The Six Oclock News Slot

If your wife were away from home at 10:00 p.m., would you be worried? I wouldn't, because all I have to do is turn on the local news to see exactly what she's doing.

My wife, Carol Martin, is the local co-anchor for the nightly news on the leading local tv channel here in Birmingham. She's as gorgeous as she is intelligent, and a lot of the smart money is beginning to bet that her next job will be in a major market, maybe Atlanta or Chicago. There are even whispers that she might get an offer from a New York station, which is the Promised Land for a news anchor.

I'm Tom Bailey, by the way. Carol kept her maiden name for on air purposes. Many female newscasters do that as a way of keeping their personal and professional lives separate.

I guess you can tell how proud of her I am, and how lucky I feel to have married her. We met while we were both at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. As you might have guessed, she was majoring in broadcasting, while I was a marketing major. We met at a fraternity mixer our freshman year and I was blown away. She was tall, blonde and built with curves in all the right places. Me? I'm a pretty social kind of guy, but I wasn't an athlete nor destined to be a "big man on campus." And for some reason, no one has ever asked me to model fashions for GQ Magazine. But something just seemed to click between us, and we soon became a couple.

I won't lie to you and tell you that everything was always perfect; we had our share of fights, and one time we broke up for two weeks. But by the second weekend I was going crazy missing her and cursing myself for letting whatever it was come between us. Finally, I started running across campus towards her dorm, hoping that she'd forgive me and we could get back together. Halfway there, I looked up to see her running in my direction. If there'd been a movie camera present, it would have been circling around the two of us as we held each other with tears in our eyes, vowing never to part again. We were, as they say, crazy in love.

By our senior year, we were engaged. We were already living together in a small apartment off campus, but at least we were smart enough to wait until we graduated before tying the knot. Besides, she wanted to have a big wedding, and her folks were well enough off to indulge her. I was smart enough to know to go along for the ride, so we were married in Canterbury Chapel on campus in May a week after commencement.

Carol was fortunate to land a job with the local tv station in Huntsville as their weekend weather girl. It wasn't exactly a prestigious position, but jobs in broadcasting are hard to come by even in small markets. It was a start, and Carol made the best of it. Within six months she was given the opportunity to do some on-air reporting, and a few months later she moved up to a regular reporting role.

I managed to land a low-level job at a local advertising agency. The place was so small that I did double duty as account representative and copy writer. It wasn't much, but it was good experience and a lot better than being unemployed.

But I didn't have to stay there long because Carol's star was already in the ascendency. By the end of the year, she'd been offered a reporting job at the largest station in Mobile. Her good looks and her winning personality had caught the attention of station management there, and so we moved to the Gulf Coast.

I really didn't mind being the coat-tail in our relationship. I'd known what I was getting into from the moment Carol landed her first on-air job, and my ego was strong enough to support her career. Of course, it didn't hurt than she was earning more money than me by the time we moved to Mobile.

The station management in Mobile was well connected with the local advertising agencies, and with their help I was able to land a job with one of the larger firms in the city. The people were nice and I had no trouble fitting in.

Carol, meanwhile, was doing even better. She'd joined the station as a reporter, but when a vacancy occurred she was given a shot as a weekend news announcer. People loved her, and the ratings for her news slot began a steady climb. It wasn't long before she had moved to the coveted co-anchor position on the nightly news.

If the audience loved her in the anchor position, they went wild when she announced on air that she was expecting. They followed her in growing numbers through every step of her pregnancy, and when our daughter Susan was born, the delivery was news in its own right.

As our beautiful little baby girl grew and developed, the station used the opportunity to produce a documentary series on the challenges facing a mother of a newborn returning to the workforce that won a regional Emmy award. Given all the success that Carol was enjoying, it really was no surprise when WXYY, the leading station in Birmingham, called to offer her the co-anchor position.

We'd grown comfortable with the laid-back pace of life on the Gulf shore in Mobile, and were sad to say goodbye. I had made some real friends at the agency where I worked and genuinely regretted having to leave them.

But Birmingham beckoned, and we couldn't help but think that if Carol did well there, even greater things might lie ahead. So we sold our cozy little home, packed up our belongings and headed for the big city. Some people might laugh at calling Birmingham a "big city," but with 1.2 million people and the 40th largest media market in the country, the Pittsburgh of the South was a major step up for Carol, especially in the broadcast media arena.

After being so comfortable in Mobile, I was apprehensive about making the move to Birmingham, but I needn't have worried. Armed with a glowing recommendation from my friends in Mobile and with the help of the Birmingham station, I was able to land a great job at the second largest ad agency in the city. In fact, I can't say enough about the station management. They lined us up with a knowledgeable real estate agent who helped us find a lovely home in the suburb of Hoover. She was also able to help us find a great childcare situation for little Susan. All in all, the move was far easier than I had expected, and we were quickly and painlessly up and going in our new lives.

I should tell you a little about our routine, because being the husband of a tv newswoman is not a normal lifestyle. In the morning, I'd get up, fix breakfast for myself and head off to work, leaving Carol and Susan asleep. Carol would stay in bed as long as Susan would let her sleep, then get up and spend the morning with her daughter. After lunch, Carol would take Susan to Mrs. Alsop's home. Mrs. Alsop was a lovely lady who cared for Susan and two other children, along with her own daughter. She had a background in elementary education, so in addition to playtime she was giving her charges an early introduction to some of the concepts they could expect to encounter in kindergarten and first grade.

I'd pick Susan up when I left work, bring her home and fix dinner for us, including something that could be saved so Carol could eat when she got home. After dinner, I'd give Susan her bath and read to her until it was time to put her down to sleep. Then I'd read or watch tv until Carol finally made it home. Not infrequently, she'd have to wake me on the couch where I'd fallen asleep.

As for Carol, after dropping Susan off with Mrs. Alsop, she would head for the station, arriving at 3:00 to begin preparing for the evening news. Then, while the network news was running, Carol would be off to make-up and a last-minute review before airtime at 6:00. She and her co-anchor Ted Stevenson would go through their paces for the local news hour. After it was over, they'd grab a light snack – they never ate close to air time to avoid any embarrassing burps or belches – and prepare for the 10:00 p.m. recap.

Normally, Carol and Ted would alternate doing the 10:00 p.m. slot; since the late news is just thirty minutes long, only a single anchor is required. But lately, Don Sanchez, the news director, had been holding post-mortems after the late news, and both Carol and Ted had to stay late to critique their performances and look for opportunities to improve.

Local news programs are big money-makers for tv stations. The stations get to keep all the advertising revenue, and the station with the highest ratings gets to charge a premium, so the competition is fierce. The higher the ratings, the higher the premium, so stations are always looking for ways to increase their audience share.

Being in the advertising business, I could understand why the station would put such a priority on increasing its ratings. But as a husband, I also was feeling the lack of time alone with Carol. Truthfully, with Carol working in the evenings and me working during the day, it had always been a challenge to find time just for the two of us, especially after Susan was born. Of course we usually had the weekends, but we tried to find a little time during the week as well. But lately, those weeknight rendezvous had become rarer and rarer, especially after Don Sanchez instituted the late night post-mortems. Even our weekend time had shrunk as Carol began to make more public appearances, "showing the flag" for the station.

With only rare opportunities for intimacy, it felt as though Carol and I were living more like roommates than husband and wife, like friends rather than lovers. Because our schedules were out of synch, I could rarely find opportunities to discuss the situation with her, and she seemed reluctant to talk about it with me, I guess because there were no easy answers.

Even though I wasn't happy with the situation, I was reluctant to press the issue because I'd known what I was getting into when I married Carol. We'd talked about the schedule issue and the challenges of being married to a tv personality, and I'd signed on all the way. Moreover, we had friends from college who were struggling with the opposite situation: husbands traveling frequently and working long hours with little time for their families. Had I been in that situation, I would have looked to Carol for support and understanding, so I didn't want to be a hypocrite. And, I kept reminding myself, Carol was earning a lot more money than me, which made our lives much easier. Still, money isn't everything.

It had reached the point where I couldn't keep my frustration to myself any more, and one day over lunch, I spilled my guts to Lou Farraday, the director of media services at our agency. Lou was only a couple of years older than I, was married to a lovely woman named Terri, and had a little girl only slightly older than Susan. With so much in common, it wasn't surprising that he'd become my best friend at work, someone to whom I felt comfortable seeking advice.

So that day when he was telling me about how happy he and Terri were, I blurted out my instinctive response: "Damn, I wish I had what you've got."

"Sounds like there's trouble in paradise, buddy," he said. "What's going on?"

Then it all poured out, surprising me with how badly I was feeling. "I'm married to one of the hottest women on television," I griped, "and I don't see her much more than her fans watching her on the news."

Lou shook his head in sympathy. "Damn, Tom, that sucks. Isn't there some way you two could get away for a vacation, or even just a long weekend? I'll bet your folks would be glad to keep Susan."

"I've thought about that," I said, "but Carol says that Don Sanchez is keeping the pressure on Ted and her to pump the ratings up. They're his top draws, and he's afraid either of them being gone will result in some slippage that they won't be able to make up."

"Look," Lou replied, "I've known Don Sanchez for quite a while. He's a gifted news director and he's driven to succeed, but he's also a decent human being. Maybe you ought to talk with him and see if there's anything he could do to give you and Carol a little together time."

"I don't know, Lou," I sighed, "I think Carol would kill me if she knew I'd contacted her boss."

"She doesn't have to know," Lou replied. "Don is coming over to the agency tomorrow to hear a pitch for a new viral video campaign we're working on. You know him well enough -- I bet you could get a few minutes of conversation with him after we're done."

"I don't want to screw up your sales pitch, Lou," I said. "My personal problems don't belong in the office."

"Don't be silly. This is just a preliminary meeting. Don wanted to see how we're coming on the concept, and we invited him to drop by. It'll be a perfect opportunity for you to pull him aside and talk to him about you and Carol."

I was still apprehensive, but I couldn't think of any better idea. My resolution was strengthened that night when Carol got in even later than usual. She didn't even bother to wake me on the couch where I'd drifted off while waiting for her. Instead, I woke up on the couch during the middle of the night to find the tv turned off and a soggy cushion where I'd been drooling in my sleep. I dragged myself upstairs, undressed and crawled into bed beside her sleeping form. "Damn," I thought, "now I don't even get the chance to kiss her goodnight."

When I got to the office the next day, I was determined to do something to try to change the pattern into which our lives had fallen. So I kept a watchful eye on the conference room where Don Sanchez was meeting with Lou and some of his guys. When their meeting started to break up, I stuck my head in the door and waved at Don.

He was clearly in a good mood. "Hey, Tom, how's the husband of my favorite news anchor?" he yelled at me.

"Hi, Don, good to see you. Listen, have you got a couple of minutes?" I asked.

"Sure, what's on your mind?" he asked cheerfully.

I decided to keep it light. "Hey, you need to give Carol a break – you're working her too hard," I said, mugging a scowl.

But he took me seriously, and a look of concern crossed his face. "Has she been complaining?" he asked quickly.

"No, she loves it," I replied. "It's me who's suffering; I never get to see her any more."

He relaxed at that. "Oh, well, you knew she had a dangerous job when you married her," he joked. I could tell he was relieved that his star performer was not upset.

"Sure," I agreed, "but all those special appearances and those after-show post-mortems are really cutting into my alone time with her." I tried to soften my complaint with a wink.

"Okay, okay," he came back, "we've probably have been overdoing it on the 'show the flag' efforts. I'll see if I can't ease up on the schedule there. And you don't have to worry about the post-mortems – we haven't held one of those since the last set of ratings came out. Did you see how badly we're beating the competition? Station management is ecstatic!"

"Speaking of management," he went on, "I've got to get back over there for my next meeting. Good to see you – keep your bride happy!" With that, he clapped me on the back, turned and headed for the door, leaving me standing in my office.

As I returned to my desk, all I could think of was when the last set of ratings had come out. I checked my computer – our agency is a subscriber – and sure enough it was a full month ago that the last ratings were issued.

So if Don hadn't held a post-mortem session for a month, what was Carol doing all those nights when she got home from work so late? The question shook me to the core. Maybe it was the fact that I was already unhappy about our relationship, but the first thought that hit me was "She's having an affair."

The minute I thought it, I knew I had to be wrong. Carol loved me, and even though things had been a little strained, she wouldn't do anything to jeopardize our marriage. Besides, there were plenty of other perfectly reasonable possibilities why she would be so late. Maybe she just wanted to unwind a little, perhaps go out to grab a late-night snack. Maybe she was behind in her fan mail and was trying to catch up. There were tons of reasons why she might need to stick around. So why didn't I feel any better?

Just then, Lou stuck his head in the door. "Hey, I saw you talking with Don. Did he give you any relief?"

"I'm not sure, Lou. I guess I won't know until I have a talk with Carol."

He looked at me quizzically, but when I didn't say any more, he turned to go. "OK, buddy, let me know if I can do anything."

I was a zombie for the rest of the day. I went through the motions – anyone walking by my office would have thought me hard at work. But I couldn't concentrate on any of my projects; my mind kept coming back to what Don had said. I kept trying to remember exactly what Carol had said when I'd asked her about her late hours. Most of all, I kept thinking about what I was going to do next.

Part of me wanted to confront her and demand an explanation. But no sooner had I chosen that option than another part of me thought how foolish I would look if there was a perfectly innocent explanation. Accusing her of having an affair certainly wouldn't do anything to improve relations between Carol and me, I knew. Then, when I'd rationalized my fears away, another voice in my head began to call me a wimp for not asserting myself and demanding the truth.

By the time I left work to pick Susan up, I was no closer to a resolution than before. The only good thing was that now I had an active, demanding four-year-old on my hands, and being her Daddy took almost all my attention and energy for the next few hours. Perhaps she sensed my mood, because she was unusually clingy that night and didn't want me to stop reading to her in bed.

Finally, she dropped off to sleep. As I tiptoed out of the room, I looked back at her sleeping, innocent face, and was surprised to find tears in my eyes. How sad it would be if her Mommy and Daddy were headed for divorce!

Emotionally exhausted, I walked back into the den and plopped down in front of the tv. At that point I knew that I did not have the energy for a confrontation. I watched some mindless police drama for an hour, but afterwards I had no recollection of the plot. Then the news came on, and I watched my beautiful wife review the events of the day. Looking at her carefully made-up face during the "talking head" shots, I remembered how I'd been so taken with her all those years ago in college. Surely this bright, beautiful woman wouldn't cheat on me.

It was well after midnight when I heard her car pull into the driveway, and she made her way in from the garage. She was startled when she saw me. "Oh! I didn't think you'd still be up."

I stood up from the couch, walked over to her and put my arms around her. "I just wanted to see you. I've missed you. You're awfully late tonight."

She gave me a quick kiss and pulled away to bend down and pull off her shoes. "Yeah, sorry about that. Don kept us late again for one of his cursed 'post-mortems,'" she said. "I'm really beat, honey. I'm going to head on to bed." Without waiting for me, she turned and headed up the stairs.

I turned off the tv and sat there in the dark. "Oh, God!" I thought, "she just lied to me." Once again, warring sides took up the argument in my head.

"Maybe she didn't lie. Maybe Don did call another review session."

"That doesn't make any sense. Don told you today that he hadn't held a session in a month. And after you brought it up, he certainly wouldn't call a special session tonight."

I didn't want to believe my wife was cheating on me. But I also didn't want to be an unwitting cuckold who kept his head in the sand rather than facing the truth. What was the truth?

When I went up to the bedroom, Carol was already sound asleep. I lay down beside her, but sleep was slow in coming for me.

The next day I stopped by Lou's office and asked him to have lunch with me. When he looked up at me, he must have seen something in my face that stopped him from making his usually wisecracks. "And Lou," I added, "please plan on a long lunch." Now he looked at me very seriously, but he only nodded and said, "Sure thing, buddy."