Tangled Vines by Janet Dailey Read Free Book Online Page A

resume.
    â€œFew people grow up in the same community where they were born. Moving from place to place seems to be an American trait. In my case, the move was to Iowa.” Kelly thought she had handled that very effectively without actually lying. “Years ago, when I was in high school, I became curious about my birthplace and wrote an article about the wine country of Napa Valley for the paper. I think you’ll admit, wine – the making of it and the drinking of it -has a certain cachet that fascinates everyone.”
    â€œIndeed,” he agreed. “I would be curious to read that article of yours.”
    â€œI’ll dig out my scrapbooks and send you a copy,” she lied. She didn’t have the article, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have sent it to him. “But I warn you, the writing is very amateurish. It was done back when I had aspirations of becoming a print journalist.”
    â€œThat was before you discovered television, of course.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œWhat are your aspirations now?”
    â€œMy goal is to become a national correspondent by the time I’m thirty,” Kelly replied.
    â€œHow old are you now?”
    â€œTwenty-seven.”
    â€œYou still could make it. Nodding, he straightened from the desk and came around it to face her, his arms still folded in front of him. “If you throw out those glasses, do something with your hair, and trade that mannish business suit for something more stylish. Your schoolmarm look may play well in St. Louis, but it will never make it on network.”
    Kelly stiffened, stung by his sudden and blunt criticism. She curled her fingertips into the chair’s leather arms to keep her hands from flying defensively to her tortoiseshell glasses and the big black – sophisticated, she thought – bow that held her long hair together at the nape of her neck.
    She had always known she wasn’t pretty. At best, she was attractive in a plain sort of way. She had worked hard to achieve this trim and neat, studious appearance. It hurt to have him be so censorious of it. It hurt more than he could possibly know.
    But hadn’t she endured a lifetime of ridicule and snickering looks? The sounds of children in the schoolyard laughing and singing that horrible chant – “Fatty, Fatty, two-by-four, can’t get through the kitchen door” – would be forever in her memory. But she didn’t burst into tears and run anymore. Kelly had learned not to reveal she was hurt by something someone said.
    Instead, Kelly brought her hands together, steepling her fingers and regarding Hugh Townsend coolly over the top of them. “My appearance has nothing to do with my competency as a journalist.”
    He looked amused. “I beg to differ with you, Miss Douglas. Television is a visual medium. Appearance is everything. Therefore, it is important how you look.”
    She desperately wanted to lash out at him, but she maintained an outward calm. “I am well aware that I am no beauty queen.”
    â€œIf you were, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you now. A person’s looks should never distract, or attract, a viewer’s attention from the story.”
    â€œThis is sexist.” Kelly attacked out of pure self-defense.
    â€œHardly.” He laughed, a soft, dry sound all the more cutting for its brevity. “You have either forgotten or you are too young to remember the great debate that went on at Black Rock a few years ago over whether Dan Rather should wear a suit and tie or a sweater.”
    â€œBlack Rock?” She seized on the irrelevant in an attempt to divert the flow of the conversation.
    â€œThat’s what we call the CBS Building.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œI assure you, Miss Douglas, in this business men get called on their looks the same as women. Should he grow a mustache or shave it? Let his hair go gray or dye it? Should the tie be plain,