Jennie Jennings does not need to glance in a mirror to know that her hair, her lipstick, her powder is perfect. She has already checked it seven times and the young woman who is her production assistant knows she will lose her job if she lets Jennie go on air with so much as a fleck of lint on the back of her jacket. The last PA got booted on a breath charge: at a city hall spot she didn't have any gum or mints, and the mayor correctly named—during a live interview—what Jennie had eaten for lunch. The girl was gone before the crew returned to the station.
The other passengers are long gone, and the weeping burly man has been done to death. If they could find out the girl's name, they'd have a scoop. But nobody knows anything; these people are no help. Inside herself Jennie slumps her shoulders, lets her arms hang lifeless at her sides, drops the microphone to the ground, then ravages her wavy, shoulder-length blond hair (accented with chestnut low-lights) with her fists, and screams, "Why can't I get any decent fucking help?" But she is wearing linen and can't afford any extra movements that might wrinkle her look. She stares at the rod in her hand, touches the big ball of foam on the tip and twists the microphone to read each side of the box: the station's call letters, alternating with its winking icon. KWNK. Wink. KWNK. Wink. K-Wink. Kwink. Field reporter.
Two months into this, and she is still reporting from the scene of accidents and street fairs. Her father is an executive at the station, and she was promised an anchor job—on condition that she go through the motions of paying her dues. They said as soon as old white hair retired, they'd put her behind the desk. Raymond Carlisle had supposedly been on the verge of leaving since the day she was offered the job. Now the would-be retiree is eking out a little more time until the market recovers and his funds are secure, so Jennie is stuck standing around while some inept intern screws up another story for her.
The San Francisco State student pumps her arms to propel her up the incline to the Bank of America Plaza, where Jennie stands, so poised that the young woman panics, thinks she's on air. The cocktail formed when the adrenaline shooting from her brain meets the espresso's caffeine in her blood propels the young woman to run the last half block in just three seconds. She slows herself so her footsteps cannot be caught on the sound track and strides noiselessly around to behind the camera operator.
"What are you hiding for? Did you get me an interview or not? I'm not going to stand around here all day." Jennie manages to deliver the rebuke without moving her body or even but scarcely her face. The one thing over which she maintains absolute control is her voice. It does exactly what she wants it to do.
The intern is unruffled. She has already outlasted two others, and she is determined to go the distance. She needs the credit and the line on her resume. "I got you the barista at the coffee shop where she had a cappuccino before she stepped onto the cable car."
One would not have thought it possible for Jennie's posture to be any straighter, but she straightens. "Well it's about time. Let's go." The intern starts back down the hill. "In the van, missie. I'm not walking in these shoes."
"But you're wearing linen."
Jennie considers the remark. "How far is it?"
"Just at Sansome. And it's all downhill."
Jennie heaves the sigh of someone reluctantly granting a favor, shoves the microphone at the assistant, follows.
"I think this is going to be a good one." The assistant is determined to make this work. "It's a chance to show her before the accident, give people a glimpse into the real person, not dwell on her as a victim."
"Yes." Jennie says the word slowly, almost adds, "Good work," but holds back. No need to give the girl too much too soon. Keep her hungry. She'll need to stay in touch with that feeling. It's part of the business. "So, who was she, before the accident?"
The girl takes a deep breath, not just for the extra seconds it affords her to clear her head and organize her thoughts, but also because her body is trembling from nerves, adrenaline, and caffeine, and she needs to calm down.
"She's a double decaf low-fat, low-foam mocha; no whipped cream, dash of cinnamon."
Jennie slows her pace. The PA thinks she's going to stop walking to yell at her, so she quickly adds, "The table where she sat hasn't even been bussed yet. We've got the cup. And—" she pauses for effect, then spills her revelation. "I think the barista kind of dug her. Sounds like she kind of flirted with him. Very human."
What gave Jennie pause was the coffee order. She is herself a double decaf low-fat, low-foam mocha, although on occasion she will take a spot of whipped cream on top, and she prefers nutmeg to cinnamon. In spite of herself, she does see this young woman as a real person, sees herself on that streetcar, grappling for a firm purchase, watching the ground she had trusted to stay beneath her slip away. "All right," she says, as much to herself as to the crew. She nods slowly as she stares straight ahead. This is it. She feels it. This is the story that will put her behind the desk. She has paid her dues, and now it's time for the payoff. "All right, then. Let's talk to the barista." Yes.
The barista is standing outside the café, draped over a mailbox, smoking. His brittle, dull-black hair falls into his face, frames his dark eyes, which don't blink when he sees the blond stick walk toward him. Jennie tends to be attracted to her likes, but her empathic episode continues and she finds herself drawn to this slouchy, misshaven young man. After she introduces herself and offers the young man a cordial handshake, the PA ushers the pair inside to a table on which a crumpled napkin sits beside a tall glass mug with dried bubbles around its rim. "I thought we could do the spot here," she says.
Jennie does not take her eyes off the barista. She cocks her head over her right shoulder. "OK, let's set it up." The crew flurries around them, moving tables, adjusting lights and verifying sound levels. Jennie looks past the straggly locks of hair into the young man's eyes, rests a hand on a forearm that is crossed before his chest, and says, "I know this all seems terribly banal, but we do need to give people the details. Especially in a situation like this one, which could have happened to any of us, people want to know exactly what happened, retrace the person's steps, you know, to understand. We want to show them the real person who suffered this unusual ordeal." He indicates his agreement with a nod.
When the stage is set and the PA has brushed her shoulders, smoothed her lapels, and primped her hair, Jennie Jennings, field reporter, slowly seeps back into her skin beside her compassionate counterpart. Together they guide the barista through recounting the last drink the woman had before her fall: her decisive order (she knew exactly what she wanted), her friendly manner (she wasn't chatty but had a kind smile), and her generosity (she left a hefty tip). In her earpiece Jennie hears the director tell her to wrap it up; the studio needs to cut to a crash on the Bay Bridge, where a vanload of teenagers nearly plunged to their deaths.
Jennie Jennings holds the microphone in her left hand, the empty coffee cup in her right. She stares into the spent drink, the remains of what could have been her beverage, her destiny. She swirls the cold, murky fluid, smells the cinnamon, feels the grit of the last gulp on her tongue. She tilts her head up, looks directly into the camera lens, where she can see but not quite make out her own inverted, mottled reflection.
"If only she had taken this last sip," Jennie touches the napkin on the table. "She would be here with us right now."
Jennie does not realize the inanity of this remark. First off, the woman is not dead, as Jennie's dramatics imply. Second, if she hadn't fallen off the cable car, the woman most certainly would not have been in the cafe, she'd be on the other side of Nob Hill. Her producer, a documentary filmmaker by night who works in news for the money and because she believes she can lift it from the morass of sensationalism it's slipped into in the last 30 years, will ream her. And although the production assistant will do her best to cajole her, may even keep her job, Jennie Jennings is done with paying dues. Finished.