經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第2章2

Movies. Yo also. Tricia had just been to see Woody Allen’s new movie which was all about the angst of being neurotic in New York. He had made one or two other movies that had explored the same theme, and Tricia wondered if he had ever considered moving, but heard that he had set his face against the idea. So: more movies, she guessed.

電影。也是歐耶。崔茜卡剛去看了部伍迪?艾倫的新作，講的是在紐約神經衰弱的故事。他過去還拍過一兩部片子，探討的也是這個主題，崔茜卡懷疑他有沒有考慮過搬個傢什麼的，不過聽人說，他已經鐵了心絕不離開。也好，這麼一來他多半還能再拍出幾部這種電影來。

Tricia loved New York because loving New York was a good career move. It was a good retail move, a good cuisine move, not a good taxi move or a great quality of pavement move, but definitely a career move that ranked amongst the highest and the best. Tricia was a TV anchor person, and New York was where most of the world’s TV was anchored. Tricia’s TV anchoring had been done exclusively in Britain up to that point: regional news, then breakfast news, early evening news. She would have been called, if the language allowed, a rapidly rising anchor, but… hey, this is television, what does it matter? She was a rapidly rising anchor. She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care. Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy.

崔茜卡熱愛紐約，因爲熱愛紐約是很好的職業策略——這也是很好的零售策略和美食策略，雖然算不上是特別好的出租車策略或者高質量的人行道策略，但絕對是最好最出衆的職業策略之一。崔茜卡是個新聞主播，而全世界的新聞總部基本上都駐紮在紐約。這之前，崔茜卡的播報事業完全侷限於英國本土：地方新聞，然後是早間新聞、晚間新聞。只要語文老師不反對，我們簡直可以把她比作電視行業裏一根飛速崛起的定海神針，不過……嘿，咱們說的可是電視這一行，比喻裏面有點毛病又有什麼關係？總而言之，成功的要素她樣樣具備：一頭漂亮的秀髮，對口紅的戰略性應用有着深刻的理解，具備能夠解讀整個世界的聰明才智，除此之外，還有隱藏在內心深處的一小塊（+兒？）死氣沉沉——這意味着她不在乎。每個人生命裏都有一次大機會。如果你恰好錯過了自己在意的那一次，那麼接下來，生活中的其他任何事情你都不會放在心上，大可以滿不在乎、輕鬆打發。

Tricia had only ever missed one opportunity. These days it didn’t even make her tremble quite so much as it used to to think about it. She guessed it was that bit of her that had gone dead.

崔茜卡只錯過了一次機會。如今想起它的時候，她甚至不會再像過去那樣，哆嗦得那麼厲害。她估計這都要多謝自己心裏那塊死氣沉沉的地兒。

NBS needed a new anchor. Mo Minetti was leaving the US/AM breakfast show to have a baby. She had been offered a mind-bubbling amount of money to have it on the show, but she had declined, unexpectedly, on grounds of personal privacy and taste. Teams of NBS lawyers had sieved through her contract to see if these constituted legitimate grounds, but in the end, reluctantly, they had to let her go. This was, for them, particularly galling because normally ‘reluctantly letting someone go’ was an expression that had its boot on quite another foot.

NBS需要一個新主播。摩?米內蒂爲了生孩子準備離開早間新聞節目《早安美國》。公司開了個讓人心驚肉跳的價，要她就在上節目的時候生；結果出乎所有人的意料，她居然一口回絕了，說是涉及什麼個人隱私和品位之類。NBS有整隊整隊的御用律師，把她的合約從頭到尾篩過好幾遍，看她是不是違反了其中的什麼條款。不過到最後，他們再三挽留不成，只好放她走人。這事兒整得NBS惱羞成怒，因爲對於他們，“再三挽留”這幾個字通常只會出現在一種截然不同的語境裏。