Page 43 of Making It Live!

I used the fact-check, pinning the senator with it.The audience saw an anchor at the top of his game, dismantling a politician's talking points with surgical precision.But the audience didn't see what was happening inside me.The absence of Jimmy's real voice was a physical thing now — a draft, a chill, a hunger my body had developed over weeks of being fed something it hadn't asked for and now couldn't live without.

I reached for the water glass.Took a sip.Set it down.

The C-block was lighter — a correspondent report on midterm election polling.I delivered it cleanly.Marla handled the weather toss.The broadcast moved toward its close.

"Thirty seconds.Standard outro."

Four words.No Nelson.No take it home.No you've been extraordinary.Just thirty seconds, standard outro.

"That's our broadcast for tonight.I'm Nelson Mackenzie.Thank you for watching Beacon News Tonight.We'll see you tomorrow."After three seconds, the red light died.

I sat behind the desk in the sudden silence and didn't move.The studio crew began their post-show breakdown around me — cables being coiled, lights being adjusted, the quiet choreography of a machine powering down.Marla unclipped her mic, glanced at me, and left without a word.She'd felt it too.The whole broadcast had felt like driving with the parking brake on, and Marla had been on television long enough to know when something between the anchor desk and the control room was off.

Through the glass wall, the control room was dimming.I saw Jimmy in the EP chair, headset still on, his auburn hair catching the blue light of the monitors.He was writing something on his notepad, and didn't once glance toward me.

Harry appeared at my elbow, but I didn't look at him.I kept my eyes on the man sitting in the blue light who'd spent the last hour inside my ear delivering directions with the emotional temperature of a refrigerator.

"Harry."

"Yes?"

"Tell Mr.Goodman I want to see him in my dressing room."

Harry was quiet for a beat.I could feel him looking at me, reading my face, doing the calculations he always did.Then: "When?"

"Now."

ChapterEighteen

Jimmy

Harry appeared at the control room door with the expression of a man delivering grim news.

"Mr.Goodman," he said."Nelson would like to see you in his dressing room."

The control room was nearly empty.Ray had left ten minutes ago with his usual nod.The overnight crew was settling in at the far end of the desk, headsets on, paying no attention to me.I was sitting in the EP chair with my notepad and the quiet, nauseating certainty that the broadcast I'd just produced had been the worst of my tenure.

Not editorially.Editorially, the show was strong.The Pinnacle follow-up was airtight, and the senator interview had been sharp.

But the voice I'd put in Nelson's ear tonight — flat, clinical, deliberately stripped of everything I'd been unconsciously putting into it for three weeks — had turned the broadcast into something stiff and mechanical, and I'd felt it from the other side of the glass.Nelson's delivery had been precise but rigid.The warmth that had been building in his on-air presence, the texture that had been driving the ratings up — I'd taken it away tonight by pulling back my voice, and the show had suffered.Nelson had noticed, and now he was summoning me to his dressing room.

I stared at Harry.He was leaning against the door frame with his arms folded, watching me with the careful neutrality of a man who knew more than he was saying.His face gave away nothing.

"When?"I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Now."

I set down my notepad and stood.

"Harry."

"Yes?"

"How angry is he?"

He considered this for a moment, as if weighing the diplomatic options.Then he shrugged."He's Nelson."

Which told me everything.