Channel 20 Something (27 page)

But even more amazing than her breathtaking betrayal of Aric was the implication of what she’d said.
Nothing happened
? My heart leapt with a kind of joy I hadn’t felt since the first time Aric told me he loved me. Okay, yes, my joy at that time had been beaten up and thrown into a gutter by panic, but there
had
been joy. I could admit it now.

Aric shook his head and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest in a way that said
Go ahead and fire me, I don’t really care about anything anymore.
He did dart his eyes over at me, almost imperceptibly fast. The first time he’d looked at me since arriving.

Well, I wouldn’t let Aric go down alone. If he got busted for fraternizing, I was going to bear the consequences with him.

I started to speak up, but Mr. Aubrey’s loud voice boomed through the room again. “Miss Burdick?” he said, staring at Colleen. “I was not referring to you. You may sit down, young lady. And that skirt is too short. Immediately after this meeting, you will go home and change.”

“Yes sir.” She meekly took her seat and cast a guilty look toward Aric, who ignored her.

Nothing happened!
The joy was now doing spontaneous rapid cell division in my chest, in spite of the likelihood my name would be the one he called. Good thing I had a possible new job lined up.

“I was speaking of our illustrious and libertine sports anchor… Dennis here,” Mr. Aubrey continued, “and one of our rookie reporters… Mara Neely. That is your name, isn’t it, young lady?”

It was my turn to stare wide-eyed at her. She gave me a quick shrug and mouthed the word “himbo” at me. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I had to suppress a giggle. Of course she hadn’t been able to resist an air-brained, good-looking former jock like Dennis. He was like an open bottle of Oxycontin to an addict.

Mara stood to face the charges, and the levity drained right out of the moment. She looked stressed—I guessed the severity of it was just now hitting her.

Dennis stayed seated and wore his usual above-the-law smirk of unconcern. “Sir…” he addressed Mr. Aubrey.

The old man cut him off. “Rules,” he roared. “You knew the rules when you took the job, people. And I will not tolerate my rules being flouted under my nose any longer. Please go clean out your desks. You.” He pointed at Dennis, who literally recoiled in shock. “And you.” He pointed at Mara then hooked his thumb toward the door. They both froze as if not quite believing what was happening.

I certainly couldn’t believe it. This was crazy. Dennis was wildly popular with viewers and had been there for years. Mara was our best reporter. And my best friend. And she was being fired? For something generations of employees here had probably done? For something I myself had done. I had to do something.

I slowly rose from my chair, raising one hand. “And me.”

“What?” Mr. Aubrey’s face was a blend of annoyance and bewilderment as he stared at me.

“I’m… a fraternizer.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Aric stand to join me. “I’m also a fraternizer.” His deep voice filled the room. And my heart.

On my other side, Ce Ce and Brad stood and clasped hands. “We’re fraternizers, too,” she confessed.

Brad grinned at her and nodded. “We sure are.”

I hadn’t even realized they were dating. I couldn’t stop a smile from bursting across my face. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stop from laughing out loud.

Allison jumped up. “I
wanted
to fraternize, but Doug wasn’t interested, I guess.”

“You
did
?” Doug’s face was a picture of shock and wonderment.

The atmosphere in Janet’s office was transforming from horrified stillness to a growing sense of hilarity. I heard a few giggles from behind me. There were seven of us standing now, not counting Mr. Aubrey. If we all went and cleared out our desks, he was going to have a hell of a time putting on a newscast tonight.

Behind Mr. Aubrey, Janet rose from her desk chair and said very soberly, “Mr. Aubrey, I must inform you that I, too, am a fraternizer. This may come as a shock to you, but your main male anchor, Dan Patterson, and I have been engaging in sexual relations for the past twenty-five years. As that is so clearly contrary to station policy, I’d like to offer my resignation.”

Now the room did roar with laughter. Not Mr. Aubrey’s laughter, of course, but as with every other crazy thing about this station, the rest of us were all in it together. Would we be fired for it? With Mr. Aubrey’s reputation, who knew? It was a very real possibility he’d kick us all out, padlock the door and let the station go dark.

Well, he
had
kicked us out of Janet’s office, but after speaking privately with her for a half hour, he must have decided there were some things that eclipsed the rules. Like a second bout with breast cancer. And advertising dollars.

After Mr. Aubrey left, Janet gave us our assignments, directing Aric and me to work together as we’d done so often. He went very still for a second after she said it, but then nodded and carried on with getting his things together for the shoot.

An electric excitement filled me as we walked to the news car, him a few steps ahead of me and very purposefully not slowing down. Here was my chance at last to explain to Aric what had happened on Friday night. And to apologize. For that night and for all of my hard-shelled resistance of him over the past few months. And to finally admit how I really felt about him. I only hoped he’d listen to me.

“So… we need to talk—” I began once the car was in motion.

Aric held up a palm. His voice was raspy and dark. “Heidi. Let’s not. Okay? Let’s…” He blew out a long breath. “Let’s just work.”

“But—” I tried again.

“No. There’s nothing you could possibly say about it that I’m in the mood to hear.”

So, obviously I’d have to come up with some creative way to get him to listen to me on the subject of us. In the meantime, I tried to fill the frosty silence in the car with more benign topics.

“How was your visit with your dad?”

He sighed deeply but then deigned to answer. In a monotone. “It was fine. The usual.”

“Oh.” When he didn’t elaborate, I prodded a little. “What did y’all do?”

Aric’s tone was sour and exhausted-sounding. “He slept and watched sports most of the day, then at night he wanted me to take him out to troll for Southern ‘hotties’ at the local bars. It’s his favorite activity on those rare
special
occasions when we get together. He figured out when I was seventeen that I might finally be useful to him… at least as far as picking up young women.” He wore a black look.

“Useful? You mean… as bait?”

His lips formed a bitter grin. He had yet to look at me, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of us. “Something like that.”

Wow. I suddenly felt a need to apologize for all the complaining I’d done about my own dad. He was controlling, yes, but he’d never tried to use me for his own benefit. It also hit me again that Aric might have some serious abandonment issues from his childhood. And my running off with Hale and “getting engaged” had probably triggered fears in him that he had a hard time dealing with. I’d be lucky if he’d
ever
listen to me or even agree to work with me again.

He didn’t offer any further information on his visit with Peter, and I didn’t ask any more questions. My mind went back to the problem at hand—how to explain something to someone who wasn’t interested in explanations. Aric hadn’t let my constant “no’s” stop him when we’d first met, and I wasn’t going to let his stop me.

As we pulled up to the location of our shoot, I realized the perfect opportunity was about to present itself. I smiled to myself, which Aric must have noticed from the corner of his eye, because he turned to me with a disgusted sigh.

“Do you have to look so happy?”

“Sorry,” I said. And that was
all
I said until we reached our destination and Aric had set up the camera on a tripod.

“Do you mind if I knock out my stand-up first? I wrote something in the car.”

“Sure. Whatever,” he said.

I clipped on the microphone, and when Aric indicated he was rolling, I looked into the camera lens and started my countdown as usual. “Three, two, one… It was a case of crossed wires and miscommunication. A girl in love with a guy… accidentally getting engaged to another guy… for about five minutes. Would an apology fix things, or had too much damage been done? We’ll continue to follow this developing story for you and bring you the latest tonight at ten.”

Aric’s head lifted from the viewfinder as the meaning of my words apparently hit him. He wore a look of disbelief as I continued my stand-up. Now I looked directly at his beautiful, confused face instead of at the camera lens.

“Aric… I’m so, so sorry for the way I’ve kept you at a distance, and fought my feelings for you, and hurt you. I realize you sent my reel to Nashville because you want the best for me and because you believe in me. Because you don’t want me to have any regrets. You want me to follow my dreams even if it means sacrificing time with me.” I took a step toward him. “I love you. I think you knew it long before I was ready to admit it. I love you, and I don’t want anyone but you. And if you’ll still have me, I’m asking you to give me another chance to be what I want to be more than anything else… your girlfriend.”

Aric stayed motionless beside the camera, its red record light still on.

My heart thudded painfully. Was it too late? Had I hurt him too deeply?

Suddenly he was in motion, moving toward me. He grabbed my left hand and inspected my bare ring finger. With a hoarse sound he swept me up in a bone-crushing, soul-launching embrace and kissed me in a way that would push our newscast to at least a PG-13 rating if it were ever to make air.

Which it didn’t. Some of the most important stories in life are meant to be seen by only two people.

“And that’s all the time we have today. Thanks for joining us for the News at Noon. I’m Heidi Haynes. We’ll see you tonight on Nashville News Two starting at five o’clock. Have a great day.”

After the newscast’s closing music, I gathered my scripts and left the set. It had been a great show with no trace of nausea before, during, or after. I’d left that little issue behind in Mississippi, along with so many other things.

“Hey Heidi—good show.” Chris, one of the studio cameramen, slipped off his headset and gave me a high five.

“Thanks, Chris. You, too.”

When I got back to the newsroom, Kathy, the five p.m. producer, intercepted me. “Ken wants to see you in his office as soon as you get a chance.”

It was amazing how quickly I’d grown accustomed to these new faces. The job was pretty much the same, though the studio and newsroom were much nicer and the staff was three times as large as the staff at WPLM. I’d only been here for five months, but I knew my anchoring and reporting had already improved—enough couldn’t be said for the influence of working with people who were so much better than you. And all my fears of moving to a big city and working in a big market had proved unfounded. I loved it all—the city, my new co-workers, the job.

The only thing missing in my life were the people I loved. I talked to my family often. They’d given me a lovely send-off after the final performance of
The Sound of Music
. Our house was full of nuns, and children wearing smocks, and friends, and family, and love.

Kenley and I had plans to meet soon in Chattanooga, halfway between Atlanta and Nashville, for a girls’ weekend. Apparently there was some trouble in paradise for her and Mark. Their wedding date was only weeks away, but she was acting awfully strange.

And Mara had accepted a reporting job in Providence, Rhode Island, where she’d grown up. It was the one place she’d always sworn she’d never work, but it was also a news market full of government corruption, severe weather, and apparently a wealth of Irish and Italian himbos. Also, there was some sort of crisis with her mom that played a part in her decision. Whatever reason she’d decided to take the job there, Mara seemed to be in her glory. She was working on a story now that she called a “game changer.”

Aric and I were long-distance dating. God bless the inventor of Facetime. We each made the drive twice a month, meaning we saw each other once a week. It was grueling but worth it. Some Aric was better than no Aric at all. And we had hope—his one-year contract was nearing its end. We
would
eventually end up in the same market somehow.

I knocked lightly on the open door of my news director’s office. “Hi Ken. You wanted to see me?”

He spun his desk chair around. “Heidi—hi, yes, come on in. Nice noon show.”

“Thanks.” I crossed the room and took a seat in front of his desk. Paused on the monitor behind him was a sports reel. Our main sportscaster had accepted a job with ESPN, and the search was on for his replacement. Naturally I’d picked up the phone and called Aric the minute I heard about the opening.

“I’ve got a reel here from a guy who works in that little market you left in Mississippi. Might even have been the same station.” My boss clicked his mouse and the video started up again. There, in living color, was my beautiful boyfriend. “Aric Serrano. Talented kid. Know him?”

I grinned a secret smile. “Yes. We worked together.”

“Well, after looking at his reel, I’d put him on my short list, but since you worked in the same market, I wanted to ask you what you thought.”

“What do I think?” I paused, trying to contain the hope bubbling through my veins like champagne. I looked at my boss, giving him a confident smile. “I think you should hire him.”

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