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 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.
"I'll never forget this night," Tully said to both of them.
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.
Tully pulled out of the kiss. "Bad Johnny." She laughed, pushing him away.
He moved his hand down Tully's back, tried to pull her close. "What's wrong with bad?"
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."
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.
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 atme.
"That was Chad Wiley," he said.
Kate nodded.
"No wonder . . ." He stared at the blank hallway on the other side of the dance floor.
"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—"
He nodded before she could finish and said, "Come on, Mularkey. I'll walk you home."
All the way back to her apartment, she told herself it was for the best.
"Well, goodnight, Johnny," she said at her front door.
"Goodnight." He started for the elevator. Halfway there, he stopped and turned to her. "Mularkey?"
She paused, glanced back. "Yeah?"
"You were really good today. Did I tell you that? You're one of the most talented writers I've ever seen."
"Thanks."
Later, lying in her bed, staring into the darkness, she remembered his words, and how he'd looked when he'd said them.
In some small way, he'd noticed her today.
Maybe it wasn't as hopeless as she'd thought.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From the moment Tully did her first on-air broadcast, everything changed. They became the fearsome foursome; Kate and Tully and Mutt and Johnny. For two years they were together constantly, huddled together in the office, working on stories, going from place to place like gypsies. The second story that Tully covered was about a snowy owl who'd taken up residence on a streetlamp in Capitol Hill. Next, she followed the gubernatorial campaign of Booth Gardner, and though she was one of dozens of reporters on the case, it seemed that Gardner often answered her questions first. By the time the first Microsoft millionaires began driving through downtown in their mint-new Ferraris, listening to geek music on supersized headphones, everyone at KCPO knew that Tully wouldn't last on the smallest local channel for long.
They all knew it, but perhaps Johnny most of all. So, although the three of them didn't talk about the future, they felt its shadowy presence constantly, and somehow that made their time together sweeter and more intense. On the rare night when they weren't working on a story, Johnny, Tully, and Kate met at Goldies to play pool and drink beer. By the end of their second year together, they knew all there was to know about each other; at least, all that each was willing to share.
Except the stuff that truly mattered. Kate often thought it ironic that three people who searched through the rubble of life to find pebbles of truth could be so stubbornly blind about their own lives.
