Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane 1)

There was a smattering of laughter around the room. Tullys was the loudest. She knew more than his name. She knew his whole life story. Hed come out of college as a kind of wunderkind in broadcasting. Hed moved up the ranks fast, becoming a network anchor before he was thirty. Then, quite simply, hed lost it. A pair of DWIs, a car crash that broke both of his legs and injured a child, and his star had fallen. Thered been a couple of years with no mention of him at all, and then, finally, hed surfaced at UW, teaching.

Wiley stood. He was unkempt, with long dark hair and at least three days growth of gray-black beard, but the intelligence in his dark eyes was undiminished. The stamp of greatness was still on him. No wonder hed made it.

He handed her a syllabus and started to move on.

"Your coverage of the Karen Silkwood case was inspired," she said, smiling brightly.

He paused, looked down at her. There was something unsettling about the way he stared—intensely, but only for a second; like a laser beam switched on and off—and then he kept walking past her and on to the next student.

He thought she was just another front-row suck-up who wanted to curry favor.

Shed need to be more careful in the future. Nothing mattered more to her right now than impressing Chad Wiley. She intended to learn everything she could from him.

Part Two

THE EIGHTIES

Love Is a Battlefield

heartache to heartache, we stand

CHAPTER NINE

By the end of her sophomore year, there was no doubt in Tullys mind that Chad Wiley knew who she was. Shed taken two of his classes: Broadcast Journalism I and II. Whatever he taught, she took; whatever he asked of her, she did. Full-bore. Balls to the wall.

The problem was this: he didnt seem to recognize her talent. Theyd spent all of last week reading the news from a teleprompter. Each time she finished, she immediately looked at him, but he barely glanced up from his notes. Rather, he spooled off a criticism as if he were relaying a recipe to a troublesome neighbor, then called out, "Next. "

Day after day, week after week, class after class, Tully waited for him to respond to her obvious talent, to say, Youre ready for KVTS. Now it was the first week of May. With about six weeks left in her sophomore year, she was still waiting.

Plenty of things had changed in her life the past two years. Shed cut her hair shoulder-length and gone with bangs. Her style icon had gone from Farrah Fawcett-Majors to Jessica Savitch. Nineteen eighty was made for Tully: big hair, bright makeup, glittery fabric, and shoulder pads. No pale colors/sorority-girl styles for her. When she walked into a room these days, people noticed.

Except, of course, for Chad Wiley.

But that was about to change; Tully was sure this time. Last week shed finally racked enough credits to apply for a summer internship position at KVTS, the local public programming station that was housed on campus. Shed gotten up at six A. M. so that her name appeared first on the sign-up sheet. When shed been given the audition piece, shed gone home and practiced it endlessly, trying it at least a dozen different ways until she found the tone of voice that perfectly matched the tone of the story. Yesterday shed nailed the audition. She was certain of it. Now, finally, it was time to found out what position shed earned.

"How do I look?"

Kate didnt look up from The Thorn Birds. "Awesome. "

Tully felt a flash of irritation that was more and more familiar these days. Sometimes she just looked at Kate and felt her blood pressure skyrocket. It was all she could do not to yell.

The problem was love. Kate had spent all of their freshman year mooning over bad-haircut Brandt. By the time they finally dated, it was a letdown that ended fast. Still, Kate didnt seem to care. Through most of sophomore year, shed dated Ted, who supposedly loved her, and then Eric, who most certainly did not. Kate went to one fraternity dance after another, and though she never fell in love with any of the doofuses she dated—and definitely didnt have sex with them—she talked about them constantly. Every sentence lately seemed to start with some guys name. Even worse, she hardly ever mentioned the broadcasting plan. She seemed perfectly happy to take classes in other departments. Whenever one of their sorority sisters got engaged, Kate rushed to be a part of the crowd that swooned over the ring.

In truth, Tully was sick of it. She kept writing news stories that the school paper wouldnt publish and hanging around the campus TV station, where no one would give her the time of day, and throughout all of this failure, when she could really use her best friend, Kate just kept yammering on about her latest date. "You totally arent looking. "

"I dont have to. "

"You dont know how important this is to me. "

Kate finally looked up. "Youve been practicing one news story for two weeks. Even when I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I heard you rehearsing. Believe me, I know how psyched you are. "

"So how come youre so Joanie about this?"

"Im no Joanie. I just know youll get the anchor job. "

Tully grinned. "I will, wont I?"

"Of course. Youre wicked good. Youll be the first junior to actually be on air. "