Stay Tuned
Authors: Lauren Clark
Stay Tuned
Lauren Clark
Stay Tuned
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2011 Lauren Clark
All Rights Reserved .This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Stay Tuned
Lauren Clark
Copyright 2011 Lauren Clark
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2011 by Lauren Clark
Library of Congress Control No:
2011941044
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information contact:
Monterey Press LLC
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Mobile, AL 36604
Table of Contents
Alyssa Andrews was missing.
Gone, vanished, MIA with just minutes to airtime.
“Melissa, where is she?” Our news director, Joe, shot a harried look in my direction. After dealing with a broken studio camera, spotty satellite reception, and last-minute script changes, his nerves were fried to a crisp.
“She’ll be here,” I promised, knowing my confidence was a front. Alyssa, one of WSGA-TV’s main news anchors, was a constant source of angst in my already-stressful job.
She was young, talented, gorgeous…and chronically late.
This lack of punctuality was a problem, especially when WSGA ran a show at exactly six and ten o’clock every night. Not a moment later.
WSGA was Macon, Georgia’s number one news station and had been for two years running. If we wanted to keep it that way, timing was everything. Every second mattered.
I produced both evening shows, which meant—among a dozen other tasks—organizing the day’s stories, writing copy, and checking video. Each segment had to run seamlessly between three-minute commercial breaks.
Deep breath, Melissa. Send up a little prayer. She’ll show up.
The red numbers on the clock continued to march forward.
Another deep breath. Everything’s in place. Alyssa just needs to walk in and get on set…
“Tighten up on camera one.” Joe peppered the room with demands. “Mic check, now, not yesterday.”
Tim Donaldson, Alyssa’s co-anchor, obliged, counting backwards from the number five.
Joe’s thick fingers punched buttons on the massive keyboard in front of him. “Bring up the live shot.”
Still, no Alyssa.
Joe raked a huge hand through his long gray hair. “Five minutes!” he growled, with a glare into his empty coffee cup.
At this point, it was Joe’s show to run. He was in charge. I shuffled my scripts. “How about I call her?”
“She’s an adult,” he grumbled. “You shouldn’t have to.”
Joe expected nothing less than perfection. He was experienced, hard working, and a stickler for detail. Alyssa’s nonchalance made him crazy.
Which, at 9:55:36 on a Friday night, gave him the patience of a gnat. On crack.
This was particularly dangerous for an unsuspecting new employee, all of twenty years old and pimple-faced, who crept up behind us.
Joe ignored him at first, barking an order to me instead. “Fine, fine. Melissa, tell Princess A. she’s needed in the studio.”
On autopilot, I punched her extension, eyes focused on the row of monitors above my head in case she decided to appear.
While the phone rang, the new kid rocked on his heels nervously. I flashed a smile and shook my head gently in his direction, hoping he’d get the hint.
Not now.
Nope. The kid stood there, coughed lightly, and waited for one of us to turn around.
“What?”
Joe finally snapped.
The force of the word made the kid’s body jerk back. Jaw open, unable to speak, his face turned crimson.
Joe waited about a second for the kid to talk, and then leaned back over the control panel. He pressed at switches, clearly annoyed. The kid looked sick. Joe rolled his eyes. My anxiety level cranked up ten notches.
9:58:09. Less than two minutes.
Wait…a flash of an ivory suit and blond hair.
“There she is,” I interrupted the tension with a cool nod toward the monitors.
Front and center, Alyssa sauntered into the studio, lips puckered, blowing her shell-pink nail polish dry. She slid into her seat next to Tim, and gave him a playful pat on the shoulder.
Joe muttered something I couldn’t repeat.
I stifled a loud sigh of relief and glanced around the room. The new guy was the only one in the building unimpressed with Alyssa’s arrival. With a shaking hand, he reached out and tapped Joe’s burly shoulder.
“Mr. Joe, there’s a problem with one of the machines—”
Joe’s back stiffened. He turned a millimeter in the kid’s direction and exploded. “Get your butt back there. Get one of the engineers. Fix it. Call someone.”
I caught the now-completely mortified kid’s eye, and motioned for him to come toward me. Grabbing the nearest piece of paper, I jotted down the engineer’s extension and held it at arm’s length with a kind smile. Poor guy. Lots to learn.
With a grateful look, the new kid plucked the scrap from my fingers and darted away.
Time to get started.
I settled in, gripped my pen hard, and looked up.
Okay. Alyssa’s collar was turned under. Minor detail, but sure to garner at least five viewer complaints. You wouldn’t believe what people called in about.
I leaned toward the microphone to let Alyssa know.
“Dare you not to tell her,” Joe muttered. It wasn’t a secret that the guys would willingly let Alyssa go on air with underwear on her head. She hadn’t made friends. Or tried to.
Tim, her co-anchor and current boyfriend, didn’t count.
“Just part of those darn producer duties, Joe. You know that.” I flashed him a smile and pressed the button to talk. “Alyssa, fix your collar.”
Her mouth parted into an O. Alyssa frowned, glanced down, and straightened the pale edge. Just in time.
Like a well-directed movie, the WSGA-TV opening video flashed across monitor one. Macon, Georgia’s skyline filled the screen.
My body tingled with a familiar rush of excitement. It happened every time we went on air. The cameras and lights, the beat of the music, the thrill of live television.
Here we go.
Seconds later, Alyssa and Tim appeared under the lights, their bright anchor smiles pasted on.
“Good evening, I’m Alyssa Andrews.
“And I’m Tim Donaldson.”
And on it went, without a blip, for the first ten minutes. I started breathing again after the third break.
Stanley and Sunshine, the weather cat, were ready for the five-day forecast, check.
Commercial break, check.
Sports, check. I didn’t worry about that three-minute slot. Plenty to talk about, visual stories; the anchors could get away with jokes and ad-libbing. Viewers loved it.
We rounded out the show with an inspirational kicker about a local scholarship winner, a kid first in his family to go to college. He’d won forty thousand dollars and was going to Georgia Tech to study astrophysics.
The show wrapped with a standard goodnight, credits, and a wide shot of the WSGA set.
The second the master control operator switched to break, Alyssa flounced off the set in silicone fashion. She barked into her jewel-encrusted cell phone about her min-pin puppy’s cancelled spa appointment and stomped out of the studio, teetering precariously in four-inch heels.
Yikes!
I climbed the flight of stairs back to the newsroom, relieved the night was almost over.
The phones started to ring five seconds later.
“It’s Drew and it’s urgent,” Tim yelled, gesturing for everyone to crowd around him. “Now, folks!”
On cue, our enormous newsroom copier whirred to life, cranking out faxed press releases. Over the scanner, a police dispatcher announced codes and locations. I cranked down the volume and hit
pause
on the document feeder.
Above the din, Tim shouted for everyone to quiet down.
By then, most of the staff had wandered over, waiting for the announcement. I glanced around the room for Alyssa, who apparently wasn’t coming back. No big surprise. Less drama was okay by me.
Tim held a finger to his lips and punched speakerphone. The gravelly voice of our news director crackled through the connection. “You know, only something
huge
would drag me away from bikinis and Rum punch.”
“Yeah, right,” Tim cut in. “You’ve had Fox News on the whole time, boss.”
Drew’s guffaw shook through the newsroom. “Man, at least I’ve got a view of the beach while I’m watching
60 Minutes
and the BBC.”
The newsroom staff broke into laughter.
“So,” Drew continued, waiting until the noise died down, “Not that any of you want to go home on a Friday night, but I felt compelled to interrupt all the fun and excitement.” He cleared his throat. “Congratulations are in order from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The Broadcast/Cable Journalism Excellence in Electronic Media—bear with me while I read this—honors the best investigative or in-depth reporting of events covered by television and radio stations or cable systems.”
Whoops and clapping erupted around the room.
Tim’s series, the one I’d written and produced on children with ADHD, was up for a national award. So was Alyssa’s piece on the city’s only drive-by shooting last year.
My knees buckled the slightest bit. I didn’t dare look at anyone.
Drew’s voice burst into the room with flourish. “This year’s award goes to Tim Donaldson with Melissa Moore producing. Congratulations!”
Behind me, several corks popped and hit the ceiling. Everyone hugged, backslapped, and celebrated. Someone handed me champagne in a plastic tumbler and shouted out a toast. “To Donaldson and Moore!”
Cheers echoed as everyone raised cups and ceremoniously tossed back the alcohol. The drink burned my throat and bubbled up my nose.
The room tilted some and my thoughts swarmed like a tornado sweeping up everything in its path.
Scripps Howard. National award. Wow.
When I found my bearings, I wove through the crowd toward Tim.
“You knew,” I accused him, as he strolled up beside me with a bemused expression, a bottle of Korbel tucked under his arm. I backed away and narrowed my hazel eyes in mock-indignation.
“What?” Tim circled my neck with his hand and gave my ponytail a tug.
“And you,” I poked his bicep, “if I had to guess, sent Alyssa on that wild goose chase about her dog tonight.”
“Maybe,” he winked and refilled my cup to the brim.
“I have to hand it to you. That was smart, very smart.” We pretended to clink our drinks together and sipped in unison.
Tim and Alyssa’s volatile relationship was legendary, not just in the newsroom, but in the larger community. It was a co-dependent, on-again, off-again mess, the best I could tell.
Professionally, I did everything necessary to make them look good on set and during public appearances. On a personal level, their relationship was their own business.
Tim squinted down at me as he topped off his own drink. “I can’t reveal my sources.” He winked, breathed alcohol in my face, then turned to gulp from the mouth of the champagne bottle. “But no one needed Alyssa freaking out in her usual Lindsay Lohan fashion.” He burped.
“Um, nice manners, Donaldson.” I gave him another friendly jab and pushed him away. “Someone help him!” I called out.
Tim grinned wickedly as he finished off the last drops, wiped his mouth with the back of his shirtsleeve, and stumbled off.
My shoulders sagged. I was exhausted.
Joe sidled up. “Obligatory congratulations from one of your soon-to-be totally inebriated partners in crime?”
“Come on, Tim can be sweet,” I retorted in a loud whisper. “He’s harmless, really. You know, he gets a bad rap. Guilt by association with the girlfriend, maybe.”
“Mrs. Jekyll and Miss Hyde?”
The immediate mental picture of Alyssa as a pseudo-mad scientist made me stifle a laugh. “No comment.” I snapped my jaw shut guiltily. I was genuinely pleased for Tim. No sense being ugly.
“Well, it’s great news,” Joe added. “I’m happy for you. And Donaldson.”
I gave him a nudge. “I’m lucky to work with such wonderful, talented folks behind the scenes.”
Joe grinned at the compliment.
I needed to thank about ten other people, but as I glanced around the newsroom, most of the staff had already disappeared. I picked up a random plastic cup and tossed it in the trash.
“Need help cleaning up?” Joe asked.
“Nope, go home to your wife and kids,” I shooed him away. “I’m not staying long.”
“Well, don’t revel too much in your new-found fortune and fame. We’ll need you for the next round.” Joe turned, grabbed his jacket, and waved.
I grinned. “Same bat time, same bat channel.”
As Joe made his way down the hallway, Tim stumbled back in.
“You still here?” he asked, wiping his forehead.
“Of course, Mr. Journalistic Excellence,” I quipped, then stopped when I saw his face.
“Not feeling so hot,” Tim scrunched up his shoulders and slumped against the wall. He was an insulin-dependant diabetic and notoriously awful about his medicine. I’d run to the pharmacy more than once to grab his prescription refills.
“Hey, how’s your blood sugar?”
He grumbled something incoherent.
“Tim,” I took him by the arm and sat him down at his desk. One by one, I opened the drawers. “Where’s your glucose meter?”
I shuffled through packs of gum, breath mints, and a box of paper clips. Under a stack of paper, I unearthed a monitor and insulin pen.
The finger stick took seconds. Sure enough, his blood sugar was high. The screen read 400.
“Okay. Let’s get your medicine,” I shoved the pen into his hand, then crouched down to steady him.
“Not now,” he argued, slurring his words.
“Please do this. I don’t want to call an ambulance,” I said. “Where’s Alyssa? Where’s your cell phone?”
“I d-don’t know.”
He lifted the edge of his shirt and pressed the pen to his abdomen. Tim grinned like a drunken Cheshire cat, showing off two rows of gleaming white teeth.
“You’re a mess, Donaldson.”
I was exhausted. I wanted to go home. And I didn’t have a choice. He needed help.
“Come on, I’ll drive you, big guy,” I said.
Tim slung an arm over my shoulders and let me guide him down the steps. He half-fell into my car, managed to strap himself in, and proceeded to sing most of the
Phantom of the Opera
soundtrack on the way to his house. He finished a rousing version of “Music of the Night” as we pulled up.
Alyssa was waiting outside on the steps. “Where have you been?” she asked him, ignoring me.
Tim hummed “Masquerade” while he found his keys. Alyssa pouted while he lumbered past her and flipped on the lights. She shut the door without a thank you. The fighting started almost immediately.
Home Sweet Home.
Minutes later, I pulled into my own driveway. A lone yellow Post-it waited for me on the kitchen table.
“Working late—C.”