“I would help her, as you well know. Although I don’t expect to see her in a war zone, unless you count the anniversary sale at Nordstrom.”

“I knew you were my girl. So you’ll keep this place running while I’m gone?”

“Me?”

“Like I said once, you’re a responsible girl.”

She couldn’t help herself; she moved toward him, looked up. He was leaving, could be hurt down there, or worse. “Woman,” she said.

He stared down at her, unsmiling. She felt the mere inches between them. It would take nothing, barely a movement to touch.

“Woman,” he said.

Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.

When Johnny was gone, Kate learned how elastic time was, how it could stretch out until minutes felt like hours. All it would take was a phone call, though, an official saying he was sorry, to make it snap like a rubber band. Every time the phone rang, she tensed. By the end of the first day, she had a pounding headache.

She learned another lesson that first week, too. Life went on. The head honchos in Tacoma still called, and a producer was assigned to oversee the assignments the team was given, but in truth, the way it worked out, Kate began to take over some of the producing responsibilities. Mutt and Tully trusted her, and she knew how to make things work on the shoestring budget they’d been given. All that longing of hers had paid off; it seemed she’d watched Johnny closely enough that she knew how to do his job. She was a seamstress to his couturier, of course, but still, she was competent. By Thursday of the first week, the out-of-town producer had thrown up his hands, said he had better things to do than follow crazy people around all day, and returned to Tacoma.

On Friday, Kate produced her first segment. It was soft and unimportant—an update on former children’s TV star Brakeman Bill—but still it was hers, and it hit the air.

What an adrenaline rush it had been to see her work on-screen, even if it was Tully’s face and voice that everyone remembered. She’d called her parents and they drove down to watch the broadcast with Kate and Tully. Afterward, they’d toasted to “the dream” and agreed that it was that much closer to coming true.

“I always thought Katie and I would be on air together, an anchoring team, but I guess I was wrong,” Tully had said. “She’ll be the producer of my show someday instead. And when Barbara Walters interviews me, I’ll say I couldn’t have done it without her.”