“Uh…” he said, clearly embarrassed.
“Jane, stop.” But the truth was I was thrilled with the randomly warm night, with the hint that the world was somehow turning faster than usual.
“No, honestly.” Jane looked him up and down like a breeder sizing up a horse for stud. “Are you single?”
The waiter was a Hispanic guy with big, black eyes. “Yeah.”
“And would you go out with her?” Jane pointed at me.
He grinned. “Oh, yeah.”
“Perfect!” Jane patted him on the hip. “She’ll get your number before we leave.”
I dropped my head in my hands as the waiter walked away, chuckling.
“What?” she said. “Now you’ve got three dates when you want them-the waiter, the coffee shop dude and that Grady guy. We’re working on the maître d’next. I want you to have a whole stable of men.”
A few women walked by. One of them gasped. “Jane Augustine!” She rushed over. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but I have to tell you that I love you. We watch you every night.”
“Thank you!” Jane extended her hand. “What’s your name?”
The woman introduced her friends, and then the compliments poured from her mouth in an unending stream. “Wow, Jane, you’re attractive on TV but you’re even more gorgeous in person… You’re beautiful… You’re so smart… You’re amazing.”
“Oh, gosh, thank you,” Jane said to each compliment, giving an earnest bob of the head. “You’ve made my day.” She asked what the woman did for a living, then graciously accepted more compliments when the woman turned the conversation back to Jane.
“How do you do that?” I asked when they left.
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re so flattered? I know you’ve heard that stuff before.”
Jane studied me. “How old are you, Izzy?”
“Thirty this summer.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m going to be thirty.”
“Well, I’m two years away from forty, and let me tell you something-when someone tells you you’re beautiful, you act like it’s the first time you’ve heard that.” She looked at me pointedly. “Because you never know when it’ll be the last.”
I sipped my wine. It was French, kind of floral and lemony. “How’s your new agent?”
“Fantastic. He got me a great contract with Trial TV.”
“I’ve seen the billboards.”
Trial TV was a new legal network based in Chicago that was tapping into the old Court TV audience. The billboards, with Jane’s smiling face, had been plastered up and down the Kennedy for months.
“It’s amazing to be on the ground floor,” Jane said. “They’ve got a reality show on prosecutors that’s wild. It’s gotten great advance reviews. And we’re juicing up trial coverage and making it more exciting. You know, more background on the lawyers and judges, more aggressive commentary on their moves.”
“And you’ll be anchoring the flagship broadcast each morning.” I raised my glass. “It’s perfect for you.”
Jane had always had a penchant for the legal stories. When she was a reporter, she was known for courting judges and attorneys, so that she was the one they came to whenever there was news. She got her spot as an anchor after she broke a big story about a U.S. Senator from Illinois who was funneling millions of dollars of work to one particular law firm in Chicago. It was Jane who figured out that the head partner at the firm was the senator’s mistress.
Jane clinked my glass. “Thanks, Iz.” She looked heaven-ward for a second, her eyes big and excited. “It’s like a dream come true, because if I was going to keep climbing the nightly news ladder, I’d have to try and go to New York and land the national news. But Zac and I want to stay here. I love this city so much.”
Jane looked around, as if taking in the whole town with her gaze. This particular part of Chicago-the Gold Coast and the Mag Mile-had grown like a weed lately as a plethora of luxury hotel-condo buildings sprang into the skyline.
“Plus, aside from getting up early, it’s going to be great hours,” Jane continued. “I don’t have to work nights anymore, and trials stop for the weekends. They even stop for holidays.”
“Is C.J. going with you?” Jane’s current producer was a talented, no-nonsense woman who had worked closely with Jane for years.
She shook her head. “She’s staying at Chicagoland TV. That station has been so good to me I didn’t want to steal all their top people. Plus, I wanted to step out on my own, start writing more of my own stuff.” She gave a chagrined shake of her head. “You know how I got all this?”
“Your new agent?”
“Nope. He only negotiated the contract. It was Forester.”
Just like that, my heart sagged. I missed him. Forester had not only been a client, he’d been a mentor, the person who’d given me my start in entertainment law, the person who’d trusted me to represent his beloved company. Eventually, Forester became like a father to me, and his death was still on my mind.
“I miss him, too,” Jane said, seeing the look on my face. “Remember how generous he was? He actually introduced me to Ari Adler.”
“Wow, and so Ari brought you in.” Ari Adler was a media mogul, like Forester, but instead of owning TV and radio stations, newspapers and publishing companies all over the Midwest, as Forester did, Ari Adler was global. His company was the one behind Trial TV.
“Forester knew I loved the law,” she said, “so he brought me to dinner with the two of them when Ari was in town.”
“Even though he knew it meant he might lose you.”
“Exactly.” Jane put her glass down and leaned forward on her elbows. “And now I’m bringing you to dinner because I want you.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The launch is Monday. We’ve been in rehearsals for the last few weeks.” She paused, leaned forward some more. “And I want you to start on Monday, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to be a legal analyst.”
“Like a reporter?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never worked in the news business. Just on the periphery.” And yet as logical as my words sounded, I got a spark of excitement for something new, something totally different.
“We had someone quit today,” Jane said. “A female reporter who used to be a lawyer.”
“And?”
“Well, let me backtrack. Trial TV has tried to put together a staff that has legal backgrounds in some way, including many of the reporters and producers. We have reporters in each major city to keep their eye on the local trial scenes. You know, interview the lawyers and witnesses, prepare short stories to run on the broadcasts. But one of our Chicago reporters hit the road today.”
“Why?”
Jane waved her perfectly manicured hand. “Oh, she’s a prima donna who wants everything PC. She couldn’t handle our dinosaur deputy news director.” Her eyes zeroed in on mine. “But you could. After working with Forester and his crew, you know how to hang with the old-boys network.”
“Are you talking an on-air position?”
“Not right away. We’ll give you a contributor’s contract, and you’ll do a little of everything. You’ll assist in writing the stories and help with questions when we have guests. But eventually, yeah, I see you on-air.”
“Jane, I don’t have any media experience.”
“You used to give statements on behalf of Pickett Enterprises, and you were good. Either way, the trend in the news is real people with real experience in the areas they’re reporting on. Think Nancy Grace-she was a prosecutor before she started at CNN. Or Greta Van Susteren. She practiced law, too.”
The spark of excitement I’d felt earlier now flamed into something bigger, brighter. If you’d asked me six months ago what the spring held for me, I would have told you I’d be finishing my thank-you notes after my holiday wedding, and I’d be settling into contented downtime with my husband, Sam. But now Sam wasn’t my husband, and things with him-things with my future-were decidedly unclear.