The Woman in the News

by K. N. Casper

  Marlee pressed Stop, laid down the remote and pulled away, her hands up. “No, no. Not that. They have so much food there, scrumptious beef and pork ribs…and chocolate desserts.” Her eyes gleamed and her lips curled in a mischievous grin.

  “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Hmm.” Marlee slouched. “You must give me the name of your M.D. I think I like him already.”

  “Her,” Glenda corrected.

  “Better still.”

  Glenda wasn’t a small woman, nor was she a featherweight. She harked back to the full-figure days of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell and was very much at home in her skin. She’d been married once to an investment banker, who turned out to be deeply involved in some very shady deals. After he was convicted of fraud and embezzlement and sent to the slammer for ten years, she’d divorced him and reverted to her maiden name.

  They took Glenda’s Lexus. Marlee always found riding with her friend an adventure. Glenda drove with the same zest and apparent recklessness with which she approached every challenge. Yet Marlee felt remarkably safe with Glenda behind the wheel. As far as she knew, her friend had never been in an accident or even received a traffic ticket. Of course, with her extrovert personality, she could probably talk her way out of anything.

  They were seated at a table near the front window of the restored nineteenth-century mercantile building, where they could observe passing cars and pedestrians. Their waiter offered menus, but Glenda waved them away. “We’ll have the buffet.”

  Marlee just smiled at him. Glenda was in charge.

  “So those boneheads haven’t made a decision yet, huh?” she remarked when they returned from the long buffet, their plates piled high with barbecued brisket, pinto beans, cottage-fried potatoes and green salad.

  “They don’t want to replace Clark too quickly. Afraid they’ll come off as callous. Everybody loved him.”

  Glenda tried as a matter of habit not to dwell on unpleasant subjects. She’d attended the memorial service for the dead hero, whom she’d regarded as one of the last true gentlemen on earth, then gone back to her ad agency and fought like hell to get a contract with the biggest soap company in the nation. Succeeded, too.

  Glenda screwed up her mouth as she slathered butter on a piece of corn bread. “They’re messing with your head, sweetie.”

  Marlee chuckled. “They’re weighing their options.”

  Glenda didn’t smile. “For two months? I don’t think so.”

  “What…what do you mean?” Marlee could always count on her friend to tell it like it is. A valuable trait, but one she suspected this time she wouldn’t welcome.

  After cutting into a thick slice of slow-roasted beef, Glenda raised a piece to her mouth, then lowered it again to her plate. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be sitting in the anchor chair right now. You’re the senior reporter, the weekend anchor, and you’ve filled in for Clark a dozen times. It’s not as if you don’t have the experience.”

  “They don’t want to move too fast,” Marlee observed but without as much conviction as she’d felt only a few minutes earlier. “They’re afraid the public will see them as—”

  “Callous. Yeah, I heard you the first time.” Glenda shook her head. “Honey, they could easily have named you his replacement the day after he died, saying it was what Clark would have wanted, which is the absolute truth. The public would have been very supportive. You were like a daughter to him. That’s why Audrey asked you to speak at the funeral.”

  Recollection of that day flashed before Marlee’s eyes, and the words she’d used to honor the man she’d grown to love—honor, loyalty, integrity—echoed in her ears. She thought of the gold pocket watch Audrey had given her as a memento and stopped eating, not sure she could get anything past the lump in her throat. She missed him, but she’d developed this technique of not thinking about him as dead exactly, more like not available. Being reminded of the permanence of his absence and the way he died opened a painful wound.

  Glenda was brash, but she wasn’t insensitive. “I’m sorry, honey.” She reached across the table and placed her hand on Marlee’s. “I ought to learn to keep my big mouth shut.” Her face softened. “Especially when I’m picking up the tab for this glorious spread.”

  Marlee forced a grin, then put her heart into it. Having someone who understood was nice. They resumed eating, though not with quite as much gusto.

  “If they wanted to do something really touching,” Glenda went on a minute later, “they could have left Clark’s chair empty for a week or so and have you host the program from the other seat. Instead, those nincompoops stick you in the Live Center, as if you’re not good enough to replace him—”

  “Maybe I’m not—”

  Glenda peered across the table. “Don’t ever say that.” Her tone hardened. “Don’t even think it.”

  Marlee worked her jaw, not sure how to respond.

  “Listen to me, kiddo. You are a damn good sportscaster. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Clark certainly did. That’s why he hired you.”

  Glenda put down her knife and fork, folded her arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward. “Let me tell you something else. The sponsors know it, too, and they’re the ones who pay the bills. Don’t ever sell yourself short.”

  Marlee wondered if her friend ever doubted herself, if the pushiness was a kind of compensation for lingering insecurities. She’d grown up in poverty, failed as an actress, failed in her marriage. Or maybe she’d just found herself. She was definitely successful as an advertising agent, selling products and services—and herself.

  “If you weren’t such a hotshot reporter, if you weren’t anchor material, they wouldn’t even be considering you for the job. It’s because you are that they have a dilemma on their hands.”

  “Tag Taggart,” Marlee mumbled.

  “Faye Warren,” Glenda countered. “He wants the job, but so what? The station isn’t going to miss him when he leaves—”

  “You mean if.”

  “Trust me on this, honey. It’s when. I know all about phonies. They don’t last. They have to keep moving. I went to seven schools before I finally left home because my daddy was always checking out some great new opportunity. In fact, he was running from the ones he failed at because he was too lazy to work at them. Then there was Don. Dear sweet Don, my wonderful ex-husband, emphasis on the ex. He wasn’t lazy. Actually, he was damn energetic.” She winked and grinned. “And he was ambitious, which were two reasons I loved the rat. I thought he was smart, too, till I found out he was only slick.” She shook her head. “Listen to me, playing sob sister.” She waved to the waiter for more iced tea.

  “Your problem is Faye,” she continued after it was poured, “and her problem is she’s got a stud in her bed, and she’s afraid to let him go, afraid of the prospect of sleeping alone for the rest of her life.”

  Glenda’s judgment was harsh, but Marlee suspected it was also accurate. Behind Faye’s tough facade, Marlee thought she detected desperate loneliness.

  “She wants to give him the job to hold on to him.” Glenda skewered a piece of potato. “She knows he’s not qualified, but the need to keep her boy toy between her…sheets has clouded her mind.”

  She looked Marlee directly in the eye. “What she’s really trying to do with this ploy of not dishonoring Clark is rob you of legitimacy with the public.”

  The statement shocked Marlee. What hurt even more was the realization that it was true. At least, she thought, Renn had been helping her. He’d stood up for her over the locker room debacle, and he’d preempted Taggart’s airtime for her special.

  Glenda picked up a crispy French fry with her fingers, displaying her long, perfectly manicured nails, and dragged it through a dollop of ketchup. “Have you been keeping track of ratings?”

  The question was rhetorical. Everyone in the business, especially the on-air talent, watched ratings religiously.

  “Everybody expected them to fall,” Glenda went on
, “after the first shock of Van Pelt’s death wore off, but the stats are still good. Damn good. I haven’t had any trouble selling airtime.” She looked across the table directly at her companion. “Management may not be willing to credit you with this, Marlee, but I hear things they don’t—or won’t listen to. Taggart isn’t the reason numbers are up. You are.”

  The compliment pleased her on a personal level. It also meant she had an advantage in her bid for the anchor slot.

  “What you’ve got to do, though, is make it clear to Faye and Sal Bufano that you’re the reason for the high scores.”

  “How do you propose I do that?” she asked after a spoonful of pinto beans, slow-cooked southern-style with slab pork and onions. “Barge in with a news flash?”

  “That would be one way,” Glenda agreed, then grinned. “Not as much fun as crashing a men’s locker room, though.”

  Marlee didn’t return the smile. She was weary of having the incident brought up, successful as it may have been.

  “Make yourself the personification of KNCS-TV wherever you go,” Glenda continued more seriously. “Ratings are high, but they’re not enough. Taggart can and will exploit them to his advantage since they can’t be tied to either of you directly.”

  She was right. Being on the air more than her competitor wouldn’t keep him—or Faye—from using the program’s popularity to blow his horn, because the station really didn’t care who earned the marks, as long as the stats allowed them to sell air time at increased rates.

  “Are you going to the Alegre fund-raiser next week?” Glenda asked.

  Alegre, which meant joyful in Spanish, was the local therapeutic riding center in Coyote Springs. Clark had cofounded it nearly fifteen years earlier with Talia Preiser, a widow whose adult daughter had been severely injured in a car accident. Herself an accomplished equestrian, Talia had read about the therapeutic value of horseback riding for people with handicaps. Enlisting the aid of a friend, she’d taken her daughter on short trail rides three times a week. Clark had done a story on the success of her program and been so impressed, he’d convinced her to establish a permanent organization to help the handicapped recover from injuries or live better with permanent disabilities.

  “Audrey’s invited me,” Marlee replied.

  Audrey was a certified therapeutic riding instructor who contributed a day and a half a week to the center. Marlee planned to take an active part, as well, as soon as her schedule slowed enough to give her time. For the moment, however, she was too busy doing her job—and Clark’s.

  “Good.” Glenda thanked the waiter for the bowls of warm peach cobbler á la mode he’d set before them. “Clark was the Voice of Coyote Springs. Now it’s time for you to assume that mantle.”

  The very idea was intimidating. Would people think she was being presumptuous if she dared cast herself in that role?

  “How about you?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You going with anyone?”

  Marlee shook her head. “Haven’t had much time for a social life lately.”

  Glenda regarded her with a critical eye. “Girl, you have to make time. All work and no play isn’t good for the hormones.”

  EVERY MARCH the TV station contributed a thousand dollars to sponsor a table at the annual Alegre fund-raiser. This year the dinner had been postponed because of the sudden death of Clark Van Pelt, who had been one of its charter members.

  Renn received two of the tickets and now had to decide whom to take with him. He wasn’t keeping regular company with anybody at the moment, but there was someone he would definitely like to escort to the affair.

  He observed Marlee and Glenda when they came back from lunch. The two women were different in so many ways. Glenda was outgoing and gregarious. Her glib tongue and no-nonsense approach served her well in sales.

  She’d been one of the first people he’d met outside the immediate television crew when he’d arrived at the station almost eight months ago. True to form, it was she who’d invited him out. They’d spent a pleasant evening at a nice restaurant, laughing like old pals about any number of things. She was easy to be with, smart, witty, confident. They’d gone dancing for a couple of hours afterward. Neither of them tried to hide the fact that they were exploring possibilities. The night could have ended in his bed or hers, but it hadn’t. They liked each other, enjoyed each other’s company and became good friends, but the spark of sexual attraction hadn’t quite caught. They ended the night with a chaste kiss and never dated again.

  Marlee was much more low-key, but no one could accuse her of being timid. How many women had the daring to march into a room full of naked men and conduct an interview? The image still made him smile. But she was also reserved and private. In all the months they’d worked together, she’d spoken very little about herself—at least to him. That element of privacy was probably as much his doing as hers. His vow to steer clear of women in the media had driven him to keep his distance.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he told Marlee, as she picked up her messages at the reception desk. “When you get a chance. No hurry.”

  “I need to speak with you, too,” she said. “Be there in a minute.”

  She turned back to Glenda, virtually dismissing him. Something in her eyes, in the way she spoke to him, made him uneasy. He stood there a moment, then returned to his office.

  His secretary, Trish, had placed the latest ratings figures on his desk. Newscast viewership was steady. The swell they had experienced immediately after the death of Van Pelt had gradually leveled off to previous levels, except for the sports segment. Normally, there was a slight decline in the number of viewers immediately after the news and weather, since sports didn’t have the same universal appeal, but the drop wasn’t nearly as sharp as it had previously been. Because of Marlee? She seemed the only explanation. Taggart’s ratings for his solo analysis show were actually falling.

  He tried to anticipate how Faye might interpret these statistics in Taggart’s favor and couldn’t come up with a single rationalization. He had a sinking feeling, however, that she’d invent something.

  A tap on his open door caused him to raise his head.

  Marlee stood before him in sensible chinos and a plaid cotton blouse. He’d gotten to touch her—a hand under her elbow, an arm around her back. Not exactly intimate gestures, but they were enough to raise his awareness of her, of his reactions to the feel of her flesh, her scent.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Her hair had been short and sassy when he’d arrived at the station months earlier. He’d mentioned at one of their early meetings that she might consider letting it grow. He’d been afraid from the quirky expression she’d given him that he’d offended her, but then she’d followed his advice. The shiny, golden-blond hair was shoulder length now and wavy—the kind of casual style that made a man want to comb his fingers through.

  “What’s the status of the anchor job?” She settled into the chair by the side of his desk. The question was curt.

  “We haven’t come to a decision yet.”

  “So I’m still giving my reports from the Live Center?” She sounded annoyed, and he had to admit she had a right to be.

  He nodded.

  “Why?” The word was spiked with impatience and a sharp-edged emotional barb he hadn’t observed in her before.

  “I explained—”

  “That was two months ago, Renn. What’s your excuse now?”

  He fell silent, taken aback by her caustic tone. In the past she’d always been coolly businesslike. Now she was fiery, confrontational.

  “You don’t really want me to get the anchor position, do you? You just want to make sure Taggart doesn’t.”

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. He wasn’t prepared for this attack, and wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. The easiest, safest and least complicated course, he’d long ago discovered, was telling the truth.

  “Initially, that was true.” He saw her blanch. “I didn
’t think then Taggart was the right choice. I still don’t.”

  “And the only way to keep him from getting it was to use me.”

  He exhaled, wishing he didn’t have to admit any of this. “You were a compromise.” Temporize and compromise.

  Her face darkened. She was upset and insulted. He couldn’t blame her. She sprang from the chair and turned her back on him. He wondered if she was crying, then decided she wasn’t. Tears, if there were going to be any, would come later.

  “Please sit down, Marlee, and let me explain.”

  She spun around to face him. “What’s there to explain?”

  He sucked in an unsteady breath. “We…I’ve come a long way since Clark’s death. At the time I thought you could make a good anchor. That’s why I recommended you.” Her blank stare made him feel like a fraud. “I’m a selfish man, Marlee. I have to consider about my own career. Nominating you for a job I wasn’t confident you could handle would jeopardize my reputation. I can’t afford to do that.”

  She plopped down into the chair again. Because she wanted to hear what he had to say? Or because she was too upset to stay on her feet?

  “How glib,” she drawled, answering his question.

  “Obviously, Sal Bufano thinks you’re suitable for the job, too,” he reminded her. “Otherwise he would have rejected my recommendation out of hand. He didn’t.”

  “What about the Live Center?” she demanded. “By placing me there you’ve robbed me of legitimacy in the eyes of the public.”

  She was right—to a point.

  “Faye wanted to put Taggart in Clark’s seat because he has seniority. I was the one who proposed leaving it vacant and having you report from the Live Center.”

  The admission made her raise her eyebrows.

  “I had no idea making this decision would take so long,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Renn. By delaying the decision, the station saves money. I’m doing Clark’s job without getting paid for it, and half of Quint’s job, too.”

  “That was never my intent.”

  She half closed her eyes and clicked her tongue.