Page 57 of Stacked
Anya sank farther into her chair, clicking her teeth as she studied me. She’d pulled her hair into a French twist, her body draped in a casual camel-colored slip dress. She looked gorgeous, and my thoughts turned to how much I wanted to see her naked again.
“What do you think we should do?” she asked.
“This is a pretty good offer fromGood Morning USAto appear on the show tomorrow morning.” I held up my phone so she and Morgan would see the email on the screen.
Anya recoiled. “No.”
“Why not?”
She made a sweeping gesture. “I don’t want to be on TV. The internet is bad enough.”
“But just a few minutes ago, you said you’d be open to the idea of capitalizing on this.” Morgan nudged her friend’s shoulder.
“Yes, but I meant maybe we could—I don’t know—do an interview via email, take out a Facebook ad, something like that. Not go on TV.” Anya blanched.
“But you’d be perfect for it,” Morgan said.
“I might have worked in the theater, but I was backstage, remember? Behind the scenes.”
I scanned the email again. “They say it will be about a five-minute segment. A couple of questions, probably some banter with the hosts.”
“Maybe Gretchen will interview you guys,” Morgan said, and I knew by her comment that she was totally on board with this idea. “I love her. The other day she had on this great silver dress. I hope I look like that when I’m fifty.”
“She is beautiful. I still can’t remember the last time I watched one of the shows,” Anya replied.
“We’re talking about national news,” I said. “It will bring people to our stores.”
Anya took a deep breath but didn’t say anything.
“I don’t think we should take all the offers we’re getting,” I added. “Most of them are total bullshit, but this is a good offer from a serious network.”
“You sound like you’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” Anya said.
“When I was driving over here, I was thinking a lot about the potential of the video.” I leaned forward, locking my gaze with Anya. “Look, I know you’ve been struggling with getting new customers to the store.”
“Pfft,” Morgan said. “That’s an understatement.”
I ignored her comment and stayed focused on Anya. I’d learned a valuable lesson since I stepped foot back into New Burlington. There was something special that small towns had over larger cities.Invested people.Anya’s mugging ordeal, sadly, wasn’t the only of its kind. People get so...self-focused when part of a large crowd. Here, in New Burlington, people cared. Got alongside one another. “It’s not easy for anyone to run a small business these days. Honestly, we can’t buy this kind of publicity.”
“He’s right,” Morgan said.
Anya regarded me and her friend, and I could almost see the gears turning in her head, knew she was working out the pros and cons of accepting an offer like this, of taking a leap of faith that might make her uncomfortable.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll do it. Let’s email her back and ask what we need to do to be on the show.”
She didn’t sound thrilled, but it was enough.
“You’re not going to regret this,” I promised.
“If it’s a disaster, I’m blaming you,” she said.
I grinned. That was fine with me. This was going to be a good thing. Already was a good thing. At least we had that.
