Scoop

  “Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe the more you report it, the more people want it.”

  Ray nodded. He didn’t know which came first, but he did know that one monster fed the other.

  “Anyway,” Ray said, “there doesn’t seem to be a solution on the horizon.”

  She leaned forward. “I can tell this really bothers you.”

  “Well, I have a lot on my mind. I can’t believe Hugo let Jill have that story and put me on the pig story. The pig story is yesterday’s news, and Hugo’s just trying to light a fire on damp wood, you know? If I could get the sewage plant story, I know I could…” Ray couldn’t help but notice those innocent eyes staring back at him. Could she possibly understand office politics? Competition?

  “Do better?” she asked.

  Ray slumped. Okay, she was much savvier than he was giving her credit for.

  “Do I sound arrogant?”

  “Bitter.” Suddenly she reached out and grabbed his arm.

  A strange tingling sensation worked its way up to his scalp, where his hair stood on end. He felt a goofy smile emerge. Maybe he was bitter, but right now he was in heaven.

  Hayden’s expression turned serious. “Let me pray for you.”

  Ray laughed the kind of laugh that comes when you think someone has made a wry joke.

  But Hayden wasn’t laughing. “Ray, you can’t let bitterness grow in you. It has long, tangled roots that you can’t unearth with a simple tug.”

  His smile faded. How’d he go from warm and fuzzy feelings to talk of horticulture? He swallowed and tried to focus. Did she mean she actually wanted to pray for him—now?

  “What’s wrong?” Hayden asked, withdrawing her hand.

  Ray looked down at his now lonely arm and realized he was going to have to do something quick if he was going to keep the chemistry going.

  “Uh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Her arm reached toward him again. “We have to pray for each other, Ray. It’s the only way we can survive in this world. Do you know what I mean?”

  Ray couldn’t help but self-consciously glance at the break-room door. He was a Christian and everything, but praying in the break room? That was kind of over the top. Ray desperately wanted to make a good impression. He also knew there were a number of ways Hayden could interpret even the most sensitive decline.

  “Sure,” he said softly.

  And so he squeezed his eyes shut and prayed on his own—that nobody would walk through that door. He wasn’t embarrassed by his religion. Most everyone at the station knew Ray was a Christian. That was half the reason he longed for the day when he could stand up and report good news—or at least relevant news. But praying in the break room…well, if he didn’t like Hayden so much, he might call her a fanatic. But he did like her. He liked her honesty, her innocence, the way she went through each day like it was her first time to experience life. And when she called him bitter, it wasn’t in a judgmental sense, like his mother used to do. She seemed deeply concerned about his roots’ inability to be unearthed or something like that.

  “Amen.”

  Ray opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself smiling. She was smiling back at him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  And then came the awkward silence, and more than anything, Ray hated awkward silence. Silence on air was deadly. Even two seconds of silence during a broadcast made everyone look bad.

  Ray thought about pretending to sip his coffee, but instead he found himself offering to return the favor, and even as the words came out of his mouth, he tried to draw them back in by finishing with, “But you probably don’t need any prayer.”

  Hayden laughed. It was as gorgeous as laughs came. It was slightly deep but feminine, and as she laughed, her nostrils flared. Adorable. “Ray, how can you say that?”

  Ray was thinking the same thing, and was about to apologize for being a complete moron when she said, “Of course I need prayer. Everyone needs prayer.”

  “Of course,” Ray feebly replied. Now what had he gotten himself into? He was going to have to pray for her? How was he going to do that? And what in the world was he going to pray for? That she’d go out with him?

  Ray looked at her, and she tilted her head to the side as if he was embarrassing himself in some noteworthy way.

  “What, um, what can I pray for you for?” Ray ignored his horrific sentence structure and tried to copy her serene expression.

  “Ray, you’re a Christian. What is the Spirit leading you to pray?”

  Ray wanted to confess that the Spirit had probably fled a while back and he was pretty much on his own, but that wasn’t going to help his cause. And his cause, he realized, was still out there waiting to be conquered. How was he going to turn this hour of power into anything that resembled a pickup line

  Ray bit his lip and decided he might as well reach out and hold her arm, since that was the sort of thing that made her comfortable. She closed her eyes and waited. As hard as Ray was thinking, he couldn’t come up with a thing to say. Maybe he could just move his lips a little and pretend to be praying silently. But he did, after all, have a conscience, and didn’t want to give Sam an edge by opening himself up to being struck by lightning because he pretended to pray for a woman just so he could ask her out.

  Before Ray could decide exactly how he was going to get out of this situation, the door flew open, banging against the wall, and there stood Roarke, gasping, his arms stretched from one side of the door frame to the other. Ray shot up from the table, kicking his chair backward. It slammed against the floor, making a terrible racket. Hayden looked frightened at the sudden commotion.

  Roarke eyed Ray, then Hayden. “Hayden, have you seen Gilda?”

  She stood. “No. What’s wrong?”

  “Hugo can’t find her anywhere. She was supposed to be here an hour ago to tape the teaser for tonight’s broadcast.”

  Ray’s face burned like he’d pressed his cheek up against a heat lamp. He tried to say casually, “Well, she’s not in here.”

  Roarke sighed. “Hugo needs Hayden to track her down.”

  “Sure. Right away.” She rushed out of the break room as Roarke moved aside. He studied Ray with skeptical eyes.

  “What, um, what should I do?” Ray asked.

  “Maybe you should spend some time reviewing the sexual harassment manual.”

  Chapter 14

  Chad’s secretary insisted for the fifth time that he was meeting with the station’s lawyers. She didn’t say about what. But twenty minutes ago Chad had sent word by e-mail that he did not want Ray to interview Petey Green. Chad said that Green claimed the station provoked him. They would probably have a legal battle on their hands.

  But Hugo had far more pressing issues to think about. Gilda had not come in yet, and they were now a full hour behind schedule. She was supposed to tape a teaser for sweeps week, “Five Ways to Escape a Burning or Sinking Car if Your Seatbelt Gets Stuck and There’s Nobody Around with a Knife to Cut You Out.” They were scheduled to start running the teasers that evening. So where was Gilda? In hiding? Was her face still not cooperating?

  Hugo wanted to scream. Really loud. Just scream at the top of his lungs. But everyone was still shocked from last night’s episode, and screaming like that would produce no good results. He tried some deep breathing instead.

  He told himself to think. To get it together. This was simply a problem that needed to be solved, and he could solve it. There was a solution.

  He buzzed Hayden in. When she appeared in the doorway, Hugo said, “Let’s get Julia Richter in here.”

  Julia was the weekend anchor. She was one of the worst anchors Hugo had ever known, and she didn’t seem to be improving since landing the job eight months ago. Their previous weekend anchor quit because her ambitions were to move to prime time, and she could see that Gilda was going nowhere fast. Channel 7 had other reporters who had anchored before, but they were all out on assig
nment for sweeps week. The reporter he would normally call as backup was out of the state following a local Olympic hopeful’s quest to land a spot on the American team. And the late afternoon-early evening anchors both had clauses in their contracts that wouldn’t allow them to work more than five broadcasts a day—at least at their current pay. And since they were on at 4:00,4:30, 5:00,6:00, and 6:30, he had no choice. He had to call Julia.

  Hugo sighed. Everything had been in place to grab sweeps week by the horns, but the horns were doing a good job of impaling the situation.

  He was already second-guessing his decision to use Julia when Hayden said, “I have bad news.”

  Hugo couldn’t get himself to ask.

  “Julia just called in. She slipped on the ice and knocked out her two front teeth.”

  Hugo took each word and analyzed it, yet after careful consideration, nothing made sense. Hayden waited patiently on him, so he took another stab at it, but his brain simply wouldn’t process what she said.

  “Mr. Talley?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  He held up one finger. He wasn’t really sure. Finally he said, “What ice?”

  Hayden shook her head like she didn’t know.

  So Hugo stood, left his office, and walked out the front door of the station. It had rained, apparently, and now the leftover moisture had turned to ice. The temperature seemed to drop in the few seconds Hugo stood there. Then, to his surprise, it began to snow. Hugo turned, walked back inside, and headed for the weather center, a separate studio crammed with expensive computers, a large green screen, maps, and satellite equipment. Somehow, it still had room for Sam’s ego. Hugo found his weatherman doing a crossword puzzle at his desk.

  “Sam, you said today would be cool but clear.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s a three-letter word for pretentious?”

  “Sam, it’s not clear. Looks to be a bad storm coming.”

  “Like I said last night, its going to stay in the northwest corner of the state.”

  Hugo folded his arms. “That’s interesting. Because I just walked outside, and its snowing. Plus there’s ice.”

  Sam laughed. “Hugo, give me a break.” He pointed to the computer. “Look, the temperature right now is thirty-eight degrees, and”—he pointed to another computer—“as you can clearly see on radar, the storm is about fifty miles to our north.”

  “I just saw snow.” Hugo pointed toward the front of the station.

  Sam looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Sam. But it’s snowing outside, and that means employees are going to have a hard time getting to work.”

  “Hugo, there’s no snow. Look!” He gestured to the computer screen again.

  Hugo had not assaulted another human being since the seventh grade, when Albert Wong made fun of his glasses, but he grabbed Sam by the collar and hustled him to the front door. He didn’t take Sam all the way outside, for fear of one of them meeting the same fate as Julia Richter.

  “Snow,” Hugo said plainly and pointed. It was falling heavily now.

  Sam’s face turned red. “I’m going to fire that little jerk.”

  “Who?”

  “Arnie!”

  “Your computer tech?”

  “I’ve been telling him for months there’s a bug in our program!”

  “Well, next time, maybe you can step outside.”

  “Ha ha. Always easy to make fun of the weatherman.”

  “I’m not making fun of you. I’m just saying you might want to look outside next time.”

  Sam glared at him. “So this is my fault?”

  “You’re the meteorologist, Sam. Whose fault would it be?”

  “Look, I’m not wrong here. Our computers malfunctioned. I’m only as capable as my best computer.”

  “I thought you had certain innate instincts about weather. Don’t all weathermen? I hear their secret is to look up.” Hugo pointed to the sky.

  “I know I make weather predicting look easy, but it’s not, Hugo. It happens to be a science, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “What’s so scientific about it? Out of your seven-day forecast, you usually only get two days right.” Hugo wondered why, in the midst of all his problems, he wanted to stand here and make Sam feel small. “If I had known a blizzard was coming, I would’ve paged everyone to come in early. Now what do I do?”

  “Don’t blame me for your problems,” Sam said, throwing up his hands. “I’m not God. I can’t control the weather.” He stomped off.

  Hugo thought, for good mental health, he should stay outside for a few minutes and observe the snow, which on any other day would’ve been gorgeous. He wondered why this kind of snow never fell at Christmas. He’d always wanted a white Christmas, where he could stand by the fire, drink hot cocoa, and watch the snow fall. But it never snowed on Christmas, no matter how many times Sam claimed it would.

  He turned to see Hayden walking toward him. “Mr. Talley, there’s a problem. None of the backup anchors can come in.” By none, Hayden must have meant the only other female anchor available besides Julia, which was Michelle the Shell, nicknamed for exactly what she was. A shell. She looked beautiful but wasn’t capable of thinking on her feet. She was their early morning anchor, and the one time they’d tried her for the tenner, she’d yawned her way through it. She stated simply, “I have a strict seven o’clock bedtime. No exceptions.”

  Hugo thought for a moment. Maybe they could get away with two male anchors tonight. It always looked very awkward, but for Tate’s sake, they had to have somebody sitting next to him.

  “Call Ronny,” Hugo said. Ronny Bode was the male backup anchor they used frequently on the weekends. Ronny had a promising career ahead of him until his hairline started receding seemingly overnight. Within three months, he was half bald and in all the wrong places. His tufts of hair made the strangest patterns, and though he worked hard in cooperation with his hair gel, it was still obvious he was going bald at an alarming rate. Without hair gel, he almost looked like he had mange. Yet despite his hair problems, Ronny was a capable anchor, and his most appealing asset, his dark blue, intense eyes, managed to steer the focus off his hair. “Yes. Call Ronny. And keep trying to get ahold of Gilda.”

  “Calm down,” he said.

  “How can I calm down?” Gilda whispered.

  “If you would just stop to think, you would understand this is what must be done.”

  Gilda shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “How could it all come to this?”

  “Don’t you understand that I’m trying to help you?”

  She glared through the dark room. “You’re trying to help yourself.”

  “I’m trying to help both of us.”

  Gilda wiped her tears and tried to regain her composure.

  “Take it,” he said, and walked toward her, his arm outstretched, holding an overstuffed white envelope.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me his name? You knew and didn’t tell me.”

  “Because, Gilda, you wanted answers. I wanted to keep everything afloat. And at the time, it just wasn’t a story that was going to keep us from sinking.”

  “But it had the potential to be an important story!”

  “You had all the information I had. You didn’t find his name. What can I say? You should stick to anchoring.”

  “Do you know how many years I’ve worked in this business?” Gilda asked, refusing to reach for the envelope. “Do you know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am?”

  “Nobody is disputing that. You have a chance to make things right.”

  “I didn’t make anything wrong! You did!”

  “Gilda, it’s just an unfortunate circumstance. It’s nobody’s fault. Unless you want to blame God. I suppose he has some responsibility in the matter.” He shoved the envelope into her hand. “There’s no other way. I’m done with this conversation.”

  “You’ll pay for this!” Gilda yelled at him.

  He tur
ned, his eyes fierce. “As far as I can tell, Gilda, I already have.”

  Ray sat at the police station, flipping through a few notes he jotted down. Beaker was setting up the camera for an interview with Captain Wynn. Ray told Beaker that he needed some time to figure out how he wanted the interview to go.

  But in reality, he just had to get out of there. Even Beaker, who normally was oblivious to anybody’s troubles but his own, noticed Ray was out of sorts. Ray said he would be back in about ten minutes, when the captain was ready for his interview.

  In the hallway near the bathrooms, Ray tried to gain his composure. He couldn’t remember feeling so frustrated. He tried telling himself this wasn’t the end of the world, but it definitely felt like the end of his career. It was as if Hugo had lost confidence in him, yet everything that had happened was completely out of his control.

  Ray told himself to do his best on this story. There was a day when this business was a thrill, and every story marked a new and exciting adventure. What had changed? All he wanted now was to move ahead, to be the best, to take another step up the career ladder.

  To make matters worse, he still hadn’t asked Hayden out. He kept wondering what it was about her that made it so important. The truth was she made him feel uncomfortable. So what kept drawing him back to her

  “Ray?”

  Ray looked up to find Tanya Secrist standing above him. He stood. “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Ray pitched a thumb toward the captain’s office. “Interviewing Wynn about the Green incident.”

  She noticed his forehead. “I saw that on the news. Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  She looked around then said, “I need to talk to you.” She steered him around a corner to a long hallway, which led, as far as Ray remembered, to the mechanical room and some janitor closets. Tanya had been Ray’s source at the police department for two years. They’d dated briefly and broken up somewhat amicably, but Tanya still enjoyed leaking information to Ray now and then. He thought it was sort of a power-play thing, but nevertheless, it was how he got some of his best information. “It’s about the sewage plant.”