Cal thought, and he stormed off in the opposite direction.
* * *
Dallas was fuming as she made her way up the theater aisle. She held her head up as though she didn’t care, but of course she did. She could feel her face growing hot as she made her way outside to Daniel and the van.
How could her entire world be falling off its axis in just one day? She rode in silence back to the station with Daniel, her eyes stinging, but she wasn’t fixin’ to let even one tear fall. Not until she was in private.
One more thing and her tough façade might become so damaged that the usual quick fix of puffing out her chest with a deep breath and lifting her nose in the air just wouldn’t work. Just one more thing and it would be too much for one day. But she had no time to think about falling apart. She had a story to introduce on set.
Dallas arrived back in the newsroom, the Christmas decorations twinkling on the station tree that stood in the corner. A frantic chatter filled the newsroom. It was typical for the time of day, reporters running around and edit bays full as late stories were still being filed. Dallas hurried in at a clip, her heels not slowing her down one bit. Daniel had already edited her story about Miss Peaches. She ran into an empty bay to voice it before it was time to sit on set next to the soon-to-be retiring female anchor and introduce the missing Baby Jesus statue story to the viewers.
Just as she was wrapping it up and preparing to walk into the live studio, the news assistant delivered a piece of paper with a message to her.
Please call me. I need to see you.—Mom
Dallas felt as if she had been pushed off a building. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in twenty years, and now, today of all days, she’d decided to call. Now. This was the “one more thing” that just might break her. How could she go on the air live in two minutes, right after unexpectedly hearing from the mother who had abandoned her so long ago? She shoved the note into her jacket pocket and marched into the studio smiling. Take control, she reminded herself. She knew how to shove down these emotions, and she’d just have to do it again.
Her mother. Wow. All she knew was that she had no time for her mother now. The same way LouAnn hadn’t had time for Dallas for the past twenty years. LouAnn had never even attempted to make contact with her. She had purely abandoned her. Dallas had no intention of seeing her now, not ever again.
Still, she was thrown for a loop, her stomach tightening with a painful grip, the years of hurt bubbling up. This was far worse than the confrontation with Cal back at the theater, and she couldn’t believe her bad luck.
She barely got through the story on TV, a strained smile pulled across her pretty face. When she returned to her seat in the newsroom, her phone on her desk was ringing. She picked it up without even thinking.
“Dallas Dubois,” she said into the receiver.
“Dallas, it’s your mother. Please don’t hang up.” LouAnn sounded nervous.
“Mother. Hi...” she began, then quickly decided there was no need for politeness. “What do you want? I’m really busy.”
“I need to see you.”
“I’m sorry. Your timing is really bad. Maybe another time.” Dallas kept her voice cold, showing no emotion.
This conversation had been years in rehearsal. Dallas had spent a long time imagining that her mother would call her, say she was sorry, maybe cry and beg forgiveness. As she grew older, the pretend conversation took on a different tone, as Dallas grew bitter and developed the hard exterior she’d soon be known for. Now that the moment was finally happening, somehow it wasn’t playing out just as she’d practiced.
“Please. It’s important,” LouAnn begged.
“I’m really sorry. But I’ve got important things going on, too. So, call me another time, okay? But not anytime soon.” And with that, Dallas hung up on her.
A lump swelled in her throat, and she made a beeline to the ladies’ room, locking herself in a stall. Finally alone for a moment, she allowed herself to cry silently into her hands, flushing the toilet over and over to cover the sounds of her anguish in case anyone walking by could hear her. All those years of not hearing her own mother’s voice, of wishing that she’d just come home and tell Dallas she hadn’t forgotten about her, suddenly made her feel as though she were that young, naïve girl once again. With everything she’d faced today, plus her own guilt of hanging up on a call that had been twenty years in the making, it all became too much. Even for Dallas.
The firewall was down, and Dallas was desperate to put it back together as fast as she could.
4
That evening, Dallas went home to her empty house. It was a little place near the university that she was renting. If she got that anchor seat, maybe she could afford to buy herself a real place of her own. Maybe she could finally afford to stop running to Atlanta to hide the fact that she shopped at consignment stores. Everyone in town just assumed she had lots of money. She worked hard to make it look that way. But the truth was that reporters didn’t make that much. She had bills to pay and, unlike Blake and Vivi, she didn’t come from family money. But that wouldn’t hold her back. She’d just have to keep climbing her way to the top. Anchors made much more, a lot more. That’s what she had her eye on.
She made her way to the shower, petting her big white cat, Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina was her only companion since she had broken up with Dan Donohugh, Harry Heart’s campaign manager, right after the election. Both of them had really been using each other, hoping to benefit from Harry’s run for the senate, so the brief fling had ended soon after.
Here in her home, Dallas was finally in her safe haven. Just she and Wilhelmina.
Dallas stood under the hot water of her shower thinking of her mother, but trying not to. Why would she be calling after all these years? Dallas had tried to make contact with her when she was still just a teenager. She’d hated living with her father, and she’d really hated living with Blake when her dad had married Blake’s mother, Kitty. Blake had let her know immediately it was her house, so Dallas hadn’t wasted a minute of her time trying to be sisters with her.
Instead, she’d spent her time trying to prove herself worthy of her mother’s love. She’d become a high school cheerleader just as her mother had been when she was young. She’d worked hard to become the most popular—and that had sometimes been nasty work. You didn’t always become popular by being nice, so she’d had to crush a few hearts along the way. Eventually, she had been named the salutatorian of her class. Cal was the valedictorian and had gotten a football scholarship. But Dallas, after receiving a small scholarship of just a thousand dollars, had still been asked to give one of the speeches. She’d pulled together all her courage to call her mother when she found out, but no one had answered the phone. She’d left a message, asking her mother to please come and hear her speak, that it would mean a lot to Dallas to show her what she’d accomplished. She’d never heard back from her mother. Maybe she didn’t get my messages, she always thought to herself. But she knew it wasn’t true.
Eventually, Dallas quit trying to make contact.
As she stood in the shower, the memories of what happened all those years ago haunted her warm oasis.
When Dallas had been only three and her brother, Houston, had been eleven, their father had walked out
