I waited for fifteen minutes near the studio entrance to greet Melanie Franklin, the author who was booked for the second guest slot on the show. The actor in the first guest slot had called this morning and told us he has mono. He has been on the show several times and is familiar with the routine of interviewing. Melanie now has to do two segments, and her agent told me she has no experience being in front of the camera. I knew this day just wasn't going to be very good. Lynn and I had another fight. This one was probably the worst of any. She said she was moving out and never wanted to see me again before I left for work this morning. It isn't the first time she has threatened to move out. To top off all of that, I had a headache. If the show went well, though, it would all be worth the day I was having.
Finally, a woman entered the studio doors. She was bundled up in a long black coat and scarf. I could barely see her under all of the layers. She pulled off her scarf and hood.
"I'm Conan O'Brien. Welcome to the studio." I extended my hand to her.
"I'm Melanie Franklin. Thank you for having me as a guest." She fumbled with her gloves for a moment before finally getting them off and shook my hand.
"You can take your things to the green room. We're going to begin rehearsal soon. There has been a change of plans, though. You aren't going to do a single segment like you were told. You'll be doing two."
"I'm pretty boring person. I hope I don't end up putting the audience to sleep." She laughed. "I'm working on a second novel, if you need more things for us to talk about. It's a lot different from Morning Glory."
"I'll keep that in mind. Make-up is down the hall. You'll go there after the rehearsal. The rehearsal won't be very formal, and it's usually a lot more relaxed than the actual taping. Have you ever been on camera before?" We walked towards the green room, down the corridor lined with pictures.
"No, but I'm looking very forward to it. I spoke in front of people during my classes before I graduated. Wow, that's a lot of pictures." She was engrossed in the pictures on the walls.
I explained several of them to her when she asked about them. She tossed her coat, gloves and scarf into a chair in the green room. She was a very beautiful woman. Her black leather pants and red blouse accented her features perfectly. I found myself staring when she had her back turned, but I stopped when she turned around.
"We're going to rehearse the monologue and the first sketch before you come out. You just stay here and wait for me to announce your entrance."
"I can do that." She smiled and leaned back against the wall.
We rehearsed my monologue, which went well, and then the first sketch. The sketch needed a little work, but it would be fine by the time we were taping.
"Now for the author of the best-selling novel Morning Glory, Melanie Franklin!" I walked over to greet her with the customary kiss on the cheek for a female guest and returned to my desk as she sat down. "We aren't really going to rehearse what you'll say. But I have this blue card." I handed the blue card to her. "That's what we're supposed to talk about. Just read over it and think about the topics a little bit before we tape. If you do that, then you'll do just fine."
"I will. I've watched the show before so I know how everything is supposed to look."
The rest of the rehearsal was without major incident. I greeted the audience when they arrived and then prepared myself for the taping. Finally, it was 5:30 and time to tape. The monologue went really well, and the first sketch was flawless. My headache was subsiding, and my bad day was getting better. Melanie acted very comfortable despite the fact she had never been on camera before. She was funny, and the audience was enjoying the segment. We had an undeniable comedy chemistry. She knew exactly how to set me up for a good joke. The second guest, an actor named Tim Quinton, was lacking what Melanie had, and the audience didn't seem to be enjoying themselves very much. Even when I did add jokes, Tim seemed to ruin them every time. He definitely wasn't coming back to be a guest again.
The taping ended, and the guests and I signed autographs for the audience. They were all gone by 7:30. I spotted Melanie near the studio doors, looking very worried. I approached her slowly.
"Is everything okay?"
"Victor was supposed to pick me up at 7:00. He told me his appointment in Albany would last until 5:00, and he would be here at no later than 7:00."
"I'm sure he's just running late or caught in traffic. That happens here in New York."
One of the interns came running towards us with a ringing cellular phone in her hand. "It's your cell phone, Miss Franklin. It's been ringing for five minutes."
She took it from the intern as he left and answered it. "Hello. Yes, I know Vincent Harmon...What happened?" All of the blood drained from her face as whoever it was on the other line talked to her. "I'll be there in an hour or two at the most." She hung up the cell phone and dropped to her knees. Her green eyes filled with tears.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I leaned down until I was eye to eye with her.
"Victor died," she whimpered. "He was in a car accident about twenty miles from here an hour ago. They rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. They found my cell phone number in his pocket, and they decided to call me to see if I was a relative or anything. Now, they want me to go down to the morgue to identify his body because he wasn't carrying any positive identification, only some business cards. He was my best friend and so much more to me. He's the only person within 500 miles that I could call a friend at all. How could this happen?"
I hated to see her hurting so much, but I knew there was little I could say to make it any better. Since I wasn't looking at all forward to seeing Lynn again, I asked, "Do you want me to go with you to the morgue?"
"You don't have to do that. I know you're a busy person, and I wouldn't want to waste your time."
"No, it's no trouble at all. I didn't have any plans for tonight. I want to go with you, if you want me to." I stood and offered my hand to help her up. She pulled herself up and brushed off her pants.
"Thank you. I would like to have some company. I've never been fond of funerals or anything like that."
"I don't think anyone is. I'm really sorry this happened to you."
"It's part of life and something we all have to cope with at one time or another. I'm just surprised I haven't had to cope with it more. I've been rather fortunate."
"I could drive down to the hospital. It's on my way home. Then, I could drop you off where you live."
"I think I'm going to try to find a hotel to stay in tonight. I was staying in Victor's apartment, and I don't think I'm ready to go back there yet."
"You have to have reservations weeks in advance to stay in hotels anywhere near here. There's no way you'll find a vacancy for tonight right now." We walked out to my car. She sat in the passenger's side in the front, and I started driving to the hospital.
"I can still call around. Maybe there will be something available."
"And if there isn't?"
"I'll probably end up sitting in one of those cappuchino houses that's opened twenty-four hours a day sipping mocha until morning."
I sighed. She was obviously unaware of the crowds that usually were in those cappuchino houses. They are the type that would have read Morning Glory and would hound Melanie for hours, even after she leaves the place. New York isn't a safe place for a famous, beautiful young woman, especially at night. I didn't know what to tell her to do, though. The only place she seemed to have to go was the apartment she had shared with Victor, unless I asked a favor of Samantha, the woman who owned the apartment across the hall. Samantha had a daughter who was home from college for the month, and it might be good for Melanie to be with someone near her own age. I decided to call Samantha when we were at the hospital to see what she thought of the idea. It suddenly occurred to me that I was going totally out of my way to help someone I had just met hours ago. I have always tried to help others and be a generous person, but this was farther than I had ever gone before. Then again, she was like no one I had met before. I shook myself from my thoughts and pulled into the hospital parking lot.
We got out of the car in silence and entered the hospital. There were many in the waiting area, some injured and others reading magazines while they were waiting for word on the condition of their friend or family member. Every thirty seconds a gurney sped towards the emergency room.
"I'm going to go to the bathroom before we go down to the morgue." She walked away, and I pulled out my cell phone to call Samantha. She loved the idea of having Melanie stay with her daughter for the night. I thanked her as Melanie returned.
"You can stay with my neighbor in the apartment across the hall for the night, if you would like."
"I hate to cause your neighbor any inconvenience, but I would like to. Thank you so much for doing all of this for me. I feel really bad for wasting so much of your time."
"You're not wasting any of my time. It's not your fault that all of this happened."
"You don't know how much this all means to me." She glanced up at the directory for the hospital rooms. "The morgue is that way." She pointed and began walking towards a long white corridor.
"How long did you know Victor?"
"For several months. I published some poetry through him before the novel. Then, I moved in with him two and a half months ago when I was finishing up the last chapters of the novel. He had a spare bedroom that he let me use so that we could work together on the final touches of the novel. He's one of the best writers I've ever met. But he met some failure several years ago that he couldn't recover from so he became an agent. Sorry I started babbling." She blushed a deep pink shade.
"You weren't babbling. I don't mean to pry, but were you just friends?"
"No, we were together as a couple for the last month and a half. He was my first serious boyfriend, and I miss him so much already. It still seems unreal, though. I feel like I'll go back to the apartment, and he'll be there waiting for me as usual. And I'll find out all of this was a horrible practical joke, you know what I mean?"
"That's how a lot of people handle death, by pretending the person is just on vacation or moved away." We were at the morgue, and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"When I go in here, I won't be able to pretend anymore."
She took two steps forward and pushed the cold steel doors opened. I followed her. The stench of chemicals and disinfectants permeated the rectangular white room. My eyes burned for a moment before they adjusted.
"Are you Melanie Franklin?" A petite doctor in a white smock approached us.
"Yes, I'm Melanie Franklin."
"The body is this way."
Melanie took my hand in hers and intertwined our fingers. Her hand was trembling and her palm was shaking. She squeezed my hand as we stood in front of the gurney. The body was covered in a long blue sheet. Her hand squeezed mine so tight it was almost unbearable. The doctor threw the sheet halfway down the corpse. The head was deformed. The skull had several deep concaves, and the body had many lacerations of varying depths. Melanie stared at it for two seconds before grabbing me and burying her face in my shoulder. She clung to me for dear life. I felt her small body convulsing with sobs, and soon the tears had drenched my shirt.
"Is that Victor Harmon?" The doctor was becoming very impatient.
"No, uncontrollable sobbing when she sees the guy means that she's never seen him before in her life."
The doctor didn't look amused in the least. "I'll put that it is Victor Harmon. And this was in his jacket pocket. It has her name on it." The doctor handed me a small box. I slipped it into my pocket and decided to give to Melanie later. "Now I want both of you out of my morgue."
Melanie released her grip on me and staggered foward. I put an arm around her and guided her towards the exit of the morgue. We left the warm hospital to be greeted by cold evening air. The same silence that had accompanied entering the hospital accompanied leaving it. We both got in the car, and I drove to my apartment building. I was suprised to see Lynn's car wasn't there. She was almost always home after 8:00.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to get the image back from the morgue out of my mind." She broke the silence. "It's almost like when I saw my favorite pet dog dead. I can't see him when he was alive in my head anymore. He was a good person. He didn't deserve to die. Why didn't some evil murderer die instead? He was only twenty-seven. Some really old person should have died, not him."
I had asked myself the same questions before and come to the same conclusions. Death was unfair, but still necessary. It was something you had to come to terms with on a personal level and that no one could take the pain away from. I wanted to offer words of comfort, but I lacked them. "Everyone dies sometime. And everything happens for a reason."
"Maybe there will be some good that comes of this. But it's hard to think that way right now."
We went up to the hall my apartment was in. I knocked on Samantha's door and was greeted by her daughter. "You must be Melanie. I'm Cassie." She smiled and ushered Melanie in.
"Thank you for doing this," I said when Samantha came to the door.
"It's no trouble at all. Cassie is going to really enjoy this. More than anything, you're helping me. Cassie hasn't seen any of her friends in weeks. Goodnight, Conan."
"Goodnight, Samantha." I turned around and pulled out my apartment key. I unlocked the door and opened it, flipping on the lights. I pulled my coat off and draped it over my arm. What I saw next caused me to drop everything.
Finally, a woman entered the studio doors. She was bundled up in a long black coat and scarf. I could barely see her under all of the layers. She pulled off her scarf and hood.
"I'm Conan O'Brien. Welcome to the studio." I extended my hand to her.
"I'm Melanie Franklin. Thank you for having me as a guest." She fumbled with her gloves for a moment before finally getting them off and shook my hand.
"You can take your things to the green room. We're going to begin rehearsal soon. There has been a change of plans, though. You aren't going to do a single segment like you were told. You'll be doing two."
"I'm pretty boring person. I hope I don't end up putting the audience to sleep." She laughed. "I'm working on a second novel, if you need more things for us to talk about. It's a lot different from Morning Glory."
"I'll keep that in mind. Make-up is down the hall. You'll go there after the rehearsal. The rehearsal won't be very formal, and it's usually a lot more relaxed than the actual taping. Have you ever been on camera before?" We walked towards the green room, down the corridor lined with pictures.
"No, but I'm looking very forward to it. I spoke in front of people during my classes before I graduated. Wow, that's a lot of pictures." She was engrossed in the pictures on the walls.
I explained several of them to her when she asked about them. She tossed her coat, gloves and scarf into a chair in the green room. She was a very beautiful woman. Her black leather pants and red blouse accented her features perfectly. I found myself staring when she had her back turned, but I stopped when she turned around.
"We're going to rehearse the monologue and the first sketch before you come out. You just stay here and wait for me to announce your entrance."
"I can do that." She smiled and leaned back against the wall.
We rehearsed my monologue, which went well, and then the first sketch. The sketch needed a little work, but it would be fine by the time we were taping.
"Now for the author of the best-selling novel Morning Glory, Melanie Franklin!" I walked over to greet her with the customary kiss on the cheek for a female guest and returned to my desk as she sat down. "We aren't really going to rehearse what you'll say. But I have this blue card." I handed the blue card to her. "That's what we're supposed to talk about. Just read over it and think about the topics a little bit before we tape. If you do that, then you'll do just fine."
"I will. I've watched the show before so I know how everything is supposed to look."
The rest of the rehearsal was without major incident. I greeted the audience when they arrived and then prepared myself for the taping. Finally, it was 5:30 and time to tape. The monologue went really well, and the first sketch was flawless. My headache was subsiding, and my bad day was getting better. Melanie acted very comfortable despite the fact she had never been on camera before. She was funny, and the audience was enjoying the segment. We had an undeniable comedy chemistry. She knew exactly how to set me up for a good joke. The second guest, an actor named Tim Quinton, was lacking what Melanie had, and the audience didn't seem to be enjoying themselves very much. Even when I did add jokes, Tim seemed to ruin them every time. He definitely wasn't coming back to be a guest again.
The taping ended, and the guests and I signed autographs for the audience. They were all gone by 7:30. I spotted Melanie near the studio doors, looking very worried. I approached her slowly.
"Is everything okay?"
"Victor was supposed to pick me up at 7:00. He told me his appointment in Albany would last until 5:00, and he would be here at no later than 7:00."
"I'm sure he's just running late or caught in traffic. That happens here in New York."
One of the interns came running towards us with a ringing cellular phone in her hand. "It's your cell phone, Miss Franklin. It's been ringing for five minutes."
She took it from the intern as he left and answered it. "Hello. Yes, I know Vincent Harmon...What happened?" All of the blood drained from her face as whoever it was on the other line talked to her. "I'll be there in an hour or two at the most." She hung up the cell phone and dropped to her knees. Her green eyes filled with tears.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I leaned down until I was eye to eye with her.
"Victor died," she whimpered. "He was in a car accident about twenty miles from here an hour ago. They rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. They found my cell phone number in his pocket, and they decided to call me to see if I was a relative or anything. Now, they want me to go down to the morgue to identify his body because he wasn't carrying any positive identification, only some business cards. He was my best friend and so much more to me. He's the only person within 500 miles that I could call a friend at all. How could this happen?"
I hated to see her hurting so much, but I knew there was little I could say to make it any better. Since I wasn't looking at all forward to seeing Lynn again, I asked, "Do you want me to go with you to the morgue?"
"You don't have to do that. I know you're a busy person, and I wouldn't want to waste your time."
"No, it's no trouble at all. I didn't have any plans for tonight. I want to go with you, if you want me to." I stood and offered my hand to help her up. She pulled herself up and brushed off her pants.
"Thank you. I would like to have some company. I've never been fond of funerals or anything like that."
"I don't think anyone is. I'm really sorry this happened to you."
"It's part of life and something we all have to cope with at one time or another. I'm just surprised I haven't had to cope with it more. I've been rather fortunate."
"I could drive down to the hospital. It's on my way home. Then, I could drop you off where you live."
"I think I'm going to try to find a hotel to stay in tonight. I was staying in Victor's apartment, and I don't think I'm ready to go back there yet."
"You have to have reservations weeks in advance to stay in hotels anywhere near here. There's no way you'll find a vacancy for tonight right now." We walked out to my car. She sat in the passenger's side in the front, and I started driving to the hospital.
"I can still call around. Maybe there will be something available."
"And if there isn't?"
"I'll probably end up sitting in one of those cappuchino houses that's opened twenty-four hours a day sipping mocha until morning."
I sighed. She was obviously unaware of the crowds that usually were in those cappuchino houses. They are the type that would have read Morning Glory and would hound Melanie for hours, even after she leaves the place. New York isn't a safe place for a famous, beautiful young woman, especially at night. I didn't know what to tell her to do, though. The only place she seemed to have to go was the apartment she had shared with Victor, unless I asked a favor of Samantha, the woman who owned the apartment across the hall. Samantha had a daughter who was home from college for the month, and it might be good for Melanie to be with someone near her own age. I decided to call Samantha when we were at the hospital to see what she thought of the idea. It suddenly occurred to me that I was going totally out of my way to help someone I had just met hours ago. I have always tried to help others and be a generous person, but this was farther than I had ever gone before. Then again, she was like no one I had met before. I shook myself from my thoughts and pulled into the hospital parking lot.
We got out of the car in silence and entered the hospital. There were many in the waiting area, some injured and others reading magazines while they were waiting for word on the condition of their friend or family member. Every thirty seconds a gurney sped towards the emergency room.
"I'm going to go to the bathroom before we go down to the morgue." She walked away, and I pulled out my cell phone to call Samantha. She loved the idea of having Melanie stay with her daughter for the night. I thanked her as Melanie returned.
"You can stay with my neighbor in the apartment across the hall for the night, if you would like."
"I hate to cause your neighbor any inconvenience, but I would like to. Thank you so much for doing all of this for me. I feel really bad for wasting so much of your time."
"You're not wasting any of my time. It's not your fault that all of this happened."
"You don't know how much this all means to me." She glanced up at the directory for the hospital rooms. "The morgue is that way." She pointed and began walking towards a long white corridor.
"How long did you know Victor?"
"For several months. I published some poetry through him before the novel. Then, I moved in with him two and a half months ago when I was finishing up the last chapters of the novel. He had a spare bedroom that he let me use so that we could work together on the final touches of the novel. He's one of the best writers I've ever met. But he met some failure several years ago that he couldn't recover from so he became an agent. Sorry I started babbling." She blushed a deep pink shade.
"You weren't babbling. I don't mean to pry, but were you just friends?"
"No, we were together as a couple for the last month and a half. He was my first serious boyfriend, and I miss him so much already. It still seems unreal, though. I feel like I'll go back to the apartment, and he'll be there waiting for me as usual. And I'll find out all of this was a horrible practical joke, you know what I mean?"
"That's how a lot of people handle death, by pretending the person is just on vacation or moved away." We were at the morgue, and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"When I go in here, I won't be able to pretend anymore."
She took two steps forward and pushed the cold steel doors opened. I followed her. The stench of chemicals and disinfectants permeated the rectangular white room. My eyes burned for a moment before they adjusted.
"Are you Melanie Franklin?" A petite doctor in a white smock approached us.
"Yes, I'm Melanie Franklin."
"The body is this way."
Melanie took my hand in hers and intertwined our fingers. Her hand was trembling and her palm was shaking. She squeezed my hand as we stood in front of the gurney. The body was covered in a long blue sheet. Her hand squeezed mine so tight it was almost unbearable. The doctor threw the sheet halfway down the corpse. The head was deformed. The skull had several deep concaves, and the body had many lacerations of varying depths. Melanie stared at it for two seconds before grabbing me and burying her face in my shoulder. She clung to me for dear life. I felt her small body convulsing with sobs, and soon the tears had drenched my shirt.
"Is that Victor Harmon?" The doctor was becoming very impatient.
"No, uncontrollable sobbing when she sees the guy means that she's never seen him before in her life."
The doctor didn't look amused in the least. "I'll put that it is Victor Harmon. And this was in his jacket pocket. It has her name on it." The doctor handed me a small box. I slipped it into my pocket and decided to give to Melanie later. "Now I want both of you out of my morgue."
Melanie released her grip on me and staggered foward. I put an arm around her and guided her towards the exit of the morgue. We left the warm hospital to be greeted by cold evening air. The same silence that had accompanied entering the hospital accompanied leaving it. We both got in the car, and I drove to my apartment building. I was suprised to see Lynn's car wasn't there. She was almost always home after 8:00.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to get the image back from the morgue out of my mind." She broke the silence. "It's almost like when I saw my favorite pet dog dead. I can't see him when he was alive in my head anymore. He was a good person. He didn't deserve to die. Why didn't some evil murderer die instead? He was only twenty-seven. Some really old person should have died, not him."
I had asked myself the same questions before and come to the same conclusions. Death was unfair, but still necessary. It was something you had to come to terms with on a personal level and that no one could take the pain away from. I wanted to offer words of comfort, but I lacked them. "Everyone dies sometime. And everything happens for a reason."
"Maybe there will be some good that comes of this. But it's hard to think that way right now."
We went up to the hall my apartment was in. I knocked on Samantha's door and was greeted by her daughter. "You must be Melanie. I'm Cassie." She smiled and ushered Melanie in.
"Thank you for doing this," I said when Samantha came to the door.
"It's no trouble at all. Cassie is going to really enjoy this. More than anything, you're helping me. Cassie hasn't seen any of her friends in weeks. Goodnight, Conan."
"Goodnight, Samantha." I turned around and pulled out my apartment key. I unlocked the door and opened it, flipping on the lights. I pulled my coat off and draped it over my arm. What I saw next caused me to drop everything.