THIS JUST IN

by Isha Pati

THIS JUST IN follows a lonely news anchor as he stalks his womanizing coworker.

Brian knew that Mitch kept a spare key under the potted plant on his porch. Brian also knew that, although Mitch would never admit it, he kept that plant because self-proclaimed pickup artist Trenton Fowley wrote that women are more attracted to men who care for things. The house was furnished sparsely: an off-white leather sofa, a small glass dining table framed by two cedar chairs, a television of moderate size next to another houseplant, swaying limp in its wicker basket. As Brian locked the door behind him, he noted for the first time how new it felt, like the only part of Mitch’s house that had been lived in was the marked-up copy of Fowley’s manifesto sitting on the coffee table. Maybe Mitch cleaned. Maybe it’s just been like this. Brian ran his pointer finger along the edge of the kitchen counter before walking over to the coffee table to inspect the book once again: The Art of Seduction: A Working Man’s Guide to Pick-Up Artistry, written and illustrated by Trenton Fowley. Brian shuddered at the notion that a book of that kind would necessitate both existence and illustrations—I’m better, he thought, I’m a better kind of man than that.

The better man he was, a man of logic, reason, and commitment—tedium, vigilance—Brian was currently on night five of an ongoing experiment of his own design. His furtive visits to Mitch’s living room each night were in service of his research question: How long can my presence go unfelt? Brian might have felt worse for his nightly ritual, he thought, if Mitch had proven himself the kind of man who was deserving of his advantages and not the kind of man who spends them on off-white leather. Immersed (via trespassing) in Mitch’s world, Brian considered this as he thumbed through the worn pages Mitch’s Art of Seduction—more Mitch’s than Fowley’s, really, at this point in the annotation process.

Three hours went by before the grind of terra cotta against concrete signaled to Brian the end of his research for the night. The heat of Brian’s probing touch still lingered on the crisply folded Canali pants in Mitch’s dresser. As Mitch’s key slipped out from under the houseplant and into the lock of the front door, Brian made his egress through the bedroom window, hopping over the back gate to approach his car.

The next day for Brian began early and dark in the midst of the stark parking lots that surrounded Channel 4. The station’s headquarters stood one story tall, and although the vast swaths of blacktop extending out in each direction gave it the illusion of height, several of the nearby evergreens overtook the building by a good few feet. Brian let his lungs ache with the volume of before-dawn air, lingering outside a moment before his trek through the glass doors and gray hallways to meet that familiar chartreuse sea of optical assault.

Brian thought that if you stared at a green screen long enough your imagination would inevitably start to fill in the empty space itself. That held true for him this morning. Two steps into the studio, his mind was halfway to the Amalfi Coast before Leona Mays, the new meteorologist, started speaking very loudly and very directly into her mic. “Folks, it looks like we’re in for a bit of a scorcher with temperatures set to hit 86 on Wednesday and climb up to 90 by the end of the week.” Brian, who in any other circumstance might have offered a cynical jab at her generous prediction of “scorcher,” given the cool fog in the air this morning, noted instead how she over-enunciated. She drew out her vowels. Flashed him a smile. A strand of her honey-blonde hair had fallen out of her ponytail and was caught in her earring. Brian noticed this only because he was actively trying to ignore his co-host, who was flirting with an intern at a distance that Brian deemed uncomfortably small. They stood right next to the coffee.

The intern, who Brian knew as Caroline and who Mitch knew as Brunette With Freckles, leaned against the counter, holding deep eye contact that Mitch barely reciprocated. Mitch’s gaze, instead, drifted across the room to Brian, who regretted more than anything the caffeine addiction which at this moment necessitated his socializing with Mitch. Passing by several garishly orange Get Up Portland! posters, Brian felt his trek across the room and acquisition of coffee being followed by at least three pairs of Mitch’s eyes.

Get Up Portland! With Mitch and Brian was the treasure of Channel 4. Really Mitch was the treasure of Channel 4. Although their contract named him and Brian co-hosts, co-hosts, of the morning show, Mitch Osborn soon became the face of sleepy Portland five a.m.s, lauded for his charm, wit, and looks by station managers, viewers, critics middle-aged women in line for sliced provolone at Safeway—Caroline, for that matter.

“Morning, tiger,” Mitch offered, to which Brian relented a nod. Arms fumbling for the Stevia, Brian reached across the counter, brushing past Mitch’s coffee, and spilling it all over his chest, his arms, his Canali pants. “Fuck, Brian!” Mitch cried out, “Paper towels?!” With a snap of his fingers, Caroline’s knuckles readily clenched around a haphazard fistful of brown napkins.

“Christ, get him to wardrobe!” Mike’s voice boomed, raucous and penetrating over the soft murmur of the morning. Mitch and Brian’s boss, Mike French, was a stalwart man about forty-five, whose rugged exterior did absolutely nothing to distract from his rugged interior. “Shit, Brian, we’re on in ten.”

“Aw, Mike, who needs wardrobe?” Mitch crudely jutted his chin towards Caroline. “I’ve got my own personal assistant right here.” Mike muttered something to himself, then turned to whisper orders at a P.A. As Caroline’s napkin-stuffed fists dabbed gingerly at the coffee on his sweater, Mitch remarked, “Never trust a man who wears cotton.”

“No?” questioned Caroline, hair flopping over her face as she cocked her head.

“No.” He placed her hand gingerly on his chest. “Feel that?” Mitch skimmed his tongue against his lips and his fingertips across her knuckles. “Merino wool.”

Caroline giggled her giggle—to Mitch a chime, to Brian a violin, strings tightened as far as they could go, careening out of a window and splitting open on the sidewalk. “Wow,” she tittered, and the worst part, he thought, was that she meant it.

Having wreaked enough havoc at the coffee station, Brian thought he would settle into his chair at the anchor’s desk, where somehow, Mitch was already receiving a new shirt from that P.A.

“Would you look at that, Brian?” he mused.

“Would I look at what?”

“Not even an hour into the work week and I’ve already got the bunnies all over me.”

“Bunnies?”

“It fucking works, Brian.” And suddenly Mitch discerned Brian’s hunched neck and scrutinizing stare. “What?”

Brian crossed his arms, devising his mental kill, “Nothing, Mitch. I’m just saying I don’t think women like it when you call them bunnies.” His eyeline’s search across the room for Leona led him only back to Mitch.

“God, Brian,” said Mitch, with a smirk and a laugh that glowed out from his chest, “why don’t you let the women speak for once?”

As if on cue, Caroline appeared at the table bearing a stack of papers and a bottle of Dasani, both for Mitch. “Yeah, Brian,” she needled, “quit speaking for us.” She retreated to Mitch’s side of the desk with another giggle that tensed Brian’s veins taut. Mitch’s sturdy hand made its way to the back of the roller chair Caroline had pulled up to the desk. Mitch tapped the stack of papers (blank, a prop) lightly against the desk to straighten them out. Leona’s eyes, finally meeting Brian’s, narrowed at Mitch’s hand placement, Caroline’s smile.

Leona pressed her lips together before parting them for a “Hey, Car!” Caroline’s head whipped around. Mitch’s arm eased up. “Mind telling these boys we’re on in ten?”

Mitch protested, “We were on in ten ten minutes ag—” His voice stopped briefly in his throat as the teleprompter flashed to life: 9. 8. 7.

Brian pulled his tie straight. Mitch ran a hand over his hair.

5.
4.
3.
2…

Evening at the Osborn residence and Brian’s experiment continued. Noting an errant napkin, a water stain, and a new wrinkle in the sofa’s off-white leather, he promptly turned his attention to The Art of Seduction, splayed open on the coffee table. Page sixty-two—Brian took care to remember this. Page sixty-two was occupied mostly by a diagram. (Fowley’s personal handiwork. “Written and illustrated.”) A blocky approximation of a woman sat smiling, ankles crossed, while her blocky approximation of a suitor placed his hand deliberately on the backrest of her chair. Figure 2A: creating a physical barrier to separate you and your target from the rest of the room. Brian was reluctant to believe anyone could feel attracted to someone so facetious and predatory, and even more reluctant to believe the giggle he heard suddenly from the front porch belonged to the person he thought it did. Brian placed The Art of Seduction back, exactly where it was, open to page sixty-two, then held very still as though motion would inhibit his hearing. He could make out some sort of muffled punchline in Mitch’s voice, then there it was, unmistakably grating: Caroline laughing her snapped-string laugh.

Brian ducked into Mitch’s closet as Caroline took a call in the bedroom. “No, I’m telling you, Leona, his place is nice. And he’s nice, you know, opens doors and pulls out chairs and everything. Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. Hey, maybe you can have Brian.” She giggled and exhaled the splitting of steel. Brian held his breath as Mitch paced into his bedroom. “Leona? I’ve got to go.”

Brian made his egress through the back window around one a.m., holding his breath past a sleeping Mitch and Caroline. Figuring the three hours of sleep he could manage before the show unnecessary, Brian spent the early hours of Tuesday morning cruising the unoccupied freeways.

Dawn broke and Brian was back at Channel 4, his eyes once again forgoing the assault of the green screens in favor of Leona’s honey-blonde ponytail. It was the first time she’d worn her hair up since working there, Brian noticed. The scorcher she predicted turned out to be real, even before the sun had fully breached the horizon. It made sense, then, Brian thought, that her hair was up and the open back of her dress exposed the nape of her neck. The heat and all. He was sweating himself.

To Brian’s right, Mitch, for the second time in as many days, was implementing the physical barrier strategy. His target, not drawn away by her obvious victimhood nor her boss idling near the table, seemed to be clenched in the tactic’s grasp. “My place tonight?” she giggled. Mike, arms crossed, paced laps around the studio, passing Brian, then Mitch, Caroline, Leona.

Brian didn’t know why he had risen to his feet, why he walked over to Leona—he knew least of all why his arm climbed outward, why he leaned his palm against the wall, cornering Leona in. “Morning, Brian.” She smiled politely. Scarce for words, moves, a clue, Brian’s open mouth remained silent until Leona tapped his forearm. Probably fifteen seconds. “Mind if I squeeze by?”

Brian entered some sort of shock that broke when Caroline motioned to the teleprompter:

“Welcome back folks, I’m Mitch Osborn.” And suddenly Brian was back behind the anchor’s desk.

“And I’m Brian Levitt.” He let his glance slip sideways—even Brian was enchanted by Mitch’s live-TV grin.

“Our top story this morning: local mom Susan Pereira alerted authorities when she spotted what she believed to be a mountain lion in her backyard.”

Brian read from the teleprompter, “Upon arrival, animal control determined that the animal was in fact a raccoon, and had it safely removed…” Mitch broke his grin to signal concern to Brian. Brian finished, “from the premises.”

“Coulda been a mountain lion, right here in our backyard. Can you believe it, Brian?” Brian could not. Searching the teleprompter for anything else to the story, he found only a blank screen. “Now we’ll turn it over to Dave Pollioni with sports.”

As the ON AIR sign buzzed off, Brian rose from his seat. Within three forceful strides he was out in the hallway, and faster than he could register where he was going he found himself slamming the door to Mike’s office behind him. The office was messy and packed, every conceivable crevice of open space crammed full with books or loose papers. Behind his name tag—Mike Chapman, Station Manager—sat the man Brian needed to see. Mike hunched over a bowl of spaghetti that Brian, rage notwithstanding, might have clocked as comically large. He clocked through his fury only a big, bumbling, man-sized child, mouth stained red with tomato sauce despite the large napkin tucked into his collar. “Mike,” he demanded, “what the hell, man?”

Pausing “epic hail mary compilations 2023” on his laptop, Mike offered a, “Hi, Brian.”

“Our top story is that we didn’t have a mountain lion? That some fucking soccer mom bothered animal control? How am I supposed to—“

“Buddy, I know,” Mike’s drawl all but dripped with condescension, “But we don’t have anything else.”

“We don’t have anything else,” Brian repeated in disbelief, “There’s no news in this town?”

“Believe me, if we had any, you’d be the first to know, anchorman,” Mike crooned, “Look, I know it’s slow right now, but we’ve got an interview with Trenton Fowley lined up for next week.” He shoveled a loaded forkful of pasta into his unreciprocated wry smile. “And I mean if you and Mitch want to—”

“Forget it.” Brian was already halfway gone.

The studio was still buzzing with productivity and workplace chatter as Brian huffed through the swinging double doors—Dave Pollioni’s sports segment broadcasted on the monitors around the room. Mitch adjusted his wristwatch, leaving Caroline un-targeted and free to talk to Leona by the coffee machine. Brian stopped to listen and overheard “weird as hell,” “mouth open like a fish,” “didn’t even say a word.” Motionless in his tracks, gaze locked on Leona, Brian broke his shameful eye contact and booked it for the exit.

“Brian,” Caroline called after him, “Where are you going?”

Brian ignored her, unable to block out Leona’s, “So Mitch… how big? Okay, tell me when to stop.” He could hear her halfway down the gray hallway. Her voice was like a cathedral bell.

Back to the scene of his experiment. Brian rifled urgently through every inch of storage, desperate for anything to prove it worth salvaging. How long, he thought, again and again and again, just how long can my presence go unfelt?

A secret stash of protein bars, The Art of Seduction, a picture of Mitch and Brian from their college days. Brian ran his thumb over the light-stained photo paper, clearing a spot of dust that had settled over Mitch’s face, aglow with that same killer live-TV smile. Photogenic, Brian thought, tearing the photo evenly down the center. Pocketing his half, he tucked Mitch’s into the pages of The Art of Seduction before returning to the plastic shopping bags he had set down on the kitchen counter. He emptied their contents onto the floor. A bottle of kerosene. A matchbook.

Provided the right materials and an optimal location, arson is relatively simple. Cover the intended area in your accelerant of choice, strike one match, and the job is done. The tricky bit for most beginning arsonists is leaving undetected and unscathed. Many come across physical obstacles that prevent successful emergence from the building. This was not the case for Brian. A clear path to the front door was available to him, and he made it most of the way out, but with one foot out the door he spun around to see what he’d made.

The wave of hot air that hit him was unexpected. Like anyone with those Neanderthalic vestiges lodged within their brain, Brian had been conditioned to know that fire is hot, but this particular hot came as a surprise, due in large part to the force with which it flew into his face. Brian felt the smoke enter his nose, abrasive as it ran down his throat. His head filled with an orchestra: the sickly violin of Caroline’s giggles over the beat, beat, beat of some incessant timpani, out of tune, tempo quickening, pounding behind his eyes. Though he was tearing up he could see the flame faintly behind the smoke. Brian watched it grow, consuming the wooden chairs and the houseplants and the heavily-annotated copy of The Art of Seduction sitting on what once was the coffee table. Brain thought he could stare at that glowing mass for hours, but remembering that fire is hot and hot is bad, he made his way back across the street to his car. A little known fact about Brian is that he is an excellent parallel parker.

In the safety of his car, Brian allowed himself a breath of fresh air. Just one. Then he got a phone call. He picked up to hear Mike on the other end. “Hey,” he said, “I was thinking about what you said, and you’re right. Why don’t you stay home tomorrow? We’ll air that story about the dog breeder we’ve been sitting on.”

“No, that’s okay, Mike,” Brian replied, starting the engine, “I have a feeling our news drought will be over pretty soon.”