"You don't have to yell. I'm coming. We all are. But you better have alcohol ready for me when I get there. And I'm not mixing it with that gross juice your kids drink."
Kate laughed. "It's the morning, Tully. I'll make you breakfast."
"Thanks, Kate," Tully said quietly. "I owe you one."
When she looked up she saw Fat Bob. He was filming all of this from the doorway, with Johnny standing beside him.
But it wasn't the red light on the camera or the knowledge of her public humiliation or the all-seeing lens that broke her.
It was Johnny and the sad, knowing way he looked at her that finally made her cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The documentary aired two weeks later, and even Kate, who was used to Tully's amazing successes, was caught off guard by the public's reaction. It caused a media frenzy. For years Tully had been seen on camera as the cool, witty professional, following stories and reporting on them with her journalist's detachment.
Now the public learned how she'd been disappointed and abandoned. They saw beyond the journalist to the woman within, and they couldn't stop talking about her. The phrase heard most often was, just like me.
Before the documentary, the public respected Tully Hart. Afterward, they adored her. She graced the cover of People and Us in the same week. The documentary—and segments from it—were played and replayed on entertainment news shows. America, it seemed, couldn't get enough of Tully Hart.
But while everyone was watching Tully and the sad encounter with her estranged mother, Kate saw something else entirely on that tape, and she watched it just as obsessively.
She couldn't help noticing the way Johnny looked at Tully at the end, when Cloud's disappearance was revealed, the way he'd gone to her and taken her in his arms.
And then there was the quiet talk Tully and Johnny had had out at Sunshine Farms. They'd edited out whatever words had been exchanged and gone to an establishing shot of the commune, but Kate couldn't help wondering what they'd said to each other.
She studied their body language like a primatologist, but in the end she had only what she'd had in the beginning: two old friends working together on an emotional documentary and a wife who'd worried for a long time about them.
That should have been the end of it. If nothing else had happened, Kate would have boxed up her old jealousies and put them away again, just as she'd done dozens of times over the years.
But something had happened.
Syndiworld, the second largest syndication company in the world, had seen the documentary and offered Tully her own one-hour show, of which she would be a majority interest owner.
The idea had rocked Tully's world, offered her a way to be herself on camera, to show the world who she really was and how she really felt. No more three A.M. start times, either. The minute she heard the idea, she said it was exactly what she needed, but even so, she'd put down two conditions: first, they had to shoot in Seattle; second, John Ryan had to be her producer. Neither of these had she bothered to clear with her friends.
Kate and Johnny had been on the back porch, talking over drinks after a long day, when the first phone call had come in.
Johnny had laughed at Tully's offer, told her to find a producer who specialized in prima donnas.
Then Tully mentioned a salary in the millions.
Now, two days later, Kate sure as hell wasn't laughing. She and Johnny were in the living room, trying to keep their voices down because the kids were in bed. Tully was back in New York, no doubt sitting by the phone, waiting to see if once again she'd get her way.
"I don't know why you're fighting me on this, Katie," Johnny said, pacing in front of the window. "It will change our lives."
"What's wrong with our life now?"
"Do you understand how much money they're offering us? We could pay off this house and send the kids to Harvard for medical degrees. And I could do a few shows that mattered. Tully said I could spotlight places in the world that are in trouble. Do you know what that would mean to me?"
"Is that how you want your career to be from now on—starting everything with, Tully said?"
"Are you asking if I can work for her? The answer is hell, yes. I've worked for a lot worse people than Tully Hart."
"Maybe I'm asking if you should be working for her," Kate said softly.
He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. "You've got to be kidding me. Is that what this is about? One night a million years ago?"
"She's an incredibly beautiful woman. I just think . . ." She couldn't finish, couldn't put her old fears and insecurities into words.
The look he gave her was so hot she felt herself melting, disappearing. "I don't deserve that."
She watched him storm up the stairs, heard the bedroom door slam shut.
She sat there a long time, staring down at her wedding ring. Why was it that some memories could never be erased? Slowly, she turned off all the lights, locked all the doors, and went upstairs.
At their closed door she paused, taking a deep breath. She knew what she had to do now, what she had to say. She'd hurt his feelings and insulted him. They both knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Her insecurities and jealousy couldn't stand in the way of that.
She had to go to him, say she was sorry, and tell him she was foolish to be afraid, that she believed in his love like she believed in sunshine and rain. It was true, too. She did.
Because of all that, she should be proud of Johnny and happy for this chance and what it meant to him. That was what marriage was, a team sport, and this was her time to be cheerleader. But even knowing all that, she couldn't quite be happy.
Instead, she was afraid.
Yes, they'd be rich. Maybe even powerful.
But at what cost?
Tully finished off her contract, had an emotional, celebrity-studded last broadcast, and said goodbye to New York. She found a new penthouse in the Emerald City and spent the next month in closed-door meetings, coming up with the plans for her new show, which she was calling The Girlfriend Hour with Tully Hart in honor of the Mularkeys' holiday tradition. She and Johnny had spent long hours working together like the old days, hiring staff and designing the set and devising show concepts.
By August of 2003, much of the advance work was done and she realized that yet again she'd been so busy with work that she'd forgotten to have a life. Even with Kate just across the bay, Tully had hardly seen her. So she picked up the phone and invited her best friend and goddaughter to spend the day with her.