Green Heights Passages

Chapter 6

Now was her time. Sure her former co-host was headed to New York to join a national show. But this was big time for her, lead anchor of the Green Heights local TV station, Top Tenth Entertainment.

The production room was slowly beginning to fill with producers and the crew funneling in. Grabbing muffins and mini bottles of orange juice from the snack table. Sabrina Sounds, the sole lead anchor, enters and the room instantly applauds. Cheryl, Sabrina's long-time camerawoman, rushes over to give her a big hug and pinch.

"Oww, girl!" Sabrina whines as she rubs her shoulder.

"I had to make sure you're not dreaming," Cheryl replies in her giddy voice.

"Can you believe it finally happened?"

"Hardly. I thought Larenz would never leave," the camera woman said as she took pictures of the applauding room from her phone, "but he has and now you're the A mic."

"Way to go, Sabrina!"

"You deserve it!"

"You the man!"

Sabrina high fives and shakes the hands of her crew as she maneuvers throughout the room and ends at the head of the table.

Alexis takes control of the meeting and directs everyone to their seats. It was going to be a long day with a lot on the docket. The first was to announce the obvious - Sabrina's promotion. The second -

Suddenly, the door swings open and bangs into the wall. The room sits in silence as the Troll makes his grand entrance.

"Aw Roderick, happy you were able to find-"

The troll bends over in between two crew members biting into their muffins and begins drumming with open palms on the table.

Buh-duh-buh-duh-buh-duh, "the champ is here!"
Buh-duh-buh-duh-buh-duh, "the champ is here!"

The room is shell-shocked. They don't know whether to laugh, applaud, or just continue to sit in awkward silence.

"Ali. I always wanted to make an entrance like that! I love that movie," the Troll informs.

He grabs a chair and rolls it over to Sabrina at the head of the table. Some people would move over begrudgingly to give him a piece of the table. Sabrina was not one of those people. She was adamantly against this addition to the team, but she was promised by Alexis and Montez that he wouldn't interfere with her show. And on the first day, he's trying to move her out of the head of the table? Oh no, no, no, no, no. He quickly resolves himself at the corner of the table with no elbow space where he belongs.

Alexis lets out an awkward laugh before she continues the meeting, "I was just about to announce the addition of our new team member, Roderick Bates but you all probably know him as the Troll."

Montez leads the applause as the rest of the crew half-heartedly follows suit. They weren't convinced either that he was the answer to the station's Viewership problems.

Sabrina patiently waited until after the meeting to follow the producers into Alexis's office.

"You two really can't be serious about this guy," Sabrina begins letting loose, "that fool is a social media clown. I did not study my ass off, get all those degrees, do all those unpaid internships only to find out the equivalent of a chimpanzee can do my job!"

"He can get us views," Alexis puts it plainly.

"I can get you views. I've gotten you views! I sacrificed my life to get you those views," the lead anchor protests.

"Sabrina, we've talked about this. He'll be great for the station. We're talking about expanding our audience. Your audience!" Montez defends for the umpteenth time.

"So we solve the viewership problem. And then what, we lose our journalistic integrity?" Sabrina asks hopelessly.

"Of course not. That's why we have you," Alexis says stepping up and grabbing Sabrina's hands, "you let him do the crazy stuff that people love while you focus on giving the people what they need."

Alexis has always been good at this - calming down the frantic while she remains as cool as a cucumber. Sabrina was Alexis's first hire when she became a showrunner. First, it was the weather. Then, sports. And then after two years, she made a name for herself reporting during the pandemic. She documented herself daily quarantining and scared the world when she had to fight to overcome covid - even spent time hooked up to a ventilator. But it was all worth it by the time the city opened back up and she was a local household name. It didn't take much convincing for Alexis to get Sabrina a seat at the anchor's table beside Lorenz Foxx.

"Just trust me, Sabrina," Alexis pleads, "you're still the face of this channel. That's never going to change."

Sabrina was resolved to believe her. Montez, on the other hand, she didn't trust him at all. But she knows Alexis does, considering they were engaged on two separate occasions but never went through with it. All in all, she got Sabrina this far. She owes it to Alexis to trust the vision...

Sabrina left the office and went straight to the makeup room. At the end of the day, it was still going to be the first morning show she led on her own. Something that's never been done in TTE history. She's been watching this station since she was a kid growing up on the affluent North Side. She dreamed of days like this and they manifested. Not even the Troll who is in the reflection of the mirror in nothing but his boxers.

"Does anybody know where my dressing room is?! I think it has my clothes," the Troll bursts out laughing at his adolescent humor.

What an idiot, Sabrina thought. But not even he can ruin her moment. Nothing could.

"Alright everyone, we're getting ready to go live in 1 minute," the showrunner yells to her team as Sabrina preps herself in her anchor's chair positioned smack in the center.

She could see Alexis and Montez standing in the engineering room. Alexis frequently checks her smartwatch, clearly ready to get the show on the road. Montez blows incessantly into a hot cup of coffee before ever taking a sip. Sabrina running anchor solo and the Troll debuting on live TV must be making them nervous.

The showrunner puts on her headphones, "Sabrina, you ready?"

She sees Sabrina's mouth moving but nothing is coming into the headset.

"Sabrina?"

Again, her mouth moves but nothing is coming into the headset.

"Something is wrong with Sabrina's mic," the showrunner yells into her headset to the engineering room.

"No!" Sabrina yelled to herself as the mic guy rushed over to fix the issue. Her heart begins to speed. Her pits begin to moisten, "this can't be happening!"

"15 seconds!" the showrunner yells.

The clock was ticking. She looks over the engineering room where Alexis and Montez are yelling at the crew. Her right leg begins to twitch. Her body drops numb as if she was never even there. A dumbfounded silence consumes her although she sees her colleagues running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Her heart beat with every elapsing tick of the clock.

"5!"

"We're gonna move the opening shot to the Troll," Sabrina hears in her earpiece.

"4!"

It was Alexis taking control at the very last moment, "Rod, I just need you to read the teleprompter when we go to you.

"3!"

"As soon as Sabrina is ready, we're gonna swing it over to her. You think you can do that?"

"2!"

"Alexis, I was born for this," the Troll replies with no hesitation.

"1..."

Sabrina's heart sank.