“I’m going to have to tell Mr. Talley.” He rushed off. Ray just stood there, almost feeling paralyzed. Then he heard something. It sounded like an animal dying.
He turned, trying to identify the sound’s location. He stood very still, and then he heard it again. It was right next to him. He looked…and it was coming from the women’s room.
Without thinking of the potential embarrassing fallout, Ray pushed open the door and rushed in. Under the third stall’s door he could see two feet, obviously belonging to a man.
“Sam?”
A moan answered.
Ray pushed open the door and found Sam in the stall, leaning against one of the walls, holding his stomach and looking pasty, his chin shiny with drool.
“Sam? Are you okay?”
Sam shook his head, hardly able to open his eyes.
Ray grabbed his shoulders. “Sam, you’re on in eight minutes!”
Sam opened his eyes. “I am?”
“Yes!”
“I thought I had more time…” He groaned.
“Sam, you’ve got to snap out of it.”
“No, I’m fine,” he said, waving his hand and attempting to smile. “I just need a little more time.”
“You don’t have time!” Ray said. “You’ve got to get your mike on, and…” He watched as Sam nodded and then closed his eyes like he was going to fall asleep standing up. “Stay here!”
Ray rushed out of the bathroom and around the corner to the supply closet. He grabbed the first-aid kit and headed back for the bathroom. He saw Hugo emerging from the control room, looking shocked as the assistant director was trying to explain the problem.
Ray nearly plowed down the door as he went back in. Tearing into the box, he found the smelling salts. He cracked a package open and went back to Sam, shoving his hand under Sam’s nose.
“Oh!” Sam shrieked, his eyes flying open. But Ray put an arm against Sam’s chest, holding him against the stall wall as he pushed the smelling salts under his nose again. Sam struggled. His face lit up as if he were being electrocuted. Coherent enough to know he was being held against the wall, Sam fought off Ray’s arms. Ray backed out of the stall and watched Sam shake his head. “Ah!” Sam complained.
“Sam, look at me,” Ray demanded.
Sam blinked, then turned to Ray. “What?”
“You’re on in six minutes. I’m on in about four minutes. We have to go.” Sam’s eyes widened. The panicked look on Sam’s face was a good thing.
Sam tore out of the stall and toward the bathroom door. Ray followed. As they rounded the corner out of the bathroom, they ran into Hugo.
“What are you two doing?” Hugo shouted. His face looked like a giant red blister. It seemed apparent that Hugo noticed the men had been in the women’s room.
“Sam was sick,” Ray said. “But he’s going to make it through the broadcast. Aren’t you, Sam?”
Hugo looked at Sam, who nodded. “I gotta get my…my thingy on…” Sam ran past Hugo. Hugo turned to watch him, then looked at Ray.
“Me too,” Ray said, and hurried toward the spot in the newsroom they’d chosen for his backdrop. Ray ran the microphone up his shirt, clipped it on, and positioned himself to look casual as he leaned against the desk.
He’d been dreading this all day. His only option was to put together a touchy-feely piece, and now he was going to have to sit here and do a serious pitch for it. Viewers would love it, there was no doubt about that. They couldn’t resist blow-by-blow accounts. But inside, Ray felt more disappointment than he could describe because, deep in his gut, he knew he didn’t have the whole story.
They came out of commercial, and Ray could see Hayden at the news desk. “Tonight, sad news from the northeast side of town. A baby has been found dead…” Ray watched as Hayden paused and looked down at her notes. Tate looked like he didn’t know what to do. Hayden looked back up at the camera. “Boy, this is a tough one.” Her voice sounded like she might start crying. “A baby was found dead near the railroad tracks, and police believe the mother gave birth and then abandoned the baby, who…perished from exposure.” Hayden looked down again then back up at the camera. Her eyes were shiny with tears. “It just seems like a hopeless time, doesn’t it?” she asked. Tate looked like he didn’t know whether or not to answer. Hayden smiled into the camera suddenly. “But it’s not. There is good. And it will overcome.” She looked at Tate, whose wide eyes managed to read the TelePrompTer.
“And now to our own Ray Duffey, who is recovering from quite an incident two days ago.”
The red light on top of his camera came on, and it took everything in Ray to calm himself enough to look natural in front of the camera. He shoved thoughts of Sam, Hayden, and even his corny report out of his mind and drew upon his years of experience to get him through.
“It all started with a report on a backyard pigsty…”
Hugo’s blue shirt collar was soaked with sweat as he stood next to Willis, studying the monitor that held Sam’s image. The weatherman was standing by for his segment and…swaying?
“Is he going to pass out?” Hugo asked no one in particular. He grabbed the mike. “Sam, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sam answered, smiling with his eyes closed.
“You’re on in thirty seconds. Are you going to be all right? We can go to commercial if we need to.”
Sam didn’t open his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t look fine. He looked as pale as Gilda without her makeup.
Ray’s piece was wrapping up, and on any ordinary day Hugo might’ve been concerned with it. It was pretty much Ray’s retelling of the story everyone already knew from the night before, with added commentary about his feelings. It would pass, but Ray wasn’t usually one to just pass. Anyway, Hugo had bigger problems this evening.
“Cut to camera two,” Willis said, and the two anchors came up.
“Well,” Tate said, practically chewing his way through his own overdone charm, “the snow sure took us by surprise.”
Hayden added, “Sam, Mother Nature sure can be unpredictable, can’t she?”
“Cut to camera three,” Willis said, and Sam’s pale mug filled the screen.
Sam looked angry. Very angry. Quite a contrast to Tate and Hayden’s lighthearted banter. Was Sam taking Hayden’s comment about the weather being unpredictable personally? Everyone stared at Sam as he tried to squeeze out a smile. It finally popped through, accompanied by quite a flush in his cheeks. Now he looked embarrassed. Or allergic.
“Well,” Sam began, “she certainly can.” He chuckled halfheartedly. “Even with all this fancy equipment back here, God can do whatever he wants and he does. I am, after all, a mere mortal.” He gestured toward himself and smiled.
Hugo’s eyebrows popped up. “Get ready to cut to commercial when I tell you to,” he said to Willis.
“I’m the director,” Willis complained.
Hugo glared at him. “This isn’t about who is in charge, in case you haven’t noticed!”
But as they both looked back to the screen, Sam managed to get into the actual weather part of his segment, discussing the snow totals for the state. He was talking very slowly, however, and Hugo was afraid he was going to run too long.
But before they knew it, Sam had left out the day’s high temperatures and the night’s lows and made his way to the anchor’s desk to finish up with the seven-day forecast. It worked out well since they were falling behind on time, and Sam managed to get through only three of the seven days.
“Cut to camera two,” Willis said, and a wide shot came up with Sam grinning at Tate and Hayden like they were a pile of money.
“Thanks, Sam,” Tate said, trying to maintain his own smile in the awkward situation. “Sounds like we have a cold week in store.”
Sam nodded and shifted his eyes to Hayden. “You look hot.”
Everyone in the control room froze. “Did he just say she looks hot?” Willis whispered.
Hugo couldn’t a
nswer, because he was too worried about getting his heart to restart.
“I am,” Hayden said pleasantly. “It’s really stuffy in here. But sounds like all I need to do is step outside to cool off!” She engaged the camera with a wide smile then turned to camera three. “Stay with us. Sports is next.”
“Go to commercial,” Willis wheezed, throwing his head down on his desk.
Hugo was no longer feeling hot or anxious or worried. He was completely numb.
The control-room door flew open suddenly, causing everyone to jump. Roarke walked in, his eyes wide. “The phones are ringing off the hook, and our Web site is getting over a hundred hits a minute.”
Hugo’s heart sank.
Then Roarke added, “Hayden is a hit!”
Chapter 20
It was almost eleven o’clock, and Ray couldn’t remember feeling more exhausted. But thankfully, the week was over. He thought he might go home and try to get comatose. Watch ESPN for twenty-four hours straight. Maybe there would be a good celebrity poker tournament on. Or a Jack Hanna animal special. Something—anything—to get his mind off everything.
He walked out the back door of the station and was surprised to find Hayden standing against the wall in the exact place he’d seen her earlier in the day when he’d managed to thoroughly embarrass himself.
“Hayden,” he said, and she looked up. “You were amazing tonight. Well done.”
“Thanks, Ray. You really think so?”
“Haven’t you heard? E-mails are pouring in! People loved you.”
She laughed. “Well, they don’t know me yet.”
Self-deprecating humor? He didn’t realize she had it in her. “I can’t believe how well you were able to pull that off, never having done it before.”
“I pictured my mom. Every time I looked in the camera, I pretended I was talking to my mom. It put me at ease.”
“The way you handled Sam’s asinine comment was…it was great.” It occurred to Ray suddenly that perhaps Hayden wasn’t aware of the meaning behind Sam’s comment. She was, after all, more than a little naive. Ray was about to back-pedal, but Hayden’s smile indicated she was fully aware.
“Sam didn’t seem himself tonight,” she said.
That’s an understatement.
“But I think Sam’s a nice fellow. I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his viewers.”
Ray pressed his lips together because now, more than anything, he wanted to explain what kind of man Sam was—a man who moments before the newscast had been hanging over the toilet in the bathroom, and not because the flu was going around.
But something about Hayden made Ray want to rise above all of that. He realized in an instant that it wasn’t that Hayden didn’t know things. She was fully aware of what Sam had said on air. But she took the higher road. She put her own selfish needs aside, even to the point of not defending herself against his actions. She’d had every right to put Sam in his place tonight, but instead she made them both look good.
So Ray had a dirty little secret about Sam. He realized he had the same choice Hayden had. He could share the story of how he managed to get Sam on the air and make himself look good. Or he could follow Hayden’s lead and keep his mouth shut.
“Well,” Ray said, buttoning up his coat, “I hope you have a good weekend.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Ray walked toward the parking lot, spotting his snow-laden car near the exit. But with each step, a hunch turned into a suspicion, and the suspicion turned into a well-developed thought.
Sam had lied. Of course he had lied. It didn’t make sense. First of all, Ray had never even seen Trent and Hayden say anything more than hello to one another. Second, he was pretty certain Hayden was not the kind of woman who would ask a guy out. He wasn’t even sure if she would kiss before marriage, so it was hard to imagine her as an aggressive woman.
Ray turned around, and there she stood, under the dim light, leaning against the wall. He wondered why she liked to do that so much. It wasn’t like she was coming out for a smoke. Maybe she was really coming out here to cool down because it was stuffy inside.
As if his feet were acting on their own, Ray headed back toward Hayden; she didn’t seem to notice him until he was right up on her.
“Hi.”
“Did you forget something?”
“No, um, listen. I just wanted to clear something up.”
“What?”
“About this weekend…”
“Yes?”
“I know you said you were busy, and I totally respect that. But I just…” Ray couldn’t believe his audacity. How desperate was he? “Look, Sam told me you were going out with Trent. Trent’s nice and everything, but…are you really going out with Trent?”
Hayden laughed, studying him through jovial eyes. Then she shook her head. “You are persistent, aren’t you? Maybe that’s what makes you such a good reporter.”
Ray smiled back. Maybe. He still wanted to know the scoop on Trent.
For the first time since he’d known her, Hayden looked coy. There was a flirtatious expression begging to emerge, but she seemed to keep it well restrained. “Why don’t you join us?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you busy tomorrow at six?”
“Busy? Uh, no…but…” Ray couldn’t stop the suspicious eyebrow that popped up. Maybe he didn’t know Hayden as well as he thought he did. “So you are going to be with Trent?”
“Meet us at Hattie’s Seafood Grill. Six o’clock.” She looked at him. “What, now you’re bashful? Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“No…no, it’s not that. It’s just…I’m not sure…”
“It’s at Yale and Second.”
“Oh. Right. Yale and Second.” He tried to smile. “That clears things up.”
“I better get back inside and get my coat. I’m really exhausted.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Sure.” He opened the station door for her and then headed back to his car. What had he gotten himself into?
Sitting across from one another at a fast-food restaurant the next day, Roarke and Ray each prepared their tacos and bean burritos. It was barely eleven. Ray had just finished telling his story about his most recent mysterious encounter with Hayden.
“Well, you know what they say,” Roarke said. “You can’t make people love you, but you can stalk them until they give in.”
“I’m not stalking her.” Ray said.
“Dude, she turned you down and you went back.” Roarke made a face that indicated disgust.
“I didn’t go back to ask her out. I went back to clear things up.”
“Yeah, and they’re real clear now, aren’t they?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know the rules, of dating, you know?”
Roarke laughed. “Everybody knows the rules of dating. At least the basic ones.”
“I don’t know. She was homeschooled. I learned the rules by trial and error and a lot of observation. If she was sheltered, maybe she just doesn’t know.” Ray sighed, shoving his taco to the side. “I don’t want to go on a date with Trent and Hayden. How humiliating.”
“That would be awkward,” Roarke agreed, “The very definition of ‘the third wheel.’”
“If I’m going to be a wheel, then I’m going to be a steering wheel.”
Roarke laughed. “Good one, man.”
Ray watched Roarke doctor his burrito. “So I guess Gilda never read your note?”
“I took it out of her dressing room. I can’t stop wondering if something bad has happened to her.”
“I think she just got embarrassed about the Botox thing.”
“But why? She chose to do it. So it was a little extreme. The Gilda I know is able to handle anything.”
“How, um, well do you know her? I mean, she doesn’t even know you have feelings for her.”
“Look, you don’t have to spend romantic dinners together to know a person. I’ve worked wit
h Gilda. I know things about her, things other people don’t know because they don’t carefully observe her like I do.”
“She’s not a zoo animal.”
“You know what I mean. Besides, I don’t think you have a lot of room to talk. So far, you’ve managed to get yourself into quite the predicament.”
“True,” Ray sighed. “You’ve fallen for a vanishing act.”
“And you’ve fallen for a religious fanatic.”
“And they say there aren’t any good women out there anymore,” Ray said, smiling.
“Well, at least there’s fast food.”
Hugo hadn’t felt this motivated in years, and he could hardly contain himself in the kitchen. He’d whipped up scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, and even opened a package of sticky buns.
He’d yet to see his wife and daughter, as they’d been out at some football game and came home after he went to bed. But he was certain that the aroma of his late-morning creation would rouse them.
When it didn’t, he clanged some pots and pans together until they finally came shuffling in.
“What’s with you?” Jane asked, pulling her bathrobe closed like she thought they might be expecting company.
“Gross, Dad. Bacon? Do you know what’s in that?”
Hugo hustled them to the table. “Come on, its getting cold.”
Jane’s eyes grew wide. “Is it our anniversary?”
“No,” Hugo said, eyeing her. “That’s four months away, unless someone changed the date and didn’t tell me.”
Jane looked relieved as she served herself some eggs. “Then what’s the occasion?”
“I’m just in a good mood,” he said, a little song in his voice. Kaylin and Jane exchanged glances.
“Why?” Kaylin asked.
Hugo joined them at the table. “I had a great night at work.”
“We missed it, honey. We were out at the game.”
“I know. But it was the most extraordinary thing. I can hardly describe it.”
“Did Gilda’s face go back to normal?” Kaylin said. “Everyone was talking about that at school.”
Hugo tried not to let that dampen his mood, though he’d secretly hoped that nobody had noticed.