Page 15 of No More Heartbreakers

So what was it about this guy? He fell into step beside me, and I worked to keep my high heels from wobbling in the gravel lot and to keep my voice from betraying my absurd awareness of him.

“Well, I hope you’re rested up because I think we’re going to be putting in some serious work this weekend. Mr. Aubrey doesn’t exactly keep a full crew on hand. See this?” I motioned between the two of us as we walked across the parking lot to the building. “This is pretty much it.”

“Yeah, I figured. It was the same in Mankato.”

Normally there was a skeleton staff on weekends—a meteorologist, one news anchor who also served as reporter and producer of the ten p.m. newscast, the sports anchor, who’d spend the day driving from town to town gathering highlights from the major sporting events across the area, and one poor photographer who scrambled all day long picking up video and sound bites to help flesh out the thirty minute show.

Today there would be some extras on hand—Dennis, to teach Aric the ropes, and Allison, to help me learn producing and get me through my first show as weekend anchor.

Kenley had offered to come in and help as well but she was hungallthe way over, and I told her I’d be fine.

Honestly, I was less concerned about the producing part than the anchoring part. Sure, I was used to being on camera—as a reporter, I’d gotten pretty good at it over the past year.

But that was mostly recorded. Anchoring the newscast was live TV. And that was a different story.

At least with anchoring there was a bathroom nearby, which was a plus. Out in the field, I’d had to use a trashcan or go behind a bush to throw up before going on air for every live shot.

Every. Single. Time.

Once we got inside, the day felt like I’d stepped onto a NASCAR track. I went out and one-man-banded two stories then came back in and worked with Allison on producing the show.

Producing the weekends involved writing everything in the show that wasn’t written by a reporter, ordering the stories for the newscast, and making sure all the content timed out to fit into the twenty minute news block. The rest of the time would be filled by weather and sports.

Mara, bless her heart, was in and out all day shooting stories.

“Youoweme, sister.” She pointed at me. “If Hairspray Queen Colleen was here, you’d get one package andmaybetwo minutes of video out of her,” she’d said in a surly tone.

“Anything,” I promised, well aware she was saving my bacon by filling so much time in tonight’s show. “You are a news goddess, and I will gladly worship you with offerings of Chardonnay and chocolate. Whatever you desire.”

“How about double-dating with me and Mike? He’s got a cute friend.” This, delivered with raised brows, a mischievous grin, and anaren’t you temptedtone.

I was not. “Maybe I could come over and scrub your toilet instead?”

She laughed and headed out the door again. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Oh yes I do.” Mara had an absolute knack for dating men with zero boyfriend potential. Himbos. Beautiful and brainless. For instance, Mike, whom I had met once and instantly diagnosed—dumb as a stump.

“The best part is,” Mara had laughed, “hethinkshe’s brilliant. He actually carries his transcript around with him and whips it out at any opportune moment.”

“Well, his GPA might have been high, but in Common Sense 101, he gets a big fat F. In red marker,” I said.

It could’ve been worse, though, and it had been. “Still, compared to some of your past ‘special friends,’ heissort ofbrilliant.”

I couldn’t figure it out—I knew Mara had been in love once, a high school sweetheart named Reid she refused to talk about—apparently it hadn’t ended well. But I didn’t know how she could stand the bubble-headed beefcakes she seemed to seek out now.

“What can I say?” she’d quipped. “When it comes to boys and brains, I think like a zombie—any more than a mouthful is a waste.”

Aric was gone all afternoon shooting sports. He rushed back in around eight o’clock to start editing and writing his segment in the sports office. Well, Dennis jokingly called it the “sports office”—none of us actually had offices except for Janet.

We were all together in one large newsroom with cubicles. The sports guys had claimed a corner near the printer closet, tacking team banners and sports schedule posters to the walls over their two desks.

Aric and I were too busy to even look at each other until around nine-thirty when I walked by his desk on my way to the printer room to do my hair and makeup.

Yep, pretty glamorous. The anchors all used a mirror on the wall of the tiny printer room to get ourselves camera-ready. The lighting was actually way less shadowy there than in the bathroom.

A lot of people assumed news anchors had makeup artists or stylists to fix them up. Not quite. Only those on the network or in the very top markets like New York and Los Angeles had that luxury.

The rest of us had to make it work with whatever techniques we’d picked up from beauty magazines, from Mom, or from trial and error. Even the guys wore some foundation.

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