Delaney

"Omigod."

"I suggest you get an assistant real fast Miss Dee."

"Oh please ma'am, call me Delaney."

"Very well Delaney. You must be walking on air."

Reading the woman's nametag, Delaney said, "The truth is Angela, I'm so scared I'm ready to run."

"Demand an assistant Delaney. You need someone to talk to ease pressure. I can arrange that as soon as the office manager arrives to make do until you get a permanent person."

"Yes please Angela, my preference would be for a well-spoken woman who can be motherly. I need support."

"Oh hi darling," Cassandra said, walking up behind Delaney. Her voice sounded fine.

Delaney spun around and hugged Cassandra, bursting into tears.

"I know, I know darling. It's all rushing on to you at a gallop. Angela as soon as Mrs King arrives could be please get her to second an older woman to assist our rising star to cope with what's happening to her. Upstairs people will probably appoint a professional assistant to Delaney later today."

"Yes Mrs Cassidy. I'll attend to that as a matter of urgency."

As Cassandra walked Delaney to the elevators, she said, "It won't be placing too much pressure on you darling if I interview you live today at 11:00?"

"No I'm settling already. But you'll need another spot. Cassandra at Eleven is your prime interview of that day.

"Oh so it is, silly me," Cassandra said vaguely. "Never mind, let's just ride with the change and you appear as my guest at 11:00."

"In that case may I go home and change?"

"Yes dear as soon as we complete the review of today's schedule and check off everything."

After a run of ads at 11:00, Cassandra was back on screen. "And now for my special guest for today is my own assistant, who's emerged as a very special young lady, Delaney Dee, who during the last twenty-four hours as being hailed as the biggest new personality on television in New York."

Delaney walked on to the small stage and although Cassandra had been twice warned, she was still stunned by Delaney's dumbed down appearance. Delaney's wavy hair had been straightened and she had it in a ponytail. She wore jeans that appeared too big for her and an old university sweat shirt.

Cassandra stood and kissed her guest and waved to the chair on her left.

"Welcome Delaney and could we begin to getting this straight; I was expecting my glamorous-looking Delaney and I'm sure regular viewers who saw you yesterday were expecting the same glamorous Delaney. Is it true that neither I nor anyone working on my support team knew anything about this?"

"Yes that's absolutely true."

"Then why?"

"I felt the need to be honest with you and your viewers. I wanted you to see that I'm really not glamorous as you call it and this is often how I look at home when housekeeping. This is how I am. I'm no rising star. I'm just me."

"Perhaps people who watched and heard you yesterday came to that conclusion?"

"Excuse me?"

"That you came across like quote, "This is how I am."

"I don't understand."

"Darling for years I projected warmth and personality on this show and believe I have succeeded. But when at home sick yesterday and watched you project, I realized I was a babe in the woods compared with you. It was just as if your aura was radiating."

"Cassandra I accept I knew I was doing well but you, like those newspaper people writing about me, are going over the top. Everyday people won't see me like that at all and I accept that."

"Is that so darling? We'll you are unaware of this but a message running along the bottom of TV screens as we first began speaking, asked viewers to call in and give their opinion about what they thought of you on-screen yesterday. Here are the first five people who called in, we only have them on audio of course."

"Hi Cassandra. I love your show. What is this rubbish that Delaney is your office assistant? Ha, what's wrong with you TV folk? Can't you spot talent when it's under your nose? Your Delaney was simply amazing yesterday. I'd watch my back if I were you Cassandra. This is Elsie of Union City."

"Cassandra by being sick you have exposed your successor. What wonderful television she delivered yesterday. I'm Alice and live in Slip Avenue, Jersey City."

"This is Bert of Mott Haven in the Bronx. My advice to you Cassandra is to get your assistant Delaney transferred to news or another department in your studio. Actually she should be given her own show."

"Cassandra you were a darling recruiting your assistant and then releasing her on to us. She is such a find. Perhaps she will now be invited to co-host your show. The very best to both of you. Muriel of Hicksville, Long Island.

"Forgive me Cassandra I never had watched your show until today after seeing all the fuss on TV last night about this new star Del-Lane. Don't waste your time with her. She'd pile herself into expensive clothes and get outrageously expensive hairstyles and drive around in a Rolls Royce and be at places at the right time to get her photo in the Sunday papers. You look great Cassandra. I like women with big [bleep]. Bob of Bowery on Manhattan."

Delaney said unsmilingly, making Cassandra crack up, "So men call them bleeps now?"

"Well Delaney, do you drive a Rolls Royce or aim to soon?"

"No and I don't even own a bicycle Cassandra. I'm rather addicted to cabs."

"We'll now take a service break and I'll return to resume talking to my assistant Delaney Dee."

The show resumed with Delaney speaking first. She thanked Cassandra to allow her to go to the toilet first.

"I'm not sure we are permitted to have toilet discussion on this station's TV shows."

"What about sex?"

"What's that?" Cassandra asked dead-panned, sending Delaney into laughter.

"I guess there have been times in your life when you weren't laughing?"

"Yes the inevitable deaths within our extended family of course. My feeling of absolution rejection came when I accepted my assistant-professor's advice not to return for the second year of my four-year psychology degree that I was struggling with. I'm just not the academic type. And then of course I wasn't smiling when my marriage turned to custard when my divorce came through a few months ago. I was left shocked that anyone could act so contemptuously of me just because he'd found someone else he thought he preferred."

"Ouch you have my sympathy and have those experiences helped to make you a better person?"

"They did expose some of my weaknesses and I'm now a little less trusting and much more vigilant but I know I still possess weaknesses. I suppose the greatest shock was the university one because with the failed marriage, I'd seen the crack had appeared and then sensed disintegration loomed. With the university thing, it just slammed me between the eyes. I could have stayed of course, but I knew the right thing to do was to leave."

Cassandra smiled and said, "And look where you are now."

"What in New York?"

"No darling, you are riding a wave to possible huge success."

"My gran always used to say one swallow doesn't make a summer."

"And that's true but you have a talent to relate one-on-one in front of camera as good as anyone I've seen. It interests me that you barely acknowledge you possess such talent, even after it emerged so dramatically on-screen yesterday when you ran this show, untutored and unrehearsed."

"So what will happen for me?"

"This is my personal thinking; I haven't been in contact with management here. I believe their first step will be to tie you up with a contract and they they'll work out what to do with you."

"Well that sounds a good way to be buried and that's not me."

"You could fight for my slot. My contract comes up for renewal in three months."

"No you and your show and its timing are perfectly pitched and your consistent ratings prove that. Someone ought to come up with a suitable proposal for me. If not within NBIGY TV then perhaps a rival station will front up with a proposal. If that doesn't happen I'll just disappear into the ether like so many aspiring TV show presenters have done."

They chatted longer and the fairly lumbering interview ended with another commercial break.

Delaney headed toward the station's 24/7 café only to find that executive Shirley and another woman waiting for her just outside the studio.

"You'll remember me from yesterday Delaney, Shirley Marshall, director of Productions and that means all output apart from news, sport and public affairs. And this is Wendy Lodge, one of our top producers."

"Hi ladies, I'm heading for a bite and coffee. Could we talk in the café?"

Shirley used a company card to pay for the three coffees and a chicken on rye sandwich for Delaney.

"Delaney please listen and don't take offence. I spoke to our general manager and other senior executives after talking to you yesterday. There is a feeling we should offer the right level of inducement to encourage you to stay but they were unhappy about your demanding attitude."

"I never get along well with authority Shirley," Delaney said mildly. "I'm always attempting to fly and people in authority always appear bent on chaining people like me to the ground. So what I'm saying is if they are unhappy about my attitude then tough."

Delaney noticed Wendy was almost killing herself to stop laughing aloud.

"Well moving on," Shirley said stiffly, "I have been instructed to move you into an office in Production and to give you a team led by Wendy here to develop a program proposal. From there we will seek approvals, find a sponsor and film a couple of excerpts of you hosting a Talk Show and then we shall apply for funding and we could launch in six to eight months from now."

"Shirley do you have a clue about marketing and promotion? Right now, according to some commentators, I'm hot property. In your time frame of six to eight months viewers will asked themselves Delaney who?"

Red-faced in anger Shirley hissed, "Then what do you suggest?"

"I suggest Wendy and I and a hotshot from sales and someone from promotions with a reputation of being able to get off his or her butt creatively and fast meet tomorrow morning at Wendy's convenience and you shall be advised of the name of the show, it's format and the crew will be the same as for Cassandra's show and we'll screen from 1 to 3 each weekday, commencing on Monday week. Well are we done here? This is a lovely sandwich thanks Shirley."

"Listen to me hotshot, I run Production, not you."

"Of course you do Shirley and that's why we'll have our report to you by noon tomorrow. We have to work with speed to get this show on the road and we will rely on you getting approvals and stitching everything up for our first live show on Monday week."

"But nothing that fast happens around here."

"Oh really? I suggest you think of the speed that News runs at 24/7."

"Listen to what this young lady is saying Shirley. I think the key here is we already have Cassandra's show running as a template. Everything should be accomplished with ease."

"This meeting is over," Shirley said. "I'll alert everyone who needs to know about what you propose but cannot act until I have that report in hand by noon tomorrow. I agree with you young lady we should strike while you are hot. And I don't seek approvals until I know you have signed a contract. The general manager says we would consider paying you $100,000, possibly more but it would be up to you to pass on your net earnings to the charities you spoke to me about yesterday."

"Tell those people working on my contract make that figure $200,000 or I don't sign."

"You are risking shooting yourself in the foot young lady."

"Is that so? Then if I'm considered hot why aren't I being offered a salary of $500,000 or even more?"

"Oh Christ," Shirley muttered and hurried off.

Wendy arrived back with two coffees and said, "Apart from your media degree, did you also study drama?"

"I don't have a degree and know more about changing hair color, which isn't much, than I do about TV."

"Oh god."

"Listen Wendy, I ran Cassandra's Show on Wednesday virtually without direction and certainly no rehearsal. My feeling was I was comfortable in that environment and I just went about the business. What did you think when you watched the show?"

"I thought you had been well-trained and had exposed enormous talent."

"Well?"

"That was one show and you would have been running on adrenalin. Imagine the grind of having to perform at peak, five days a week, four weeks a month and so on."

"Well I've thought about that and think if I just regard it as a job, then I'll be okay. I have been trained from a three-year old if I take on something I finish it and do it well. My mother was hard on me about that; you have no idea how tough she was about that. And that's why today I have huge self-belief and toughness if someone attempts to stop me doing my job."

"You are beginning to scare me a little Delaney."

"Oh sorry Wendy. Tell me about you sex life and do you have any kids?"

"God Delaney, you are so different," Wendy smiled.

CHAPTER 3

'Early Afternoon with Delaney' launched on the Monday the presenter had requested and was filmed and transmitted live before an audience of 200. The station required people wishing to attend a talk show to phone in to book a seat. Successful callers would be given a code to pick up their allotted tickets as they arrived for the show. More often than not only half the seats were taken but for this launch the studio had received calls for a total of 8760 seats.

A Sunday newspaper broke the story of the huge demand for seats to the inaugural Delaney Dee Show, claiming more than 10,000 people had applied for 250 seats and it ran a glamorous photo of Delaney dressed in a skimpy top and short-short shorts licking a cone ice-cream. She had posed for the newspaper in busy Penn Station.

The story beneath that photo was headed, 'Will DD Choke On Air Tomorrow?'

The writer claimed she could find no one on the street who reacted when asked who was Delaney Dee and Delaney's age was inaccurately quoted as forty. The writer stated five people she questioned at NBIGY TV didn't know who Delaney Dee was. Delaney lived in a nondescript apartment and didn't own a car but claimed to have worked at her last job for a year as chauffeur and didn't appear to have VIP connections apart from the legendary Cassandra Cassidy. Delaney was dating Cassandra's son Daniel whom Delaney said was a leading attorney specializing in contracts but the reporter checked with seven attorneys she knew and none had ever heard of Daniel Cassidy.

The writer concluded, 'Omigod is this a disaster in the making or is it what?'

Delaney had picked up that newspaper on the way in to NBIGY TV that was housed in a renovated former shipping warehouse and arrived ready to strangle that bitch of a journalist, although the newspaper's photo admittedly was flattering and quite large.

Wendy greeted her and Delaney, looking almost purple in the face, thrust the article at Wendy and said, "Have you read what this incompetent bitch has written?"

"Yes but it's wonderful exposure for us darling. Readers will be switched to our channel at 1:00 this afternoon to see our show collapse in disarray to disappear forever.

"No fucking way will that happen," Delaney snorted and Wendy kissed her and said, "That's my girl. We'll show them how wrong they are."

* * *

"Ladies and Gentlemen," boomed a deep male voice, "Please welcome talk show host Delaney Dee."

The studio audience clapped and Delaney walked out in a well-tailored black pinstripe suit, the skirt was short at the black stockings showed a pair of really great legs.

"Hi I'm DD and this is my first show and I begin with an apology to those 8560 people who unsuccessfully applied for tickets to be sitting here today. That was tough, a bad start for me, but with only 200 seats available, the studio was stymied. I hope those eight and a half thousand people are watching at home. Please enjoy the show. I've only been on TV once before, stepping in after an emergency to present a show for Cassandra Cassidy, a most beautiful person whom I'd only started working as her PA two days earlier. Everyone thought I would flop, I didn't. People are saying this show will bomb, but it won't. So on with the show and here is my first guest.

A well-dressed woman came on stage and they kissed.

"Hi mom, sit over there."

"This is my mother, Thelma Dee, from Florida where she'd lived all her life and dad is also a native Floridian."

The studio audience clapped.

"This is what you'll find in New York mom, people are very friendly. Did you ever think I would have my own show on TV?"

"Well no but you watched a lot a people on TV and I remember when you were about five someone asked was your favorite program 'The Smurfs' you said no, your favorite was the reruns of 'I Love Lucy.' You've always tended to like wacky things. I always thought most of your boyfriends were wacky."

"So I was wacky?"

"Yes and you used to dress up and repeat lines from Lucy and other TV shows and you would sing and dance about. That used to remind me of vaudeville."

"Is that a milkshake flavor?"

"Yes you used to always fake innocent answers like that and I was so embarrassed people would think you were stupid. But then you wow them by singing. You never sing these days but until you were about fourteen you were always singing."

"But then I got a bike and chased after boys."

"Yes," Mrs Dee sighed. "And the poor boys. You could cycle faster than most of them. I used to love you singing because that's about all you could do that appeared artistic. Your dancing was crazy, your grades all through school were terrible and..."

"Mom enough. I thought if I had you on the show you would say nice things about me."

"When you invited me here you told me to be honest."

"Aw mom, give me a break."

"You do it yourself. You sing to these people here."

"Mom I can't, I haven't sung in years and there's no orchestra and anyway..."

"Come on, my favorite when you used to sing to me, "Some Enchanted Evening."

"Mom no one these days has ever heard of that song."

"I didn't come all this way to be denied Delaney."

Someone from the audience called, "Behave Delaney, do what your mother says."

Others took up the call.

Delaney faced the studio audience. "This is so embarrassing. This is totally unplanned. I have no accompaniment, I have not rehearsed..."

"Get on with it DD," called her mother.

Delaney climbed into it, proving she had a beautiful voice. She stumbled on a line and rushed the song a bit but the applause when completed was loud and generous.

"Thank you darling," her mom said, wiping an eye.

"Well that carry on took a slab of my questions mom and we have a commercial break coming up. Here's the last question, "Why did you and dad name me Delaney?"

"To carry a memory for me, and your father agreed with this because he'd been Larry's best friend. When I was eighteen I met this lovely young man and we went out twice and I thought well I think I shall marry Lance Delaney when I get older if I can keep him at my side. The very next night Lance Delaney perished in a fire at his family home. Lance rescued his younger sister and also brought out his mother who was almost overcome by smoke inhalation. Lance, who was twenty, went back inside to find and rescue his dad but sadly the tile roof collapsed on to them."

"I'm pleased to hear that sad story again mom and you know I love my name. Thank you Thelma Dee, my mother, for being my first guest on 'Early Afternoon with Delaney', a talk show that is all about everyday people rather than celebrities and people from the Rich Lists. After the break I'll chat to 92-year old Isaac Berman, who for all his working life was a ship's providore, a real character with a great memory and interesting tales to tell. Much later my final guest will be a woman who can whistle and imitate the sounds of fifteen species of birds and, perhaps not unexpectedly, she is an ornithologist."