On Second Thought. Kristan Higgins
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but most people just called me “Hey,” as in “Hey, I need a cab/lunch/reservation...”
I went to Brooks Brothers, got him a blue shirt that would bring out his nice eyes and a cool blue-and-purple tie with a pattern that wouldn’t strobe on TV. I brought the stuff up to the office and left the receipt and change in an envelope on his desk.
Two days later, there was a beautifully wrapped box on my desk. I told you to buy yourself something nice, the note said. Thank you again. —Ryan Roberts. Inside was a stunning pink-and-red silk scarf, so fine it practically floated. As Candy had drilled into me, I handwrote him a thank-you note.
Three weeks later, Ryan asked if I wanted to work on The Day’s News as a production assistant. There was an opening, and he’d thought of me. Eric just about fainted when I told him. “That’s great! Honey, I’m so proud of you!”
So even though I had only a vague idea of what a production assistant did, I said yes.
And here’s a secret. If you didn’t mind doing anything anyone asked, you were an amazing production assistant. Make coffee, get lunch, proofread this copy, get the art department to change this graphic, cut this story down to three minutes, call this restaurant and make a reservation for this anchor...it was easy. Other production assistants ran around sweating and panicked, trying to outsweat and outpanic each other to show how very important they were. I didn’t. I knew I wasn’t.
That was the thing that really stood out at NBC—my complete lack of ambition. I didn’t want to be a journalist or an on-air reporter. I didn’t want to go to Beirut (are you even kidding me?). Let other people go to dangerous places filled with bombs and rubble and gunfire. Me, I liked running water and flirting with the seventy-five-year-old doorman at The Broadmoor. I liked sleeping with Eric, because even though we both worked long days, we still fell asleep cuddled together every night.
I didn’t want a corner office. I never asked for a raise or a promotion.
This somehow got me a raise and a promotion every six months. For some reason, Ryan thought I was invaluable.
I know what you’re thinking. That he put the moves on me. Nope. He took Eric and me out to dinner with his wife. He showed me pictures of his kids, whom he truly adored. He thanked me for remembering his mom’s birthday when he forgot.
I went from production assistant to assistant producer, making my colleagues grind their teeth. Six months later, Ryan was tapped for more airtime, and I got another promotion so I could go along with him (associate producer). A year and a half after that, he was made lead anchor of The Day’s News, and at the age of twenty-six, I was made senior producer of the country’s second-largest news show.
Eric was so proud. He took both the O’Leary and Fisher families out to celebrate at a superfancy restaurant, and everyone came, even Dad, who happened to be in town for a Yankees-Orioles series. Judy and Aaron continually toasted and praised me, and Kate asked for celebrity gossip. Even Sean was impressed. Candy wondered how I was qualified, and Eric said, “Because she’s wonderful at everything she does.”
Ryan’s popularity soared; he was young enough to still have boy-next-door good looks, old enough for a sense of gravitas. He had a great sense of humor (hosted Saturday Night Live, in fact; I got Judy and Aaron tickets) and was adored by everyone at NBC. He treated me like an equal, listened to my suggestions and took them.
When he interviewed the President, I told Ryan to ask about the day his kids were born, and sure enough, the leader of the free world teared up, and ratings and social media went wild. Ryan knuckle-bumped me after the interview and introduced me to the President. Of the United States.
Meanwhile, Eric graduated from Rutgers with his MBA, got a job on Wall Street, and we were living the Big Apple dream. We traded in The Broadmoor for a two-bedroom in Chelsea (no name for the building, alas).
Despite my shiny title and brushes with the rich and famous, I made only a fraction of what Eric did at his job. Unlike me, he was very ambitious. But he was also fretful about work. On Wall Street, in a job with three hundred other bright, ambitious people, it was hard to stand out.
So I jumped in, his secret weapon. I had him invite his boss over for dinner, where I cooked and charmed with work stories and befriended the boss’s wife. I urged Eric to join the company softball team and volunteer for the American Lung Association stair climb in his building. When the CEO had twins, I had Eric make a donation to Save the Children in honor of the newborn boys. (She came down from the top floor to personally thank Eric, by the way.)
Ryan liked to say I had my finger on the pulse of humanity—yeah, yeah, a little over the top—but I did read people well. Eric...not as much. He was a little too used to being the worshipped only child to see what other people needed. I was the opposite. Unworshipped and clear-eyed.
Every so often when we passed a jewelry store window, Eric would look at me and grin. I’d feign innocence, and he’d say, “Just trying to see what you’re looking at.” So there were assurances and hints and references to us getting engaged...but still no ring.
One night, when we were having a rare dinner together in our beautiful apartment, and were both happy and full of good wine, I heard myself ask, “Hon? When do you think we’ll get married?”
He put down his fork; he’d cooked shrimp risotto, my favorite. Nodded, and gazed at me with his kind eyes. “I want that, too. You know I do. I love you so much, Ains. But the last thing I want to do is start our married life at a time when I’m so busy that I can’t spend time with my wife. Another year and a half, maybe two, and I’ll be over the hump. Can you hang in there that long?”
And not wanting to sound like a dependent, weak female, I said, “Of course! I’m busy, too, definitely. No, it was just a... I just wondered.”
“Obviously, we’re gonna get married, babe. You’re the love of my life.” He smiled, poured me more wine, and we had a lovely night. With great sex, I might add.
And then...well...then the shit hit the Peacock, as it were.
In addition to being the country’s most trusted source for news, Ryan Roberts also seemed to be a bit of a magnet for the action.
There was the time a bullet whizzed past his head during a hostage situation, and Ryan had the cameraman shoot him giving the update live, pointing to the hole in the building behind him. How about the time his car was lifted right off the ground in Tornado Alley? The fire in Queens, the terrorist threat in California. Exciting, terrifying stuff, right? I’d write the lead-in: This evening on The Day’s News—Ryan Roberts on the DC hostage situation, too close for comfort. Tune in at five!
At first, I didn’t know anything was amiss. I thought he just wasn’t that good at remembering the details when he called in. I was just down the street from the gunfire, he told me on the phone, but in our news meeting, it was a lot more dramatic—bullets streaking past my head. The big explosion that rattled the windows in the building down the street became a hair-singeing brush with a fireball.
Details can come back to people. It happens all the time. Besides, I trusted Ryan. He was the best boss in the world.
But it became a pattern. His SUV was fired on in Afghanistan. In Botswana, he held a dying AIDS patient in his arms. The news story—and ratings—were so much better, so much juicier when Ryan was part of the news, not just reporting it. And he was on the scene, after all. It was his job.
It didn’t happen all the time. Maybe every few months, but enough that my antenna started to twitch. I finally asked him about it over a late dinner in his office one night. It was hours after a hurricane had socked Brooklyn, and Ryan had been on the scene. “There I was, just trying to get a feel for the area,” he said, “and this woman called out from the subway. She was drowning, Ains! I ran down the stairs, into the water, which was completely filthy, by the way, and dragged her out. She was barely conscious.”
The antenna quivered. Why would he wait all day to tell me this? “Where’d you take her?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh,