Page 16 of No More Heartbreakers

“Hey,” Aric mumbled, never looking away from his monitor as I walked into the door-less printer room across from his desk.

He was on his own, sweating it out, trying to get done by his deadline. Dennis had left an hour ago, apparently reluctant to keep his hot date waiting any longer.

“Hi. You gonna make it?” I asked.

“I guess I have to, don’t I? So, the answer is yes,somethingwill make it on the air tonight. I can’t promise it’ll make any sense, though.” He looked up and gave me a frazzled grin.

I pulled my hair back in a clip and unzipped my bag, carefully applying approximately three times more makeup than I’d ever wear in “real life.”

After ten minutes or so, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Aric had turned his desk chair around and seemed to be watching me. I darted my eyes over at him. Hewaswatching me.

“You all done?” I asked.

“Almost,” he said, his tone distracted.

His legs were stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, his arms folded under his chest. He still had on the golf shirt, which was stretched tightly across some impressive biceps and shoulders.

And nowIwas distracted, thank you very much.

Wasn’t he trying to make deadline? Why didn’t he get back to work?Wait—did I already put on blush?

Sugar.

At ten till ten, I finished my makeup, and grabbing my scripts from the printer, headed for the studio.

“See you in there,” I said to Aric, who’d finally (thank God) turned back around.

“Good luck,” he called to my back.

“Have a great show.” Mara gave me a cheerful thumbs-up as I passed her desk. “See you afterward. I’m going to hang around and work on my reel.”

“Okay—thanks for all you did today,” I said, rushing toward the door. “Really. I’d kiss you, but the industrial-strength lipstick might be hard to explain to Mike tonight.”

“Are you kidding? He’d love it.” She laughed.

I walked down the corridor from the newsroom to the studio, nerves spiking. Large, framed promotional photos of the current and former news teams lined the wall.

Their perfect anchor hair, power suits, and ultra-white teeth seemed to challenge me.Are you ready for this?

“I’m ready,” I said aloud, meaning it. But as I put my hand on the studio door to push it open, I stopped.

My stomach was rolling and bouncing like a basketball down a sloped driveway.

“Dammit.” I spun around and ran, bumping into Aric in the hallway.

His concerned call followed me as I burst through the bathroom door. “Heidi?”

Five minutes later, I slid into my chair on the set, still shaking, but now that my gut was completely empty, feeling better. I neatened my stack of scripts in front of me. They were my lifeline should the teleprompter stall or fail.

I said hello to Glenn, the studio cameraman, and gave a silly, tongue-out nervous face to Allison, who’d come in to run prompter for me. The rest of the freezing, darkened studio was empty. Just me and the camera and studio lights so bright they threatened to erase my memory.

Closing my eyes, I flattened my palms on the cool glass top of the desk, inhaling and exhaling purposefully.

In my earpiece, the director’s smooth voice teased me. “Thirty seconds to open. Prepare for takeoff. And remember, Heidi, in case of emergency, your anchor chair seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.”

I let out a quick, high-pitched laugh. I couldn’t see him, of course, but I pointed at him through the camera. I pictured him and the audio tech in the booth, smiling back at my image on their monitors.

The opening music came up. My belly gave one last fish-on-a-line flop. Glenn cued me by pointing around the side of the huge floor-camera, and the newscast began.

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