Unity

26. Reporter Pressure

CHAPTER 26: REPORTER PRESSURE

I remember the cities and towns we visited by the Unity recipients in those places. And some places I remember especially well because of my time with Brian. We always shared a room, and in some ways, it felt as if we'd always lived together.

Yes, we were traveling the country in a pandemic, but we mostly stayed 'home' in the hotel when we were not with the recipient or doing some outdoor exercise.

Sometimes our hotels had a larger-sized studio apartment, or even a one-bedroom apartment. But we almost always stayed just one night somewhere.

By the Sixth Month of the First Year of the Virus, the entire world knew about Unity. This was exactly what we'd hoped for – and the publicity on the news was all great. We got a lot of coverage in local media, and made headlines a few times in most national papers. CBS producers were trying to get me on 60 Minutes.

The public, said the producer, needs more Unity information. They need some good news these days. The death counts were getting too high for people to bear. The riots. The shortages. The mess.

Bright producer.

Of course, I kept declining through the LA team. One day, I knew a reporter would catch up with me somewhere. And one did, eventually at the end of Year One. But I digress.

In the Sixth Month, wealthy businessmen in other countries formed efforts similar to Unity, without anonymity, however. It seemed their egos wanted recognition for future political goals or business deals.

I decided to add a few lines to the bottom of that month's Unity news releases:

"The recipient is grateful to The Robinson Group for this life-altering help from the Unity program. The Group wishes to remain anonymous and authentic, and avoid celebrity status. The Group has no political or business aspirations, and wishes to keep the focus on widening the circle of goodwill on Earth during this terrible time."

Brian laughed at my wording. "Clever."

We often had room service for dinner. Sometimes our room or suite had a kitchenette and he would make us dinner with supplies ordered in. Because we had money, we never went hungry.

Pasta was easy, with stir-fried veggies and olive oil, or pesto. He only liked red sauce on pizza.

We had pizzas, too. And pizza parties in our hotel room, or Jack's or Stewart's. We would review nominations, I'd contact the LA support team to instruct them on what to plan for.

Despite The Virus raging all around us, and thousands of people dying, we enjoyed what we were doing.

Sometimes, I felt guilty about that.

***

By the Seventh Month, we had given away $800 million in goods and services, in paid bills and in checks. We bought cars, surgeries, food. Tons of food. Finally, supply chain issues eased a little, with rolling shortages part of the new reality. We had spent $10 million on safety supplies for us, our LA team, recipients and families. Another couple million on hotels and fuel and other supplies needed to run things.

By then it was more difficult for the LA team to field reporter questions. In a chaotic world, it seemed even media managers were finally tired of bringing everyone bad news. They finally recognized people desperately needed hope in good measure – despite soaring ratings.

Reporters began demanding to know about the people behind Unity. They also wanted to know the process for 'getting picked' – with so many nominees, who got to decide who got what money? And where did the money come from, exactly?

My initial media release about The Robinson Group was stale, apparently. Reporters needed fresh material. The short, old-fashioned press releases I made about recipients each month were not enough crumbs to satisfy media beasts.

So, as he always did, Brian hatched a plan.

I hatched one, too.

*

"Why not have a press conference, Crys? Get it out of the way. Take care of everyone at once. We can space out the seats – like they do for the White House press corps. Stewart has some extra air boxes stockpiled now."

Brian and I were in our hotel suite in Nashville one evening making dinner in a kitchenette.

"That's one way to do it" I poured water from a chilled carafe into our glasses. "I have a better idea.

"It could be more effective to give information in a video press release. Put it right onto social media, so news agencies can slice and dice it as they wish, but the public will be able to watch the entire thing, if they wanted to. The added benefit: the message is exactly as I want it – nothing unexpected, as can happen with a live news conference."

"Hey – that's a good idea. We can make it look like you're in an alien spaceship or something. Or use some weird green screen background, or a famous background like the Grand Canyon." He dumped fresh pasta from a local Italian restaurant into the water. We tried to help the little guy whenever possible.

"Are you making fun of the idea?" I grabbed the wooden spoon and gave the bow ties a fierce stir. "This way, I can control the message 100 percent. And there's no chance for reporter questions. The public has the entire video for context."

"No, I'm not making fun of the idea. I'm just being silly, Crys." He put his hand over my hand with the spoon. "I actually love the idea." He kissed my forehead. "Now go relax. Or start your script. I'll finish dinner in this kitchen-for-one."

"OK." I went over to the desk.

His open, asleep laptop was where I wanted to put mine, so I moved it. The movement brought up the screen saver, and the image puzzled me. It was from Tulum.

I was on the hammock outside our cabana, facing the sea. The photo was taken behind me. Off to the side, there was Jack. He was barely visible at first glance. On a closer look, he was among the tropical plants around the coconut trees. But once you saw him in the photo, you couldn't unsee it. Jack was bare chested, with a hand over his heart as he looked at me. It didn't appear Jack knew Brian took the photo.

Of all the pictures and videos Brian had taken on that trip, and all other trips, I thought this image set to be his screen saver was odd. It haunted me for some reason.

"How long has this been your screen saver?" I held up the laptop behind Brian. He turned to look. "Oh that." He turned around to the veggies in the frying pan. "A while now, I guess. That photo has my two favorite people at one of my favorite places. Remember El Mirador? We need another trip like that. Beautiful beach, sea, sun, sand, sex..."

"Ha! Like you don't get any sex."

"No no – I mean sex in another exotic place, that's all." He turned off the small burner and turned around.

"Are you OK? You seem irritated tonight. I'll give you a full-body massage after dinner." He got down on one knee. "And I'll do whatever I can to help you relax."

"Maybe things are just catching up to me, maybe I'm just tired. And hungry. Isn't dinner ready yet?" I smiled down at him.

"Almost m'Lady. Almost." He got back up. "Five more minutes. Ten at most."

I closed his laptop and put it on his nightstand.

In all the time we'd spent together, I'd never noticed his screen saver. He either was using his laptop, or it was closed.

I sat at the desk and opened my outline for the media video release I'd already been working on. But I couldn't concentrate.

We had dinner, I got my massage, and Brian made good on the promise to help me relax.

The next time I saw that photo, Brian was in a coma.