Baby Lessons

It was so comically out of fashion that Madison was beginning to think it was cute. Endearing, in a way.
She’d clearly been away from Park Avenue too long.
“Yes, sir.” She made her way through the small crowd to stand beside him, more curious than ever.
“As all of you know, Madison’s column has been attracting a lot of attention lately, which has given the Bee some great exposure. Everyone in Lovestruck has been buzzing about Queen Bee and her archenemy, Fired Up.” Mr. Grant waggled his bushy gray eyebrows, and titters of laughter went up from the crowd.
A trickle of unease snaked its way up Madison’s spine. She wanted less of Fired Up in Lovestruck in her life, not more. In fact, she would have been thrilled if he just disappeared altogether. Oh, how she wished her boss felt the same way.
I never should have written that diaper story.
What could possibly be next? Toddler hair extensions? Botox for babies?
“I’m pleased to say that a lot more people are going to be buzzing about your column really soon, Madison—millions of people, believe it or not,” her boss said. He spoke his next words into the bullhorn, so they echoed throughout the Bee’s quaint newsroom loud enough to peel the sunny yellow paint off the walls. “Because you’re going to be on the Good Morning Sunshine show tomorrow morning!”
His announcement was met with stunned silence for a second, and then everyone burst into cheers and applause. It all just sounded like white noise in Madison’s head as she tried to make sense of what Mr. Grant had just said. Good Morning Sunshine was a national television show, filmed in New York. It had millions of viewers. Watching it was a morning ritual for half the country. Surely she wasn’t supposed to get on national television and talk about a troll who seemed to have some strange obsession with her little local column. Just the thought of doing so made her hands shake so badly that she could barely hold on to her latte.
“Good Morning Sunshine?” She swallowed. “What do you mean, exactly?”
Mr. Grant shrugged. “It seems one of the producers has family here in town and got wind of your war of words with Fired Up in Lovestruck. They want to do a story on you two.”
“How is that even possible? We don’t even know who Fired Up is?” There had to be some mistake. She couldn’t go on Good Morning Sunshine and talk about diaper craft projects. She’d never get a job in fashion again.
“They like the anonymity angle. They want to read some of the letters to the editor on air and do a short interview with you. At the end of the segment, they’re going to call on Fired Up in Lovestruck to step forward and identify himself.” Mr. Grant wagged a finger at her. “I told you people loved the chemistry between you two!”
Chemistry?
“Mr. Grant, please. I’m not sure this is such a great idea. Isn’t it starting to seem less like a newspaper and more like an episode of The Bachelor?” Or God forbid, Bachelor in Paradise.
“Of course not. It’s starting to seem like an episode of Good Morning Sunshine.” He laughed, as did all of Madison’s colleagues.
She didn’t blame them, really. A segment on the most popular morning show in the country would put the Lovestruck Bee on the map. Subscriptions would go through the roof. Those Christmas bonuses that Mr. Grant loved to pass out would probably be bigger than ever.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible. Perhaps once she had a chance to wrap her head around the idea, she could get on board with the hosts Samantha Williams and Meghan Ashley laughing it up over her lame attempts at parenting advice and Fired Up in Lovestruck’s painfully blunt assessment of her maternal instincts. She just needed a little time to catch her breath and come up with a plan.
She also needed to come up with a killer outfit, because if she was going to become a national laughingstock, she was damn well going to look good doing it.
Mr. Grant clapped his hands to get everyone to quiet down. “All right, everyone. Let’s get back to work. We still have a paper to get out tomorrow morning.”
Right. One thing at a time. Madison’s next column was only halfway finished, and she needed to get it turned in before she could think about her mortifying television debut. She turned to follow Nancy back toward their shared cubicle, but her boss tapped her on the shoulder before she could get very far.
“I didn’t mean you, Queen Bee,” he said. “You have a plane to catch.”
Her latte felt like it was curdling in the pit of her stomach all of a sudden. “Today? I can’t. I have a column to finish. I can’t just leave town without any notice. I need time to prepare. I... I have my knitting class tonight.”
She was grasping at straws with that last excuse, but come on. Mr. Grant would never throw her to the Good Morning Sunshine wolves without any chance to prepare.
Then again, maybe he would.
“Your segment is first thing tomorrow morning. You fly out of Burlington in three hours.” He adjusted the knot in his adorably awful tie. “Get ready, Queen Bee. By this time tomorrow, everyone in America will know who you are.”
In an unprecedented night of activity, Jack’s shift had three overnight calls before his day off. The first two were ambulance assists—one for an elderly man who’d suffered a fall in his cottage near downtown Lovestruck and the other in a motorcycle accident way out on the interstate. The third was a three-alarm fire two counties over, in a town so small it was serviced by a volunteer fire department.
What started as an electrical fire in the attic of an antiques warehouse store spread quickly, and in the end, rigs from all the neighboring counties showed up to help. They’d managed to save most of the furnishings,