Cover-up Read Free Page A

anyway.”
    â€œAnd if she does, she does, but I think if you encourage her
not
to, tell her you want her to stay on so that at least one of you will still have a say on the show, she might stay.”
    Stevie almost smiled. “Tell her to win one for the Gipper?”
    â€œSomething like that,” his dad said. “Or at least stay on TV for him.”
    Stevie sat down on the couch across from his father to try to make sense of everything. His head hurt from how fast things seemed to be happening. He heard the phone ring.
    â€œProbably your mother,” his dad said, standing up to walk into the kitchen. A few seconds later, he was back, carrying the phone. “It’s Susan Carol,” he said. “She’s crying.”
    Apparently the USTV boys had called her as soon as they got into their car, wanting to put their spin on things before she could talk to Stevie. He took the phone and stared at it for a moment, not sure what he was going to say. “Your call, Gipper,” his father said, and left him alone in the room.

    For a few seconds, Stevie couldn’t understand anything Susan Carol was saying. Between the rush of words and her Southern accent, most of what he heard was gibberish. He was picking up perhaps two words a sentence.
    â€œHate them…. Never, ever…. The nerve…. Can’t be trusted…. Hate them.”
    The second time he heard “hate them,” he broke in because he guessed she was repeating herself. “Calm down,” he said.
    Her next few sentences he understood quite clearly: “CALM DOWN! DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, STEVEN RICHMAN THOMAS. I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, NOT FOR ONE SECOND!”
    He realized he was smiling. Her anger was one part amusing and about five parts touching. She seemed to be more upset about what had happened than he was. And her tirade was making him feel much better.
    â€œWhat did you tell them?” he said when she finally paused to take a breath.
    â€œI told them they better find themselves another girl, that there was only
one
person I would work with and some eye-candy guy named Jamie Whitsitt, of all things, was
not
that person.”
    â€œWho is Jamie Whitsitt?”
    He heard her sigh, the kind of sigh he usually heard when she seemed convinced he was too stupid to live.
    â€œJamie Whitsitt is the lead singer of the Best Boys. He
is
gorgeous, but I couldn’t care less. I’m
not
working with him.”
    Remarkably, Stevie had heard of the Best Boys, if only because he had heard the girls in his class oohing and aahing about them at lunchtime. “Aren’t those guys a lot older than us?” he asked.
    â€œHe’s eighteen. They don’t care. Shupe said we were a ‘perfect match.’ I told him I didn’t care, that the show was supposed to be about two kid reporters—
reporters
—not some damn rock star.”
    Stevie almost choked. He had never heard Susan Carol say anything stronger than “gosh darn” up until now.
    â€œSo what did they say to all that?”
    â€œThey said they were going to talk to my dad—who’s not home right now. They said they understood why I’d be upset about this and they thought loyalty was a great thing, but I’d breach my contract if I didn’t keep doing the show; and that not only would I not get paid, but they might take me to court.”
    â€œWhoa! They threatened to
sue you
? Unbelievable!”
    â€œRemind me to listen to Bobby and Tamara when they say something from now on, will you?”
    Tamara Mearns was Bobby Kelleher’s wife. He was a sports columnist for the
Washington Herald,
she for the
Washington Post.
The two of them had become Stevie and Susan Carol’s journalism mentors. Both had urged them strongly to resist the temptations of money and fame put on the table by USTV. They hadn’t listened.
    Stevie took a deep breath. “I want you to listen