Love. Local. Latebreaking.: Book 1 in the newsroom romance series Page 13

  “Chillax, girl,” Mary Rose said with a chuckle. “It’s some news, that’s all. It’ll be broadcast and then evaporate from the airwaves and our viewers’ heads just like everything else we put on the air. There will always be more news—we fill a whole bunch of half-hour shows with it every day, you know.” Mary Rose tossed back her shot of tequila, paused to sniff a moment as its heat spread down her throat, then reached for a cooling sip of beer.

  Bailey had been watching Karli’s dismissive shrug in response to Mary Rose’s pep talk. “Look, I’m not saying you have to resign yourself to an entire career in this market,” she began. “I’m not even saying that you should change your license plates—though it looks like your Florida plate is about to expire.”

  “Yeah, so you’d better move back to—where was it, Palm Beach?—soon,” Mary Rose quipped, punching Karli’s shoulder gently. “Or you’re going to be stuck here like Bailey and me, with no future and nothing to live for.”

  “We’re just saying that losing this heroin series isn’t a career-shaping thing,” Bailey continued, glaring at Mary Rose for her unhelpful interruption. “You’ll find the right stories to propel you out of here. It is a good series, sure, but it is pretty meat-and-potatoes, don’t you think? It doesn’t require much in the way of investigative chops. It’s just basic research and working cop sources. That recovered addict story is the only human part of the whole series. Not only did Sophia not do the work to develop that story, she didn’t even want to keep it in when they gave it all to her. Jerry had to make her lead with it.

  “If that series took you somewhere, you wouldn’t want to be the reporter they hired once you get there. Sophia could be a solid police-beat reporter in any market, and this series sets that table perfectly.

  “But you’re the reporter who has a Midas touch with interviews. Who finds the only hopeful human angle on a heroin series? Karli. Grieving parents won’t talk to anyone? Put Karli on it. Scared-to-get-involved lady saw the accident? No worries, Karli can have nice a quiet visit with her and she’ll spill it all. Or how about this one—the biggest ram winner at the State Fair is a super-boring annual, but Karli gets the winner to crack wise about sheep sex.”

  Mary Rose smirked at this last example. “And you do know that sheep sex is the gold standard for Pulitzers and Emmys and stuff, right?”

  At this, Bailey reached all the way around behind Karli to poke Mary Rose in the side as she picked up the thread of her thought. “You do not want to be the reporter who spends her career riding around in squad cars, hanging out in courthouses and trying to convince prosecutors to talk to you. Those stories aren’t about people or about hope; there’s nothing human about them except victims who can’t or won’t talk. You are not that reporter, and you shouldn’t be moaning about missing the chance to saddle yourself with that career. The reporter you want to be at your next job is the one who breaks stories because she can convince people to talk about their lives.”

  Karli drained her glass with a thoughtful expression and considered Bailey’s assessment. When she spoke, her words’ edges were softened by the liquor. “There’s a lot to what you say, Bailey. But it’s still complete bullshit that Sophia has this series and I don’t, and I want to be pissed about that right now.”

  “Yes!” Mary Rose cried, raising her beer glass. “Let’s hate Sophia!” She brought the beer to her lips and drank deeply. “She’s a snooty bitch anyway, regardless of this series thing,” she whispered to Bailey and Karli.

  “That’s not terribly constructive, you know,” Bailey chided. “So what’s up with Jake and the kissing?” she said, shifting the subject abruptly. “Any news about that?”

  “He hasn’t even been to work in forever,” Karli slurred. “How’m I supposed to kiss him if he’s never around?”

  Mary Rose, who had not heard about Jake and the kissing, goggled at her friends, her open-mouth and bugged eyes flicking from one to the other, looking for answers to obvious questions. “Jake and the Kissing? That sounds like a great band, but it also sounds like something I need desperately to hear about. When did you and Jake start in with the kissing? He has never even hinted that you guys were getting wild and nasty! And besides, Sophia wants him even more than she wants your series. I’m surprised she didn’t slink that exotic figure into the kissing a long time ago!”

  “Mary Rose, no. Just no. We never kissed at all,” Karli said, defensiveness in every syllable. “And besides, he’s a complete asshole.”

  “Then what’s with the new band?” Mary Rose’s face was covered with suspicion, as was the tone of her voice.

  “It was just a thing,” Karli sighed. “We watched a movie together, and then there was this moment when it seemed like we were going to kiss, but then it all went bust. So no kissing.”

  Bailey saw that Karli needed rescuing, so she chimed in with, “So what happened when he came back for the drug bust story? He didn’t even stick around to edit that package, did he?”

  Mary Rose cut in ahead of Karli’s response: “No way Jose—or Josephine, I guess, since you’re a chick—he split and then I cut it together, and I did an awesome job, too, I might add.”

  “And you’re fun to work with, Mary Rose” Karli added. “But why again won’t they assign you to field shooting—because of some departmental accounting thing?”

  “Yeah, Mary Rose’s great,” Bailey seconded enthusiastically. “But what scared him away that day?” Bailey asked. “Everyone has been wondering, but Vince just says to shut up and tend to our own knitting.”

  “I don’t know,” Karli very nearly whined. “We had a scary morning, yet things seemed kind of normal when we headed out. Then he got all emo in the truck. He talked about not needing the job and not being able to keep people safe or make good decisions or something. He was all pissed about giving me his Kevlar vest, too, like it was some cop’s fault, and I couldn’t understand what the problem was there, either. I was trying to thank him for giving it to me, but it all blew up and went weird. It was like having a conversation with a mentally ill person.”

  “This is AWESOME!” Mary Rose boomed. She raised her beer and solemnly intoned,

  “Here’s to hating Sophia and to bullying Jake for being demented!” She chugged the beer, heedless of the scandalized looks on Karli and Bailey’s faces.

  Bailey looked thoughtfully at the new drinks the bartender brought upon seeing Mary Rose’s glass lifted and then moved her eyes to Karli’s face. “Hasn’t anyone told you why he was on leave in the first place?” she asked so quietly that Karli turned her face and her full attention toward her. Meeting Bailey’s strange look of sad compassion, Karli shook her head slowly. Bailey spoke with obvious effort. “Jake was very close to the boy who died on that bicycle. And Vince pumped some info out of the boy’s school teacher. It turns out Jake was the kid’s surrogate father: he paid for the kid’s braces without the boy ever knowing; he took him to karate tournaments just about every weekend; and he really encouraged him to get that paper route. So it seems Jake is feeling guilty for the boy dying doing something he told him to do.”

  “Hold it, Jake not only knew that boy, he was like a big brother or a father to him?” Karli’s astonishment transformed her sulkily drunk face into an alert picture of concern. Her heart sank.

  “Yes,” Bailey continued. “And he really doesn’t need this job, so there’s no big reason for him to come back. His father was a hot-shot exec at one of the big insurance companies in town, and he died a few years ago with enough life insurance in force to fund the economy of, say, Nicaragua. Jake and his mother were both beneficiaries, so they’re both central-American-dictator rich now.”

  “But he isn’t rich. He’s a photog, for heaven’s sake. And he drives a crappy pickup.”

  “Correction: He doesn’t live rich. He lives like a photo-journalist. His mother and uncle and their parents were all part of a journalism dynasty at the Des Moines Register. Whether he acknowledges it or not, he is carrying on a
long family journalism tradition. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t rich.”

  “Let me get this one more time: Jake Gibson is not only rich, he was also a surrogate father to that poor boy who was killed on his paper route? Really?” Karli was so astonished she slipped sideways half off her bar stool. Only the spike heel hooked over the foot-rail gave her enough leverage to keep from falling off entirely.

  “And he’s the one who you were almost doing the kissing with. Feeling any differently about that now?” Bailey couldn’t resist needling Karli in her astonished state.

  “Oh, Bailey, that’s not it,” Karli protested. “Or at least that isn’t all of it.” She looked thoughtful for a second, then went on. “I mean, he’s all spicy-smelling and gorgeous and everything, yeah. But how am I going to get him to come back to work? I need him to come back.”

  “Whoa!” Mary Rose cried, her shot glass frozen in place, halfway to her mouth. “Spicy kissing? What’s going on here? I ask about kissing and you say there’s nothing, then you sound like there’s really a lot of something. Do you need him to come back to work for the kissing or the shooting—and by that I mean video? Because even Max’s video—well, let’s just say that there isn’t a turd that I can’t polish up in post.”

  “Mary Rose, all the polishing in the world isn’t going to make a story look as good as Jake’s field footage will,” Karli said. “And I mean no offense to you when I say that. You really are a whiz in the edit booth.

  But I need Jake’s work in the field if I’m going to have any chance at building a decent resume reel. And the fact that he moves like a panther and is a humanitarian and filthy rich and surrogate father to the needy and probably a fitness model have nothing to do with anything.”

  “So it really is all about you,” Bailey’s tone carried all the teasing exasperation that she tried to show with her granite-solid shoulders and stern gaze. “What a disappointment.”

  “No, that’s not it, really!” Karli was alarmed at Bailey’s apparent judgment. “I need to talk to him about that bulletproof vest—to say I’m sorry for being a pill about it and to thank him for caring so much. Trevor was pretty gentle about it, but he made it pretty clear that I was being a defensive bitch about the whole thing. It’s a lot easier to be angry at someone than it is to be grateful, especially when being grateful means admitting that I was not as bright as I thought I was. If I’d thought about it for even a second, I would’ve thought to bring my own bulletproof vest. But I wasn’t smart enough to do that, and that made me angry. So I was bitchy to Jake about all of it.”

  Bailey’s eyebrows had climbed most of the way to her hairline from their former stern, straight line. “Is this the Karli who was just calling Jake emo?”

  “Oh, heck yeah,” Mary Rose was practically cheering. She raised her beer glass again, this time gesturing to the bartender that he should join in the toast at her expense. “Let’s all bring the hate for Sophia, and push Jake around for being demented, and live a rich fantasy life about sexing with Jake, and under-appreciate Mary Rose the super-genius. Ladies and gentlemen, be upstanding for all of that shit!”

  And with that, Mary Rose crashed her glass against the bartender’s and chugged it all down.

  As the Mary Rose show played out to appreciative grins from the bartender, Karli looked Bailey in the eye and protested, “I didn’t know anything about him feeling guilty about that boy or about Jake not needing to work or anything like that.”

  Bailey regarded Karli for a moment. Then she smirked and asked, “So does this mean that you’re interested in the kissing again?”

  Mary Rose heard that, lifted her shot glass and practically shouted, “And to the kissing!” After she’d tossed the tequila back, she leaned in close to Karli and demanded, “You are still interested in the kissing, right?”

  “Oh, jeez. I’m interested in the kissing. Of course I am. He’s gorgeous. He’s brilliant.” Karli’s gaze drifted off for a moment as she took a deep breath in through her nose. “But I thought he was complicated before all the stuff you just told me. I so don’t need to get tangled up with anyone complicated. Especially his kind of complicated.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three NewsFirst newsroom

  Friday, November 22

  John Bielfeldt’s mildly bloodshot blue eyes scanned the assembled newsroom and production staff. Betraying no sense of urgency, he cleaned his glasses with the necktie that hung over his stiffly starched white shirt. “John is going to help us solidify our number one position in the ratings this month,” said Station Manager Larry Norwich, “and he’s going to help us prepare for the huge push we anticipate our competition will make for the February ratings sweeps.”

  John put his glasses back on and deliberately turned his—and presumably the staff’s—attention to Larry Norwich, the startlingly short station manager. Norwich was standing on the first step up to the news set’s riser so he could see faces past the first row while squeaking out his speech. On John’s other side, news director Jerry Schultz’s anxious smile twitched above the pinstripe suit he had bought thirty pounds ago. The slightly pilled collar on his broadcast-blue shirt further betrayed his effort to look fully management for the occasion.

  Karli’s sharp elbow in his ribs made Jake aware that he had rolled his eyes a little too obviously. She watched his hair swirl bounce as he twitched in response to her digging. “What was that for?” he hissed into her ear. His soft breath made Karli’s spine tingle.

  “This consultant is going to make us winners, you knucklehead,” Karli whispered back, her hand on his muscled shoulder and her mouth close to his ear, where the spicy smell of him and his soft curls both tickled her nose. “Haven’t you been listening?”

  Karli felt Jake’s hand reach around behind her to rest between her shoulder blades so he could lean in and whisper back: “This isn’t his first time here, you know—and he isn’t the first consultant to promise us big ratings. Besides, we have been first in every sweep for the last four years.” Karli bridled at his unenthusiastic response but felt a quickening excitement at his touch.

  “Well, I want to hear what he has to say,” Karli whispered back, leaning in to enjoy the touch and smell and intimacy of him. “I think he’ll be able to help me make an escape reel.”

  Bielfeldt was talking now, and they both turned to pay attention—though Karli’s hand stayed on Jake’s shoulder. “We’re going to be working on the newscast’s overall look and sound this year,” he said. “That means we’re going to look at the entire visual presentation of the station and the newsroom. The set, the graphics, the clothes, the hair, the makeup, the photography—they’re all in play.”

  As he listed each visual element, the reactions betrayed individuals’ anxieties. Stu Heintz lifted a hand unconsciously to his product-laden hair. Mary Rose glanced at the huge, stylized numeral 3 on the wall and squinted as if to see it in a different guise. Max looked nervously first to Mary Rose Devlin, the workhorse chief photographer, then to Jake, gauging their reactions to the consultant’s comment about photography.

  The consultant continued: “We’ve made appointments for each of the on-air talent. You’ll be meeting with clothing and makeup experts. You’ll get swatches and colors that we want you to use your clothing allowance for. Everyone’s look is going to be freshened and compatible.”

  Arthur’s voice rumbled its interruption: “Is anyone’s job at stake this time, John?” The question prompted a host of murmurs from the assembled staff—he had asked the question that was on everyone’s mind. Ballsy was the word most overheard; nobody else had Arthur’s long tenure, nor his ability to walk off the job and into retirement at a moment’s notice. And some of the employees recalled Bielfeldt’s role seven or eight years ago in cutting nearly half of the newsroom personnel in a single month.

  “Everyone in this business has to prove their worth every day, Arthur. You’re each only as good as your last broadcast. You know that,” Bielfeldt said, looking Art
hur in the eye. “But I am not aware of any planned reduction in force, if that’s what you’re asking.

  “Back on task, though. If this newsroom wants to consolidate and build upon its strength as a number one, the overall visual presentation—and each visual element within it—needs to be inspirational. So I’ll be working with groups and individuals this week to develop some concrete skills on how to inspire viewers with your visuals. I look forward to working with all of you, especially people I’ve not met before.”

  Bielfeldt’s mouth creased into a smile that reached nearly to the edges of his eyes. He held the insincere grin for a deliberate moment during which he looked pointedly at Karli, then turned to Norwich, who looked relieved to have an excuse to leave. Nodding and smiling his salesman’s smile, Norwich led Bielfeldt out of the newsroom and toward the business side of the building. As the backs of their business suits retreated from the room, an energetic hubbub of conversations rose with increasing volume as the distance to the suits increased.

  “Hey, everyone,” Vince’s smoky voice worked its way above the bubbling froth of conversation. “We have a newscast to put on the air in about three hours. Don’t you have things that need doing?”

  With varying degrees of resentment, folks returned to their tasks, though some isolated conversations persisted. Among them were Jake and Karli’s. “I’m so glad you’re back for this,” Karli was saying, her hand again on his shoulder and her eyes glistening with interest. “Lots of my old friends have told me about consultants at their stations, and they mostly sound like they’ve learned a lot of cool stuff.”

  “I did not come back so I could waste hours of my life listening to Bielfeldt,” Jake responded. “The guy shows up with yet another fashion trend every time he sets foot here, and none of it makes any real difference in how we cover the news.”