And in the anchor’s chair, she’d pronounced world leaders’ names wrong once or twice, had a sneezing fit, and had hiccupped herself all the way through a segment after returning from the company Christmas party. But that comes with the territory, and her cultivated talent made up for the few blunders she’d experienced.
Last night was at an entirely new level, and she was not sure she could recover from it. Never in her life had she been more humiliated. And no matter how hard she’d tried to make it right, she made it worse. Hours before, she’d had such a confidence in her new appearance.
Before Gilda knew what was happening to her, she was weeping at her breakfast table. And even that was a task, because as much as she wanted her face to assume an expression of grief, it would only move mere millimeters.
Then her phone rang. Gilda’s head rose off the table and she stared at the phone, which lit up like a Christmas tree perched inside its stand. Wiping her nose, something told her not to answer it. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she knew whatever—whoever—was on the other end would not be delivering good news. She felt compelled to let it go to voice mail, but yet, maybe…just maybe…
Rushing to the phone, she snatched it up, praying something good would be on the other end.
Roarke and Ray sat on the couch together, each with a bowl of buttered popcorn. Roarke was holding up the remote, fast-forwarding through the commercials.
“You should really get TiVo,” Ray said.
“I’ve had the VCR for twelve years and it’s never failed me.” Roarke threw a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “And dude, please, never ever forget the M&M’s again, okay? This is killing me.” Ray had forgotten M&M’s for the first time ever. Roarke always provided the popcorn, and Ray brought M&M’s. They would mix them up, each take a bowl, and watch their favorite show that Roarke had taped the night before. The show varied from season to season. This year, Roarke had gotten him hooked on ultimate fighting.
A few minutes into the match, Roarke glanced over at Ray. “You okay?”
“Why?”
“You’re totally not watching this.”
Ray gestured at the television. “I’m looking right at the screen.”
“But you’re not into it.”
Ray blinked. It was true. He wasn’t really concentrating. He was having a hard time leaving last night behind. All of it. From his disastrous attempt to ask Hayden out to the loss of the news story that would have propelled them into the top rank, to the station’s disappointing coverage of breaking news, he wasn’t sure anything else could’ve gone wrong. The only thing that went right for him personally was the fact that the exploding sewage plant trumped his dreadful and embarrassing incident with the pig-hater. He felt guilty about that, so he couldn’t really celebrate since the explosion had left two workers injured and the station very possibly mortally wounded.
To top it all off, two of the most even-tempered people he’d ever met had gone through what could only be described as nervous breakdowns, nearly at the same time. Gilda Braun was escorted away from the anchor’s desk during what was probably the worst broadcast in the station’s history. Hugo also lost it, and that was putting it politely. Ray wasn’t sure he could describe exactly what it was like to see a man of such self-control implode, but as the ten o’clock news ended, so, it seemed, did Hugo’s sanity. The man was cussing and ranting and at one point actually had to be physically restrained.
“Hello?”
Ray glanced at Roarke. “Sorry. I was just thinking about last night.”
“Why?”
Roarke seemed nearly incapable of worry about anything outside the very small world he created. If it didn’t affect him directly, he didn’t worry about it. And if it did affect him directly, he worried in what could only be described as a healthy manner. Roarke certainly wasn’t oblivious to the world’s problems. His entire job revolved around listening to the tragedies of the outside world and reporting on which one was most newsworthy. Maybe that was why Roarke was so good at what he did, because he could turn it on and off and never bring it home with him.
Ray, on the other hand, was capable of bringing truckloads of frustration, depression, anger, and guilt, among other things, home with him every night, as if he were so bored with life that all he wanted to do was mull things over. And no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t find the off switch.
Whenever Ray would bring up the fact that he struggled with his sensation-dependent job, Roarke would say, “Then don’t do it.” It was that simple for him. But for Ray, there were days when he felt like he was really making a difference. It’s what kept him doing it.
This was a means to an end, to a greater good that would make up for all the guilt he felt. He wished so badly that he could feel no sense of moral responsibility, that he could exploit the daylights out of any story, knowing it was just part of his job.
Once Ray had come up with the idea of doing a segment called, “The Bright Side of Life,” in which he would report on something good that was taking place around the city. It aired three times before it was cut because they actually got hate mail about it.
Roarke had commented, “Ray, people watch the news to see if their neighbor’s being arrested for indecent exposure, or if their boss slammed his car into a house while drunk. If people want to watch the good side of life, they can tune into Barney and Friends.” Roarke paused the tape. “It was pretty wild last night, I have to admit.”
There wasn’t much that Roarke hadn’t seen or heard, so it confirmed to Ray that last night was extraordinary.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Ray asked, turning toward him. “I mean, is Gilda going to get fired? Is Hugo?”
“I don’t know,” Roarke said. “Anything could happen at this point. But Sam Leege certainly had his moment in the spotlight, didn’t he?”
That he did. The newscast was in such chaos that Hugo’s only option was to run an extra-long weather segment to try to get Tate under control and everything back on track. Sam took advantage of every second, actually tracking the smoke plume from the explosion by radar. It was mostly an attempt to impress Hayden, who he’d recruited at the last minute to help him prepare.
Sam had always had an enormous ego, but it inflated to near capacity three years ago when Sam was credited for saving people’s lives when he predicted a tornado would turn to the north, which it did, while all the other meteorologists around town predicted it would stay on an easterly course.
The problem with Sam was that he could never admit he was wrong. Not once in their five years of working together had Sam ever referred to a botched seven-day forecast or even tried to make a joke out of it. He could miss the temperature by twenty degrees and go on as if nothing had happened.
It irritated Ray, mostly because he couldn’t make that big of a blunder and not address it. Any misrepresented fact had to be corrected. It was true for the anchors, the sportscasters, and the reporters. It just wasn’t true for Sam the weatherman.
And this particularly irritating side of Sam trickled into his personality as well. Sam would never say he was wrong, never apologize, and certainly never correct himself. He’d once tripped and spilled coffee all over Ray, then blamed the slick floor.
But Sam was a charmer. Of all the ten o’clock personalities, Sam seemed to be the one with the most staying power. And his lineage didn’t hurt. His father, Leroy Leege, stood in front of the green screen at the same station as Sam before retiring ten years ago and handing his legacy over to Sam.
Sam even had his own plug. The catch phrase “A Leege of His Own” preempted the description of Sam as a hero. Ray always wondered what was heroic about standing in front of a green screen and reading computer data while the storm chasers were out in the middle of all the chaos.
But there was nothing he could do. Ray had learned a long time ago that life wasn’t fair. It wasn’t that he liked it, but he accepted it. He didn’t, however, have to accept Sam and Ha
yden. There was plenty of room in this world for Ray and Hayden. And their names practically rhymed.
“She’s worth it,” Ray mumbled, trying to get a mental fix on the fact that he was going to be doing battle with a man who thought he could do no wrong.
“Of course she’s worth it, but why did she have to go do that to herself!” Roarke roared, making Ray jump. Roarke’s popcorn spilled to the floor. Ray’s jaw literally hung on its hinges. He’d never, not once, seen Roarke explode like that.
“I…I was talking about Hayden,” Ray said softly.
“I knew that,” Roarke snapped, his cheeks flushing a bright red color. He kept his eyes averted and said, “I thought you were reading my mind, man.”
Ray stooped to pick up the popcorn. “When are you going to tell me who this is?”
Roarke glanced at him. “You don’t know?”
“I swear I don’t.”
Roarke fell back into the couch. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Who?”
“It’s crazy. It’s totally insane to think I could get a woman like that. Besides, she’s not who I thought she was.”
“She’s not?”
“I think it’s over,” Roarke said, shaking his head. “I just don’t think we were made for each other.” With a hefty shove, he got himself off the couch and went to the TV, turning it off. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for ultimate fighting, okay? I’m just going to take a nap or something. I’ll see you at work later on.”
Roarke padded down the small hallway of his apartment toward his bedroom. “Push the lock before you close the door,” he said and disappeared.
Ray threw up his hands, though no one was around to see him look utterly confused. Who was Roarke’s dream woman? The one woman he’d almost landed a date with three years ago was right out of college, a strawberry blonde with freckles. After that, Roarke hadn’t seemed interested in anybody else.
Ray listened to see if he might change his mind and come out, but the apartment was silent, so Ray took the popcorn to the kitchen, dumped it in the trash, and left.
Chapter 12
Hugo didn’t really need to get into work early. He couldn’t do anything to salvage last night by arriving early today, but it was a good excuse to get out of bra shopping with his daughter.
Somewhere in some stupid parenting magazine, Jane had read that fathers and daughters can bond by doing things that mothers usually do with their daughters. Over the years, Hugo participated in tea parties, Barbie games, nail-polish fun, and more recently, hair salon trips. But bra shopping was an entirely new level of gender mixing that Hugo was not at all comfortable with.
Not that anybody would ever ask him, but Hugo was a little tired of all the gender mixing he had to do. He couldn’t actually say it out loud. To anybody. But sometimes he longed for the day when women were secretaries and housewives and men were breadwinners and, well, men. It wasn’t that Hugo minded running the sweeper every once in a while or that he minded the idea of a woman boss much. He’d worked for them over the years. It was just that everything seemed to be getting so mixed up.
Jane was hardly home anymore, and though he certainly supported her work endeavors, he sometimes dreamed of a day when she would be waiting for him to come home from work and they could have dinner together. A roast. A homemade apple pie. He wondered what it would be like to dole out fatherly advice to his young daughter rather than paint his toenails to show he adored her. Hugo never thought of himself as a terribly smart man, but he did have good instincts. Something told him that the world might be halfway to right again if he wasn’t forced to take his daughter shopping for bras.
So after his doctor’s appointment, he’d arranged for Kaylin to go to a friend’s house since it was an in-service day for teachers at school, and he’d explained to Jane his need for getting in to work to put out fires. Jane understood. She’d seen the previous night’s broadcast.
But there weren’t any fires to put out. Nothing to do but sit at his desk and hope for the best.
At some point last night Chad had left. When the monumental broadcast had fizzled, Chad was no where to be seen. And the nine-to-six man wasn’t in his office yet today either. Hugo could only imagine he was meeting with the GM to decide who would be the next executive producer.
Hugo glanced up and since he could see that Hayden was about to knock at his door, he waved her in. In one hand she held a cup of coffee; in the other, some papers.
“Here you are, Mr. Talley,” she said in her cheerful voice.
“Is Mr. Arbus in yet?”
“No, not yet. I’ve gathered the information you requested.”
“What did you find out?”
“Well, nothing too definitive. There’s no way to know exactly when Gilda’s face will return to normal—”
“We don’t want normal. We want the capability of serious expression without the furrow.”
Hayden glanced at her notes. “Doesn’t furrow, by definition, mean there’s going to be a crease between the brows?”
“Yes. But it doesn’t have to stay.” Hugo sighed. “So what’s the bottom line?”
“The bottom line is that there’s really no way of knowing how long the paralysis will last. It’s possible that the doctor injected too much Botox and that Gilda will stay that way for several weeks.”
Hugo dropped his head into his hands.
“Also, I have several letters, e-mails, and faxes complaining about the show last night.”
Hugo didn’t look up. “I can only imagine what they say.”
“You don’t have to, sir. I’ll leave them here on your desk to review.”
A foul mood began to simmer inside Hugo. He glanced up at Hayden, who looked as if trouble didn’t exist in the world.
“What else can I do for you, Mr. Talley?” she asked.
“I’d like to discuss one more thing with you. Why don’t you take a seat?”
She sat like she was being invited to have lunch on the terrace. That kind of phrase would strike fear in most people, but Hayden seemed oblivious to Hugo’s tone. Hugo pushed his eyebrows together and lowered his chin to make sure she knew this was serious.
“I want to talk to you about last night. We were in the middle of quite a crisis when I noticed you praying in the back of the control room. Now, I realize that you don’t often see the side of me that you saw last night, but there’s not often a circumstance like we saw last night either. And Ms. Hazard, I won’t lie to you. Your praying made me uncomfortable. I realize that there were certainly many different ways I could’ve conducted myself, but the fact of the matter is that I had to react to the situation, and sometimes there’s no time to stop and think or to formulate a response. Not that I couldn’t have used some divine intervention. I am certainly no atheist, and I happen to have gone to church as a kid. I’m simply saying there seem to be appropriate times for prayer and, more specifically, appropriate days. Like Sundays. Do you understand?”
As he spoke, Hayden looked like she was trying to follow every word he was saying with great interest. When he finished, he sighed and waved her toward the door. She got up and was about to leave, when Hugo said, “Hayden, wait.” He didn’t want her feeling badly. She was a nice person, a rarity these days.
“Yes, Mr. Talley?”
“Look, you’re welcome to pray for me, okay? Just not in public.” Now she looked embarrassed. Great. He’d sufficiently made a complete donkey’s behind of himself.
She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Talley. I wasn’t praying for you. I was praying for them.”
“Them?”
“The people at the sewage plant. I was praying they’d all be okay.”
Hugo offered a terribly awkward smile, one drenched with grievance for the fact that the words “donkey’s behind” did not come close to describing him.
“Right. Of course. Well, um—”
“But I will be very happy to pray for you, Mr. Talley.”
&nb
sp; What kind of beast would he look like now if he declined? He’d had his fill of feeling like the rear ends of animals.
“Thank you,” he said meekly.
She smiled and left.
Hugo could feel the tremors of fear running through his body as the minutes ticked by. The afternoon meeting would be dreadful, at best. He pulled out his desk drawer and stared at his new bottle of Blue Pills. If he took an extra one, he would be short a pill at the end of the month, and who knew what kind of day the thirtieth would be. He slowly closed his drawer and picked up a pen, hovering it over a folder on his desk, secretly hoping that Hayden Hazard was some kind of saint and her prayers for him would be answered.
In the conference room, the afternoon meeting was about to begin. Gilda rarely made an appearance at the meetings. Still, he wanted some assurances that this evening’s broadcast might resemble normalcy. He just wanted to see Gilda frown. That wasn’t asking too much, was it?
Chad Arbus sauntered in, a look of disapproval smeared across a face already crowded with superiority. He eyed everyone as he took his seat and the room grew quiet. Hugo bit his lip and tried to prepare himself. He wanted to come across as a professional. They’d had a bad night. It happens. Of course, in the history of broadcasting it had never happened this bad, but nevertheless, they weren’t going to bounce back if Hugo looked as desperate as he felt.
Hugo called the meeting to order, which seemed a little stupid since everyone was already staring at him. He folded his hands together and stretched a smile across his face.
“All right, everyone. I think we all understand what kind of position we’re in. We’ve got to do better tonight, and we can’t afford any mistakes.” Hugo remembered to breathe. “I believe in everyone in this room. I know what we’re capable of. So it’s time to rise to my highest expectations of you. Let’s ponder what—”