The Wing Girl: A laugh out loud romantic comedy. Nic Tatano
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desk and shook his head. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself.”
“Did what, Harry?”
He started wildly gesturing in my direction. “This … this … hair, and … you’re in a dress.”
“Women wear dresses, Harry. Women go to the hair salon.”
“But not you. You always look the same. You’re—”
“One of the guys?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re a real reporter, not the eye-candy fembots management sticks me with.”
“Are you saying I can’t be credible if I look attractive?”
“People won’t take you seriously.”
“You’re kidding, right? This is television news, Harry. Or have you forgotten we work in the world’s most superficial business?”
“You just took the brass out of the cupcake.”
I tapped my head. “The brass is still here, Harry. It’s just been polished a bit.”
Harry pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, jerked it toward his head and popped one in his mouth.
“You know you can’t smoke in here, Harry.”
He rolled his eyes. “Shit!” He fired the cancer stick into the trash. “Back in the day we didn’t have these stupid rules … aw, dammit, now I’m going to have to get new promo shot, and all your billboards will have to be replaced. Your face is on a hundred city buses and subway platforms.”
“The other women in the newsroom change their hair all the time.”
“You’re not like them. And this is more than a change. This is like … like trading in a Yugo for a Mercedes.”
A Yugo? A 1980s Russian car? I looked that bad in my “before” picture? “Is that your weird way of saying I look good?”
He shrugged and looked at the parade of Emmy awards that sat atop the battered wooden credenza behind his desk. “Let’s just say it’s going to be hard to sell the best-looking woman in my newsroom as the best reporter.”
A huge smile grew on my face. “Thank you, Harry. Took you a while to get there, but I’ll take it.”
“Just tell me why you did … ” He looked up and waved his hands up and down my body. “ … this.”
What the hell, I was determined to have some fun. I pointed to myself. “This? By this you mean … ?”
“You know damn well what I mean!” His hands moved faster. “This! This! The hair is all … down and has curls and it’s shiny and … the dress … I mean, you’ve got legs for God’s sake!”
I playfully slapped the side of my face. “The horror!”
He exhaled. The man who had been like a father to me now looked at me like one for the first time. “Just tell me why.”
“Why? Because I’m tired of going home alone to my empty apartment, Harry. All the Emmys and the fame and my face on the signs in the subway and the big paycheck aren’t keeping me warm at night. My best friends told me I need to change, starting in a physical way. You said it yourself last week, that I have no social skills.”
“I said I was sorry about that. You know I’m not the most tactful person, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know. But apparently I needed some female skills as well. I need to put my best foot forward out there if I’m ever going to find someone who will love me.”
“Oh, geez. Not again. Every damn woman in my newsroom.”
“What?”
“I never figured you as someone who owns a biological clock. Tick-tock-tick-tock and here’s my resignation.” He plopped down in his beat-up brown leather swivel rocker and folded his hands in his lap. “So.” Long pause. “She’s gone forever?”
“If by she you mean the sexless woman in baggy clothes who didn’t own a pair of heels and was the only girl in the newsroom who didn’t kill the ozone on a daily basis, yeah, she’s outta here. But I’m still the same reporter. And I’ll never stop doing what I do because I love it.”
He pulled a flask from his top drawer and took a sip, one of his last remaining defiant acts available in the hellish time known to Harry as the present. “Dammit, Cupcake, I never figured you for a skirt.” (It should be noted that a “skirt” was the term used by men back in the day referring to women in the newsroom.) “I’m not sure this is gonna work.”
“What?”
“Politicians run for cover when they know you’re around. They’re more frightened of you than an IRS audit. You think any man is going to avoid you looking like that?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Harry, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve still got a lot of work to do on those social skills.”
“Please don’t.”
***
My “tip line” started ringing the moment I got off the set at five minutes after five.
It’s an old, battered red phone that weighs a ton and it’s hooked up to an old-fashioned answering machine that uses a tape. Normally the thing only rings about three times a week. Viewers call tipping me off on stuff that they think needs to be investigated. Sometimes the tips lead to stories, more often they don’t. The stuff I get on politicians is usually generated by the other party and turns out to be bogus. But over the years I’ve gotten some great stories out of anonymous phone calls.
I needed some new leads anyway, having put the State Senator tale to bed as the guy resigned this morning. While there were a few things I had on the back burner, nothing jumped out as a big story.
I slid into my chair, tossed my script on the desk already littered with papers, and answered the phone. “Tip line, Belinda Carson … ”
“Hi, Belinda, thanks for taking my call.” The voice was young and female.
I shoved some junk out of the way, revealing a coffee-stained blotter that still had a calendar for 2006, grabbed a pen and pad, poised to take notes. “That’s what I’m here for. You have a tip you want to share?”
“Not really. I just wanted to say you look fantastic and I was hoping you’d share the name of your hairstylist.”
My head dropped and hit the desk with an audible thud. And so it began.
The tip line got a workout for the next ninety minutes, ringing non-stop. I didn’t get out of there till a quarter to seven, after fielding the following hard-hitting, investigative news tips, which would no doubt lead to Emmy award winning exclusives:
“Who does your makeup?”
“Where did you get that dress?”
“Would you like to have dinner this weekend?”
“Are your eyes really that green or are you using colored contacts?”
“What’s that shade of lip gloss?”
And my favorite:
“I’m married and would never cheat on my wife, but I just wanted to call and say you’re smokin’ hot.”
After the final call Harry walked by my desk on his way out of the newsroom.
“I noticed you were getting an awful lot of tip calls tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” I knew where this was going. Harry was wearing his I-told-you-so look.
“Any good leads?”