Page 53 of Born To Be My Baby

They each merely nodded. When neither of them said anything further, Gloria responded, "We are doing much better. Thank you."

Bob nodded and continued, "We've had some lengthy conversations over the weekend about this, as I'm sure you're aware. And the network, while we understand this is a precarious situation, we've been watching the Internet and looking to see what damage control is going to have to be done. There's a lot of anger out there right now, and of course they don't have all the facts. So we understand that we have to take it with a grain of salt. Our feeling moving forward is that we would like to keep you on, Gloria. We would minimize your amount of time on air, rather than a weekly show. We’d move you to biweekly and put another entertainment show in the opposite weeks. This is until the public has had time to settle down on this issue. And we also feel as though you need to make a public apology."

He watched Gloria's face. She was good. She made no faces. She didn't roll her eyes. She stared blankly at the camera.

All she said was, "We'll take this under advisement with our attorney."

She looked over at Timothy, and he nodded. "Thank you, gentlemen. I've advised my client that we will have a discussion after this meeting. We wanted to know what your position was first. Now we will discuss it and I can get back to you by the end of the day."

Bob looked confused. "This is a very generous offer, Gloria."

Timothy saved Gloria from having to respond. "As I mentioned, gentlemen, we will take this under advisement, and I will get in touch with you later on today. Do you have anything else that you want to speak about?"

Bob turned to Walter. Walter shook his head. "No, that's all we have. Thank you."

They ended their side of the call quickly. And Timothy ended the call from his office.

He glanced at Gloria and said, "How do you feel about that?"

Sean was mad. He was so angry, his back stiffened and his breathing came in spurts.

He said, "Fuck them. A public apology. She doesn't owe anyone a public apology. She has apologized to me, and she's apologized to our daughter, and we are the only people that get that from her."

Gloria reached over and placed her hand on his. "Thank you for being angry on my behalf."

She looked at Timothy. "I'm not really sure what to say or how I feel about this. I guess I'm partly relieved and partly irritated at the same time."

Mina took as deep a breath as she could. "I would like to walk away from the network, but I'm not sure what that looks like right now. And I think I would like more than just today to think about it."

Timothy nodded. "How about this? Go home and get some rest. I know the trip was probably quite exhausting for you. And email me later with some questions or some future steps. And we'll go from there."

Gloria pulled her laptop out of the case. She brought up the video she'd been working on.

She addressed Mina first. "I haven't spoken to you about this. I apologize that this is the first time you're seeing this. It's something I worked on this morning. But I'd like Timothy's take on this before we bring it to production and then before we release it."

Mina looked into her eyes and nodded slowly.

She started the video, pushed her laptop to the center of the table so they could all see it better. They sat in silence as the video of the three of them, with the statement about Mina's parentage, and the photos of the accident and finally, the photos of Gloria and Mina in the hospital. Sean's back stiffened again. His neck tightened, and he rotated his head. After the network's bullshit meeting, he needed to go for a walk. It was ironic that he thought the thing that would make him want to get away and take a walk was being mad at Gloria. But right now, he understood a little bit more about what she was dealing with. And he didn't like it one bit. He wanted to protect her. But he felt powerless, and that made him angry all over again.

After the video ran, Gloria pulled her computer back. She typed something out, then turned to Tim. "I've just emailed you the video, which needs to be edited a little bit better and we'll get clearer images of the accident scene. My videographer can do that. And then I want to narrate over the video. I've just emailed you the script of what I want to say. Please look these over and email me later and let me know your thoughts on that. I'd like to release it this evening.”

Timothy nodded. He stood. "I'll look them over. We'll do a little research here too. Make sure that you don't have anything libelous in your narration."

And then he turned to Sean and said, "Can we table the conversation about the lawsuit for about a month? Mina needs to heal. They both need to be released from medical care before we can do anything further. And I'm waiting to hear from the attorney from the other vehicle, not the reporters, but those that were in the vehicle ahead of you prior to the reporters diving in. So if I can ask you for a bit more patience, it'll help us in the long run."

Sean gritted his teeth. His jaw was tight, but he understood what Timothy meant. He nodded slightly and said, "I can give you that."

They stood and left Timothy's office together.

41

The ride home was quiet. Mina was on her phone quite a bit in the back, texting, researching, looking. She was kind of in a zone and Gloria didn't have the heart in her to interrupt her. She vacillated between being angry and being relieved. She still had a job. She still had a way to put food on the table. At least there was that. She had wanted to cut back, but not in this way. She’d had her sights set on prime-time. That seemed further away than ever now.

But she had to admit, working at her job the way she used to was a thing of the past. As they entered the town of Blossom Springs, Mina spoke for the first time on the entire ride back.

"Dad, can we go see the Barn?"

He looked in the rearview mirror quickly and then back to the road. "Aren't you sore and tired, Mina?"

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