“Morning!” she said with exaggerated cheer. “Actually, if you could turn me around and push me a little closer to the desk, that would be great.” She smiled at him with as much dignity as she could muster.

Ryan did as she asked. “Probably want to hold on for safety,” he advised, tapping his knuckles on the gray Formica surface of the desk.

“Thanks,” Natalie said, mortified and annoyed at once.

As Ryan perched on the stool next to her effortlessly, Natalie felt a sudden craving for the comfort of warm pants, low shoes, and a workplace designed for her ease.

“We’ve got to repeat the Bickersons routine from the other day,” Ryan said brightly. “That was TV gold.”

“I think—”

“Even you can’t possibly want to defend Sonia Barbaro. She is shameless,” he interrupted as he started stringing the microphone up his shirt. “What a piece of work.”

“Excuse me?” Natalie asked, biting back a snarl.

“Save it for air, you two,” a voice said into Natalie’s earpiece.

As she held onto the Formica and stared into the silent studio, listening to the producers on her earpiece talk about nut allergies, she felt a rising worry. Like she was strapped in to a roller coaster that was missing its safety bar.

Come on, this is exactly where you want to be.

Intense yellow lights came on, flooding the studio like a heavenly intervention. A voice came alive in her ear.

“All right, you guys. We’ve got the top of the show scripted in prompter. After that, it’s all you. Ryan, you’re on cameras one and three. Natalie, you’re on two and four. We have two-shots on cameras five and six. And we’ll be ready with video of Rigo, the protesters, Sonia. You say it, just assume we’ll play it. With some surprises to boot. Ready, guys?”

“One minute to air!” someone shouted.

Natalie fluffed her hair and smoothed out her blouse, then realized her stool was rotating away from the cameras again. She pawed desperately at the desk, catching the edge just in time to right herself, looking around to see if anyone had noticed.

“Thirty seconds!” someone shouted.

Ryan was making big movements with his mouth, like he’d done when Heath was on set, only now he was showier and added in big shoulder circles and a tongue flutter.

“We’re live in 15...10...5, 4, 3, 2...”

The stage manager pointed at Ryan, who emanated Good Cheer and Down-home Machismo. “Good morning. It’s 9 a.m. on the East Coast, 6 a.m. on the West Coast. Welcome to a special edition of Big Politics This Weekend, I’m Ryan McGreavy.”

The stagehand pointed to Natalie and she began reading off the teleprompter into camera 2.

“And I’m Natalie Savage. Today we lead with the Sonia Barbaro bombshell that is sending shock waves from Hollywood to the nation’s capital,” she said dutifully.