Falling Star

Diana Dempsey

Published by Diana Dempsey at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 by Diana Dempsey

This book may not be reproduced in whole or
in part without permission. It is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If
you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your sole use, please purchase your own copy. The
author appreciates that consideration.

Monday, June 17, 2:19 PM

Natalie Daniels stood apart from the other
mourners in the rear of Our Lady Victory Catholic Church, clutching
a damp balled tissue. Brilliant sunshine streamed through
stained-glass windows far overhead, dappling the spray of white
lilies on Evie's casket with iridescent color. Beside her in the
hushed nave Natalie could hear the soft whir of videotape rolling
as her cameraman recorded the eulogy for posterity. And for that
night's edition of
The KXLA Primetime News
.

"We all knew Evelyn as a woman who grabbed
life with both hands," the elderly priest said, "whether she was
winning ballroom dance competitions or skewering politicians for
The Downey Eagle
."

The assemblage chuckled knowingly at the
description but Natalie shook her head with a surge of bitterness.
Evie had to write for
The Eagle
, its circulation all of
thirty thousand, because she got fired from KXLA.

"Evelyn was a rule breaker," the priest went
on. "And not only when she played bridge or golf or tennis." The
mourners' chuckle grew into a laugh. "She broke the rules when she
became the first woman reporter on Los Angeles television. She
broke the rules when she used the men's rest room because her
station had no facilities for women. And she broke the rules when
for two decades she won countless Emmy awards and put her news
department on the map."

And
still
I had to fight to bring a
camera here!
Natalie shook her head in disbelief, angry tears
stinging her eyes. Evie did so much for KXLA but what did the
station do for her? Fire her when she hit forty-five and ignore her
death a dozen years later. Natalie practically had to hijack a
cameraman to cover her funeral.

"Evelyn also cheated death. We were friends
for forty years but she did not share her burden until she could no
longer hide cancer's ravages. l am filled with admiration for her
courage." The priest's voice caught. "She was a great lady, our
Evelyn Parker. And now she rests with God. Let us pray."

He began a lulling, singsong prayer and
Natalie allowed her mind to drift. How could Evie be gone? Mentor,
friend, relentless booster. The person most responsible for
launching Natalie as an anchor, the person who taught her the ins
and outs of television news. Natalie fought to control a sob that
rose in her throat, her compulsion to maintain professional
composure battling her grief.
I never thanked her enough. And
now it's too late.

Flanked by altar boys, the priest moved
toward the casket, framed at both ends by standing floral
arrangements. He sprinkled the coffin with holy water, all the
while praying in a low monotone. The warm air, laden with incense,
seemed to thicken.

Natalie heard a rumble in the distance. She
cocked her head, puzzled. A thunderstorm? In Los Angeles? In
June?

The rumble intensified, grew closer. Natalie
felt the earth shudder far beneath the church's stone flags. One of
the floral arrangements swayed like a drunken sailor, then toppled,
clattering to the floor. Involuntarily Natalie's hand flew to her
throat.
No. It can't be. Not now.

Her cameraman, Julio, turned to her, his dark
eyes wide. Both mouthed the dreaded word.
Earthquake!
The
next moment the ground shifted with such force that Natalie was
thrown off her feet. She dropped to her knees, powerless as she
fell to keep her head from banging into a pew. As pain ricocheted
through her skull she was aware of people screaming and shouting,
Julio beside her on his knees struggling to keep taping.

And the noise! Deafening, like a train
pounding through her brain, or a 747 taking off right overhead.

Seconds passed, the unreal undulation growing
in intensity. Suddenly the earth gave a particularly ugly lurch.
Seventy feet overhead, the church's masonry vaulting groaned. Then
a stained-glass window burst from its frame, the sound a shotgun
blast. Shards of multicolored glass sprayed the congregation like
so much deadly confetti, the screaming around Natalie growing
frenzied and animal.

She crawled under a pew, cramming her body
into the smallest possible ball. A vision of a man's intense dark
eyes rose in her mind.
Where is Miles now? My God, I hope he's
safe.

The image vanished in the next shock wave, as
all at once the church was rocked by one apocalyptic spasm of noise
and motion. Votive candles rolled crazily across the flagstones,
the sickly sweet smells of beeswax and incense mingling with acrid
dust. All Natalie could do was cling to the seesawing ground, her
head banging repeatedly against the pew, the pain numbing.

Then, as quickly as it started, the shaking
stopped.

For a moment she was immobilized, too dazed
to do anything but remain in her crouch. Seconds passed. Around her
she could hear people clambering to their feet, the priest
appealing loudly for calm. Slowly she began to believe that indeed,
for the moment at least, the earth had settled grudgingly back into
place.

Natalie rose to her full height, struggling
to think despite the pounding in her head. The church had taken an
unholy beating. Now sunshine slanted through three gaping holes
high in the nave, lighting the shards of stained glass strewn
across the flagstones like crystals in a kaleidoscope. Votive
candles and prayer books lay in piles like abandoned toys,
alongside chunks of gold-painted plaster. But the heavens had
worked their magic: she and Julio and their fellow mourners were
intact. Slowly her instincts as a newswoman scrabbled to the
surface:
Call the station
.

Natalie groped to find her cell phone.
Briefly she shut her eyes.
Oh, Evie. Even your funeral got
overshadowed by a news event. Now you won't make air.
She
conducted a quick personal inventory. Her head throbbed as though
she'd been attacked with a sledgehammer. Her blond hair was
wrenched free of the neat French twist into which she habitually
knotted it for air; dust streaked her black suit; somewhere she'd
lost one of her pumps.

But she was the beneficiary of a miracle, she
soon discovered. Her cell phone worked.

Natalie jabbed the QUICKDIAL button for the
Assignment Desk and picked her way unsteadily toward the central
door, trying not to cut her unshod foot on the broken glass. She'd
just wrenched the door open when a female intern answered her
call.

"My God," Natalie breathed into the phone,
momentarily forgetting herself, mesmerized by the spectacle across
the street. A concrete hulk that used to be a portion of the 210
freeway now pitched at a crazy angle. Bloodied commuters stood
dazedly next to their vehicles. Cars that hadn't already skidded
earthward teetered on the buckled concrete like Tinkertoys. "It's
Natalie—" she began.

The intern cut her off. "Hold for Tony
Scoppio."

Natalie clenched her jaw. Her new news
director, whom she would gladly return to whatever hole he'd
slithered out of.

He came on a second later. "Get your ass back
here, Daniels. Pronto."

"If you've got juice back at the station I
want to go live from here." Natalie raised her voice above his
instant protest. "I'm at Our Lady Victory in Pasadena and we can
see from here that the 210 at Sierra Madre Boulevard
collapsed."

"No way. We took a power hit but can get on
faster from the studio than from the field."

"No. We shouldn't pass on these pictures and
we're the only crew here."

Luckily they'd driven to the church in an
ENG, or electronic news gathering, truck, which gave them live
capability. Julio edged closer, holding a handkerchief to his
forehead. He pulled it away to reveal a jagged gash. Natalie arched
her brow questioningly and without missing a beat he gave her a
thumbs-up. She returned her attention to the phone, over which she
could hear Tony yelling at someone about power hits and generator
breakdowns.

He came back to her. "Okay, Daniels, but if
you're not ready to go live when we're back up, we're taking it
from here without you. Got it?"

Natalie bit her tongue. "Got it."

"And don't say another word to me about that
goddamn funeral." He hung up.

*

Tony Scoppio leaned back in his chair and
checked his digital stopwatch, which he'd started the moment he and
Natalie Daniels had gotten off the phone. Nine minutes, nine
seconds, and counting. The power was still intermittent, and they
still weren't on the air.

He focused his eyes on the six television
monitors that sat across from his desk, set to Channels 3, 6, 8,
10, 14, and his own, Channel 12. It was his responsibility as
KXLA's news director to keep an eye on the competition all day,
every day, news emergency or not. The early signs were that, apart
from the collapsed portion of the 210 and a widespread power
outage, the temblor hadn't wreaked much havoc on quake-hardened Los
Angeles. But a 6.2 on the Richter scale still qualified as an
emergency.

He did a quick scan. Four of his five
competitors were live on the air with quake coverage. Meaning he
got lumped with the perennial also-ran in L.A. TV news, Channel 14,
the only other station in town incompetent enough still to be
running a full-screen PLEASE STAND BY billboard.

Shit.

He threw down the remote with disgust and
wiped his hands on the stained expanse of his yellow button-down
shirt. What a shop he'd inherited. The backup system had gone on
the fritz and he had a bunch of union hires who didn't know a
generator from Santa Claus. And a princess anchor talent whining
about going live from the field.

Tony ran an impatient hand through what was
left of his graying hair and pushed up the half glasses that
stubbornly refused to park on the bridge of his nose. Sure, Natalie
Daniels was good. But not only did she cost him seven hundred fifty
big ones a year—she had a body that a decade earlier had ceased
screaming babe-alicious. What with the blond hair and the blue
eyes, she looked good, but she looked good
for a woman of
forty
. That didn't cut it in an era when "mature" for a local
TV female started at thirty-five. And the viewers of choice—the
young guns who fit the demographic profile advertisers had wet
dreams over—thought any local anchorwoman more than a decade
removed from prom night was a prime candidate for retirement.

Well, he'd been around KXLA two months now.
Long enough to get the lay of the land. Long enough to start the
ass kicking.

His eyes darted back to his own programming,
drawn by the sudden onslaught of KXLA's pulsating news theme.
Finally those bozos had the generator going. So who was gonna show
up on the air? Ken in the studio? Or Princess from the field?

Tony hiked the volume until the glass walls
of his office vibrated. In the newsroom heads swiveled but he
didn't give a good goddamn. He was boss and he liked news loud. He
pulled a yellow legal pad closer, poising a pen over its pale blue
lines. If Princess screwed up, he'd catch it. And remember. Because
he needed ratings, and he sure as hell wasn't going to get them
with an aging diva on his air.

*

At that moment several miles west of KXLA's
Hollywood lot, Geoff Marner rocked back in his ergonomically
correct chair to gaze out his huge office windows, which traversed
the entire wall and reached from Persian carpet to twelve-foot-high
ceiling. From the 38th-floor penthouse of the Century City
skyscraper where powerhouse entertainment law firm Dewey, Climer,
Fipton and Marner practiced, the windows gave off onto a stunning
view of the Santa Monica Mountains, baking in garish California
sunlight. Long lines of cars snaked through the streets around his
office tower, filled with people who apparently thought a moderate
quake was good enough reason to quit work early.