The problem was this: he didn’t seem to recognize her talent. They’d spent all of last week reading the news from a teleprompter. Each time she finished, she immediately looked at him, but he barely glanced up from his notes. Rather, he spooled off a criticism as if he were relaying a recipe to a troublesome neighbor, then called out, “Next.”

Day after day, week after week, class after class, Tully waited for him to respond to her obvious talent, to say, You’re ready for KVTS. Now it was the first week of May. With about six weeks left in her sophomore year, she was still waiting.

Plenty of things had changed in her life the past two years. She’d cut her hair shoulder-length and gone with bangs. Her style icon had gone from Farrah Fawcett-Majors to Jessica Savitch. Nineteen eighty was made for Tully: big hair, bright makeup, glittery fabric, and shoulder pads. No pale colors/sorority-girl styles for her. When she walked into a room these days, people noticed.

Except, of course, for Chad Wiley.

But that was about to change; Tully was sure this time. Last week she’d finally racked enough credits to apply for a summer internship position at KVTS, the local public programming station that was housed on campus. She’d gotten up at six A.M. so that her name appeared first on the sign-up sheet. When she’d been given the audition piece, she’d gone home and practiced it endlessly, trying it at least a dozen different ways until she found the tone of voice that perfectly matched the tone of the story. Yesterday she’d nailed the audition. She was certain of it. Now, finally, it was time to found out what position she’d earned.

“How do I look?”

Kate didn’t look up from The Thorn Birds. “Awesome.”

Tully felt a flash of irritation that was more and more familiar these days. Sometimes she just looked at Kate and felt her blood pressure skyrocket. It was all she could do not to yell.

The problem was love. Kate had spent all of their freshman year mooning over bad-haircut Brandt. By the time they finally dated, it was a letdown that ended fast. Still, Kate didn’t seem to care. Through most of sophomore year, she’d dated Ted, who supposedly loved her, and then Eric, who most certainly did not. Kate went to one fraternity dance after another, and though she never fell in love with any of the doofuses she dated—and definitely didn’t have sex with them—she talked about them constantly. Every sentence lately seemed to start with some guy’s name. Even worse, she hardly ever mentioned the broadcasting plan. She seemed perfectly happy to take classes in other departments. Whenever one of their sorority sisters got engaged, Kate rushed to be a part of the crowd that swooned over the ring.