She jumped in the shower as he was climbing out, and she thought about offering a few more words of encouragement but decided maybe a little silence would be better. By the time she finished, Julian had left with Walter for a walk, and she raced to pull on the easiest outfit she could find that was guaranteed comfortable without being hideous: a tunic-style sweater over black leggings paired with low-heel ankle boots. She had been a late adopter of the legging, but once she caved and bought her first gloriously stretchy and forgiving pair, Brooke had never looked back. After so many years of fighting to pour herself into skintight, low-rise jeans and binding pencil skirts and slacks that always felt like a vise around her waist, she found leggings were God’s apology to women everywhere. For the first time, something that was in style actually flattered her figure perfectly by hiding her less-than-stellar mid- and rear section while accentuating her reasonably shapely legs. Every day she pulled a pair on she offered a silent thank-you to their inventor and a quiet prayer that they’d remain in fashion just a little bit longer.
The drive from their apartment to Rockefeller Center went quickly. There was no traffic that early in the morning, and the only sound came from Julian’s fingers tap-tap-tapping against the wood grain of the armrest. Leo called to say he was waiting for them at the studio, but otherwise no one spoke. It wasn’t until the car pulled up alongside the talent entrance that Julian gripped Brooke’s hand so tightly she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from calling out.
“You’re going to be great,” she whispered to him as a young man in a page uniform and a headset led them to the greenroom.
“It’s live and it’s national,” Julian replied, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He looked even paler than he had this morning, and Brooke prayed he wouldn’t throw up again.
She pulled a packet of chewable Pepto tablets from her purse, discreetly removed two from the wrapper, and pressed them into Julian’s palm. “Chew those,” she said quietly.
They passed a couple of studios, each emanating the telltale freezing cold air that kept the anchors cool under the blazing stage lights, and Julian tightened his grip. They rounded a corner, walked past a space that looked like a makeshift salon where three women were setting up hair and makeup supplies, and were deposited in a room with a few armchairs, two love seats, and a small breakfast buffet. Brooke had never been in an official greenroom of any kind before, and although this one said as much on the door, everything was done in shades of beige and mauve. Only Julian was tinted green.
“There he is!” Leo boomed, his voice sounding at least thirty decibels louder than necessary.
“I’ll, uh, be back to take you into hair and makeup as soon as the rest of the band is here,” the page said, looking uncomfortable. “Just, um, have some coffee or something.” He quickly ducked out.
“Julian! How we doing this morning? You ready? You’re not looking ready, man. You okay?”
Julian nodded, looking every bit as unhappy to see Leo as Brooke felt. “Fine,” he murmured.
Leo clapped Julian’s back and then pulled him into the hallway for some sort of pep talk. Brooke fixed herself a cup of coffee and took a seat in the corner farthest from everyone. She surveyed the room and took her best guess on the other guests that morning: a little girl who, judging from both the violin she clutched and her snotty attitude, was most likely a musical prodigy; the editor of a men’s magazine who was rehearsing with his publicist the ten weight-loss tips he planned to discuss; a well-known chick-lit author holding her most recent novel in one hand and her cell phone in the other, looking supremely bored as she scrolled through her call list.
The other band members straggled in over the next fifteen minutes, each managing to appear exhausted and excited at the same time. They slurped coffee and took turns in the hair and makeup room, and before Brooke had another opportunity to gauge how Julian was holding up, they were whisked out to the promenade to greet the fans and do a final sound check. It was a crisp fall morning and the crowd was huge. By the time they began their performance, right around eight, the audience had swelled to hundreds of people, almost all female between the ages of twelve and fifty, and it seemed like nearly every one of them was screaming Julian’s name. Brooke stared at the monitor in the greenroom, trying to remind herself that Julian was—at that very moment—on televisions across America, when the page came by and asked if she’d like to watch the interview portion from inside the studio itself.
Brooke jumped up and followed the boy down a flight of stairs and onto the familiar set she recognized from years of watching the show. The icy air hit her immediately.
“Wow, it’s a beautiful set. For some reason I just figured they’d interview him outside in front of the crowd.”
The page held a couple fingertips up to his earpiece, listened, and nodded. He turned back to Brooke but didn’t seem to really see her. “Normally they would, but the wind today is wreaking havoc with the mics.”
“Got it,” Brooke said.
“You can sit right here,” he said, motioning to a folding chair between two of the massive cameras. “They’ll be coming inside any second and will be on air”—he checked a stopwatch hanging from a lanyard around his neck—“in just under two minutes. Your cell phone’s off, right?”
“Yeah, I left it upstairs. Oh, this is just so cool!” Brooke said. She’d never been on a television set before, never mind one so famous. It was almost overwhelming just to sit there and watch all the camera guys and sound technicians and producers in headsets scurry around in preparation. She was watching as a man swapped out overstuffed couch cushions for smaller, tighter ones when there was a rush of outside air and a lot of commotion. About a dozen people walked through the studio door and Brooke saw Julian was flanked on either side by Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira. He looked a bit dazed and had a thin bead of sweat on his upper lip, but he was laughing at something and shaking his head.
“One minute thirty seconds!” a female voice boomed over the loudspeaker.
The group walked right in front of her, and for a moment Brooke could only stare at the anchors’ familiar faces. But then Julian caught her eye and gave her a nervous smile. He mouthed something to her, although Brooke couldn’t tell what. She sat in the chair the page had pointed out. Immediately two more people descended on him, one showing him how to weave the microphone up the back of his shirt and clip it onto his collar, and the other applying pressed powder to his shiny face. Matt Lauer leaned in to whisper something to Julian, who laughed, and then walked off the stage. Meredith took the seat opposite Julian and although Brooke couldn’t hear what they were saying, it looked like Julian was quite comfortable with her. She tried to imagine how nervous he must be right then, how utterly terrifying and surreal the whole thing must feel, and just the thought of it was enough to make her queasy. She dug her fingernails into her palms and prayed it would go well.