Every Thanksgiving before my parents divorced and a couple after they already had, the smell of turkey and perfectly marinated pikliz would waft around the house, driving me to madness as I waited for dinner to be ready. My mom would cook the tastiest food that I had ever had in my life. (Dad would make the biscuits and dinner rolls.) It was one of the few memories that I had of us as a cohesive, happy family. Now I can’t even imagine my mom cooking anybody’s meals.
This Thanksgiving, we celebrated with a few of my dad’s employees from his clinic, some neighbors, my school’s head nurse, Kelley Dawson, and her daughter Abigail (fellow classmate but more commonly known as the bane of my existence). Nurse Kelley was absolutely in love with my dad and everyone in the world knew it—except for him.
For the sake of journalistic credibility, I should make a correction—Nurse Kelley invited herself to Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago. One second Dad was making his monthly delivery of freshly baked croissants to the front office at school (yup, he’s that parent), and the next Nurse Kelley was grilling him on Thanksgiving plans and insisting that he just had to taste her pumpkin pie. I tried not to gag. It did not work.
I’m not against my dad dating; in fact, it would actually be good for him. But I’d be damned if the first person he truly considers is Nurse Kelley. There’s no way on this planet or any other planet in this solar system that Abigail’s arms would remain in their sockets if we lived in the same house. Not when I already walked through school having to dodge her as she insisted that she couldn’t help but want to pat my “fluffy ’fro, girl.”
But Nurse Kelley wasn’t going to miss her shot at landing on my dad’s radar and she did her best to pull out all the stops for dinner. She not only brought her pumpkin pie (which wasn’t half-bad), but macaroni and cheese (not good—full stop), cranberry sauce (why do people eat this?), corn bread (decent), and smoked ham (honestly, she could’ve just brought this and we would’ve been fine). She definitely was a believer of the “way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” doctrine. And she batted her eyelashes and stared more and more longingly at my dad with each bite of pie.
My mom checked in with me later that evening to see how dinner had gone. The conversation was more strained than it normally was, but I could tell that there was more to the tension than the fact that my dad had “casually” let slip that we had extra guests over for Thanksgiving. I couldn’t even bring myself to make a joke to conceal my growing discomfort with how quiet Mom was on the other line. And she never explained why she had to go to Germany during Thanksgiving in the first place. I mean, come on, we all know that the only reason a renowned reporter would be traveling there during an important, albeit problematic, national holiday instead of spending quality time with her family is for a major scoop. Would it have killed her to just tell me that she was going to interview the chancellor and be done with it?
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that I owe you a biography,” she said finally.
“Of course not. You don’t forget anything,” I said. “But I went ahead and ignored your wishes and made it myself. It was just easier that way.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Alaine.”
“Mom. Please. It’s fine. I’m just ridiculously excited that you’re even coming.”
I’m proactive. I had a feeling I would need to slap something together when she missed the first fake deadline I gave her in hopes of getting her to meet the real due date for submitting this, which was this morning. What can I say? I know my mom.
Someone else who knows her is my dad, and he copied and pasted her bio from the GNN website and typed up some tips for me as well. I’d say he was pretty low sodium on the salty scale about it too. Some things don’t change, I guess.
Celeste Beauparlant’s Career Biography & Tip Sheet (My Version)
Celeste Beauparlant is not a woman of the people. She probably doesn’t want to stop and have a chat if you see her on the street. No, she is not “just like you and me!” That’s okay. What she lacks in human warmth, she makes up for with stony resolve and an impressive résumé.
That résumé includes stints at GNN’s Washington, DC, bureau as a production assistant before leaving for WLQR, a local affiliate television station in Panama City, Florida. She worked her way up to the Miami market in two short years and spent the next six at WPLJ, covering hurricanes, car chases, corrupt city council members refusing to pay parking tickets, and—on three separate occasions—a cat stuck in the grille of a sheriff’s car. It was the same cat.
Her tenacity paid off. After a decade of toiling in the wilderness of local news, she returned to GNN as a political reporter. She’d vexed enough people that she started out as a Capitol Hill reporter and, shortly after, a White House correspondent. That wasn’t enough for her though, so she got her own Meet the Press situation with Sunday Politicos, where she’s been Queen Bey ever since. Thus, anything you can do, she can do better.
Celeste’s Tips for Career Domination:
Remember that journalism is a calling and will require long nights and missed birthdays and holidays, even Thanksgiving, which is ridiculous. Before committing yourself, make sure journalism is what you really want to do with your life, because your family will resent you for the time you must be away. Even if they say they’re fine most of the time, they’re totally lying. You might even get a divorce!
Work hard and make sure the important people in charge of your career know how you’ve improved the company’s ratings so that all the days away will be worth it—and you won’t be stuck reporting on the same three stories over and over again.
Get an assistant who is young and flexible enough that they can entertain your kid when she comes to visit and you don’t have time to take her to the National Zoo or the Lincoln Memorial. Make sure said assistant is hip enough to totally get why said kid is now morally opposed to the existence of zoos and is debating whether to become a pescatarian.
Ask open-ended questions that can’t be answered with just a yes or no. On a related note: during White House briefings, don’t ask six-part questions that will prompt the press secretary to make the same dumb joke about long questions and then go on to choose just one part to answer. The easy part.
Celeste Beauparlant’s Career Biography & Tip Sheet (Dad’s Version)
Celeste Beauparlant joined GNN over a decade ago and currently serves as the host of the network’s flagship program, Sunday Politicos. Prior to that, Beauparlant was a regular fill-in anchor for GNN shows such as The Sit-Down with Mark Scholtz and the now-defunct Quick Read.
Sunday Politicos is GNN’s most watched show to date. Beauparlant has interviewed notable individuals such as President Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She also traveled to her birth country of Haiti to cover the magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that devastated the island nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Her poignant coverage earned her multiple accolades and cemented her role as host of Sunday Politicos. No stranger to confronting the difficult, Beauparlant has spent her career bringing issues that disproportionately impact marginalized communities to the mainstream. Her ability to delve into any topic with tenacity and objectivity has resulted in a devoted fan base and a combined total of eight Emmy and Peabody Awards.