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Jordan tell you about the divorce?”
    “Yep.”
    “Well, did he tell you about Lauryn moving up to the Vineyard?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Were you a little bit curious as to what I was going to do with the giant rent?”
    “Well, I guess so.” Herein lay the problem in our relationship. Sometimes we clicked and other times we needed a translator to communicate. I hear an electronic sound in the background. Tommy tries to cover it up by speaking really loud and fast. “So what are you going to do?”
    “Are you playing Grand Theft Auto III right now?” I yell so loud Jen jumps. I can’t believe him. You’d think he could focus for a five-minute phone call.
    “Uh, yeah.” I hang up on him. When we were dating, we promised never to hang up on each other, but now that we’ve broken up there are no rules. I smile at Jen. Her eyebrows rise over the pages she is reading.
    “So, getting back to the scripts…” I say.
     
    We are in a meeting actually called the War Room. I don’t know who thought of that name, but it pretty much sets the tone for bloodshed. It happens every Thursday and it almost always lasts too long and accomplishes very little. Production and Programming duke it out about their priorities and resents one another and wastes the time that everyone needs.
    Even the seating in the meeting is combative. The round table has too many chairs around it, so everyone bumps armrests and apologizes constantly. Programming stakes their claim early. I am always running late, but once I managed to show up fifteen minutes early and they were already there, plotting their means of attack.
    This week the programming department has decided to be sour at me for not having all the scripts I was supposed to have. As punishment, they decide they need to preempt episodes of Esme for sporting events they seem to be making up on the spot. How can they know that the candlepin bowling championship is going to happen on the day the episode airs where Esme figures out who vandalized the library? Jen tries to argue with them, but I shake my head. They are Programming, they can do anything. They confidently sip their coffees knowing they have people at TV Guide on speed dial.
    Eventually, the programmers grow tired of toying with us and decide to attack Don Beckford, the producer of another new show, Gus and the Gopher.
    “Yeah, we’re completely on schedule,” Don says. “There’s no way we won’t have thirteen eps ready to roll out in September. There was an article on the type of animation we’ll be using in Tyke TV magazine. Did anyone see it?”
    Don is handsome in a way that is not completely trustworthy. He is in a constant frenetic state. He practically bounces when he talks and he always has a way of selling his show. (I kind of admire him.) He also refers to the trade rags a lot. Who has time to read the latest issue of whatever stupid magazine the industry puts out to pat itself on the back? Not me.
    But the programmers did and they loved to brag about it—but today they aren’t taking it. Cheryl, who has some position of imagined power and a haircut to go with it, clears her throat.
    “You may have the animated aspects intact, but you don’t have a live action host yet. The show is called Gus and the Gopher. Without Gus, it’s just a gopher.”
    “Right,” Don says. He is preparing to use a lot of words to say nothing. “Well, we are in the process of casting at this point. The animation is going to be a lot harder to deal with than the host.”
    “Can we see who you’ve narrowed it down to?” Cheryl asks. She definitely has an attitude.
    “I really don’t feel comfortable sharing that with you yet, but I can assure you we’ve narrowed it down to three terrific personalities. They are going to be like nothing kids have ever seen.” They are doing a complicated dance. Don was hired away from the Cranium Network to create a kids’ show that looked like all the ones he had already produced for Cranium.