The word was out that maybe, just maybe, a British accent would fit. The hair, the skin tone and the bridgework would have to be up to American network standards, but there had been a lot of British accents up there thanking their mothers for their Oscars, a lot of British accents singing on Broadway, and some unusually big audiences tuning in to British accents in wigs on Masterpiece Theatre. British accents were telling jokes on David Letterman and Jay Leno. Nobody understood the jokes but they were really responding to the accents, so maybe it was time, just maybe. A British accent on US/AM. Well, hell.

有风声说，或许，只是或许，这次NBS会找个英国口音。头发、肤色和牙套当然必须达到美国传媒的水准，可眼下英国口音多热啊：有英国口音拿着奥斯卡小金人感谢自己的老妈，有英国口音在百老汇又唱又跳，更有多得离奇的观众每周收看“戏剧名著”系列里那些英国口音戴着假发演戏。英国口音还拿大卫?莱特曼和杰伊?莱诺开涮；虽说那些笑话没人听得懂，但大家都对他们的口音有反应。所以说现在也许正是时候，只是也许。《早安美国》上的英国口音？管他呢，见鬼。

That was why Tricia was here. This was why loving New York was a great career move.

所以崔茜卡才来这儿。所以说，热爱纽约真是出色的职业策略。

It wasn’t, of course, the stated reason. Her TV company back in the UK would hardly have stumped up the air fare and hotel bill for her to go job hunting in Manhattan. Since she was chasing something like ten times her present salary, they might have felt that she could have forked out her own expenses, but she’d found a story, found a pretext, kept very quiet about anything ulterior, and they’d stumped up for the trip. A business class ticket, of course, but her face was known and she’d smiled herself an upgrade. The right moves had got her a nice room at the Brentwood and here she was, wondering what to do next.

当然了，这并不是她摆上台面的理由。要是去曼哈顿找工作的事儿露了馅，恐怕很难指望她的英国老板再为飞机票和旅馆埋单。当然，美国那份薪水差不多是她现在的十倍，人家没准儿会觉得她大可以自掏腰包。不过崔茜卡找了个新闻故事作掩护，对换工作守口如瓶，她的英国老板于是掏了钱。买的当然是商务舱，不过她大小也算个名人，只露齿一笑就免费升了舱。正确的策略还为她在布伦特伍德大酒店搞到个挺不错的房间，于是一切顺利，她开始琢磨接下来该怎么办。

The word on the street was one thing, making contact was another. She had a couple of names, a couple of numbers, but all it took was being put on indeterminate hold a couple of times and she was back at square one. She’d put out feelers, left messages, but so far none had been returned. The actual job she had come to do she had done in a morning; the imagined job she was after was only shimmering tantalisingly on an unreachable horizon.

听到风声是一回事儿，真正接触又是另一回事儿。她包里有两个名字、两个号码，可最后却只是无休无止地“稍等”了两回，然后就重新回到了起点。她试探过，也留了口信，可至今没有回音。她实际上需要干的活儿一早上就搞定了，而她想象中的活儿却在遥不可及的地平线上闪啊闪，让人心焦。

Shit.

见鬼。