Falling Star Read Free Page B

from all those years
behind the anchor desk."
    "That is the most asinine thing I ever
heard." Natalie spoke with as much dismissiveness as she could
muster but felt as if the earth beneath her feet were again
shifting. She tried to maintain control by focusing on the weave in
the industrial-strength carpet. It was the color of television
static.
    "Now is as good a time as any to tell you."
Tony paused and something changed in the stale office air. "As of
right now I'm not planning to pick up the option on your
contract."
    Natalie felt as if a truck had careened into
her lane of traffic and hit her head-on. He wants to get rid of
me? She had to force herself not to reach for a seat.
    "The ratings aren't what they should be," he
went on, his tone now so conversational they might have been
discussing the weather. "You've seen the numbers for the May
sweep?"
    As if through a fog Natalie watched him grab
a manila folder and slap it open. Just happened to have it
handy , she thought dazedly. Then he tossed in her direction a
sheet of paper with those don't-lie columns under the heading
NIELSEN. But she didn't take it.
    "Of course I've seen them," she managed. "But
the drop-off has a lot more to do with the stories you're putting
on the air than with how I'm anchoring."
    "That's funny, Daniels." He grabbed the top
folder from another pile. "When I was news director at KBIT in
Dallas, before I came here, the stories I put on the air got us
into first place." He held up a chart and grinned broadly. "Want to
try another explanation?"
    Her mind raced. There were all sorts of
reasons ratings dropped. Ratings ebbed and flowed like seawater. No
newscast stayed number one forever.
    "I'm as frustrated as you are with the
numbers," she told him. "But mark my words, they'll rebound with
the quake coverage."
    "Right." Now his tone was dismissive.
    Natalie watched as the man who held her fate
in his hands slapped his pile of manila folders shut.
    "Let's just see what happens with the
numbers, Daniels." He smiled at her. "Let's just wait and see."
     
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    Monday, June 17, 5:25 PM
     
    Bastard! Natalie cut her way across
the newsroom, then out through the security door, striding past the
darkened studio, hair and makeup departments. Her goal was the
ladies' room at the far end of the production wing, just before the
swinging double doors that demarcated KXLA's executive suites. It
was the only place she might get some privacy.
    She pushed open the battered door with the
black-and-gold paste-on letters that led into the tiny pastel
anteroom, its lone piece of furniture a moth-bitten pink couch left
over from some long-canceled talk show. Frantically she paced the
minuscule space, her rage threatening to burst out of her like a
volcanic blast. How she'd maintained any semblance of calm in that
meeting with Tony was beyond her.
    My God, he's trying to get rid of me. Just
like Miles .
    She shook her head vigorously. No. No
Miles now. Concentrate on one bastard at a time.
    All those years! Fourteen years of working
all hours, just to be drop-kicked like some worn-out pigskin? And
all those awards ... how many? She halted and tried to think. Three
Emmys, four Golden Mikes, too many Women in Journalism awards to
count. Periodic ratings domination for The KXLA Primetime
News , though Tony was right that hadn't been the case for some
time. But still, the suits should give her a medal! Not only had
she outlasted a parade of news directors but an army of coanchors,
too. Now she was on her fifth: a vapid Nordic stripling Tony had
imported from some Minnesota backwater. All too appropriately named
Ken, he looked straight out of Mattel.
    But if there was one constant at KXLA, it was
Natalie Daniels. She was the LA. TV-news equivalent of death and
taxes. Or had been, back when she'd seemed an eternal star in
L.A.'s glittering firmament Now she felt herself falling,
plummeting back to earth from her heavenly perch.
    Maybe you're out of touch.