Even before the closing credits had finished rolling, Eliza unclipped her microphone and said a silent prayer of thanks that there was no reason to update tonight’s show. The broadcast had been technically perfect. Every news piece and each live standup had been executed without a hitch. There had been no misspelled supers or misplaced graphics. A clean feed to the two hundred-plus KEY affiliates around the country.
“Nice work, everybody.” Executive producer Range Bullock good-nighted the studio crew from his seat inside the control room.
As Eliza stepped down from the anchor platform, Doris Brice approached with her cosmetics case in hand, a gold-sequined baseball cap perched jauntily atop her dark head. But tonight Eliza waved off their evening ritual.
“Thanks, Doris, but don’t even bother with taking off my makeup tonight. I’ve got to get out of here. There’s a house.”
Doris knew all about Eliza’s real-estate quest. They had talked about it at length over the last few weeks as Eliza sat in the chair before each broadcast while Doris carefully painted, contoured and powdered the anchorwoman’s face. Like almost everyone at KEY News, Doris knew Eliza’s history: the death from cancer of her husband, John, a painful death that Eliza endured while she was pregnant with their first child. The battle with depression that followed the birth of her daughter and her struggle to come back to work. And just last month, the betrayal of the woman Eliza had entrusted with the care of her precious Janie. A betrayal that had ended with gunshots. Doris noticed that Eliza still winced sometimes if she turned the wrong way or too quickly in the chair, the wound in her side almost healed now, but still tender.
After all Eliza had been through, Doris could well understand that the woman who had become her friend would want to make a fresh start somewhere. She hoped this house would be everything that Eliza wanted. She deserved it.
And she could certainly afford it, now that she was the anchor of the KEY Evening Headlines.
“Good luck,” Doris called as she watched Eliza hurry from the studio. Eliza turned, grinned and gave the thumbs-up sign.