman in the audience hissed, “He has a dick like a hot dog!”

The audience at home heard that, too.

“I thought Tawni’s comments were rude and inappropriate.”

“Who cares what you think? Fat women are fat women. Get the ratings up.”

“The ratings are already up, Mr. Brilliant.”

“That’s the kind of back talk I don’t need, dammit. Keep your old mouth shut. Don’t tell me how to run my station.”

“I don’t like you calling me old.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll tell
you
what to do. You’re beneath me.”

“I will never be beneath you. That would make me vomit.”

There were audible rumblings of that growing fury in the audience, as if fury was becoming one roaring person.

“It would make me vomit, too, Tracy,” a man in the audience told Tracy.

The audience at home heard that.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Tracy. I’m warning you. You’ve got a live show in an hour and a half. I’ve got to go to a meeting across town, but I will watch a copy of your show this afternoon and we’ll talk about ways you can reach a younger audience, despite your age, or I’ll find a way to run your big ass out of town.
Run it out of town
.”

When the tape was over, the disgust and live fury was heavy in the studio. The only thing that cut through that silence like an ax was one man’s slooowww comment, “I’m gonna run that cowpoke out of town myself with my truck.”

I winked at the sound man. He gave me a thumbs-up. Thacker had stolen his girlfriend. I leaned forward and said, “Tracy, you have a hostile work environment here.”

“I know I do, but I don’t want to have to go to court, hire an attorney. If I did that, I would never be hired again in this field.” She dabbed at a tear. Such a brilliant actress!

I nodded sympathetically. “Here’s the thing, Tracy. Tawni, the woman Thacker brought on to replace you, was terrifically unpopular with the viewers. But it’s my understanding that she was his girlfriend. Is that true?” I knew it to be true. I had made a few calls. Including to Tawni herself, who was still steamin’ mad. She’d heard of me, that got me into her confidence. ‘He used me,’ she’d whined. ‘I thought he and I were going to get married! Go to New York together! Have our own show where I would be the host. That’s what he said would happen! Now I’m in Memphis! I’m an assistant to an assistant and my husband left me!”

“I can’t comment on their
private
relationship,” Tracy said meekly. “I don’t want to repeat gossip, even if it’s true.”

“It’s also my understanding that he has another girlfriend working here at this station and they keep their . . . um . . .
toys
. . . shall I say, in the third drawer of his desk.”

Elizabeth had, with great fanfare, showed me the drawer today after Georgie called her. Thacker had told Elizabeth, when she was hired, “Ha. I’m movin’ up in the world. I have a black on the show now. We need blacks so I don’t look racist. Do you know another black who could work here? It doesn’t matter if it’s a male or female, I need another black. Or a Mexican. Get me one of those. A black or a Mexican.”

“Here are your choices, Tracy. One, sue the station. Two, quit, move on with your life. Three, take things as they are. Pray he leaves. Which one will you do?”

“Hmmm.” Tracy pretended to think. “Hmmm.”

The audience members, those women between the ages of forty and sixty who are tired of taking crap. started voicing their opinions, loudly, until Fury was up and skipping around the room. “Sue him! Don’t take that, Tracy. . . . Stand up for us women . . . stand up for yourself . . . woman power . . . prick men shouldn’t run the show . . . I’m frothing I’m so mad!”

I snuck a peek at the audience. A frothing woman? Where was that one?

“You know”—Tracy sat up straight, got some fire in her eyes—“I’m sick of this. I’m sick of the girlfriends, the promotions for them because they’re young and sexy, sick of the way he treats us women.”

“You can’t let him get away with it,” I said. “Not only for you, but for all of us. What about the sisterhood? Do you want to let another sister be derailed because she’s not young and thin enough, or do you want to make sure she gets fairness at work?”

Oh, whooee! The audience voiced their opinions. “He’s an asshole, Tracy. . . . Sue the station, sue for all of us women.... Girlfriend blondes should not replace other women because they’re good in bed.”

“Don’t be a wimp, Tracy. Don’t be walked on.” I shook my fist, rallying the troops.

“You’re right, I know you’re right,” she said, thinking deeply, pretending to gather her courage.

I let the pause hang heavy between us and the audience. “Come on, Tracy!” an audience member shouted. “Don’t take his abuse! What are you? A woman or a wimp?”

I raised my eyebrows at that one. Nice line.

“Sue for the sisterhood, Tracy!” I cheered. “Women do not need to work in sexually hostile environments. Young girlfriends sleeping with the boss should not replace experienced women because they’ll get naked. It’s unlawful, it’s unethical. It’s not right!”

The audience hooted and trilled.

“I think . . . I’m going to . . .” Tracy drew out the tension. There was scattered applause, encouraging words . . . Fury sprinting about.

“I’m going to . . .” She tilted her chin up, brave woman, she.

I put both my fists in the air and flung them about, building the tension. “What do you think, audience?”

“Sue sue sue!” they chanted.

“Take no crap, Tracy! You don’t want to get to be a ninety-year-old woman and look back and think you were a spaghetti noodle, do you?”

“Sue sue sue!” the audience chanted, ol’ Fury blasting away.

“I’m going to . . .” Tracy finally stood up, shoulders back, a tough expression on her face.

The audience stood up, too, continuing their chants.

BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life

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