Page 20 of No More Heartbreakers

I arrived early before my shift on Sunday with a new eagerness to work on my reel.

Maybe Mara had been right—maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe it just needed some tweaking and then I could send it out to a headhunter or to a new station.

Atlanta was far too big a market to be a legitimate goal at this time, but Savannah might be a possibility, or Columbia, South Carolina, just over the state line.

And then I watched it.Ugh.

Even with my fresh eyes, it sucked. It needed a more attention-grabbing beginning, some creative stand-ups for the montage.

Unfortunately, I could wake up with a new attitude about applying for jobs, but I couldn’t magically produce better stand-ups as long as I was shooting stories alone.

Just to torture myself, I watched my reel to the end. As I reached for the stop button, I heard rustling behind me.

I spun my chair around to find Aric standing in the doorway of the tiny edit bay. He’d been watching, too.

Mortification slid down my spine and pooled in my stomach.

He gave me an encouraging smile. “Pretty good. You need to vary your stand-ups, though.”

I stood abruptly. “Thanks for your opinion, Walter Cronkite. I’ll get to work on that.” I moved toward the door, making it clear I wanted to get out of the cramped space.

He was filling up entirely too much of it for my comfort.

Aric didn’t move. “You know, your accent is really cute when you’re annoyed.”

“I don’t have an accent. Excuse me, please.”

That drew a laugh from him. “You definitely do. Every word is at least two syllables. Even ‘have’—you say it like ‘hay-av.’ It’s adorable.”

He finally stepped aside, and I pushed past him, heading for my desk. “Well, my voice coach is totally fired.”

I slammed my things down on my desktop a little too hard and started sorting through the notes left there for me by the morning crew.

“Apparently I’ve been wasting money I don’t have to waste.”

“Hey. Heidi.”

Aric had followed me and stood beside my desk, waiting for me to look at him. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean you sounded bad or anything. I actually think you have a great voice, and most people love Southern accents. Yours is a pretty one, anyway, not a redneck one. Don’t even worry about it.”

I exhaled loudly. “No, it’s all right. I overreacted. I mean, I’ve lived here my whole life, except for a few months, years ago, so I shouldn’t be shocked to hear I sound like it.”

Sighing I added, “It’s probably hopeless to apply for jobs in bigger markets with a Southern drawl.”

“I don’t think it’s hopeless. Like I said, it’s not bad. But, if you’re really concerned, I could give you the vocal exercises my voice coach gave me. They work.”

I stopped fiddling with the notes and looked up at him. “You went to a voice coach?”

“Oh yeah. My mom’s from Sweden, you know?” He pronounced it with an over-the-top accent, likeSvee-den. “And my dad’s from NewYawkCity. And I lived all over the place, so I was this weird mish-mash of accents. But I think the exercises did help.”

“They must have. You have no accent at all.”

“I’d be happy to share them. But I’d have to kind of show them to you, you know, say them for you? To show you how to do it? We might be able to do it at work if we have time, or… if your boyfriend wouldn’t mind, maybe we could go get coffee sometime and—”

“No—let’s try to do it here, okay? That would be great.”

I’d just said “no” again.Sugar. Mara was right. I glanced back at my schedule for the day.

“Well, I’ve got a shoot in Statesboro in forty minutes. I’d better get going.”

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