“Of course not but… if she just left on her own, why didn’t she tell the station she wasn’t coming back after dinner?”
“I don’t know,” said Olivia.
“Other than the parking lot last night… did you get to talk to Faith much during your first week?” Carol asked.
“Yeah, a little. She seemed nice,” Olivia replied. “She showed me the weather center and I actually told her about you, that my aunt Carol Henning was a huge fan and that you watch her videos. She thought that was cool. I even asked her to autograph a picture for you.”
“You told her aboutme? She knows my name? I’m getting herautograph?” Carol felt a warm glow come into her cheeks, and her eyes began to glisten.
“Yeah, I told her we’re super close, you’re like a mom to me, that I tell you everything and that you and Uncle Jim were excited I had the internship.”
“That is amazing, honey, simply amazing that you’re conversing withFaith Richards!”
“It’s neat. She’s so popular. I did overhear one of the producers complaining about her, though.”
“Complaining? What do you mean?” Carol’s tone shifted. How could anyone do that about Faith?
“Yeah, the producer said to an editor ‘Here comes the diva’ when Faith was walking in one night. Then they started talking about how she always goes way longer in her forecasts than she’ssupposed to and doesn’t care if it means they have to cut time on Roger’s sports segment or anything else.”
“Well,” said Carol, immediately disliking this producer. “Her forecastsdeservemore time. No one cares about sports anyway.”
“Right,” replied Olivia. “Listen, I’m sure she’s fine, Aunt Carol. I’ll let you know if I hear anything more.”
They hung up, and Carol futzed around the rest of the morning, drinking two cups of coffee and sitting in the backyard listening to the birds. She put on her sun hat and pulled some weeds, but it was getting too humid, so she went back inside to the comfort of the air-conditioning and decided to do a deep clean of the cabinets in the kitchen, pulling out dishes and wiping shelves. Jim mowed the lawn and worked on fixing a slat in the wooden fence.
Carol began listening to an audiobook to distract herself. The novel was a complicated mystery that normally would have required her full attention, but she kept losing track of the characters and plot because her mind was flitting about thinking of Faith. After wiping the final shelf with a sponge, she ran a dry towel over it to soak up any wet spots and decided to turn off the audiobook and give in to the fact that she just couldn’t concentrate. One thought kept repeating in her mind, and she whispered it aloud as a mantra:
“Faith is fine. Faith is fine.”
She wanted so badly to believe it to be true, but somehow she had a gut feeling it was not.
CHAPTER TWO
Olivia
June 2
After hanging up with Aunt Carol, Olivia put her head back on the pillow and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. It was still very early by Olivia’s standards, and she would have liked to have slept in more. Given how early she had to get up for classes this past semester—taking that 8:30AMpsych class to fulfill her humanities requirement had been a massive mistake from a schedule standpoint—she felt she now deserved sleep in the summer. Yet she had enjoyed the content of the class, particularly a section on how childhood traumas can affect us our entire lives. Olivia hadn’t experienced the kinds of traumas the professor talked about, but she felt a tremendous amount of empathy for anyone who did. Plus, Olivia’s parents’ divorce followed by the absence of her mother was traumatic in its own way.
The internship at Channel 9 was the night shift, and she didn’t have to be there until 2:30PM, which was perfect. She could sleep late, get a run, stop at the corner coffee shop, and make a leisurely lunch all before work. But getting to sleep after her intern shift had been hard. She was usually jacked up from theexcitement of the TV station and would scroll her phone endlessly or flip around on Netflix until at least twoAM, sometimes later.
Last night was particularly difficult. How could Olivia sleep? She kept replaying in her head the whole scene in the parking lot and what happened after.
Olivia had gone to her car to grab a cardigan sweater. The newsroom was cold, and most people wore some kind of wrap or long-sleeved shirt, even though it was summer. Olivia had forgotten to bring the cardigan in at the start of her shift, and by dinner break she was freezing in her short-sleeved blouse.
She was just closing the car door, the cardigan in her hand, when a familiar voice startled her.
“Excuse me, intern? What’s your name again?”
Olivia whipped her head around to see Faith standing there with a makeup mirror in one hand and a teddy bear in the other. A giant purse was slung over one of her shoulders with a couple of curling irons sticking out of the top.
“Oh hi, Faith. My name is Olivia.” Olivia added a big, eager smile, hoping to strike that just-right intern look ofI’m here to learn, grow, and help.
“Yes, Olivia, that’s right. We met earlier this week. Sorry, we have tons of interns coming and going and I forget names.”
“It’s OK.” Olivia kept the smile on her face. It really was OK. She didn’t expect the main talent to know her name now, or even ever. They had bigger things to worry about.
“Olivia, can you do me a favor?”
