20: Producer

Literary Criticism was only a one semester course, so my new class schedule put Public Oral Communication in that time slot. I couldn't believe I was going to be in yet another speech class, but it was a degree requirement. My record in giving speeches according to the rules of public speaking was uneven. Still, you would think I'd get some credit for doing a half-hour demonstration every week on television. But, no.

And I was missing my second class.

Instead, Rhonda had a death grip on my hand as we entered the media center. Lonnie had invited her to talk to his Introduction to Media Design and Production class to start the semester off. We were a few minutes early and entered a classroom that would hold a hundred people.

"Uh-oh," Rhonda whispered. "I thought it was just a few people. Brian..."

"Rhonda!" Lonnie called when he saw her enter. He didn't give her time for any second thoughts. He swept her over to the podium and hooked a wireless microphone to her. We both knew how these worked. He was talking non-stop and either didn't notice the way her clipboard was shaking in her hand or was intentionally ignoring her as he kept giving her instructions and talking about the kind of students that would be in the class. Gradually, she relaxed and I saw her taking deep breaths. She even laughed at something he said. He was doing a masterful job of calming her down. He motioned me to take a seat and I turned around to see the room filling. I quickly grabbed a seat off to the side in the front row where I could give her encouragement but wasn't in her direct line of sight to make her nervous. At exactly 4:40, Lonnie turned from Rhonda and stepped up to the podium.

"We have a guest speaker today and I am not going to take up any more of her time than I have to," he said to the class. "Rhonda Gordon is the producer of the television show, Young Cooking with Chef Brian. This is a weekly production syndicated through over 40 television stations. Episode 13 aired this past Friday. We have a great working relationship with Miss Gordon and her staff. She has graciously allowed us to use her studio as a training ground for our advanced production students. Four students will be training under her guidance starting this weekend. If you choose to proceed in telecommunications here at IU, chances are there will be an opportunity for you to work with Miss Gordon before you graduate. Believe me when I say that will be a great privilege. I am going to let her take over immediately to give you an overview of television production from her experience. Miss Gordon." Lonnie stepped aside and Rhonda immediately dropped her clipboard then picked it up and approached the podium. There was some light applause from the students, some of whom were whispering. I caught the words 'young' and 'girl.' To me, she looked perfectly professional in her green blouse and charcoal slacks. I noticed that she'd acquired black pumps to go with the outfit.

"You lied to me," she said, pointing at Lonnie. Her voice was a little shaky. "You told me I needed this microphone to be heard by the class. I know what the light on that camera means. I'm not used to being on this side of it." There was some laughter. She stepped out from behind the podium and did a little pirouette. "Everybody look at me and imagine me ten pounds lighter. We all know the camera adds ten pounds." This time everyone was with her and laughed. I sat back to listen to my amazing girlfriend.

"Lonnie ... er ... Professor Phillips said not to try to cover everything today because if you like me he'll invite me back. So feel free to boo anytime. I'll start with the question that's on everyone's mind here. I'm eighteen. And six months. That means I'm probably younger than most of you because I was told this class was mostly people who had already had a level 100 course that is a pre-req. Not only are you all older than me, you are all smarter, too. I'm not even in college. I barely managed to graduate from high school. So any dummy can be a television producer." She looked around at the students and I saw some pretty wide eyes among them.

"If you don't believe me, try watching a re-run of Murphy's Law, if you can find one. Really, how can you make George Segal look that bad? Here's all it takes to become a professional television producer. It takes one, wonderful, good person to believe in you. For me, that person is Brian Frost, Chef Brian of Young Cooking. He's sitting right there, ready to catch me if I fall off the stage." She pointed at me. "And it takes a whole squadron of great people who won't let you fail. I'll start by talking about my very short and intense apprenticeship with Harvey Grissom, the producer of The Homemakers Hour with Miss Polly."

Rhonda spun a story about becoming a television producer that had every student in that room on the edge of their seats. They laughed when they should laugh. They gasped when she told them about the fire that destroyed our intended studio. They applauded when they heard about the barn renovation. I saw a side of my beloved girl that I'd never witnessed before. I wanted her on camera. There was a huge round of applause when she finished.

"I think I can safely say that we will invite Miss Gordon back for a more in-depth look at some facets of her work as a television producer," Lonnie said as the applause died down. "And you can see why I say that you will be a fortunate student if you get to work on one of her productions in the future. Rhonda, I think I can safely say that you are the youngest professor here at IU."

"Wow!" I said when we'd finally escaped and were in the car to drive home. Erudite. That's me. "Rhonda, I had no idea. I just come in on Saturday morning and do my thing and everything is in order and is perfect. It just never dawned on me how much work it was to make that happen. And how..." I couldn't say how good she was without sounding like I didn't think she was good before. But I'd just seen a whole new level of good. So had everyone else, including a half dozen guys who wanted to hang out after class and one who even asked her out. Right in front of me.

"I was scared shitless," she said. "Maybe literally. I have to check my panties when we get home. Oh. Except I didn't wear any. I hope I didn't ruin these slacks." I started laughing again.

"When did you turn into such a comedian?" I asked. "I thought those kids would never stop laughing when you told about getting so many orgasms you passed out before our dinner with Lonnie. Even Lonnie was shocked and then doubled over laughing."

"I didn't cover half of what was in my notes," she said. "I completely forgot to tell them about my first estimates for lighting." I just shook my head. It wasn't just that she did great on the stage in front of the audience. It wasn't just that she'd accomplished so much since she took over the job as my producer eight months ago. It was the other things. I guess a sigh escaped. "What?" she asked. "You are upset about something. Brian, what did I do wrong?" So quickly from elation to panic.

"No, honey. Nothing is wrong. You were wonderful. I'm trying not to be jealous!"

"You've never been jealous, Brian. What is it? What are you keeping back?" she asked.

"It's really nothing. Just ... When were you going to tell me about all the big plans for additional shows and our production company? I'm a student, Rhonda. I can't do all that stuff," I complained. She'd painted a picture for the class of our future that had full time production going on with multiple types of cooking shows. To listen to her talk, I'd have at least two hours of programming a day within two years.

"Oh! Is that all? I mean, I know it sounds like a lot. I haven't even brought it to the board yet. Harvey has been working with me on it. You don't have to worry. I haven't scheduled you for any more than you are currently doing," she said.

"I don't get it."

"We'd better go home so I can talk to everyone at once. We'll have to go through it again for those who are away from the casa, but I should have talked to people before. At the moment, it is all an exercise that Harvey wanted me to do. He said that shows like ours have a life expectancy. Miss Polly is an anomaly and only because hers is really a variety show. It's different every week with different guests and celebrities. It was even enhanced with you and she's looking at adding a different kind of segment to her Friday shows since we are airing after it on Friday and not during it. The life expectancy of a straight cooking show is unknown, but most weekly broadcasts don't last more than five to seven years. So he wanted to know how we were going to plan for when you were no longer willing or able to do Young Cooking."

"The big question is whether or not we want to be in the television production business long term," Rhonda said. "Fortunately, it isn't a question that has to be answered yet. We're all in college ... sort of. Everybody is studying something different. No one is suggesting that you have to put aside your dream and pursue this instead. And you don't have to do it for me. By the time everyone is out of college, I'll have enough television credit to get a job as a producer for a real television station. For me, putting together this plan is part of my education. Harvey and Lonnie are both working with me to make me a good producer."

"This is so cool," Whitney said. "I'd love to be a part of it. Maybe I can work my schedule to take some telecommunications courses. I hate to say it, but I've been drifting a little. I came to college to play basketball, but after college, there's no more basketball. There's no NBA chance for me like there is for Lamar and Lionel. I haven't even declared a major."

"It's interesting. I didn't know we had potential like that," Jennifer said. "But it sounds like it would turn our whole home into a television studio. I mean, we sort of live on set as it is, but it feels like it would be less like a home. I wonder what Mom intends to do about rebuilding the farmhouse."

"That brings us to something else that Rhonda's business plan exposes," Rose said. She paused to think and then just blurted out, "How many of us are going to stay married together after college?"

That stopped us all. We were freshmen, eighteen and nineteen years old. I looked around at my household. There were only eight of us at dinner sitting with our dirty plates in front of us as we talked. Some of us were already getting antsy to do homework. I had chemistry reading before tomorrow's lecture. Rose, Rhonda, Samantha, Jennifer, Courtney, Whitney, and Liz. I couldn't imagine being apart from any of them, but did I consider us married? Didn't marriage imply that I was providing for them? That we had children? That we packed up the family and went on vacation? I was having bareback sex with six of the seven girls at the table now, but it was Liz who first raised her hand.

"Me," she said simply. We all turned to look at her. "I know I'm the wild child in this group. I go visit Doug so I can get one more cock in my pussy. I have no problem going down on Josh when Cassie wants help. I'd probably fuck him if they changed their rules. But that's not where I see my life in even two or three more years. I see my life as married to Brian and raising our children. I don't mean married like a preacher and license and all that. And I don't mean kicking all the rest of you out. I just mean that one day, I want to be with the love of my life and know that he's everything I'll ever want or need. Of course, I'll have to convince him that he wants me like that, but it's all I ever really wanted. I'm just too young for it right now."

I was speechless. Of all the girls at the table, I considered Liz to be the least likely to want to settle down. But maybe she was right to be wild now and be ready to settle when the time came. Two or three years? Wow!

One by one, all the hands at the table went up, mine included.

"So," Rose continued, "Liz is working toward a profession that she could do wherever the love of her life locates. Smart girl. We might not have sex together, Liz, but I love you and I love what you just said. I don't even have a career idea. I love literature and I've always liked law. But what am I going to do for a living? I don't know. Teach? Do I really want to be a lawyer? Write? I'm no Nat Hart." We all giggled, still not completely sure who Nat Hart was at the moment. He seemed to change periodically.

"There are big companies that are getting bigger," Courtney said. "I want to work in computers, but I don't know what I want to do with them yet. Except do it better than that damned bastard in my class. I swear if he makes another pass at me, he'll find out what we learned during forms. Anyway, with all that uncertain, I still can't imagine my life without Brian and Jennifer. That's more important to me than any career."

We kept talking about our dreams and what we wanted to do with our lives. Rhonda had already been pretty clear. Sam was majoring in business, but she didn't have any great ambitions. Jennifer was thinking about marketing and advertising. Her dad put a lot of pressure on her to study law, but she didn't have the interest in that. Rose, with as much as she loved literature, still had her options open for law school eventually.

What did I want to do? All my life, I just assumed chemistry would be my life's work. Then my thirteen year old girlfriend in junior high gave me a cookbook and the world changed.

We got back into our routine with no real decisions having been made. It was kind of comforting, though, to know Rhonda had a plan that could employ all of us if we chose to go that direction.

I realized that as hard as I thought I'd worked during the first semester, I'd just been floating. I'd already been familiar with most of the concepts we were covering in both Physics and Chemistry. Now we were into completely uncharted territory as far as I was concerned. I was having to do more than breeze through my text and go to class. I had to really study. And my lab experiments weren't all going that easily, either. I had to repeat a chemistry lab the first week.

We were overwhelmed on Saturday because we tried to do two shows with a new crew. For us, it was old hat and we never thought twice about doing two shows in six hours. For Lonnie's new team, it was overwhelming. My first girlfriend had to leave at noon, even though we weren't finished filming. The second girlfriend and audience had to wait an hour before we were ready to start on their session. They were good about it. It was the second time in the audience for some of them so they had a pretty good sense of what was going on. It was still a long day by the time we wrapped things up at six. I wasn't sure we were going to be able to use the first one at all.

I couldn't believe that I sat with a physics book in my lap all through Whitney's game against Minnesota on Sunday afternoon. We won by 29 points and I'd missed half of them. Whitney was the high scorer with 21. Her team had a rough stretch over the holiday and dropped four in a row. Now they were 10-5 for the season. Whit was a little pissed at me and I had to do some serious relationship repair that night. We ended up okay. Everyone was a little more stressed this semester.

The next Saturday, Lonnie stayed after a slightly rough, but successful taping. We'd only had one episode and even though it took an extra hour, we were still breathing a little easier. Especially since there was a different cameraman than we'd had last weekend.

"I honestly did not expect this," Lonnie said. "All I can say is I'm sorry and we'll figure out a way to fix it." I looked at him and then looked at the television where he was playing the tape we made last weekend.

"Shit!" I didn't really mean to say that, but it was. "Was she drunk?" The camera was bobbing all over everyplace. Part of the time it wasn't even pointing at the action.

"We got better film for the second episode after we switched cameramen," Lonnie said. "But there is really nothing we can do to save this episode. Unless you do an outtake reel somewhere along the line. We're an episode behind."

"I noticed she wasn't with us today," Rhonda said. "Is she okay?" My sweet cónyuge. Even though we were looking at a week's setback, her first concern was the well-being of the person who caused it.

"Yes," Lonnie said. "She asked to be taken off the project. She said she wasn't ready for this level of production, but the truth is, she thought it was a college production. She was overwhelmed. I've given her a different project to work on that is more collegiate and less professional. She'll still get her camera experience, but I don't think she could take the pressure of a station."

"Could I work with her?" Rhonda asked. "If she's willing." Lonnie looked at her and thought for a minute.

"This is nothing like her earlier creative work," Lonnie said. "She has a lot of potential. Would you mind talking to her?" Rhonda put her arms around me and squeezed before she turned back to Lonnie.

"Our world is about helping people," she said. "Put me in touch. Now, how are we going to catch up? We're okay for this week because the second episode we filmed can go out Monday. But we are working week-by-week now. We need to get episodes in the can so we can cover for mess-ups like this." Rhonda was immediately back in professional mode and, after I'd agreed to do a session on Thursday afternoon between my physics lab and my public speaking class, I was allowed to go study while Rhonda and Lonnie worked out the details.

I got home as soon as I could after Lab on Thursday, so I was half an hour early for the shoot. Doreen was in the kitchen prepping for the show.

"Doreen! What are you doing home in the middle of the day?" I asked. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm taking the afternoon off to help my boyfriend and future father of my child with his show. I love you, Brian." She came into my arms and gave me a delicious kiss. "Do you need a blowjob before we film?"

"Doreen! Don't we have a crew here?"

"They're meeting with Rhonda in Stall One. Come on. We need to get you ready. I'm your girlfriend today and I am definitely going to make sure you are ready." Doreen led me to the bedroom and while she was attentive, she didn't really try to have a quickie. We were laughing, though, by the time we got down to the kitchen and found everything set up and ready to go. Working with Doreen, everything went so smoothly that we were done in two and a half hours. Doreen walked me to my car and kissed me.

"I'll be waiting for you tonight, lover," she said. "We need to practice a little."

Whit was neither the leading scorer nor the leading rebounder Friday night against Wisconsin, but her twenty points were still awesome. The team scored and scored. Finally, Wisconsin bowed 103-86. Whitney was high when she got home and the whole family spent quality time with her. She got an eight-hand backrub and some soft loving by the time we settled down.

"I'm so proud of you!" I whispered as I moved into her. "You're only a freshman with a whole career ahead of you and you are so awesome."

"Is that the only reason you love me, Brian? Because I play basketball?"

"Whitney! You know better than that. Please tell me you know better."

"I do. I'm being selfish. I love you, Brian."

"Are you still mad about the Minnesota game?"

"No. Though that night, I was ready to go off with one of the groupies," she said.

"Groupies?"

"Didn't you know that women's basketball players have groupies, too? Especially the tall ones. I think it's some kind of fetish. They want to get it on with the tall girls," she laughed.

"I had no idea. I think I need to hang around more. Maybe pick you up after practices."

"Are you jealous, Brian?" she asked.

"No. I'm just ... jealous. I love you, Whit. I don't care how successful you are or how tall you are. I love you. But that still doesn't stop me from being proud of you too!" I said.

"Just keep ... right there. I love you, Brian!"

We filmed two episodes on Saturday and were back on track. We had the officers of the Panhellenic Board in the audience and the president got to be the girlfriend for a day that afternoon. Not all the houses had participated in sending girlfriends, but we were beginning to get members of other IU organizations and activities. In the morning we had the campus environmental concerns group with us. Both groups were nice and wanted to hang out with us after filming. We were getting a lot of that with groups who thought we had such a cool space they just wanted to hang out for a while. Mostly we let them for a while, especially if they volunteered to help clean up after the show.

After everyone had left who didn't belong, clothes started flying. Angela and Adam were with us almost every weekend. They didn't hesitate to strip with the rest of us. Elaine was back with us most weekends now until her next show got rolling. I noticed that Doreen seemed to be with us more and more often. That night, she came to cuddle up in my lap. I liked having her naked body next to mine and often thought back to when she became my girlfriend during Betts' wedding.

"Hey, doll," I said as she curled up with me in the big chair by the fire.

"You can keep studying. I won't distract you if I can help it," she giggled.

"By the time I finish this biology chapter, I might need distracting. Caution: I need someone to practice my speech on. Your ears may be in danger," I laughed. I wrapped my left arm around her far enough that I could cup her breast in my hand and she offered to help hold my book for me. I actually managed to finish reading and mostly comprehending the chapter, even with an erection poking into Doreen's thigh.

I closed the book.

"Do you want to practice on me, now?" Dor asked.

"My speech?"

"That or we could practice getting me pregnant," she whispered. My cock jerked.

"Is that why you've been over so much lately?" I asked. "Is everything all right at home?"

"Oh, yeah. Don't think I'm jumping ship. I might have to bring Sandy with me one night. Oh my! That girl is ... I'm really glad she's part of our casa. And you know how much I love Rachel and Doug," she said, burying her face against my chest. She kissed me and I petted her side and up between her legs. She parted them slightly so I could reach her dampness. "I just want it to be more natural for us to be together before we start making junior," she said.

"We're going to do this, aren't we?" I whispered as I probed between her legs. "We're going to make a little baby in your tummy. Isn't it funny that I'm going to put it in right here where I'm touching and nine months later, he's going to come out the same place? And all the time, you'll be growing him right here in your tummy."

"Oh, Brian. I wish we were starting now."

"When are we going to start?"

"I don't want you to be stressed with classes. I'm taking a week's vacation while you are on spring break," she said. "Will that work for you?"

"You mean having a whole week where my only responsibility is making love to you to make sure you are pregnant? Yes, I think that works for me."

"You really want this, don't you?" she asked.

"Doreen, the more I've thought about it this past month, the more excited I've become. I even want to go out to Seattle with you and parade him around in front of my sister."

"Hmm. You are still a little competitive with her, aren't you?"

"I guess," I said. "But not really. I just know how proud I'm going to be." I kissed her deeply as my fingers worked up into her wet pussy. I was going to need to take her upstairs and get a condom or we were going to start making that baby right here in the chair tonight. "Dor, I don't know your parents all that well. They never seemed to be around much. But you know Harry and Nona will be thrilled to have another grandchild. Will that be okay?"