The Ghost of Greenwich Village: A Novel Read Free Page A

short-staffed today and could really use a pair of hands. Orla says you were referred to her as having lots of experience.”
    Eve thought of her résumé with the rather large font and wished Vadis hadn’t oversold her. Again. She’d told the event-planning director that all Eve needed was a phone and two hours to pull together a corporate investor dinner for fifteen, and she’d claimed to the advertising executive that Eve was bursting with ideas about integrating videogame images into high school textbooks. Eve had lasted less than two weeks in each job.
    “Well …” she began.
    “Yes?” asked Tanya. Eve looked for the child within but saw only probing green eyes and a sharp little crease in the brow between them.
    “Well—yes.
Yes
. I have experience. Tons.”
    “And you watch the show?”
    Eve lowered her chin in a half-nod.
    “It’s our hosts that you’ll be writing for. Hap McCutcheon and, of course,
Bliss Jones
.” She said this name with particular emphasis. “So here’s the deal,” she continued. “Our celebrity chef, Zorin, is doing bouillabaisse—just a little four-minute demo at 8:36, after the weather—and we need you to write the intro and block out the segment. Hap’s handling this one. He’s not great at prop spots, so you’ll have to be extra careful. Put each and every step in his script along with the necessary graphicsso he can follow along with Zorin. You’ll also have to go down to the studio and, since the food producer is out sick, put together a sample pot of the finished product so that everyone can taste it in the morning. Better do that first—someone said it needs to simmer a long time. The instructions were sent over by Zorin’s people; they’re on the kitchen counter. Oh, and for the intro, don’t be too clever. Hap hates puns, alliteration, and cute turns of phrase. Questions?”
    Eve remembered her mother once telling her that in New York, one minute you were on the sidewalk, the next, through the looking glass. She’d made this sound fun. But graphics? Intro? Prop spot? This did not sound fun.
    Tanya widened her eyes and gave her head a little shake. “Hello?”
    “No questions,” said Eve.
    “Then you should be on your way down to the studio. It’s on the ground level, back of the building. Our director will be around somewhere. She’ll show you where everything is. And when you’re done with the cooking, come back up here and I’ll find you a desk and get you set up on the computer. The system’s a bit tricky, but since I assume you’re familiar with NewsPro you should get the hang of it quickly.”
    Vadis’s claim that the
Smell the Coffee
job was most likely a “glam gig,” where you read articles and went out to lunch, now appeared to be well wide of the mark.
    Tanya turned to a stack of papers on her desk. If there had been a time for Eve to mention that she knew nothing about software or television or exotic cooking, it had clearly passed. She stood. “Sounds good. Thank you.”
    “Don’t thank anybody yet. This is just a tryout.”
    In the elevator, as the numbers ticked down toward the ground floor, Eve wondered how complicated bouillabaisse might be. She’d broiled plenty of steaks and chickens for her father in the years since her mother died. She’d never enjoyed itmuch, but if she hadn’t cooked for him, he’d have subsisted on the nutrients in canned stew and Arnold Palmer iced tea.
    The doors opened and a guard swept his eyes over the temporary ID badge clipped to her lapel and raised an eyebrow. When she explained she was looking for the studio, he directed her leftward and down a scuffed linoleum-floored hallway. As she reached for the double doors at the end, they were pushed open from the inside. Two stocky men in black T-shirts and headsets stopped when they saw her.
    “Help you?” the taller one asked.
    “I’m supposed to be working on a, um, prop spot? In the studio.”
    “You’re in the right place. Go on in,”