Firefly Lane (9 page)

"Promise me," Tully said, her voice cracking, "that we'll always be best friends."

"Always," was all Kate could say.

Tully finished packing and locked up her suitcase. Saying nothing, she headed back to the living room. On the radio "American Pie" was playing, and Kate wondered if she'd ever be able to listen to that song again without remembering this moment.
The day the music died
. She followed Tully out to the driveway. There, they clung to each other until Officer Dan gently pulled Tully away.

Kate couldn't even wave goodbye. She just stood there in the driveway, numb, with tears streaming down her cheeks, watching her best friend leave.

CHAPTER SIX

For the next three years, they wrote letters faithfully back and forth. It became more than a tradition and something of a lifeline. Every Sunday evening, Tully sat down at the white desk in her lavender and pink little-girl's room and spilled her thoughts and dreams and worries and frustrations onto a sheet of notebook paper. Sometimes she wrote about things that didn't matter—the Farrah Fawcett haircut she'd gotten that made her look foxy or the Gunny Sax dress she wore to the junior prom—but every now and then she went deeper and told Katie about the times she couldn't sleep or the way she dreamed of her mother coming back and saying she was proud of her. When her grandfather died, it was Kate to whom Tully turned. She hadn't cried for him until she got the phone call from her best friend that began with, "Oh, Tul, I'm so sorry." For the first time in her life, Tully didn't lie or embellish (well, not too much); she was mostly just herself, and that was good enough for Kate.

Now it was the summer of 1977. In a few short months they'd be seniors, ruling their separate schools.

And today was the day Tully had been working toward for months. Finally, she was going to actually step onto the road Mrs. Mularkey had shown her all those years ago.

The next Jean Enersen.

The words had become her mantra, a secret code that housed the enormity of her dream and made it sound possible. The seeds of it, planted so long ago in the kitchen of the Snohomish house, had sprouted wildly and sent roots deep into her heart. She hadn't realized how much she'd needed a dream, but it had transformed her, changed her from poor motherless and abandoned Tully to a girl poised to take on the world. The goal made her life story unimportant, gave her something to reach for, to hang on to. And it made Mrs. Mularkey proud; she knew that from their letters. She knew, too, that Kate shared this dream. They would be reporters together, tracking down stories and writing them up. A team.

She stood on the sidewalk, staring at the building in front of her, feeling like a bank robber staring at Fort Knox.

Surprisingly, the ABC affiliate, despite its clout and glory, was in a small building in the Denny Regrade section of town. There was no view to speak of, no impressive wall of windows or expensive art-filled lobby. Rather, there was an L-shaped desk, a pretty-enough receptionist, and a trio of mustard-yellow molded plastic lobby chairs.

Tully took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and went inside. At the receptionist's desk, she gave her name, and then took a seat along the wall. She made sure not to fidget or tap her feet during the long wait for her interview.

You never knew who was watching.

"Ms. Hart?" the receptionist finally said, looking up. "He'll see you now."

Tully gave her a poised, camera-ready smile and stood up. "Thank you." She followed the receptionist through the doors to another waiting area.

There, she came face to face with the man to whom she'd been writing weekly for almost a year.

"Hello, Mr. Rorbach." She shook his hand. "It's excellent to finally meet you."

He looked tired; older than she'd expected, too. There were only a handful of reddish gray hairs growing on his shiny head, and none of them were where they should be. The pale blue leisure suit he wore was decorated with white topstitching. "Come into my office, Miss Hart."

"Ms. Hart," she said. It was always better to start off on the right foot. Gloria Steinem said you'd never get respect if you didn't demand it.

Mr. Rorbach blinked at her. "Excuse me?"

"I'll answer to Ms. Hart, if you don't mind, which I'm sure you don't. How could anyone with a degree in English literature from Georgetown be resistant to change? I'm certain you're on the cutting edge of social consciousness. I can see it in your eyes. I like your glasses, by the way."

He stared at her, his mouth hanging open the slightest bit before he seemed to remember where he was. "Follow me, Ms. Hart." He led her down the bland white hallway to the last fake wood door on the left, which he opened.

His office was a small corner space, with a window that looked directly at the monorail's elevated cement track. The walls were completely bare.

Tully sat on the black fold-up chair positioned in front of his desk.

Mr. Rorbach took his seat and stared at her. "One hundred and twelve letters, Ms. Hart." He patted the thick manila file folder on his desk.

He'd saved all the letters she'd sent. That must mean something. She pulled her newest résumé out of the briefcase and set it on his desk. "As I'm sure you'll notice, the high school paper has repeatedly put my work on its front page. Additionally I've included an in-depth piece on the Guatemalan earthquake, an update on Karen Ann Quinlan, and a heart-wrenching look at Freddie Prinze's last days. They'll surely showcase my ability."

"You're seventeen years old."

"Yes."

"Next month you'll start your senior year of high school."

All those letters had worked. He knew everything about her. "Exactly. I think that's an interesting story angle, by the way. Going in to senior year; watching the class of '78. Maybe we could do monthly features about what really goes on behind the doors of a local high school. I'm sure your viewers—"

"Ms. Hart." He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the tips, looking at her. She got the impression he was trying not to smile.

"Yes, Mr. Rorbach?"

"This is the ABC affiliate, for gosh sakes. We don't hire high school kids."

"But you have interns."

"From UW and other colleges. Our interns know their way around a TV station. Most of them have already worked on their campus broadcasts. I'm sorry, but you're just not ready."

"Oh."

They stared at each other.

"I've been at this job a long time, Ms. Hart, and I've rarely seen anyone as full of ambition as you." He patted the folder of her letters again. "I'll tell you what, you keep sending me your writing. I'll keep an eye out for you."

"So when I'm ready to be a reporter, you'll hire me?"

He laughed. "You just send me the articles. And get good grades and go to college, okay? Then we'll see."

Tully felt energized again. "I'll send you an update once a month. You'll hire me someday, Mr. Rorbach. You'll see."

"I wouldn't bet against you, Ms. Hart."

They talked for a few more moments, and then Mr. Rorbach showed her out of his office. On the way to the stairs, he stopped at the trophy case, where dozens of Emmys and other news awards glinted golden in the light.

"I'll win an Emmy someday," she said, touching the glass with her fingertips. She refused to let herself be wounded by this setback, and that was all it was: a setback.

"You know what, Tallulah Hart, I believe you. Now go off to high school and enjoy your senior year. Real life comes fast enough."

Outside, it looked like a postcard of Seattle; the kind of blue-skied, cloudless, picture-perfect day that lured out-of-towners into selling their homes in duller, less spectacular places and moving here. If only they knew how rare these days were. Like a rocket blaster, summer burned fast and bright in this part of the world and went out with equal speed.

Holding her grandfather's thick black briefcase against her chest, she walked up the street toward the bus stop. On an elevated track above her head, the monorail thundered past, making the ground quake.

All the way home, she told herself it was really an opportunity; now she'd be able to prove her worth in college and get an even better job.

But no matter how she tried to recast it, the sense of having failed wouldn't release its hold. When she got home she felt smaller somehow, her shoulders weighted down.

She unlocked the front door and went inside, tossing the briefcase on the kitchen table.

Gran was in the living room, sitting on the tattered old sofa, with her stockinged feet on the crushed velvet ottoman and an unfinished sampler in her lap. Asleep, she snored lightly.

At the sight of her grandmother, Tully had to force a smile. "Hey, Gran," she said softly, moving into the living room, bending down to touch her grandmother's knobby hand. She sat down beside her.

Gran came awake slowly. Behind the thick old-fashioned glasses, her confused gaze cleared. "How did it go?"

"The assistant news director thought I was too qualified, can you believe it? He said the position was a dead end for someone with my skills."

Gran squeezed her hand. "You're too young, huh?"

The tears she'd been holding back stung her eyes. Embarrassed, she brushed them away. "I know they'll offer me a job as soon as I get into college. You'll see. I'll make you proud."

Gran gave her the poor-Tully look. "I'm already proud. It's Dorothy's attention you want."

Tully leaned against her gran's slim shoulder and let herself be held. In a few moments, she knew this pain would fade again; like a sunburn, it would heal itself and leave her slightly more protected from the glare. "I've got you, Gran, so she doesn't matter."

Gran sighed tiredly. "Why don't you call your friend Katie now? But don't stay on too long. It's expensive."

Just the thought of that, talking to Kate, lifted Tully's spirits. With the long-distance charges what they were, they rarely got to call each other. "Thanks, Gran. I will."

The next week Tully got a job at the
Queen Anne Bee,
her neighborhood weekly newspaper. Her duties pretty much matched the measly per-hour wage they paid her, but she didn't care. She was in the business. She spent almost every waking hour of the summer of '77 in the small, cramped offices, soaking up every bit of knowledge she could. When she wasn't bird-dogging the reporters or making copies or delivering coffee, she was at home, playing gin rummy with Gran for matchsticks. Every Sunday night, like clockwork, she wrote to Kate and shared the minute details of her week.

Now she sat at her little-girl's desk in her bedroom and reread this week's eight-page letter, then signed it
Best Friends Forever, Tully
, and carefully folded it into thirds.

On her desk was the most recent postcard from Kate, who was away on the Mularkey family's yearly camping trip. Kate called it Hell Week with Bugs, but Tully was jealous of each perfect-sounding moment. She wished that she'd been able to go on the vacation with them; turning down the invitation had been one of the most difficult things she'd done. But between her all-important summer job and Gran's declining health, she'd had no real choice.

She glanced down at her friend's note, rereading the words she'd already memorized.
Playing hearts at night and roasting marshmallows, swimming in the freezing lake . . .

She forced herself to look away. It didn't do any good in life to pine for what you couldn't have. Cloud had certainly taught her that lesson.

She put her own letter in an envelope, addressed it, then went downstairs to check on Gran, who was already asleep.

Alone, Tully watched her favorite Sunday night television programs—
All in the Family, Alice,
and
Kojak
—and then closed up the house and went to bed. Her last thought as she drifted lazily toward sleep was to wonder what the Mularkeys were doing.

The next morning she woke at her usual time, six o'clock, and dressed for work. Sometimes, if she arrived early enough at the office, one of the reporters would let her help with the day's stories.

She hurried down the hall and tapped on the last door. Though she hated to wake her grandmother, it was the house rule. No leaving without a goodbye. "Gran?"

She tapped again and pushed the door open slowly, calling out, "Gran . . . I'm leaving for work."

Cool lavender shadows lay along the windowsills. The samplers that decorated the walls were boxes without form or substance in the gloom.

Gran lay in bed. Even from here, Tully could see the shape of her, the coil of her white hair, the ruffle of her nightdress . . . and the stillness of her chest.

"Gran?"

She moved forward, touched her grandmother's velvet, wrinkled cheek. The skin was cold as ice. No breath came from her slack lips.

Tully's whole world seemed to tilt, slide off its foundation. It took all her strength to stand there, staring down at her grandmother's lifeless face.

Her tears were slow in forming; it was as if each one were made of blood and too thick to pass through her tear ducts. Memories came at her like a kaleidoscope: Gran braiding her hair for her seventh birthday party, telling her that her mommy might show up if she prayed hard enough, and then years later admitting that sometimes God didn't answer a little girl's prayers, or a grown woman's, either; or playing cards last week, laughing as Tully swept up the discard pile—again—saying, "Tully, you don't have to have every card, all the time . . ."; or kissing her goodnight so gently.