The Price of Fame - KJ1 (35 page)

At 6:30 p.m., the doorbell rang. Jay wasn’t sure what to do. She knew it wasn’t Kate, because she was just getting off the air and wouldn’t have 211

Lynn Ames

rung the doorbell anyway. Should she answer it? It rang again. Fred was barking and whining. Whining? Why would the dog be whining? She decided to investigate. Cautiously approaching the peephole, she peered through to see someone familiar on the other side of the door.

“Um, hi, Jay, it’s Peter. Can I come in?”

She unlocked the door immediately and stepped aside to let him in.

Fred danced around him until he petted him and said a proper hello. “Is there something I can do for you, Peter?”

“Actually,” the tall man shifted from foot to foot, “I was wondering if you’ve had dinner yet?”

“No, I haven’t gotten that far. How did you know I was here?” She was starting to smell a plot.

“Um, a little birdie told me.”

“Hmm, I’m thinking it was more of a big birdie, say, oh, about six feet tall with fabulous blue eyes?”

“Well, I guess I’d better come clean. Kate called me this afternoon and told me you were here and that there was nothing in the house for dinner and suggested that you might want to go out to dinner with me, since you don’t really know the area yet. She wasn’t sure if you would pick up the phone if I called, so she told me to stop by.”

“That’s so sweet,” she sighed. “She is the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met.”

Peter noted the dreamy expression on his new friend’s face and smiled. Yep, they both had it bad. He decided to play with her just a little. “Hey, that’s a really nice ring you’ve got there. I don’t remember you wearing that the last time I saw you. Is it new?”

“Um, yeah, it is.” Jay’s eyes were shifting everywhere around the room.

“Huh, you must have found yourself a great guy. That sure looks like a wedding ring to me.”

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t like to lie, but she wasn’t sure what Kate would have told him or wanted him to know; she knew they were close, but...

Peter started to laugh, and Jay’s head whipped up. “It’s okay, small stuff, Kate told me she proposed and that you’re living here now.” He moved in and gave her a huge bear hug. “I think it’s great. I couldn’t be happier for the two of you. And it is a beautiful ring, by the way. Now, are you hungry, or what?”

“Yes, and I have another job for you, too. Lead on, Technowiz.”

“Ugh, not you too.”

“Oh yeah.”

212

The Price of Fame

At 6:35 p.m. Kate, Gene and Phil were heading out the back door to grab something to eat. The anchorwoman exited first and froze in her tracks as flashbulbs exploded and she was surrounded by fans seeking her autograph on the cover of the
Time
magazines they waved in front of her face. Both men stepped quickly in front of her to protect her from the crowd as they made their way to Phil’s car. Kate stopped them with a hand on their arms, then turned and graciously and patiently began signing autographs until every one of the two dozen or so fans had been satisfied.

The guys continued to give her grief all through dinner about her newfound goddess status, and she took it good-naturedly, although inwardly she was a bit discomfited by all the attention. Even their normal waitress wanted an autograph. She got the same treatment after the 11:00

news when she exited the station for her car in the parking lot, but this time the powers that be had taken precautions and had hired security guards to escort her and keep her safe.

Nothing felt better to her, though, than arriving home and being greeted at the door by an irresistible blonde wearing nothing more than a lacy negligee and a smile. God, she was going to love coming home to that every night! Within seconds she had been divested of her suit jacket, with her skirt and pantyhose not far behind. By the time she had made it upstairs, she was wearing only her panties and bra, and those quickly became history, too.

A while later, she breathed, “Now that’s something to come home to.” She stroked the blonde head resting on her chest. “How was the rest of your day?”

“Come see for yourself,” Jay said as she jumped up off the bed, pulling her lover with her.

“Where are you getting all this energy, Scoop?”

“Dunno, must be just being here with you.”

They arrived in Jay’s room, which had been transformed from a generic guest suite into a true living space.

“Wow, this is amazing. You did all this after I left?”

“Yep.”

“Incredible.” Kate looked around the room. “You got everything unpacked?”

“Yep. And I had time to play ball with Fred, too, and watch both newscasts and have dinner with Peter in between.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jay laughed, wrinkling up her nose. “How was your day?”

Kate told her about the overzealous fans, Phil and Gene coming to her rescue, and the security people assuring her safety after the late newscast.

213

Lynn Ames

“You know, I’ve had people approach me before in the mall or at a restaurant occasionally, but never anything like this frenzy. It was disconcerting.”

“Mmm, I bet. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, it just caught me a little off balance, that’s all. It turned out all right, though, everybody was nice enough.”

“Well,” Jay said, wrapping her arms around the muscular torso she loved so much, “if anybody so much as lays a finger on you, they’ll have me to answer to.”

“Ooh, that ought to keep them away.” Jay swatted her on the behind.

“Come on, shorty, we’ve got to get you to bed. You’ve got to be on the 6:00 a.m. train, and I don’t want you to be cranky.”

“I’m going to be cranky in any event because I don’t know what the next assignment is or whether I’m going to be able to come back home tomorrow night.”

“Let’s just wait and see, huh? No sense getting our knickers in a knot until we know, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jay sighed. “You’re far too practical and pragmatic, love, you know that?”

“Mmm, I do now.”

Having delivered Jay to the train on time, Kate was just completing her workout and run, albeit earlier than usual, when she noticed the message light on her answering machine blinking. She glanced at her watch: 8:32 a.m. That was odd. She depressed the play button and was surprised to hear her news director’s voice.

“Kate, this is Les. I need you to come in as soon as possible to meet with me. It’s 8:15 now. I’ll be waiting for you in my office.”

It was the first time in memory that Les had called her at home, and certainly the first time in the five years that she’d been working at WCAP

that he had been in the office before 9:00. He had sounded gruff, but that was nothing unusual; he always sounded gruff. Well, there was no sense speculating, she would just get showered and get to the office.

When Kate arrived at the station forty-five minutes later, the same two security officers from the night before greeted her at her car. “Hi, guys. It’s okay, I don’t see any unruly fans this morning.” She smiled at them.

Neither one of them smiled back; in fact, neither would even look at her. “Boss’s orders, Kate. We’re to escort you to his office.”

“Okay.” She drew out the word. The uneasy feeling she’d had since hearing the phone message was blossoming into a full-fledged knot in her stomach.

214

The Price of Fame

The security guards waited with her as she knocked on Les’s door.

“Come,” he growled.

The anchorwoman poked her head in. “You looking for me, boss?”

“Yes, Kate, come in.” To the guards he said, “It’s okay, fellas, you can wait outside.”

Stepping across the threshold, Kate closed the door behind her. She was beyond shocked to find the station’s general manager, the owner, and Phil all seated around the room. “Wow, this is quite a welcoming committee. Randy, it’s good to see you,” she acknowledged the owner.

“How’s your daughter doing with tennis?” The little girl had an aptitude for the sport, and the station owner had asked Kate one day to talk to her about training and the finer points of the game. She had done so and from that moment on the girl had sought her advice on any number of topics.

“She’s doing fine,” he mumbled, not shifting his gaze from a spot on his trousers.

None of them would meet her eyes, which was making her angry, although she was careful not to let it show.

“Have a seat.”

“No thanks, Les, I’m fine.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

This felt suspiciously like an ambush, and she intended to use every advantage; towering over the four men in the room was certainly one of them. “What can I do for all of you fine gentlemen?” Whatever this was, she had no intention of making it easy for them.

The news director fidgeted in his seat, picking up and then dropping his pencil. “Um, our switchboard started lighting up kind of early this morning with some rather ridiculous nonsense, but it raised a flag, so the receptionist called me.” He still hadn’t looked up. The anchorwoman remained silent, forcing him to feel even more uncomfortable.

“We know it’s just garbage, Kate, but still we have to take it seriously.” John Isaac, the station manager, picked up the ball. When she said nothing but continued to regard each of them steadily in turn, he stumbled on, “There were some pretty irate callers, you see, and they were insistent that we do something.”

Kate merely raised an eyebrow.

“We know it’s a hoax, I mean, we know you, right?” Randy chimed in. “I mean my kid idolizes you, for God’s sake.”

“Anyway,” Les picked up the thread, “I had Phil here go out and get a copy of the thing so we could see for ourselves how trumped up it was.

But when the receptionist started babbling at me as soon as she saw me about how sorry she was and how she thought the guy was really a friend of yours and she only told him where you were because she was trying to be helpful, well...”

215

Lynn Ames

Kate was truly perplexed. What the hell were they talking about? She was tempted to tell them just to spit it out, but she had a sinking feeling she wasn’t going to like where all this was going, so she decided to play it cool and wait them out. Outwardly she maintained a relaxed posture, seeming as though she hadn’t a care in the world, even as her insides were churning.

“Oh heck. Here.” The station manager threw something down on the desk.

Glancing down, she saw that it was that week’s edition of the
National Enquirer
, with the headline in huge bold print,
A New Breed of
Journalist? Indeed!
There were two large, grainy pictures side by side underneath the headline. One of the pictures showed two women kissing on a beach. The second snapshot showed the women playing in the surf.

In each picture the tall woman was clearly visible and identifiable; the other woman’s back was to the camera and her face was almost completely obscured with the exception of a tiny bit of her profile. The caption underneath the photos read,
What
Time
magazine didn’t tell you
about stunning journalist/heroine Katherine Kyle, seen here getting up
close and personal with an unidentified blonde in celebration of her
cover girl status.

“We know they probably just took a picture of you and pasted the other woman in there, I mean, geez. Right, Kate?” Randy looked at her hopefully.

The anchorwoman knew she could probably get away with agreeing; after all, it’s what they wanted to hear. But she wouldn’t do that. She loved Jay too much to cheapen their relationship by hiding or lying about it. In the past she had chosen to remain silent because there wasn’t anyone worth fighting for, but to deny that the kiss with her lover that had been captured on film was anything other than what it was, was to deny her own heart, and Jay’s importance in her life. Kate wouldn’t do that, no matter the cost or the consequences.

Her silence made the men in the room exceedingly uncomfortable.

“Hell, you don’t even know who that other woman is, right? You’ve probably never even seen her, never mind—well, you know.”

Kate shifted her gaze discreetly to Les, and then to Phil, realizing that even they, who had met Jay and spent time with her, didn’t know who the blonde was. Good. She straightened to her full height, looking each man in the eye before responding.

“No, you’re wrong, John. As you gentlemen can see, that is clearly me, and the woman you see with me is my fiancée.” She lifted her chin and stared at each man defiantly.

“Your
what
?” Les exploded.

“I believe you heard me, Les.”

216

The Price of Fame

“Who the hell is she? What the hell is going on? What are we supposed to do now? You’re a lesbian? You’ve got to be kidding me!

Why didn’t you tell us? You’re going to ruin us.”

With a calmness belying the anger seething in her veins, Kate said,

“To answer your questions in order, Randy: None of your business. I’m in love and getting married, and I was on vacation on a remote Caribbean island with my soon-to-be wife when some lowlife obviously hunted us down and invaded our privacy. I have no idea. Yes. No. I think it’s obvious given your reaction why I didn’t tell you, apart from the fact that it has no bearing on the job I do. And finally, I’d like to think that the job I have done, the consistent number-one ratings we’ve gotten since I’ve been anchoring, and the recent positive nationwide publicity for WCAP

that resulted from my coverage of the bombings speak for themselves.”

John had his head in his hands, Randy’s mouth was opening and closing but nothing was coming out, the veins were popping out of Les’s neck, and Phil simply stared at his shoes, unable to look his friend in the eye. Finally, Les spoke up. “You know there’s a morals clause in your contract, Kate.”

“Yes, I’m aware of it. I believe the clause states that I must maintain dignity and the upstanding reputation of the station and myself.”

“Right.”

“Are you saying I haven’t done that?”

“Well, um, ah, Kate, you’ve done a great job for us and we all know it,” John said. “It’s just that this is going to create a landslide of negative publicity. Already there are people threatening to boycott the station and advertisers are talking about pulling spots.”