Haley With the Hazel Eyes

Chapter 5: Two Sides

Haley woke up with a headache, even though she'd only had the one, albeit huge, shot. She looked at herself in the mirror, shaking her head. Had that really happened? Had she had a chance at a one night stand with a superstar heartthrob and turned him down?

She had.

Though seeing herself this morning, it was hard to believe Luc had described her as "pretty." Her eyes were puffy, her hair was a greasy, swirly mess, and she felt as awful as she looked.

She stepped into the shower while smelling the coffee brewing, and tried to wake up and prepare for the day that awaited her.

She wrapped a towel around her long hair and tucked another around her body, stepping out of the tiny bathroom she shared with her two roommates.

They, of course, came from money, and had summer vacation homes waiting for them when they moved out, unlike Haley.

The prospect of returning to Carter's Hollow for the summer was unappealing in the extreme.

She'd enjoy seeing her cousins and their children, of course, but she didn't want to deal with the whole "why aren't you married/what in the hell are you doing in New York City?" litany that would swell into a chorus the longer she stayed.

No, she had to find a way to stay in New York.

Her phone buzzed with a text as she sat in class, surprising her. She didn't have a lot of friends, and she didn't get a lot of texts.

It was from her editor, Kerry, asking if she could come to a meeting in the afternoon.

Haley hadn't heard from New York World in a few weeks, and was excited for the meeting.

She put her phone in her lap and texted back that she'd be at their Midtown offices at the appointed time.

She canceled lunch plans that she had with Molly to make sure she'd be on time for the meeting and headed for the subway as soon as class was over.

She emerged in Midtown to a glorious day, a day that announced that spring had definitely come to the Big Apple. There was a slight breeze, but it was warm, with none of the bite of the evil, winter winds that blew down the canyons of the Avenues, and the trees were starting to bud out, showing hints of green where before they'd just been barren brown.

She entered the building, leaving the brightness of the late spring day for the cool quiet of the carpeted halls. She took the elevator up to the twelfth floor, where New York World Magazine had its offices.

She saw Megan Murphy, another stringer like her, and they chatted until it was time for the meeting. Megan was a journalism major at Columbia, a clever girl that Haley liked immensely.

Kerry entered the room precisely on time, a small dynamo of a woman with a million things to do, always.

"So, let's get down to business," she began. "We've had an idea for a story from Megan, and wanted to run it by you others to see if it might be a possibility." She nodded to Megan, who took over.

"Well, Pete Santangelo is my friend's neighbor, and he sort of gave me the idea when we met a few weeks ago. An awful lot depends on you guys, though," she continued, gesturing around the room at all of the writers assembled.

"Pete is a super nice guy, very happily married and all that," Megan said. Everyone in the room knew about Pete's fairytale marriage to his wife, Daisy. They were famous in the entertainment world as a couple who would never split up.

"Anyway, I've been invited to go on tour with Pete to see how things are done, to see how he keeps up a successful career, and I was thinking it would be fun to do parallel pieces about different performers, how they run their tours, with Pete's as the yardstick. I mean, he brings his kids on tour with him, along with his wife, you know? He doesn't put up with any hanky-panky, as they say.