“I think you’ll come up with a great title,” Regan said. “You thought of The Bold News. I wish we could steal it.”
Whitney laughed. “I don’t think Molly would ever let us get away with that.”
Shannon rubbed her finger over her bottom lip. “We could use our maiden name and call it something like The Taylor Women or Sisters.”
“It sounds like a soap opera,” Whitney said.
“I think we need something with chicks in it. Like the Chicks’ News.” Regan shrugged. “I wish Mom could pop in like she used to when we were talking about stuff. Remember how she’d put her hands on her hips and attempted a stern look. Then she’d say, ‘Hey, I wasn’t invited. I see you three are having a gabfest without me’.”
Whitney thought for a moment. “That’s it, Regan. We can call our program... The Chick Gabfest Show.”
Chapter Thirteen
On Monday morning, Whitney drank coffee from a red mug in Regan’s kitchen. “You make the best coffee.”
Shannon nodded. “It’s good. But I better not drink too much. I have a long class to teach this morning.”
“Give them a break so you can go pee,” Whitney said. She wondered if there was a class she could teach at the college on broadcasting. She definitely had time for it.
“I mix several types together and one has a cinnamon flavor.” Regan moved away from the coffeepot and carried her cup to join her sisters at the table. “I’m glad you two could come over. I have tons to tell you. Myra invited me over yesterday. It helped more than I ever thought it would. We’re going to get together here in a week.”
Shannon poured cream in her coffee. “I think it’s wonderful you can talk to your mother-in-law about being a firefighter’s wife.”
Whitney wondered what Myra thought of the whole Anna thing. “Did you tell her about Anna?”
“She’s livid about Anna going after Casey.” Regan leaned forward in her chair. “But we didn’t just talk about loose women and our hot guys. I bounced ideas off Myra about our business. She liked the TV show a lot. She watches Cooking with Cora and thinks we’ll give it new life if Cora’s agreeable about sharing her show with us.”
“Cora just had heart surgery recently so I won’t call her yet, but I’ll have Ben put a good word in for us,” Whitney said.
“If we ever want a comedian on the program, I’m your woman,” Regan said.
Whitney laughed. “Okay.”
Regan said, “See, I didn’t even make a joke and you laughed. I’m a natural.”
Whitney rubbed her lower lip. “We need to think about what we definitely want in our pilot.”
“Hey, before you go too deep into producer mode, how was your hot date on Saturday?” Regan bit into an oatmeal cookie. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”
Shannon nodded. “Did you two hit it off?”
“I had a great time with Jack.”
“Who’s the better kisser? Ben or Jack?” Regan asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “What makes you think we kissed?”
Regan shrugged. “You kissed Ben on the first date, and you seem to like Jack a lot so it seems like a probable deduction on my part.”
Did Regan have to be so nosy about her romantic life? What was she thinking? She didn’t have a romantic life, just because she’d gone out with Ben and Jack. She hadn’t forgotten Rob. “I definitely feel more of a physical attraction for Jack and—”
Regan frowned. “I thought you liked kissing Ben by the waterfall.”
“I did but I enjoy Jack’s kisses too. I have to admit that I like Jack a lot. I love looking into his gorgeous blue eyes.” She sighed. “And his smile makes my knees go weak.”
“You still need to see Ben since he knows Cora’s husband,” Shannon reminded her. “We need his connection.”
“No problem. I’m going out with Ben again.”
“Well, it’d be hard not to be attracted to Jack with him looking like Chris Pine.” Regan took a swallow of coffee.
“Jack’s taller too, ” Whitney said.
Regan raised her eyebrows. “I wonder if Jack had a vasectomy.”
With a puzzled look, Shannon said, “Why would you think such a thing? He’s young and single.”
“Matt Lauer on Today mentioned how some unmarried men are getting them because they don’t want to have children,” Regan explained. “Ever. I thought that was hard to believe, but Matt talked to this good-looking guy who had a vasectomy. He’s only twenty-eight years old. He wants to get married someday but doesn’t want any kids.”
“I hope that man tells his dates upfront how he definitely doesn’t want children.” Shannon rose and refilled her cup.
Regan grinned at Shannon. “I thought you didn’t want to drink too much so you don’t have to leave your college students to go pee.”
Shannon shrugged. “I decided I need the caffeine more than I need to worry about a potty break.”
She should relieve Regan’s mind on the vasectomy issue. “I’m sure Jack hasn’t been sterilized since it’s a pretty permanent procedure. He said he wants kids.”
Shannon gave Regan a thoughtful look. “Maybe you shouldn’t wait to have another baby. Tim and I wanted to have more children, but I never could get pregnant again.” Shannon became silent when her gaze shifted to Whitney.
“It’s okay. You can say it. Rob and I never got around to having children. That’s one of my biggest regrets.” Why had they waited? Putting it off had been a bad decision.
“Casey and I talked about having another baby now and not waiting any longer. I gave it my best shot and tried to convince Casey to continue being a paramedic and quit as a firefighter. I’m realistic enough to know he’s never going to quit putting out fires and rescuing people. He wants to be fire chief so much when his dad retires.”
“He’ll make a great chief,” Shannon said.
“I want to talk to Myra what it’s like to be a fire chief’s wife and my fears,” Regan said. “So far we only talked about aggressive Anna. Myra’s had to deal with a husband and two sons being firefighters.”
“Myra’s had a lot of stress with three men she loves having dangerous careers.” Shannon picked up a cookie from the plate. “I better grab a cookie before Regan eats all of them.”
“Remember how we’ve talked about our secret desires. I just had a thought.” Regan paused for a moment. “After we’re doing well on TV, we could offer to grant a secret desire to someone. Nothing kinky, of course. We can even tell our secret desires to get the ball rolling.”
Whitney giggled, remembering Regan’s desire. “Our ratings should go up when you mention wanting more sex. You better be sure to say with your husband or you might be flooded with offers.”
Shannon looked unhappy. “Let’s keep our show PG rated.”
“I’ll give becoming a comedian as my desire,” Regan said. “Although the sex response might make Casey jealous.”
“We’ll have to put a limit on how expensive it can be,” Shannon said.
Whitney said, “We might be able to get a company to provide some monetary assistance since they’d get free advertising.”
Regan looked at her. “You should start taking your drum lessons, and you can share what you learned during your beginning lessons.”
“I love it,” Whitney said. “I can have my instructor on to talk about playing drums. You might have to be our segment producer. I like your ideas.”
Shannon sipped her coffee. “By the way, I’m getting my cycle for Mother’s Day instead of waiting for my birthday.”
“Cool. I’m glad you decided to get it now.” Whitney wondered if they could do something with the cycle desire. “How about we have you give safety tips? I don’t mean just telling how you should wear a helmet, but how to prevent cycle and car collisions.”
Shannon laughed. “Mom would love how we’re doing a show and coming up with new ideas for it.”
They hadn’t mentioned getting together on Mother’s
Day, Whitney realized. It’d be hard on her with Mom gone. She wasn’t a mother so didn’t have children to spend the day with. But she could visit the cemetery. And there was something else she wanted to do. She hadn’t read her mother’s journal she’d written for her. Mother’s Day might be a good day to read it.
“Do you think we should go swimming on Mother’s Day or skip it this year?” Regan asked.
“It’s going to be hard either way. We’re going to miss her if we swim in her pool, but if we ignore her tradition, the day won’t feel right.” Shannon turned to look at Whitney. “What do you think?”
Whitney thought for a moment. “Let’s go ahead and plan on swimming. If you want to eat out with your families first, that’s fine. I’m going to visit the cemetery some time on Mother’s Day.”
“Maybe we can go together to visit Mom and Dad’s plot,” Regan said.
Shannon rose and walked to the dishwasher. “Don’t forget Mom always went on Memorial Day weekend to take wreaths for her parents’ plots. We could go to Mom’s and Dad’s when we visit our grandparents’ plots.”
“I like going to the cemetery one time instead of twice. My emotions can’t take going two times in one month,” Regan said. “But how about we do all of it on Mother’s Day this year?”
Shannon looked up after placing her cup on the top rack. “That sounds better to go on Mother’s Day. I’ll get the wreaths sometime.”
Whitney opened a blue folder and removed papers. “Since I was hoping we’d decide to go on with our TV show, I did a written treatment of our show last week. I didn’t do any budget yet.” She glanced at Shannon. “You and I can work on the budget sometime soon because we want to demonstrate we can think both creatively and practically.”
Regan squealed when she saw the top paper with her picture. “Whit, I love the cover sheet.”
Whitney grinned. “I thought you might.” Underneath the heading “The Chick Gabfest Show” she’d put starring, then pictures of them with their names.
Regan turned to the second page. “I like your points you emphasized here.”
Shannon nodded and read out loud, “Intelligent, appealing personalities with chemistry. Relationship between the three hosts as sisters and good friends.”
“This is called a leave behind because if the executive is unsure whether he likes my pitch, he may read this treatment and like it better on paper. And hopefully this will help seal the deal.”
“It sounds like these pages are crucial to selling our show,” Shannon said.
“I like the fun factor point you listed,” Regan said. “I can contribute to making it fun.”
“I just thought of something else you can do.” Whitney touched a vase of daisies. “I bet you bought a premixed jumble of flowers that’s always next to the checkout stand. Am I right?”
Regan nodded. “I did for $7.99. Isn’t that a bargain? I guess you want me to pick up flowers for the set.”
She shook her head. “Sometime you can show how you buy a bouquet of flowers from the grocery store and make arrangements look chic at home. You do so much from one bundle. I noticed you grouped the daisies together, the roses together and made many mini arrangements.”
“Regan, you are creative. I just stick the whole bouquet in a vase,” Shannon said. “I saw you even had the filler ferns in a thin glass bottle in the bathroom.”
Whitney cleared her throat. “I have an idea I want to run by both of you. If Ben’s right about taking part of Cora’s slot for our show, I’m thinking it might be good to suggest she stay on three days a week and we pick up two of her days. We could take Tuesday and Thursday. I’d rather have an hour block instead of half an hour daily. Maybe eventually we can take three days and she can take two. How does that sound?”
Shannon gave her a broad smile. “I love it. I think she’ll like still having the biggest chunk of time, and having a whole hour will give us time to cover what we need to for the day’s program. Also we’ll have our own show separate from hers instead of sharing the hour with her.”
“I agree. I like the hour instead of having a shorter time daily. With commercials it wouldn’t even be thirty minutes of show time.” Regan touched her belly. “When I get pregnant, I’ll wear some cute maternity clothes like Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View did.”
Whitney pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m going to leave a message for Ben to give me a call. He’s in surgery but we need to make contact with Cora and her husband soon. I’m hoping she’ll want to meet with us after she gets out of the hospital. Or maybe before, depending on how she feels.”
“It makes it nice that Cora’s backer is her husband’s company.” Shannon glanced at her watch. “I better get a move on. I need to get there earlier today to run copies off for a test.”
After Whitney left a brief message for Ben, she said, “I’ll walk out with you. I have a doctor’s appointment.”
Regan walked them to the door and gave them hugs. “I’m glad you two are leaving, because I need time to work on my comedy skit before I have to get Lily.”
Shannon pointed her finger at Regan. “Don’t you dare write any sister jokes. Or not about me anyhow.”
“Hey, don’t stifle my creativity,” Regan protested. “I’ll start with husband and boyfriend jokes for our female audience.”
After leaving the porch, Shannon and Whitney walked to the driveway. When Whitney stopped by her car, she said, “I should sell this car. Rob bought it before we were married. It gets great gas mileage but I just don’t like it.”
From the front porch, Regan yelled, “Bye, you two.” She waved before going back inside the house.
Shannon leaned against Whitney’s car. In a choked voice, she said, “I wish Regan hadn’t done that. She looked like Mom. Remember how Mom used to wave to us from the porch whenever we left.”
“Except she stayed on the porch until we pulled out of the driveway. But yeah, you’re right. Regan looks like Mom a lot too.”
Through tear filled eyes, Shannon looked at Whitney. “I think you should sell your car and get something else. You know I loved Rob and hated it when he died. It was a terrible tragedy but something good came out of it. You moving back home has been a blessing. I never saw you very much when you lived in New York.”
She put her arm around Shannon’s shoulders. “I love being here with you and everyone. I’m the lucky one. And you agreeing to working with me on our new venture means a great deal to me.”
“Would you have gone ahead and started a business if I hadn’t wanted to?”
Whitney shook her head. “When I first mentioned it, I was trying to get you and Regan to forget about skydiving, and then I realized I wanted the three of us working together. You two are not just my sisters but my best friends.”
“Good because you’re stuck with us.” Shannon gave Whitney a quick hug. “I need to get to class.”
Before getting in her car, Whitney asked, “Hey, sis, when does your semester end?”
“I’m done teaching early in May. Don’t worry. I’ll be ready to censor Regan on our TV show.”
Whitney laughed. “I won’t tell her you said that. You’re the anchor we need to be successful.”
Chapter Fourteen
On Saturday Whitney enjoyed the quiet in the atrium. She wanted to relax and get as much out of this spa visit as possible. She’d promised Shannon and Regan that they’d get everything done: manicures, pedicures, massages and facials — the works. She could get used to this spa stuff. She even liked her face being covered with a mask made out of avocado and honey while cucumbers rested on her eyes. Half asleep, Whitney’s thoughts were interrupted by the massage therapist’s voice next door. Whitney heard her say, “Your muscles are tense. I guess your job as a firefighter is pretty stressful.”
Whitney knew it had to be a female getting a massage. Although there were spas for men in their town, this particular one was just for women. It had to be Anna.
She removed her cucu
mbers from her eyes. Watching her sisters take theirs off, Whitney put her finger to her lips to signal silence.
“Oh Lacey, I wish I could say it was only work related, but my muscles are probably tight now because I’m crazy about a firefighter I work with.”
“I’m sure you won’t have any problem there. You’re gorgeous.”
“Actually I thought he’d fall for me if I broke up with my boyfriend but that didn’t help.”
Was Anna talking about Casey? If she was, Anna better watch out for Regan’s claws, Whitney thought.
“I’m sorry,” Lacey said.
“He’s married. Why are the good ones always married?”
Whitney glanced at Regan and Shannon. Their eyes widened and Whitney mouthed Casey to them.
Regan nodded and whispered, “I think so.”
“Anna, I hope you have better luck than I did. I was in a relationship with a married man, and he decided to stay with his wife because of the kids. Does this married firefighter have any kids?”
“He has an adorable daughter, Lily. He’s such a hottie. You wouldn’t believe it. I think of having sex with him all the time. I have erotic dreams of us being in bed together.”
Regan whispered with a hiss, “How dare the slut talk about screwing my husband. I’m going to wring Anna’s scrawny neck.”
Whitney quickly grasped Regan’s shoulders and said in a low voice, “Let’s get more dirt on her and we’ll go to your father-in-law. He needs to get her transferred to another fire station.”
Shannon stood near and pulled her belt tighter on the terry cloth robe. “Whitney’s right.”
They leaned closer to the thin wall. Whitney heard Lacey say, “He probably needs to see you as a woman and not just as a firefighter.”
“Believe me. I’ve tried. I wore a bikini in front of him for a calendar shot. He gave me a sexy swat on my butt so I was hopeful something might happen. But nothing did. I need more than a swat on the butt.” Anna sighed. “I get wet when I stand next to him. I can’t stand it much longer. I feel like grabbing him and unzipping his pants.”
Whitney in Charge Page 13
