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The neighborhood created their lifestyle. They were within walking distance of several bars -- their favorites were the Athenian inside the Market, and the smoky old Virginia Inn on the corner. At six o'clock in the morning, amid the beeping of delivery trucks and the honking of horns, they walked across the street for lattes from Starbucks and bought croissants from La Panier, a French bakery.

As working single girls, they fell into an easy routine. Each morning they went out for breakfast, sat at ironwork tables on the sidewalk, and read the various papers that they collected. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer became their bibles. When they were done, they drove to the office, where every day they learned something new about the business of TV news, and after work, they changed into glittery big shoulder-padded tunics and peg-legged pants and went to one of the many downtown clubs. On any given night they could listen to punk rock, new wave, rock 'n' roll, or pop -- whatever they felt like.

The summer after graduation came as close to Heaven as Tully could imagine. She and Kate found a cheap 1960s-style apartment in a great location -- above the Pike Place Market. They brought in furniture from Gran's house and filled the kitchen with forty-year-old Revereware pots and Spode china. On the walls, they tacked up favorite posters and put pictures of themselves on all the end tables. Mrs. Mularkey had surprised them one day with bags of groceries and several silk plants, to give the place a homey feel, she said.

It was everything she and Kate had dreamed of, all those years ago on the dark banks of the Pilchuck River, and Tully loved every minute of it.

And since Tully didn't have to hide Chad's existence anymore, he often took both Katie and her out, and they had a blast.

Now they were pulling up to the office. All the way out of the car and into the building, they talked.

"In the hospital. Labor."

But the minute Tully opened the door, she knew something was up. Mutt was near the window, hurriedly packing up his camera gear. Johnny was in his office, yelling at someone on the phone.

"What's going on?" Tully asked, tossing her purse on Kate's neat-as-a-pin desk.

"Where's Carol?"

Mutt looked up. "There's a protest going on. It's our story."

This was Tully's chance. She went straight into Johnny's office, without even bothering to knock. "Let me go on air. I know you think I'm not ready, but I am. And who else is there?"

He hung up the phone and looked at her. "I already told the station you'd do the report. That's what all the yelling was about." He came around the desk and moved toward her. "Don't let me down, Tully."

Tully knew it was unprofessional, but she couldn't help herself: she hugged him. "You're the best. I'll make you proud. You'll see."

He handed her a sheath of slippery fax paper. "It's about some housewife in Yelm who channels ghosts. J. Z. Knight."

She was halfway to the door when he cleared his throat and said her name. She stopped, turned.

Tully frowned.

"Don't you want to read the background stuff? Or do you want to go in blind?"

Tully felt her cheeks heat up. "Whoops. I'll read it."

"Well, there won't be time for visiting friends. Now go. I want you back by two to edit."

"Is that a problem?"

Without Mutt and Tully, the office was quiet. It was only the second time all summer that Kate had been alone in the office with Johnny. A little unnerved by the silence -- as well as by the sight of his open door and the knowledge that he was just on the other side of it -- she tended to answer the phone too quickly and even sound a little breathless when she did it.

"No. I just… know someone who lives out there. That's all."

Kate had lost track of the times she'd seen Mutt roll his eyes as Tully walked away from a conversation. Carol was even less accommodating; the lead reporter barely talked to Tully lately. Not that Tully seemed to care. What mattered to Tully was the news: first, last, and always.

When Tully was here, there was the noise and commotion. She lived for TV news and no moment of it was beneath her contemplation. All day, every day, she badgered Johnny and Carol and Mutt with questions; she continually sought their collective advice on every topic.

Kate, on the other hand, cared about the people in the office more than she cared about the stories they followed. She had been befriended almost instantly by Carol, who often took her out to lunch to talk about her impending birth, and just as often called upon Kate to edit her copy or research stories. Mutt, too, had chosen Kate as his confidante. He spent long hours talking to her about his family problems and the woman who refused to marry him.

The only person Kate hadn't connected with was Johnny.

She was a nervous wreck around him. All he had to do was look her way and smile, and she'd drop whatever was in her hand. She consistently stuttered when giving him his messages and tripped over the ripped carpet edge in his office.

It was pathetic.

She went over to the corner, where a stack of tapes lay in a heap, waiting to be put away. She'd just picked up an armful when Johnny appeared in the doorway of his office. "Hey," he said. "Are you busy?"

At first, Kate figured it was his looks. He was Irish-Catholic-boy perfect, with his black hair and blue eyes, and when he smiled his whole face crinkled in a way that made her breath catch in her throat.

She'd assumed her infatuation wouldn't last, that in time, as she got to know him, his looks would be less arresting for her. At the very least, she thought she'd develop an immunity to his smile.

No such luck. Everything he said and did tightened the noose around her heart. Beneath his cynical veneer, she'd glimpsed an idealist, and even more: a wounded one. Something had broken Johnny, left him here, on the fringes of the big story, and the mystery of it tantalized her.

She dropped the stack of tapes. Idiot. "No," she said. "Not really."

When they finally got to the restaurant, he led her over to a table in the corner that overlooked Elliott Bay and the shops at Pier 70. A waitress showed up almost instantly to take their orders.

"Uh… sure." She concentrated on the tasks in front of her: switching on the answering machine, putting on her sweater, picking up her purse.

"Let's grab a real lunch. It's a slow news day and I'm sick of deli sandwiches."

"Woman," she said firmly, hoping she didn't blush.

"You're a very responsible girl," he said when the waitress left; he was obviously trying not to smile.

He came up beside her. "Ready?"

"Very funny. But I don't drink on the job." At the words, which couldn't have sounded more prim, she winced and thought, Idiot, again.

She walked alongside him down the block and across the street. Now and then his body brushed against hers, and she was acutely aware of every contact.

"Let's go."

"Are you old enough to drink, Mularkey?" he asked with a smile.

He leaned back in his chair, hopefully not because he suddenly wanted distance between them. She wished now, fervently, in fact, that she'd slept with one of her college boyfriends. She was certain he could see the stamp of virginity on her. "You've been at the station, what -- two months now?"

"Y-yes."

"What would you prefer?"

He smiled at that. "I was trying to compliment you."

"Fine."

"Fine? That's an odd answer. This is a love-it-or-hate-it business." He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table. "Do you have a passion for it?"

"How do you like it?"

"Almost three."

"And you chose responsible?"

He studied her, then smiled knowingly. She wondered how deeply into her soul that blue gaze had seen. "Tully certainly does."

"Sexy. Brilliant. Beautiful." She laughed nervously, sounding more like a girl than she would have wished. "You know: the words every woman wants to hear." She smiled. This was her chance to make an impression on him, get his attention as he'd gotten hers. She didn't want to blow it.

That word again: the one that separated her and Tully as cleanly as wheat from chaff.

Kate considered it a personal triumph that she didn't flinch or frown. Now, at least, she knew why he'd asked her out for lunch. She should have known. She wanted to say, Yes; she's been with the same man for years, but she didn't dare. Tully might not hide Chad anymore, but she didn't flaunt him, either. "What do you think?"

He tried to sound casual as he asked, "Is she seeing anyone?"

"Yes."

"I think she sees a lot of men."

Thankfully, the waitress returned with their orders and she pretended to be fascinated by her plate. "What about you? I get the feeling you're not exactly passionate about your job."

She shrugged and kept eating, but she was watching him now.

He looked up sharply. "What makes you say that?"

"Maybe not," he said quietly.

"You know what went on down there? The massacre? It was a bloodbath. Things have been getting worse lately, too. The death squads are killing civilians, priests, nuns."

She felt herself go still; her fork stayed in midair. For the first time they weren't making idle chitchat. He'd just revealed something important; she was somehow certain of that. "Tell me about El Salvador."

"I don't talk about this." He finished his beer and stood up. "We better get back to work."

Kate hadn't known all of that, or any of it, really, but she nodded anyway, watching the play of emotions cross his face. She'd never seen him so animated, so passionate. Again there was an unreadable emotion in his eyes, too. "You sound as if you loved it. Why did you leave?"

All the way back to the office, he said nothing. They walked briskly upstairs and into the quiet office.

"Like I said, it's old news."

There, she couldn't help herself, she touched his arm. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

She looked down at their barely eaten lunches. Obviously she'd gone too far, probed too much. "I got too personal, I'm sorry --"

"Don't be. It's ancient history. Let's go."

"It isn't, though, is it?" she said quietly, knowing instantly that she'd overstepped again.

"Get back to work," he said brusquely, and went into his office, slamming the door shut behind him.

Yelm slept in the verdant green valley between Olympia and Tacoma. It had always been the kind of town where people dressed in flannel shirts and faded jeans and waved to one another as they passed.

The locals, who believed in the Northwest creed of "live and let live," looked the other way for a long time. They ignored the "weirdos" who came to Yelm (many of them in expensive cars, wearing designer clothes --"Hollywood types") and paid no attention as SOLD signs started appearing on prime pieces of land.

The "crowd" protesting the proposed development turned out to be about ten people holding up signs and chatting with one another. It looked more like a coffee klatch than a political gathering -- until the news van showed up. Then the crowd started marching and chanting.

When the whispers began that J. Z. Knight was gearing up to build some kind of compound to house a school for her followers, though, the townsfolk had had enough. According to the South Sound bureau chief at KCPO, people were picketing the Knight property.

All that had changed a few years ago, on the day a thirty-fivethousand-year-old warrior from Atlantis supposedly appeared in the kitchen of an otherwise ordinary housewife.

"Ah," Mutt said, "the power of the media." He pulled over to the side of the road and turned to Tully. "Here's what they didn't teach you in college: Get into the middle of it. Wade in. If it looks like there's going to be a fight, I want you there, got it? Just keep asking questions, keep talking. And if I give you the sign, get the hell out of the shot."

"Get his name," Mutt yelled.

"They are! That lady channels some dead guy who says he lived in Atlantis."

Mutt shoved Tully, hard. She stumbled forward and came face to chest with a huge, burly guy with a Santa-like beard and a sign that read: JUST SAY NO TO RAMTHA.

The protesters surged toward them. Everyone was talking at once, trying to make their point, elbowing each other out of their way.

Tully's heart was going a mile a minute as she followed his lead.

Tully winced. Shit.

"I'm Tallulah Hart from KCPO. What are you out here for today?"

"They got California for that!" someone yelled.

"Tell me about the Yelm you know," Tully said.

"And you say crazies because --"

The man said, "I'm Ben Nettleman. Me and my family's lived in Yelm for nearly eighty years. We don't want to see it turn into some supermarket for new age weirdos."

"It's a quiet place, where people look out for each other. We start our day with prayer and mostly we don't care what our neighbors do… until they start building shit that don't belong and bringing crazies by the busloads."

For the next twenty minutes, Tully did what she did best: she talked to people. Six or seven minutes in, she found her groove and remembered what she'd been taught. She listened and asked the follow-up questions she would have asked anyone on an ordinary day. She had no idea if they were the right questions or if she was always standing in the best place, but she did know that by her third interview, Mutt had stopped directing her and started letting her lead. And she knew that she felt good. People really opened up to her, sharing their feelings and concerns and fears.

"You did good," Mutt said, giving her a smile that she'd never forget.

Tully was on an adrenaline high.

"Okay, Tully," Mutt said behind her. "That's it. We're done."

"I can do an Indian accent, too. It don't make me Ramtha," someone yelled.

The minute the camera was off, the crowd broke up.

"I did it," she whispered. It was all she could do not to actually jump up and down. "What a rush."

Mutt packed up his camera gear in record time and climbed into the van.

Tully went to the desk and asked about her mother. The man on duty nodded. "Site thirty-six. Tell her she needs to pay when you see her."

"Turn off here," she said, surprising herself.

Then she saw the campground sign.

"Why?" Mutt asked.

"My mom is… on vacation. She's staying at this campground. Give me five minutes to say hi."

"I'll take a smoke break. That'll give you fifteen. But then we gotta boogie."

The van pulled up in front of the campground's reservation desk.

Following the path through the trees, Tully almost turned around a dozen times. Honestly, she had no idea why she was here. She hadn't seen or spoken to her mother since Gran's funeral, and although Tully had become the executor of Gran's estate at eighteen, and responsible for the monthly disbursement to Cloud, she'd never once received a thank-you for the money. Just a series of I've-moved-please-send-money-to-this-address postcards. This campground in Yelm was the most recent.

She saw her mother standing by a row of Sani-cans, smoking a cigarette. Wearing a coarse gray Cowichan sweater and pajamalike pants, she looked like an escapee from a women's prison. The years had sanded down some of her beauty and left a network of fine lines across her hollowed cheeks.

Her mother took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled slowly, watching her through heavily lidded eyes.

She could see how bad her mother looked, how the drugs were aging her. Not even forty yet, Cloud looked fifty, easy. As usual her eyes had the glassy, unfocused gaze of an addict.

Cloud's body swayed ever so slightly, as if there were music in the air that only she could hear. "TV is the opiate of the masses."

"I'm here on assignment for KCPO news." Tully tried to keep the pride out of her voice, knowing it was stupid to expect anything from her mother, but it was there anyway, in her eyes and her voice, the shadowy remnant of that pathetic little girl who'd filled twelve memory books so that someday her mother would know her and be proud. "It was my first on-air report. I told you I'd be on TV someday."

"Hey, Cloud," she said when she got close.

"Well, if there's anyone who'd know about drugs, it's you."

"Speaking of that, I'm kinda short this month. You got any cash?"

Tully dug in her purse, found the fifty-dollar bill she kept in her wallet for emergencies, and handed it to her mother. "Don't give it all to one dealer."

When Tully and Mutt came back, the team clicked into high gear. The four of them crammed into the editing room and turned twenty-six minutes of tape into a sharp, impartial thirty-second story. Kate tried to keep her thoughts focused on the story, just the story, but lunch with Johnny had dulled her senses; or heightened them. She wasn't entirely sure which. All she really knew was that whatever schoolgirl crush she'd had on him before he asked her out to lunch had deepened into something else.

Mutt was waiting for her. Dropping his cigarette, he ground it out with his heel and grinned at her. "Mommy proud of her college girl?"

"Are you kidding?" Tully said, grinning brightly and wiping her eyes. "She cried like a baby."

Cloud took a clumsy step forward and palmed the money.

Tully wished she'd never come here. She knew what to expect from her mother: nothing. Why couldn't she seem to remember that? "I'll send money for your next rehab, Cloud. Every family has its traditions, right?" On that, she turned and walked back to the van.

When they finished working, Johnny picked up the phone and called the Tacoma station manager. He talked for a few moments, then hung up and looked at Tully. "They'll air it tonight at ten unless something comes up."

"Let's go celebrate," Tully said. "Dinner's on me."

Tully jumped up and clapped her hands. "We did it!"

Kate couldn't help feeling a stab of envy. Just once, she wanted Johnny to look at her the way he looked at Tully.

If only she were like her friend -- confident and sexy and willing to make a grab at whatever -- and whomever -- she wanted. Then she might have a chance, but the thought of Johnny's rejection, of a blank-eyed, Huh? kept her standing in the shadows.

Tully's shadow, to be precise. As always, Kate was the backup singer who never stepped into the spotlight.

"Count me out," Mutt said. "Darla's waiting for me."

"I can't do dinner, but how about drinks at nine?" Johnny said.

"We can do that," Tully said.

Kate knew she should say no. The last thing she wanted to do was sit at the table and watch Johnny watch Tully -- but what choice did she have? She was the sidekick. Rhoda Morgenstern. And wherever Mary went, Rhoda had to follow, even if it hurt like hell.

"Tully? You ready?"

"I've got a plan," Johnny said.

Kate chose her clothes with care: a cap-sleeved white T-shirt, black vintage jacquard vest, and tight jeans tucked into scrunchy ankle boots. After curling her hair, she combed it carefully to one side and anchored it into a ponytail. She thought she looked pretty good until she went out into the living room and saw Tully standing there, dressed in a green jersey dress with a plunging neckline, padded shoulders, and a wide metallic belt, swaying to the music.

Down on the street in front of their apartment, they found Johnny leaning against his black El Camino. In faded jeans and an old Aero-smith T-shirt, he looked totally sexy in a casual, rumpled kind of way.

Tully stopped dancing, flicked off the stereo, and linked arms with Kate. "Come on. We're so outta here."

"Where are we going?" Tully asked. She immediately linked her other arm with his.

The word love paired with his name hit a little close to home, so she didn't look at him when she said, "I do."

"I love a man with a plan," Tully said. "Don't you, Kate?"

Kate frowned. There was an invisible line, like the equator, that ran down Pike Street. To the south, it got ugly fast. This was where the tourists didn't go unless they were looking for drugs or hookers. The shops and businesses on both sides of the street were seedy-looking.

At the neon-lit sex shop on the corner, Johnny guided them to turn right.

They walked past two adult bookstores and an X-rated theater where the Debbie Does Dallas sequel was playing on a double feature with Saturday Night Beaver.

Three abreast, they walked down the cobblestone street of the empty market.

He opened the door. The music was earsplittingly loud.

"This is great," Tully said. "Kate and I never go down here."

Tully nodded.

Johnny came to a stop beside a ratty-looking wooden door that had obviously once been painted red. "Ready?" he said with a smile.

Tully and Kate showed their IDs, then moved on ahead, down the dark narrow hallway that was covered with flyers and posters and bumper stickers.

A huge black man sat on a stool at the entrance. "ID, please," he said, turning on a flashlight to study their driver's licenses. "Go on."

Johnny led them through the dance floor, past a few wooden tables, to the bar, where a girl with magenta hair cut into spidery spikes and a safety pin in her cheek took their orders. At the end of the bar, suspended up in the corner, was a good-sized TV that was currently tuned to MTV. No one was paying the slightest attention to it.

The hallway opened into a long, rectangular room that was packed with people dressed in metal-enhanced black leather. Kate had never seen so many bizarre hairdos in one room. There were dozens of people with six-inch-long Mohawks gelled to sawblade perfection and dyed in rainbow colors.

They clinked glasses and drank.

When the bartender returned, Johnny gave her a healthy tip and a bright smile, then led Kate and Tully to a table back in the corner, beneath the TV.

By their third round, Tully was drunk. When the right song started --"Call Me," or "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," or "Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?"-- she was on her feet, dancing all by herself right next to the table.

Tully immediately lifted her margarita for a toast. "To us. We totally rocked today."

And drank.

Tully rushed back from the bathroom, skidded drunkenly into the bar. "Hey, it's ten o'clock. Can we change the channel on the TV? No one is watching it anyway."

Tully moved toward the TV, looking like a penitent approaching the Pope.

"Whatever." The bartender, who looked like an extra from some apocalyptic war movie, climbed up on to a stepladder and changed the channel.

He didn't really look at Kate until Tully went to the bathroom. "She never slows down, does she?"

Then her face filled the screen. "I'm Tallulah Hart in Yelm, Washington. This sleepy town was the site of protest today when followers of J. Z. Knight and the thirty-five-thousand-year-old spirit she calls Ramtha clashed with locals over the proposed building of a compound…"

Kate wished she could find that kind of ease in herself, but two drinks weren't enough to undo who she was. Instead, she sat there, watching Johnny watch Tully.

Kate tried then to think of a response that would steer the conversation away from her best friend, maybe even reveal her own passionate side, but who was she kidding? She had no passionate side. Tully was candy-apple-red silk; Kate was beige cotton. "Yeah."

Tully was the first to start dancing, then Johnny, and finally Kate. At first she felt awkward -- literally a third wheel -- but by the end of the song, she'd softened. The alcohol was a lubricant, making her body more fluid somehow, and when the music changed and slowed down, she barely hesitated to step into Tully and Johnny's arms. The three of them moved together with a natural ease that was surprisingly sexy. Kate stared up at Johnny, who was gazing at Tully, and she couldn't help wishing just once he'd look at her that way.

"You were totally bitchin'," Kate said, meaning it. "Excellent."

Tully threw her arms around Kate and held her tightly, then grabbed her hand. "Come on. I want to dance. You, too, Johnny. We can all dance together."

When it was over, Tully turned to Kate, said, "Well?" in a quiet, nervous voice.

There were men dancing together, and women making out to the beat of the Sex Pistols. The girl beside Kate, wearing a black plastic miniskirt and combat boots with fishnet stockings, was dancing alone.

Tully pulled out of the kiss. "Bad Johnny." She laughed, pushing him away.

He leaned down and kissed Tully. Kate was drunk enough that it took her a second to register what she was seeing. Then came the pain.

He moved his hand down Tully's back, tried to pull her close. "What's wrong with bad?"

"I'll never forget this night," Tully said to both of them.

Before Tully could answer, someone called out her name and she spun around.

Chad was pushing through the gyrating, slam-dancing crowd. With his long hair and ragged Springsteen T-shirt, he looked like a hard rock guy in a new wave world.

Tully ran for him. They kissed as if they were alone in the room, then Kate heard her friend say, "Take me to bed, old man."

Johnny snapped out of it. Letting go of her, he went back to the table and ordered two drinks. In the silence that followed, she stared at him, thinking: Look at me.

Without a wave or a goodbye or a hello, they were gone. Kate stood there, still in Johnny's arms. He was staring at the door as if he expected Tully to return, to shout out April Fools and start dancing with them again.

"She won't be coming back," Kate said.

Later, lying in her bed, staring into the darkness, she remembered his words, and how he'd looked when he'd said them.

Kate nodded.

"That was Chad Wiley," he said.

"You were really good today. Did I tell you that? You're one of the most talented writers I've ever seen."

"Well, goodnight, Johnny," she said at her front door.

He nodded before she could finish and said, "Come on, Mularkey. I'll walk you home."

Maybe it wasn't as hopeless as she'd thought.

All the way back to her apartment, she told herself it was for the best.

"They've been together a long time." She studied his profile. For a crazy second, she thought about making a move, reaching for him. Maybe she could get him to forget about Tully or change his mind; maybe tonight she didn't care if she would be his second choice, or if it would be because of the booze. Love could grow from drunken passion, couldn't it? "You thought you and Tully might --"

"Thanks."

She paused, glanced back. "Yeah?"

In some small way, he'd noticed her today.

"No wonder…" He stared at the blank hallway on the other side of the dance floor.

"Goodnight." He started for the elevator. Halfway there, he stopped and turned to her. "Mularkey?"