022706A preview of... He Won't Call
Chapter One Taylor stared at the blinking cursor on her computer screen. She knew it was late, but she had only two more inches to write. If she didn't finish this now, tomorrow would bring another story, she was certain. Life at The Chronicle never slowed down. She glanced up from her monitor to find a sparse newsroom. Taylor was the only reporter left amidst the empty desks and dimmed lights, which caused the clacking of her keyboard to echo off the supposedly sound-absorbing ceiling tiles. She spotted a few night editors along the far wall and watched them hurriedly type headlines and slash stories for tomorrow's early edition. The presses started up shortly after midnight and it was nearing 11:30. Whenever she told someone about her profession, they all got the same excited look on their face. Everybody's seen a movie or a TV show that takes place in a newsroom, where people run about frantically like chickens with their heads cut off while others shout about in the background. Too bad it's nothing like that. Life at a newspaper is dull 99 percent of the time. Sure, when breaking news comes over the wire, people do dash about. But those times are so sporadic that most days, it's a boring old workplace. There are cubicles and fluorescent lights and pots of generic, unflavored coffee waiting to be consumed. You make calls, you answer e-mails, and you type out assignments. Sounds like any old job, right? Wrong. While the newsroom did bode a strong resemblance to any office in corporate America, life as a newspaper journalist was quite different from your average day job. It reminded her of a never-ending gerbil wheel of incessant questions from editors, sources who wouldn't return phone calls, and too many late nights staring at a computer screen, hoping the right word or phrase would come so the story could be put to bed - hopefully on deadline. She felt like she was constantly running, never able to slow down. It was challenging on a daily basis, that was for certain, but some part deep, down inside of her found the business exhilarating. Taylor was only one person, but by asking the right questions and hashing out the answers in print, she might be able to make a difference in many people's lives. Even if she'd spent days on an assignment, hearing one positive comment made it all worthwhile. Aside from the unflavored coffee, that was the reason she got out of bed each morning. At 25, Taylor Johanssen looked every bit the typical journalist. She wore her honey blonde hair in a tight bun and kept a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses perched on her nose while she churned out story after story - for looks, of course, since no twenty-somethings she knew actually needed reading glasses. Her outfits were very conservative; she kept to a strict regimen of button-up dress shirts and cashmere sweaters tucked into solid pencil skirts that always fell below the knee. Her mother's pearls dangled from her dainty neck, resting just below her collarbone. A pair of stiletto heels capped off her workday attire. She dressed beyond her years to get more credibility. Constantly vying with pushy older reporters for a page-one story caused Taylor to quickly lose the tight tops and flared pants she'd worn in journalism school. She was only in her mid-twenties, yet felt ten years her senior. A fire in the belly for hard news earned her the nickname TJ at work, a nod to the masculine side she wasn't afraid to let loose. Taylor's eyes wandered back to her 22-inch round-up on the heated meeting that had kept her late - again - last night and forced her to miss a dinner date with James Hallaway. The mere thought of her fiance brought a smile to Taylor's lips, her mouth curving upwards in anticipation of his warm body waiting in their king-sized bed. She pictured James in his usual nighttime attire: a worn college T-shirt, knowing full-well of the chiseled abs he'd spent months perfecting that lay beneath the tattered gray fabric. She imagined kicking off her black pumps as she flounced onto the feather comforter. James would put down his book, which was always something long and incredibly hard to understand, and lower his lips to hers for a long, passionate... Taylor jumped when she felt a hand on her right shoulder. She spun around in her chair, bringing her armrest into direct contact with Colin Dansford's knee. "Ow!" he yelped as he grabbed his throbbing joint in pain. "A little jumpy, are we? I think you better lay off the java, TJ." "You know I don't drink coffee at this hour," Taylor retorted as she removed Colin's hands to examine the damage. Finding no bump or blood or even a rip in his gray dress pants, she slapped his knee and watched him wince in pain. "You look fine to me," she said with a smirk. Colin shook his head. "Why are you still here? You know your shift ended at 6:00." "I've got two more inches to go. I need to finish this tonight. He patted her head as if she were a young pup starved for attention. "Seriously, TJ, go home. I'm sure The Man's a wreck without you." She'd only been in the position for a year, so Taylor was surprised at how quickly she warmed up to Colin. Though he was the managing editor of The Chronicle, she saw him more as a confidant and friend than as someone much higher than her on the food chain. His tall stature and ruggedly good looks made most women's hearts skip a beat, but Taylor thought he looked more like a late 30s washed-up movie star caught by the paparazzi on a bad hair day. She frequented his glass-enclosed office on a daily basis, mainly to share stories about her fiance whom Colin dubbed "The Man". Taylor shyly smiled at Colin's comment and brushed her hair behind her left ear, making her two-carat, princess-cut engagement ring sparkle beneath the glow of the newsroom's overhead lights. He caught her hand before she could let it fall to her keyboard, shaking his head at the size of her rock. "If you don't live happily ever after, I'll be convinced love doesn't exist."
(C) 2006 MK 022306Best place to see sharks, piranhas and electric eels and not feel threatened for your life: Georgia Aquarium Best way to show a loved one that journalism is the greatest goddamn profession in the world: CNN Center tour, which includes a bird's eyes view of the main newsroom and the chance to view a live Headline News broadcast. Best compliment from a native Atlant-ian: "Do you play for them?" (The Braves store owner asking Joe if he was one of the new rookies after we told him we were visiting from Minnesota) Best way to get drunk for $6: Sweetwater Brewery tour, where six bucks gets you a souvenir pint glass and three drinks...or in our case, nine drinks, since Joe accidentally got twice the tickets Best way to get drunk for $5: Chateau Elan winery, where five bucks get you a souvenir wine glass and four pours of any of their 19 wines. Best place to find Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade, Cartier and Wet Seal all in one place: Lenox Square in the Buckhead neighborhood (Read: money) Best way to get into a gated community: Tell the security guard you've got a tee time at the course behind all those million-dollar mansions Best thing to do if you're female and bored: Visit a putting green and the men will start flocking as if it were their job
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