Falling Star Read Free Page A

quake
hit.
    Tugging at her eighteen inches of black lycra
skirt, Kelly climbed through the truck's open sliding door and
perched on one of the Naugahyde swivel chairs that faced the wall
of knobs and monitors. She pulled her makeup bag out of her satchel
and dumped the contents onto the other swivel chair. Swiftly she
went through her routine, which in her two years as a reporter
she'd honed to perfection: concealer for any imperfections (rare),
base to even out her skin tone (olive), powder to keep the shine
down (her one beauty cross to bear), three shades of brown shadow
(the darkest at the outer corners to add drama), eyeliner (thick),
mascara (thicker), lip liner and lipstick (dark and matte), and
blush to highlight her cheekbones (high).
    Now for hair. Kelly spread her knees and
threw her head down between them, brushing from the nape the thick
brunette mane she had cut every four weeks at seventy bucks a pop.
Every other week she trimmed the bangs herself to keep them at
their sexiest (just above her brows). At least that was what the
photog told her when she posed for Playboy 's "California
Collegiate" issue, and he must've been right because she was the
only girl to get a full-page spread. Kelly pumped the hair spray,
then jerked her head back. When her last boyfriend had seen that
maneuver he'd told her she looked like a girl in a commercial.
    Commercial, my ass. Kelly snorted and
held her compact's mirror close up to her face. What she looked
like was a prime-time anchorwoman.
    *
    "Why did you cut Kelly off?" Tony
demanded.
    Trying hard not to let her jaw drop, Natalie
stood in front of her news director's desk and listened to him hurl
the question like an accusation. She'd just hauled ass to anchor a
brilliant interrupt and what did Tony Scoppio do? Demand to know
why she'd cut off a cub reporter?
    "Kelly was in Santa Monica." Natalie kept her
tone level, sensible. "Miles away from the action. We, on the other
hand, were in front of a freeway collapse. We—"
    "There was a helluva lot going on in Santa
Monica."
    "Broken windows and jars off grocery store
shelves."
    "Car accidents," Tony shot back. "Collapsed
walls."
    "One car accident. One collapsed wall."
    "I don't know who you worked for before but
let me tell you how I run my shop." Tony jabbed his thumb at
his chest. " I decide who goes on the air, and for how long. I decide. Not producers, not directors." He paused. "And
certainly not talent."
    Natalie narrowed her eyes at Tony, enthroned
behind his desk like a news director buddha. Anybody else would
applaud her but he was attacking, using a pretext as thin as script
paper. "May I remind you that thanks to me we were the first
station to air pictures of—"
    "We were the last station on the air!"
    "That is a function of technical problems
that you haven't fixed." More than any other news director she'd
ever had, this guy made her blood boil. "I honestly do not
understand this. This is not how this newsroom used to be run.
You—"
    He cut her off. "You got that right,
Daniels."
    She stared at him, momentarily silenced.
    "The way this newsroom used to be run," he
went on, "it lost money. And ratings were heading south. Well, no
more. It's a whole new world and you better get with the program.
Or I'll tell you what."
    He stopped and she waited, for what she
couldn't imagine.
    "You'll be off the program."
    "Oh, come on." She scoffed at him. "Kelly was
doing a monologue on a nonevent. I made a judgment that it was time
to—"
    "That's not your judgment to make."
    "As an anchor it is my job to make editorial
decisions—"
    "No. It is your job to listen to my editorial decisions."
    Her arms flew up in exasperation. "Tony, I am
not some brainless mouthpiece out there! Of course I have to make
judgments about what's news and what isn't, particularly in a
breaking—"
    "Did it ever occur to you that maybe your
judgment isn't what it used to be?" He arched his brows. "Maybe
you're out of touch. Maybe you've gotten soft