Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane 1)

"No more life-is speeches, huh? Great. Just when I could have used one. "

Through the phone line came the hiss of exhaled smoke. "I do know that shes going to be in the editing room at KVTS at one oclock. "

"Youre sure?"

"Thats what she said. "

"Thanks, Mom. I love you. "

"Love you, too. "

Kate hung up and hurried back to her room, where she dressed quickly and put on a little makeup: concealer, mostly, to cover the zits that had broken out across her forehead since their fight.

She made her way across campus in record time. It was easy. This late in the quarter people were busy studying for finals. At the door to KVTS, she paused, steeling herself as if for battle, and then went inside.

She found Tully exactly where Mom had predicted: hunched in front of a monitor, logging the raw footage and interviews. At Kates entrance, she looked up.

"Well, well," Tully said, standing up. "If it isnt the head of the Moral Majority. "

"Im sorry," Kate said.

Tullys face crumpled at that, as if shed been holding her breath in and suddenly let it go. "You were a real bitch. "

"I shouldnt have said all that. Its just . . . weve never held back from each other. "

"So that was our mistake. " Tully swallowed, tried to smile. Failed.

"I wouldnt hurt you for the world. Youre my best friend. Im sorry. "

"Swear it wont happen again. No guy will ever come between us. "

"I swear. " Kate meant it with every fiber of her being. If she had to staple her tongue down, shed do it. Their friendship was more important than any relationship. Guys would come and go; girlfriends were forever. They knew that. "Now its your turn. "

"What do you mean?"

"Swear you wont bail on me again without talking. These last three days really sucked. "

"I swear it. "

Tully wasnt quite sure how it had happened, but somehow this sleeping with her professor had graduated into a full-blown affair. No pun intended. Perhaps Kate had been right and it had begun as a kind of career move for her; she no longer remembered. All she knew was that in his arms she felt content, and that was a new emotion for her.

And, of course, he was her mentor. In their time together hed taught her things it would have taken her years to discover by herself.

More importantly, hed shown her what making love was. His bed had become her port; his arms her life ring. When she kissed him and let him touch her with an unimaginable intimacy, she forgot that she didnt believe in love. Her first time, back in those dark Snohomish woods, faded from her memory a little more each day, until one day she discovered that she no longer carried it around inside of her. It would always be a part of her, a scar on her soul, but like all scars, it faded in time from a bright and burning red to a slim, silvery line that could only sometimes be seen.

But even with all that, with all that hed shown and given her, it was beginning not to be enough. By fall semester of her senior year, she was growing impatient with the rarefied world of college. CNN had changed the face of broadcasting. Out in the real world, things were happening, things that mattered. John Lennon had been shot and killed outside his New York apartment; a guy named Hinckley had shot President Reagan in a pathetic attempt to impress Jodie Foster; Sandra Day OConner had become the first female Supreme Court justice; and Diana Spencer had married Prince Charles in a ceremony so fairy-tale perfect that every girl in America believed in love and happy endings for the entire summer. Kate talked about the wedding so often and in such detail youd think shed been invited.

All of it was headline news, made during Tullys life, and yet because she was in school, it was before her time. Oh, sure, she wrote the articles for the school paper and sometimes even got to read a few sentences here and there on air, but it was all make-believe, warm-up exercises for a game she wasnt yet allowed to play.

She yearned to swim in the real waters of local or national news. Shed grown even more tired of sorority dances and frat parties and that most archaic of all rituals—the candle passings. Why all those sorority girls wanted to get engaged was beyond her. Didnt they know what was going on in the world, didnt they see the possibilities?

Shed done everything UW had to offer, taken every broadcast and print journalism class that mattered, and learned what she could from a years worth of interning at the public affairs station. It was time now to jump into the dog-eat-dog world of TV news. She wanted to surge into the crowd of reporters and elbow her way to the front.

"Youre not ready," Chad said, sighing. It was the third time hed said it in as many minutes.

"Youre wrong," she said, leaning toward the mirror above his dresser, applying one more coat of mascara. In the glam early eighties, you couldnt wear too much makeup or have too big a hairdo. "Youve made me ready and we both know it. You got me to change my hair to this boring Jane Pauley bob. Every suit I own is black and my shoes look like a suburban housewifes. " She put the mascara brush back in the holder and slowly turned around, studying the Lee press-on nails shed applied this morning. "What more do I need?"

He sat up in bed. From this distance he looked either saddened by their discussion or tired; she wasnt sure which. "You know the answer to that question," he said softly.