Falling Star (26 page)

"Geoff," Pemberley said finally, "I know
you're supporting your client. I admire that, but I can't help you.
Scoppio may not cut a dashing figure but he's brought every news
department he's ever headed to number one. I see no reason to
question his judgment."

Geoff let the cold beer run down his throat.
He knew Pemberley fancied himself a small-scale Jack Welch, the
famed longtime chairman of General Electric whose hands-off policy
made Rhett Pemberley look like a micromanager. Welch gave his
division heads the same directive every year, and the same warning:
raise profits fifteen percent or lose your job. How they did it was
their business. And Geoff couldn't deny that Scoppio produced along
the only two dimensions that really counted in TV news: ratings and
profitability.

"You run the risk of losing Natalie," Geoff
pointed out as he and Pemberley left the shaded restaurant patio
for the blast furnace of the parking lot. Heat radiated from the
asphalt in blistering waves. Geoff broke into a sweat that within
seconds reattached his polo shirt to his skin.

"
Scoppio
runs the risk of losing
Natalie," Pemberley retorted. "And apparently that's fine with
him."

"Your entire organization is hurt if you lose
a talent of Natalie's caliber," Geoff insisted. "You know how much
every Sunshine station relies on her reports when a huge story
breaks. Remember it was Natalie who covered the JFK Jr. plane crash
and filed reports for all your stations. Natalie who covered the
election fiasco and 9/11. Not to mention nailing the exclusive on
Hope Dalmont."

Pemberley seemed to weigh that. "Granted," he
admitted finally. When they'd arrived at his gleaming white
Mercedes 450 SL, the older man let fly something Geoff hadn't in
the least anticipated. "I just heard today that WITW is looking for
a new prime-time female."

WITW, Sunshine's station in New York City.
Geoff narrowed his eyes against the sun's glare, ignoring the
tightness that suddenly gripped his stomach.

"Tell you what," Pemberley went on, halting
at the driver's side door, "I'll give Dean Drosher a call." WITW's
news director. "I'll recommend that he look at Natalie. Who knows?
She might be perfect for him. And Sunshine could keep her in the
family, so to speak."

The men shook hands. "I'd very much
appreciate whatever you can do," Geoff told Pemberley, then waited
while the Mercedes sped off. Head down, he returned slowly to his
own car, the sort of nondescript maroon Ford that seemed destined
from the assembly line to live life as a rental.

WITW. New York. Thoughtfully Geoff extracted
the Ford's key from his trouser pocket and inserted it into the
lock. This was certainly unexpected. He'd wanted Pemberley to
intercede with Scoppio. Geoff settled himself in the saunalike
front seat, rolling down the windows and blasting the air
conditioner. Minutes ticked by while he waited both for the Ford's
interior to move from broiling to bearable and to get used to the
idea of Natalie living in New York.

He would be in Los Angeles and Natalie would
be in New York.

Geoff dropped the car into reverse and backed
slowly out of the parking space, finding himself surprisingly
downhearted. He castigated himself for the reaction. This was good
news, he told himself. If this job came through, Natalie would
actually move up in the TV-news world, to the only media market
larger than Los Angeles. He pointed the Ford toward the freeway,
making tracks for the airport. Only one thing was clear to him at
that moment, though. He was planning to propose to Janet, and
Natalie might move to New York. Life was certainly changing, and it
wasn't at all clear that it was for the better.

*

Kneeling on the floor of her study,
surrounded on all sides by untidy piles of paperwork, Natalie
paused in her labors just long enough to listen to the grandfather
clock chime eleven. After the final note, the lone sound in the big
Mediterranean-style house was the breeze riffling the study's lacy
white curtains. The brass lamp on the rosewood desk provided the
only illumination.

What a sorry way to spend a Friday night. She
sighed, closing her tired eyes to massage the lids. Maybe she
needed more light. The documents spread all over the worn
crimson-and-navy Oriental carpet contained a great deal of fine
print. Mortgage-payment coupons. Tax returns. Bank statements.
Year-end financial reports from investment houses. Credit card
bills. Pension paperwork from AFTRA, the union for television and
radio artists. 1099s, W-2s, from all the years of her marriage.

It was like tax season in hell, where
documents from twelve years were required in one shot. On a week's
notice.

The discovery phase of the divorce had begun,
Berta had told her. Natalie winced. Discovery was a euphemism for
being forced to lay bare the nuts and bolts of her financial life
so Miles's attorney could peruse the whole and cut out his half for
his client. All she was discovering was that twelve years of
marriage had been reduced to statements to be pored over in the
half-light, the joy and passion sucked out like lemonade through a
straw, leaving her nothing but the bitter aftertaste.

She moved from the chair to the carpet,
kneeling on the thin woven wool to stare down at the numbers. Had
they spent
so
much money? Why was there so little left?

She sat back on her haunches. During their
marriage she'd left the money stuff to Miles, doing little more
than arranging automatic deposit of her KXLA checks into their
joint account and signing their joint tax returns. It was easier
and, she'd thought, wiser. Miles seemed to know exactly what he was
doing. When they'd married she was 28 and he was 43. She'd been a
KXLA anchor for two years, and though her salary was impressive, it
hadn't yet reached the stratospheric heights it would later attain.
And though Miles made only a piddling income, from occasionally
selling a pilot script that never went anywhere, he certainly
seemed to have amassed a fortune from his first sitcom, the one
he'd created with his former writing partner Jerry Cohen, the one
that won so many awards and stayed on the air for so many years
before moving into highly lucrative syndication. When she met
Miles, he owned a beautiful house and a fancy car and jet-setted
her around. Surely such a man knew how to manage money?

But now, staring at these shockingly small
numbers, she had to wonder. Maybe all Miles knew about money was
how to spend it.

Why did I stay with him?
The question
perplexed her now. She knew that she'd loved Miles. Perhaps more to
the point, she knew that she'd loved her life with him. And while
doubts about her husband occasionally niggled to the surface, she'd
ignored them. Because, she now recognized, she hadn't wanted to
roil the happy placidity of her life.

Perhaps, too, she'd felt a trifle guilty, as
her career and salary skyrocketed and Miles labored on scripts that
failed to take off. She winced. He'd never seemed resentful until
the day he'd walked out.

Her knees hurt. Natalie hobbled to her feet.
God, she was forty years old and felt like an old woman. She arched
backward to try to work out the kink in her spine, her mind racing
ahead to ponder the imponderable.
What if Miles succeeds in
claiming there's no prenup? He'd make off with half what's left.
I'd have almost no cushion
, Natalie realized dazedly.
At age
forty
.

Berta had told her not to give up on finding
a copy of the prenup. She'd subpoenaed Miles's former attorney. He
never returned her phone calls but might hop to when he received a
legal summons.

Natalie shook her head dubiously.
The guy
was a slime then and he's a slime now
. Why hadn't she seen
that? You could tell a lot about a man from the company he kept and
Natalie had liked only one of Miles's associates. Jerry Cohen, whom
Miles had dumped.

She surveyed the heaps of documents. There
was so much she didn't understand. So much she didn't want to think
about. Being banished to reporterdom. The divorce. Geoff's
standoffishness. Her future stretched before her in unrelieved
murkiness.
Enough
, she told herself.
Tomorrow's Saturday.
I'll deal with it then.

She felt a rush of relief, then tiptoed among
the paperwork piles to turn off the desk lamp and climb the
pitch-black stairs to her bedroom. There, soft light glowed in warm
welcome from two bedside lamps. Pillows and plump duvet beckoned
enticingly. Nothing more was required than giving in to her
overwhelming fatigue.

Which she did. Gladly.

Monday, July 29, 9:45 AM

"I'm dead serious, Natalie," Geoff said. He
observed her from behind his Dewey, Climer desk as she finally,
finally
, cracked a smile. "WITW wants to audition you for
the prime-time anchor job. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" The smile faded. "Why so
fast?"

"We have to strike while the iron's hot. You
won't be ready?"

"Of course I'll be ready. I'll have to call
in sick and fly a red-eye but I'll be ready."

He nodded and raised a warning finger. "I'm
not making any guarantees. You've got to wow them. And I mean
wow
them."

"I can do that," she replied and set to
pacing his office.

Geoff watched her, drawing a relieved breath.
For the first time in a long time he'd made her happy. He'd broken
through a bit of the awkwardness. And it was clearly because they
were talking business. Making this audition possible was no more
than any good agent would do but he felt especially gratified. He'd
done wrong by her lately. This time he'd done right.

She halted in front of him. "So Rhett
Pemberley made the initial call and you followed up?"

Geoff nodded. "Dean Drosher and I spoke,
yes."

"And he's as much of a hotshot news director
as ever?"

"More than ever. In the May sweep WITW won
the noon, six, and eleven."

"So why now?" Natalie narrowed her eyes. "Why
is Drosher looking to change anchors if they won the book?"

It was a truism that on-air changes typically
occurred in two circumstances: when new management came in and when
ratings were in the dumper. Often the two went hand in hand: new
management was brought in
because
ratings were in the
dumper.

But Geoff knew neither was true in WITW's
case. He spoke carefully. "Natalie, it's my belief that the same
thing's happening at WITW that's happening at KXLA. The management
wants the demographics to skew younger. And Sally O'Day is pushing
sixty. She's also pulling down a million and a half a year."

Sally O'Day was a New York institution: she'd
been on WITW's anchor desk for decades, thanks to God knew how many
lifts and peels and rejuvenations. The woman did a good imitation
of forty-five, at least with soft focus and kind lighting. But she
was sixty all the same, and management knew it, and viewers knew
it, and advertisers knew it.

Natalie grimaced. "Great. So I'm to Sally
O'Day what Kelly Devlin is to me. Younger and cheaper."

"That's about it."

She shook her head. "I hate to profit from
another older woman getting forced out of her job."

"This is business." He leaned forward, his
elbows on his desk. "Do you want to rail against the system or do
you want another anchor job?"

"I want both."

"Can't have both."

She sighed. "That's why I don't want to file
an age-discrimination suit against KXLA. I guess if I were a nobler
woman I would. But what I really want is another anchor job."

"Which you'd never get if you did."

With a pensive look on her face she resumed
pacing. "You think the timing would work out with WITW? If Drosher
wanted me he'd be willing to wait till early October, when my KXLA
contract runs out? That's still two months away."

"Scoppio might let you go early. That way
he'd get out of paying you." He eyed Natalie, still pacing. What
was it about her that he liked? She was unstoppable—maybe that was
it. Unsentimental when it came to business. He rose and perched on
the edge of his desk. "So how's it going with old Tony these
days?"

"Oh, since our latest knockdown-dragout,
which by the way took place in KXLA's men's room, we're getting
along famously." Her voice had an edge. "I steer clear of
him—that's why."

Geoff watched as Natalie threw back her head
and shut her eyes. For a moment another image flashed into his
brain. Natalie above him on her sofa. Naked. Her head thrown back,
her eyes closed ...

He obeyed a compulsion to abandon his desk
and approach her. Her eyes grew wary but she didn't draw back.
"You're a fabulous anchor, Natalie. And you'll land on your
feet."

She stared at him. "At WITW in New York?"

"Why not?" He was close to her now. He could
smell her faintly musky perfume, see how smooth her skin was. She
was wearing less makeup these days, now that she was in the field
and not in the studio. A more natural look. Very becoming.

She said nothing. Their eyes met. "Thanks for
paving the way for the audition, Geoff," she said softly.

"Just doing my job." He said it
automatically, without thinking, and something in her face
hardened.

"Right." She turned away.

Damn
. He forced himself back behind
the fortress of his desk and made his voice businesslike. "We both
know what an opportunity WITW would be for you. I'd be delighted to
have you land there."

"I'm sure you would." She returned to his
desk and bent to retrieve her briefcase when she stopped and
frowned.

He followed her gaze and grimaced. Janet's
photo. A glossy eight-by-ten by a hotshot photographer. He'd given
her the shoot as a birthday present.