“Did it have any lasting effect on her?”
“No, she’s fine,” he answered.
“What about you?”
“I’m fine, too.”
Kristen felt a wave of disappointment. She’d been hoping he’d give her some hint that he, too, hadn’t completely recovered from the emotional trauma of the crash.
“You’re lucky,” she told him.
Any warmth that might have been in his face disappeared. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “No. I wouldn’t exactly call myself lucky.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but the appearance of the waiter preempted any further conversation. At Tyler’s suggestion, Kristen chose the evening special along with a cup of clam chowder.
When the waiter left, Tyler asked, “Do you know when you’ll return to work?”
“Is that your way of asking me if what KC said about my losing my job is also true?”
He gave her an apologetic smile. “Is it? Is there a chance you might lose your spot on the news?”
She shrugged. “I shouldn’t, but working in television is not like going to work in an office.”
“Are you saying they can replace you because you’ve had to take some time off to recover from the accident?”
“No. But as I said before, I don’t know how viewers will react to the way I look now. And in TV that’s what counts. The viewing audience can be fickle. And no station manager likes to see the ratings drip.”
Again, she wasn’t being quite truthful. But she was reluctant to admit that the issue wasn’t simply one of whether or not the station would replace her, but rather one of her own loss of confidence in her ability to be successful in the anchor spot.
“However, my boss assures me I have a job whenever I want to return.”
“I’m glad to hear that. You’re good at what you do.”
His compliment gave her a warm, tingly feeling. “So you’ve seen me on the air?”
He smiled then—a wonderful smile that turned the tingle into a shiver of pleasure. “I doubt there’s anyone in this area who hasn’t. You look like you were born to sit in that chair.”
“I guess it’s really a dream come true. As a child, I always wanted to work in television. I just never thought it would happen.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, for one thing, I was very shy.”
“Now that I find hard to believe.”
“It’s true,” she assured him. “My mother had to drag me by the hand to school. That’s when she decided to have me enter child beauty pageants. She figured that competing in the pageants would give me self-confidence, make me more outgoing.”
“And did it?”
She shrugged. “It did help me get used to being in front of an audience and I did learn how to be comfortable in an interview, but I never really enjoyed the competitions the way some of the girls did. I would gladly have traded the crown, sash and trophy for a chance to be a regular kid. One who went in-line skating in the street and played softball in the park.”
“You didn’t get to do those things?”
She shook her head. “Mom was always worrying that I’d skin a knee or bruise a shin. Besides, there wasn’t much time for play. There were dance lessons, piano lessons, voice lessons, sessions with a personal trainer, costume fittings...” She sighed wistfully at the memories. “I guess it probably wasn’t any tougher than what athletes go through when they train for competition.”
“You don’t strike me as the competitive type,” he observed.
“I’m not,” she told him, pleased by his comment.
“But Mom was?” he prodded gently.
She nodded, then felt embarrassed. “That’s not to say she was some kind of crazed stage mother. It wasn’t like that. She was always so proud of me, even when I didn’t win.”
“I find it hard to believe you could ever lose a beauty contest.”
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