Alicia Ray - OFF AIR
(Commercial Break - WGGB Studio)
The red ON AIR light clicked off.
It wasn’t, like, loud or anything, but Dana Calder - one of the producers here at WGGB Channel 5 News - felt it anyway, the shift. Like a held breath finally released across the studio floor. Crew members moved immediately, quiet but quick, resetting positions, checking monitors, murmuring into headsets. Controlled chaos. Familiar.
Normal, right? This had been the way things worked here at WGGB, basically forever.
But no, this was not normal. This was really, really fucking far from normal.
Dana was already walking.
She had a tablet tucked under one arm, thumb scrolling through notes she didn’t really need to read again. Timing blocks. Segment transitions. Ratings overlays from the last quarter hour - still climbing. Of course they are, she thought, Look at the top Alicia decided to wear tonight. Dana shook her head, not complaining. Her gig here as producer of the evening news was getting easier all the time, and the bosses - including the lady from Russia, new here, managing the station - were happy. The ratings keep coming, hand over fist. More eyeballs every night.
Dana’s eyes flicked up.
Alicia hadn’t moved. She was still seated behind the desk, perfectly composed, like the camera might come back at any second and she’d already be ready for it. The studio lights softened slightly during break, but they still caught her - held her, really - in a way that made everything else feel a little flatter by comparison.
Alicia is far from flat, Dana mused, and it never ceases to amaze how much the New Corinth audience loves her new tits. They seem bigger every night.
She watched as Alicia reached for her compact, angling it just enough to catch her reflection and reapply her lipstick with slow, practiced precision. No rush. No wasted motion. Enthralling, really.
Dana had slowed without meaning to. Whatever it was, there was something about Alicia - about the lack of urgency, the new, casual confidence - that now threw her a little. Everyone else moved faster during breaks. Alicia…didn’t have to anymore.
“Great read on the open,” Dana started as she approached, voice smooth, professional, already in motion, “We’re trending up again in the demo, especially after the second graphic-”
Alicia glanced at her. Not sharply. Not dismissively. She just… looked at her, with those eyes, and somehow that was enough to make Dana recalibrate mid-sentence.
Alicia capped the lipstick. “Where are we on my new show, Dana?” she asked, no preamble, no filler.
Dana blinked once. Adjusted. “The - uh - the ‘Alicia Ray Report’?”
“We hadn’t settled on a name. I think I like ‘Alicia Ray Now’. Let’s go with that.”
“Ohhh…kay. Got it.” Dana tapped something on her tablet. “We’re, um, still shaping format,” she said quickly, flipping her tablet around like the data might anchor her. “We’ve got a working outline - three-act structure, hybrid lifestyle and commentary, something that can scale if we-”
“That’s not really a timeline.” Alicia’s tone hadn’t changed. It was polite, but to it there was an unmistakable edge and she saw how Dana felt it land.
“Right,” the female producer said, recovering, “we’re aiming for a soft launch in-”
“How soon can it air?”
A beat.
Dana hesitated - not because she didn’t know the answer, but because suddenly the answer she had felt insufficient. “We’d need at least a few weeks for proper build-out,” she said carefully, “Set adjustments, branding, segment testing-”
Alicia tilted her head just slightly.
It wasn’t disagreement. It was worse. It was expectation, one that obviously wasn’t being met.
Dana felt her brain start moving faster, recalculating resources, timelines, who she could pull, what she could compress. “We could accelerate,” she amended, “If we prioritize. Shift some of the current programming blocks, maybe pilot it in a limited slot f-first.”
Alicia nodded once, like that had always been the obvious answer. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do that.”
No triumph. No push. Just…decision, and Dana felt it settle into place before she’d fully agreed to it. “Yeah,” she said, already thinking through logistics, “yeah, we can do that.”
Behind them, someone adjusted a light rig. Another voice called out a timing check. The room kept moving - but to Dana it all felt slightly angled now, like everything was bending just a degree closer to the anchor desk.
Derek was by Camera Two, half-crouched, pretending to recalibrate a lens that didn’t need it. Dana caught the way his eyes shot up toward Alicia and then away again, like he’d been looking too long. He scratched at the back of his neck, muttering something into his headset.
Across the studio, Marta Walker, the new sports reporter from Kansas - also, weirdly, with a Russian accent - stood near the green screen, arms folded loosely across her own big bust, watching. Not working, not preparing her stuff - watching, blonde hair pulled tight, posture straight, expression unreadable but interested. When Derek glanced her way, she gave the smallest smile. He looked away first.
Dana filed it somewhere in the back of her mind. Are these two a thing? Ugh. Later. Right now-
“Corporate’s asking about expansion,” she said, turning back to Alicia, lowering her voice slightly without thinking, “There’s interest beyond local. Syndication possibilities, maybe more if the numbers hold.”
Alicia’s expression didn’t change much, but something in her deeply mascara-d eyes sharpened. Focused. “Good,” she said.
Dana waited - out of some new habit, maybe - for more. Direction, clarification, something. Weird, because Alicia used to be just the Traffic Girl around here, she mused, Now she’s like some sort of, I dunno, Queen Bee.
The direction didn’t come, because it didn’t need to. Somehow Dana knew what she had to do next for the show to make Alicia happy.
Alicia reached up then, adjusting the neckline of her top with a small, precise movement, smoothing the fabric into place. Not self-conscious, but intentional, like she understood exactly what the camera frame was doing with her - and wanted to make sure it kept doing it.
Dana felt a flicker of something she couldn’t quite name. Not intimidation, not exactly. Awareness, maybe? Of scale. Of presence. Of the way Alicia didn’t just fit the WGGB broadcast - she now defined it.
She just reads well on camera, Dana told herself automatically. That was the explanation, the only one that made sense. What didn’t make sense was what some of the people around the station were calling “The Alicia Effect”. How everyone seemed to be getting better at their jobs. And not necessarily just for the station, or the broadcast…but for her. To bring in even more eyeballs to Alicia. The marketing team, the cameramen. Even the reporters and Dana herself; everyone seemed to be both 110% on their game. The new Weathergirl's butt? Yes, big, her best quality when she was hired and far outshining her knowledge of meteorology. But this past week or so? She actually had some interesting takes on the recent weather patterns. And her ass had grown, too…but that was maybe besides the point.
“Thirty seconds,” someone called.
The room tightened again.
Makeup stepped in - paused, just for a fraction of a second, like waiting for permission - then lightly touched Alicia’s cheek, blending something invisible.
Alicia didn’t look away from Dana. “Send me the updated timeline tonight,” she said, “Not the draft. The real one.”
Dana nodded immediately. “You’ll have it.”
“Ten seconds.”
Alicia turned back to the camera.
And just like that, she was on again - posture shifting by degrees, expression settling into that perfect balance of authority and warmth, hands folding neatly in front of her.
Dana took a step back, then another. Watching, for maybe a second too long. We’re not building a segment, or even just a show, she realized, something quiet and certain clicking into place beneath all the logistics and momentum. I think we’re building a brand around her, she wondered to herself…but feeling some doubt, like she was missing something. Are we building Alicia’s brand, or is there something else bigger behind it?
For some reason, Dana remembered that guest they had last week. The manager of that new health clinic. Remember her eyes? Those green, golden eyes…
“Back in five…four…three…”
The red light snapped on.
And Alicia Ray smiled for the world like it already belonged to her.
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A Message from the Desk of Publication and Community Therapy: since its inception here, we've done our best to keep up an every-four-days schedule for posting new installments of Growing into the Job. The story has changed over time, becoming more text-heavy, the machinations more complex, and the people over in Creative need a fucking break. To keep them sane and - more importantly - maintain the quality (such as it is) of GITJ, we're going to be defaulting to an every-five-days schedule, at least for the foreseeable future. We regret any untoward side effects and general malaise that our dedicated readers might experience, but in the end it's for the best, baby. Thanks for sticking with us.