Shayla Queene wondered if Sam Gardener’s disgusting leer was something that viewers could feel through the screen, or if that was a special delight that only she was privy to. She could read the thoughts blazing across his face as easily as if they were on a teleprompter, and she had to suppress a scowl as she approached him.
Sam grabbed the microphone from her hand, running his fingers through his trademark wispy gray hair. It seemed fitting to her that the weatherman at the station had hair that literally looked like a cloud.
“Thanks sweetheart,” he said, looking her up and down.
Shayla turned on her heel and stalked away. She hated how, just because she was an intern, he treated her with such condescension. As if it was that difficult to do the weather in Templeton! It was Oregon, for Christ’s sake. If it wasn’t raining, it was probably going to rain soon. How hard could it be?
But Shayla had been fetching coffees and microphones and whatever else the lazy asses at the station needed for the past year, so apparently that meant she was probably a useless idiot who deserved to be looked down on. Shayla scoffed, slipping back into her chair.
Her desk was at the back of the room, tucked away in the corner. For most people, it didn’t exist. She hadn’t even managed to score a desk until six months ago, when the other intern had quit out of sheer frustration. Damien had said it was because he wanted to try out something different, but she knew better. Shayla had thought of getting out herself a few times. How easy would it be just to give up on her dream of being a reporter? It was a tempting prospect.
Anyway, it didn’t feel like she had made any more headway than she would have if she’d sat on the bus and read out the newspaper to people all day. At least that way she might have informed a few people of what was going on in the world.
Now all she got to do was tell people when Starbucks was out of the soy, which had nearly made the news all on its own.
Shayla looked around for Naomi, the other news anchor. She was the only person at the station that Shayla got along with, even if Naomi did walk around in a cloud of her own hairspray. It wasn’t like Anthony, the other anchor, smelled any better. But Naomi was nowhere to be found. Odd, since she was usually the one person who could be counted on to be punctual. She’d had to assist the makeup artist more than once when Anthony had rolled up late, with only a couple of minutes left before he was due to be on.
Shayla checked her watch. They only had fifteen minutes until the cameras started rolling. Had Naomi come in while she was arranging the refreshments table, and snuck away in the meantime?
Shayla stepped over to one of the cameramen, Dave. “Is Naomi not here yet?”
He shrugged. “I look where I’m paid to look.”
That was helpful.
She tried the producer, Amy, next. “Hey, have you seen Naomi?”
Amy, a woman in her mid-forties who seemed to wear her headset even while she slept, chewed obnoxiously at the piece of gum in her mouth. “Have you seen my cup?”
Shayla furrowed her brow. “What cup?”
“Exactly. I’m dying of thirst over here.”
Shayla suppressed a groan and walked to the refreshments table, pouring a cup of coffee and adding the obnoxious amount of cream and sugar that Amy preferred. She brought it back to Amy and handed it over, opening her mouth to speak. Amy walked away before she even got a syllable out.
She approached Anthony next. He was Naomi’s co-anchor, so he should know where she was, right? Though most of the time Naomi was clueless as to what her coworker was up to.
“Hey, Anthony,” Shayla greeted.
He was known for having a temper, so Shayla took care to be soft with him.
He had his gaze angled down toward his phone, and didn’t look up when she spoke.
“Uh, Anthony?”
His gaze snapped up to hers, his eyes full of ire. “I heard you the first time. What?”
Shayla reminded herself to stay calm. That was the important thing. Calm.
“I was just wondering—”
Anthony put up his hand to cut her off, looking down at his phone. Then he shooed her to the side. Shayla shuffled awkwardly a couple feet away.
“Naomi’s not coming in!” he yelled.
Shayla turned her head to see Amy charging forward from the back of the room. “What?” She spat her gum into a nearby garbage can. It was a perfect shot. “What the hell is she doing?”
Shayla was wondering the same thing, but without the judgment. In its place was worry. Her fingers itched to pull out her phone from her pocket to text Naomi, but she’d only get yelled at if she did. Anthony, his royal highness, could do whatever he wanted—but the poorly paid intern could not.
Shayla began to creep away to the bathroom, but Anthony stopped her with another wave of his hand. “You!” he said, pointing at her.
Shayla frowned. It was as if he hadn’t noticed that she’d been trying to talk to him literally five minutes before.
“You can read, right?”
Shayla nodded.
“Good. Get up here and read the news with me.”
“You don’t get to make that call,” Amy interjected.
Anthony’s face hardened. “We’ll lose half our demographic if we only have me on. We need eye candy for the men.”
Shayla was pissed, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity to do some real work. Something that she’d actually worked toward in school. She looked over at Amy, whose pudgy face was screwed up in thought.
“Fine,” Amy said finally. “But don’t mess it up.”
Though she had no plans of messing it up, she found that sentiment to be amusing anyway. What was Amy going to do? Fire her? She’d been thinking of quitting only moments before. There was only one way to go from here.
Shayla stepped up to the news desk and was thrust down onto the seat beside Anthony’s. The stylist, Meg, came at her with a fluffy brush and a hard frown. “It’s a good thing you’re naturally pretty,” she said. “Otherwise this would be a disaster.”
She pulled at Shayla’s hair and caked foundation on her face until right before Amy began to count them on. Shayla’s heart thrummed in her chest. This was her big break. But what the hell was she supposed to do? The camera was going to go live and she’d be left gaping at Templeton’s public like a deer in the headlights.
Anthony must have sensed her trepidation. “Just read what it says after the name Naomi on the teleprompter. And smile.”
A friendly “good luck” wouldn’t have gone unappreciated, but Shayla would make the most of what she got. Shayla plastered on the widest smile she could manage, sat up with her back straight, and stared down the lens of her destiny.