True believer - Nicholas Sparks [3]
Three weeks later, winter in Manhattan was bearing down hard. A front from Canada had moved in, dropping temperatures to nearly zero, and plumes of steam rose steadily from the sewer grates before settling over the icy sidewalks. Not that anyone seemed to mind. New York’s hardy citizens displayed their usual indifference to all things weather-related, and Friday nights were not to be wasted under any circumstance. People worked too hard during the week to waste an evening out, especially when there was reason to celebrate. Nate Johnson and Alvin Bernstein had already been celebrating for an hour, as had a couple of dozen friends and journalists—some from Scientific American—who’d assembled in Jeremy’s honor. Most were well into the buzz phase of the evening and enjoying themselves immensely, mostly because journalists tended to be budget-conscious and Nate was picking up the tab.
Nate was Jeremy’s agent. Alvin, a freelance cameraman, was Jeremy’s best friend, and they’d gathered at the trendy bar on the Upper West Side to celebrate Jeremy’s appearance on ABC’s Primetime Live. Commercials for Primetime Live had been airing that week—most of them featuring Jeremy front and center and the promise of a major exposé—and interview requests were pouring into Nate’s office from around the country. Earlier that afternoon, People magazine had called, and an interview was scheduled for the following Monday morning.
There hadn’t been enough time to organize a private room for the get-together, but no one seemed to mind. With its long granite bar and dramatic lighting, the packed facility was yuppieville. While the journalists from Scientific American tended to wear tweed sport jackets with pocket protectors and were crowded into one corner of the room discussing photons, most of the other patrons looked as if they’d dropped by after finishing up at work on Wall Street or Madison Avenue: Italian suit jackets slung over the backs of chairs, Hermès ties loosened, men who seemed to want to do nothing more than to scope out the women in attendance while flashing their Rolexes. Women straight from work in publishing and advertising were dressed in designer skirts and impossibly high heels, sipping flavored martinis while pretending to ignore the men. Jeremy himself had his eye on a tall redhead standing at the other end of the bar who appeared to be glancing his way. He wondered if she recognized him from the television ads, or whether she just wanted some company. She turned away, apparently uninterested, but then looked his way again. With her gaze lingering just a little longer this time, Jeremy raised his glass.
“C’mon, Jeremy, pay attention,” Nate said, nudging him with his elbow. “You’re on TV! Don’t you want to see how you did?”
Jeremy turned from the redhead. Glancing up at the screen, he saw himself sitting opposite Diane Sawyer. Strange, he thought, like being in two places at once. It still didn’t seem quite real. Nothing in the past three weeks had seemed real, despite his years in media.
On-screen, Diane was describing him as “America’s most esteemed scientific journalist.” Not only had the story turned out to be everything he’d wanted, but Nate was even talking to Primetime Live about Jeremy doing regular stories for them with a possibility of additional features on Good Morning America. Though many journalists believed television was less important than other, more serious forms of reporting, it didn’t stop most of them from secretly viewing television as the Holy Grail, by which they meant big money. Despite the congratulations, envy was in the air, a sensation as foreign to Jeremy as space travel. After all, journalists of his stripe weren’t exactly at the top of the media pecking order—until today.
“Did she just call you esteemed?” Alvin asked. “You write about Bigfoot and the legend of Atlantis!”
“Shh,” Nate said, his eyes glued to the television. “I’m trying to hear this. It could be important for Jeremy’s career.” As Jeremy’s agent, Nate was forever promoting events that “could be important for Jeremy’s career,