I accepted her offer and went to visit every few weeks.
Her first words when we sat down were a brisk, "So what do you have for me?"-meaning, fire away with the list of questions I was sure glad I'd prepared: How do I break into the field? (Producing, not on air.) How important are looks? (Very, but everyone will want you to change something so you just have to get over it.) How can you manage work and family? (You make it work.) At the end of our little meeting she generously offered to let me come visit whenever I wanted throughout the summer. (She ate a monster hamburger, confiding that she had just found out she was pregnant with her second child.) Days later I found myself sitting in the Today Show studio at 30 Rockefeller Center, and then at a restaurant with Soledad. "Hello, is Debra there? This is Soledad O'Brien." I couldn't believe it! She said she had received my letter and asked me to come down to the show and have lunch. I picked up-okay, you know what's about to happen-and heard a chirpy, television-toned voice at the other end. I included my phone number and address and sent it off to Soledad O'Brien, c/o Weekend Today at Rockefeller Plaza-to what I figured was surely a black hole of weirdo fan mail and never-to-be-opened press kits.Ī few days later, I was sitting in my apartment, watching MTV, when the phone rang. Finally, I said that I didn't have a clue what to pursue after graduation and asked if she would ever be willing to chat with me. I got out a pen and handwrote a three-or four-page letter, starting with the oh-so-original phrase, "I've never written a fan letter before." I told her how much I admired her work, then explained my interest in television broadcasting and my experiences as a summer intern at two news outlets. The next day, however, I was sitting in a park outside my apartment, feeling a bit bored with the hostessing gig, and at the same time a little ballsy, and I thought, Oh, what the hell, I'm going to write her a letter. My gut told me not to disturb the famous lady with a stroller, hubby, and what appeared to be in-laws in tow. "Oh my gosh, do you know who that is?" I gushed to my fellow hosts, all hyperactive and borderline girl-crush. (When Keanu Reeves showed up, you'd think the president had arrived!) Less fazed, that is, until one day a lesser-known-boldface name walked in: Soledad O'Brien, then the host of NBC's Weekend Today. The weeks passed, and I scurried along, delivering menus and crossing names off the always-pages-long waiting list, less fazed than the rest of the staff by the occasional celebrity sighting. The bartenders-all tall, dark, and Appaloosa-like-were "models" the predominantly blond, buff, and all-American waitstaff were actors and singers and the hostesses, a mix of exotic-looking beauties, were all dancers. There, the staff was a perfect slice of New York's glittering, glamorous, wannabe life. In retrospect, I think this was code for, I'm about to graduate from college and I really have no clue what I want to do with my life or how to go about it, so I think I'll just procrastinate a little longer! I took up a friend's offer to move to New York and share a sweet rent-controlled sublet in Midtown, and the day after I arrived, I found myself a hostessing job at a hip downtown restaurant. But this summer, I thought, I'm just going to have fun. I had spent previous semesters toiling practically wage free at places like Dateline NBC and Fast Company magazine. No more shamefully underpaid journalism internships for me. The summer before my senior year at college, I really wanted to be lazy.
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