Twenty Years Later(7)
More panic followed when she realized she’d forgotten the survival expert’s instructions to take a deep breath first, before kicking the window, as the intrusive water would come fast and furious, preventing her from taking a good lungful of air before it was over her head. They were correct. Not only had she forgotten to fill her lungs with air before the water had found her, but the three kicks it took to blow out the window had exhausted her. She desperately needed a breath. A frantic moment followed before she looked around. It was peacefully quiet under the water, and her vision was less blurred than she imagined. She forced herself to calm down. When faced with a life-or-death situation, being calm was the number one rule of survival.
As the van completed its fourteen-foot descent to the bottom of the pool, Avery shut her eyes and allowed her ears to adjust to the pressure. When the van kissed the bottom, a much softer impact than a few seconds earlier when it crashed through the surface, she opened her eyes and saw the cameraman pointing his lens through the missing window. She saw the rescue divers watching closely for Avery to give the abort signal. Instead, she stuck her feet through the window frame, wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the grab handle, and launched herself through the opening in a smooth glide that took her into open water. Then she brought herself upright, gave the cameraman the thumbs-up, and kicked to the surface.
The underwater footage was spectacular. Christine produced the hell out of the episode, and the network leaked teasers across social media leading up to the run date, which would be during May sweeps week. When “The Minivan” aired, as the episode was titled, Avery Mason and American Events earned the highest ratings in the show’s history.
CHAPTER 3
Playa del Rey, CA Saturday, June 5, 2021
MOSLEY GERMAINE’S BACKYARD WAS THE PACIFIC OCEAN. IT WAS actually a flamboyant stretch of beach and the ocean, but the first thing anyone noticed upon entering the Playa del Rey home was the magnificent views of the water visible through every floor-to-ceiling window. The open concept design included a kitchen island that spilled into the vast living room. The retractable glass patio doors were open this evening, having disappeared into the walls as if they never existed and allowing the ocean breeze to gust through the house. The back patio was made up of multiple levels and built from imported Italian stone. A long, rectangular table that looked to have been plucked from a boardroom dominated the middle of the stone just a few steps from the pool. Fixed for forty guests, each place setting was meticulously ordered with two plates, three glasses, silverware at perfect ninety-degree angles, and a nameplate dictating a seating arrangement created by Mr. Germaine himself.
Tonight was the annual end-of-season gathering for the faces of the HAP News network, the current ratings leader. There were no close seconds. At the helm of the media giant was Mosley Germaine. He had been the head of HAP News since the nineties, hired when the prime-time lineup was headlined by no-name personalities, the ratings were in the tank, and the network barely made a blip on the radar. But Germaine possessed a vision for delivering the news. He chose the personalities and dictated the content. If a program failed to attract a proper audience, he replaced the hosts with someone new. If a hard news hour failed to compete with the major network’s evening newscasts, the anchor was pulled in favor of a new face. He did this often enough to keep his people in line and on their toes, and to let them all know that folks tuned in to HAP News, not just a single personality. But when a show succeeded and stood out from the rest, he made sure to keep the host happy—cornered and with no other options, but otherwise happy. Mosley Germaine was the master puppeteer controlling everything that transpired at the network. Tonight was a celebration of another successful season at the top of cable news—all of cable programming, in fact. It was an annual gala at the boss’s impressive waterfront property where success was celebrated, wealth was flaunted, and the idea that with dedication, hard work, and loyalty, anything was possible for the select few who were invited. Avery Mason hated every minute of it.
She arrived alone. She wasn’t in a relationship—another topic to be discussed with her therapist—and even if she had been, bringing a date to this annual ordeal was a bad idea. She needed to be sharp. She needed to be on her game. She could allow no distractions when she entered the lion’s den. Mr. Germaine was notorious for cornering his talent and coercing them into agreements to which they had not planned to commit. With Avery’s contract ending in a short couple of weeks, there had been only light negotiations to this point regarding her future at HAP News and as the host of American Events. Avery had turned down the contract extension that was offered to her a few weeks back. It was a feeler offer meant to see what sort of resistance the network was up against. Avery, with the help of her agent, rejected it outright under the argument that she wanted to concentrate on the final two months of American Events and keep it at the top of the ratings before she worried about something as juvenile as money and the future of her career. It was nonsense. She knew it, Mosley Germaine knew it, and every other suit at the network knew it. But Avery had framed the rejection in such a way that made it difficult for Mr. Germaine to push back. So he hadn’t. But tonight, in his own home, he surely would.
As far as leverage went, the move was golden. She ended the season on the highest of highs, and could now go back to the negotiation table with some ammunition. Avery and her agent were working on a counteroffer but, up to this point, had left the network hanging. Now, as Avery drove toward her boss’s beach house, she was on edge. Her presence at Mosley Germaine’s home was sure to lead to a discussion with her boss about her plans for the future. The night was billed as a celebration, a time to put business on hold and enjoy the success they had all found at HAP News. But Avery knew better. Tonight was a well-choreographed ambush, and she needed to be prepared.