Page 14 of Good Days Bad Days

Greg

WQRX, Studio C

Janesville, Wisconsin

“And that’s all for today. Time to get that vacuum running and dinner cooking.

But first, take a moment to put on a little touch of lipstick.

And don’t forget, a smile goes a long way.

Tomorrow: how to keep your roast delectably moist without breaking a sweat.

Until then, I’m Betty Wilkens. Keep your home happy and your homemaking classy. ”

I watch through the small camera viewfinder and zoom in on Betty’s bright unbroken smile.

Her hair is a little shorter now, curled under her chin, and she wears a tidy light-blue cotton dress with an apron tied around her waist. It’s ironed crisp and starched till it could almost stand up on its own.

And white, of course. Brilliantly white.

She is the perfect vision of American domesticity, standing in her spotless kitchen, a spread of finger sandwiches laid out on large ceramic Noritake platters with white and yellow daisies around the perimeter.

When the floor manager calls “Cut,” I take off my headphones, click off the camera, and step away, reorienting to the real world after the idyllic vision Betty has transported us into for the past half hour.

Martha initially wanted me in the booth to manage the mixing of the show like I do with Janesville Presents .

. . , but I requested to be behind a camera for The Classy Homemaker.

This half hour is my favorite part of each weekday.

I know the show drives Martha crazy and I can’t blame her.

She’s a hardworking unmarried woman who fights every day for equal footing in an industry run almost entirely by men.

She’s damn good at what she does. When Betty was officially cast as the host of the show after all the bigwigs saw the auditions, Martha lost it once we were in private.

“She’s a secretary!” Martha exploded behind the door of our shared office. She angrily packed her over-the-shoulder attaché. It was already two hours past my normal clock-out time, and we’d been waiting on pins and needles for the final casting decisions. “How is she now suddenly some journalist?”

She tossed herself into her wheeled green vinyl chair, and it rolled a few feet to the desk behind her.

She covered her face, and I could tell she was crying.

I knew I should do something, comfort her, make these men change their minds and listen to the voice of reason, but I also knew they were unlikely to listen when the voice of reason sounds like a woman.

“I’m sorry,” I said, patting her back, unsettled by the way she was shaking.

“I need a minute, OK?” she said between gasps for air.

“OK.” I took a step back, overcome with guilt for my failure to manage the situation, but also for another more shameful reason.

I was excited when Betty was announced as the show’s host. As soon as I saw her name on the short list of candidates auditioning, I knew they’d choose her, and I suspected that Hollinger created the show with Betty in mind.

Though I’m sure Hollinger’s intentions had little to do with his secretary’s qualifications, I learned a lot about Betty during the casting process.

She wasn’t some girl who’d wandered in off the street.

She’d recently graduated with honors from UW-Madison with a degree in journalism and she had a little on-air experience.

She tested well and seemed to have the exact look desired by the higher-ups at EBN.

But no matter her résumé or GPA or waist size, the choice was out of our hands.

And now, in the month and a half since the show first aired, viewership has exploded, nearly doubling every week. Our sponsors are ecstatic, and local businesses have started reaching out to the station asking to be featured on the show.

Truly, Martha and I should be overjoyed. We have a successful show. We’re being lauded by the executives and praised at every meeting. But The Classy Homemaker has never felt like our own show, and our cherished Janesville Presents . . . is struggling.

Though Hollinger extended our monthlong trial period, the Janesville Presents .

. . numbers seem to diminish as The Classy Homemaker’s numbers skyrocket.

In the Monday nine o’clock slot, we’re up against the likes of Carol Burnett, Love, American Style, or Monday Night at the Movies.

A quaint local variety show during prime time brings in abysmal viewership.

Hollinger has given us till the end of the quarter to “pick things up,” but at this point, neither of us has a brilliant idea of how to save our precious brainchild.

Instead, we spend the majority of our days discussing segment ideas for Betty’s show like “How to keep your hair from going flat without wearing curlers to the grocery store” or “Basting—your roast’s best friend! ”

But even with those frustrations, the half hour I spend in the clean and inviting world Betty creates makes me happier than I’ve felt in a long time.

The set looks exactly how Hollinger presented it to us.

Rows of high-end vinyl cabinets, sparkling laminate countertops, a brand-new GE appliance tucked into every useful-looking cranny.

I can’t help but wish my childhood home looked similar, that I could pull up a stool to a bleached countertop and enjoy a warm chocolate chip cookie made out of love for me.

Perhaps that’s what’s being sold here, why the sponsors are so greedy for airtime and so willing to invest their dollars.

It’s a fantasy. It’s a fantasy everyone thinks is accessible but is really just out of reach.

If they only found the right detergent or newfangled appliance or “a color that really brings out their eyes,” then they might find their own version of this domestic heaven.

I get it. But I’m not sure I believe it. And I definitely don’t trust it.

Martha is at my side before I’ve finished shutting down my TK-42 four-tube camera and pulling the shot list. She’s holding a yellow “missed call” slip.

“Well, it looks like Alderman Grant canceled for tonight. The St. John’s children’s choir can do three songs instead of two. But we need some substance in tonight’s show—something political would be best. Something that really gets the mind turning, you know? Larry shines in those circumstances.”

I remove my headphones and flip off the speaker that connects us to the control room.

No one else needs to be in on this discussion.

We have some version of it every week. We need more content.

We need something that really will make viewers tune in.

We need. We need. We need. But we don’t have.

How do we acquire the talent we need? How do we get people to tune in when our advertising budget is the lowest of all the programs on WQRX?

Martha is reluctant to raise the white flag, and I’m willing to do whatever I can to support her.

“I think Mark is in Knights of Columbus with the comptroller,” I offer.

“Comptroller? Oh, my Lord, Greg. We’re trying to get more viewers, not offer a new sleep aid.”

“A segment on natural sleeping aids doesn’t sound too terrible,” Betty says, meeting Martha and me next to the camera.

Martha, dressed in a forest-green blouse and brown skirt, bristles.

She has no reason to actively dislike Betty; the charismatic TV host has done nothing wrong.

She’s never been rude or diva-like in her time here on The Classy Homemaker.

But something definitely irritates Martha about Betty, and there’s something somewhat needy about Betty’s desire to be respected and liked by her female boss.

Whenever Martha grows cold, I try to compensate. As a result, my friendship with Betty has grown over the past few weeks. I still consider her the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and every time I see her, it takes effort to straighten my thoughts and not act like a bumbling schoolboy.

I’ve learned she’s funny. She’ll blurt out a joke during rehearsal that sends the whole crew into laughter.

She’s not as worldly as Martha, who always has at least two books in her satchel.

I rarely see the same one twice because she reads them so fast. But Betty is quick witted, learns nearly instantaneously, and adapts seamlessly.

I keep thinking she won’t be here long. She’s not a small-town girl. She’s one of those rare people you’re certain one day you’ll point to and say, “I knew her when.” I could say the same thing about Martha.

Unlike the two women I work with, I have no idea what my own future holds. Possibly a family and some of the domesticity shown on this stage kitchen every day. Sure wouldn’t mind that.

No, it’s fake, I remind myself. Falling for my own fantasy, now wouldn’t that be wild?

Martha brings me back to reality, saying sarcastically, “Oh, yes. Natural sleep aids. Like some of ‘mother’s little helper’?” Then she refocuses on me, picking up our conversation where we left off. “Let’s meet after this. Ike’s? We might have to go with the comptroller.”

“Yeah. For sure,” I agree, even though I already had my lunch. I won’t be eating anyway, stress ruining my appetite.

Martha stomps off in a hurry, stopping the sound engineer and having a lively conversation. Betty unties her apron, pulls it around her styled hair, and drapes it carefully over her arm.

“My goodness, that seems stressful,” she says with an empathetic smile.

“You know how it goes.”

And she does, in fact, know. Betty’s started to pitch her own ideas for segments and has helped us plan and brainstorm others during our weekly production meetings.

It’s not producing, but her job isn’t the same as an anchor like Larry, hosting the nightly news, reading off cue cards he’s never seen before.

Betty has opinions. She has something to say.

She’s an active part of the team, even if it drives Martha crazy.