Guilty Pleasure

03. In My Way

       I stared up at the enormous skyscraper, watching how the sun reflected on the dark glass panels of the hauntingly elite exterior. I didn't belong here and I had the restraining order to prove it. However, it was a little too late to turn around now. I'd already hit the buzzer, gave a fake name and made up a scenario as to why I showed up at Montgomery House with no invitation. With no prior planning or thought, I was able to come up with quite a good cover story pretty quickly. Spontaneity had never been my forte, neither was lying, but bullshitting my way out of exams in college seemed to be all the training I needed.

       I walked up to the establishment as none other than Ivy Abernathy, an ordinary college student by day and Spencer Scott's sworn enemy by night. When I was finally buzzed in, I stepped through the threshold with an air of arrogance surrounding me,  emerging as Elizabeth Grant, a journalist turned News Anchor for Good Morning America. 

       My façade was pretty comical, considering I was a journalist myself, but no one questioned that coincidence as soon as I dropped the words Good Morning America. I didn't even need to explain what I was doing there before I got the green light from whoever was working the intercom. 

       What a shitty security team...

       I knew that would work without a hitch. A man as prolific and arrogant as Spencer T. Scott loved only one thing more than making money and that was making a name for himself. He'd already done that ten times over, considering everyone in the five borough knew his godforsaken name. 

       Everyone knew who he was. 

       If it wasn't for his boisterous success that was repeatedly flashed on the covers of local newspapers and magazine spreads, his lavish and glamorous parties that were the talk of town but strictly limited to the rich and famous, the anonymous yet grand donations he made to the city that never really ended up keeping their anonymity, or the countless charities he founded on a routine basis, then it was all the billboards plastering his stupid name and smug little face all over the city like a dirty stain that wouldn't come out no matter how much bleach was used.

       That's exactly what Spencer Scott was: a GIANT stain that was smeared all over Manhattan. One dirty little stain with a bunch of dirty little secrets.

       The only type of publicity Spencer didn't receive a lot of was air time, primarily due to his short temper and excessive use of foul and inappropriate language. He had his fair share of time on movie screens, appearing in a few feature films and making several cameos in movies where he didn't belong. However, his time on regular television screens had been limited to commercials, usually for his own business, and a couple designer ads that he modeled, often without a shirt or pair of pants.

       To most that amount of screen time would suffice, but the greedy always want more. People like Spencer can never get enough. No matter how much money is in their bank, or how many people love and admire them, they always need more. You can give someone the moon and they will want the rest of the solar system to go with it.

       So, what did little Spence need to temporarily fulfill him? He wanted a broad platform where he could talk—more likely brag—about Scott Solutions & Holdings during a business segment on a televised network. Apparently, ads in commercials, only brought in so many new faces. The real exposure was in broadcasting, like what you see in infomercials or on the QVC network, but the holy grail in advertising would getting your own be a segment on the morning news.

       I only knew about that because during my short-lived job as an intern at Spencer's corporation it was my sole responsibility to write to every single news station in the area on a daily basis, inquiring with every news station, hoping someone would be willing to pick up his boring story.