Free Eyes on You by Kate White Page A

from, anyway?” I demanded.
    “From the thermos I keep behind the set,” he said, hitching his chin in that direction. “I poured the coffee myself. The bug must have crawled in before I brought the mug out here.”
    “Was I on-camera when I spat it out?” I asked.
    “No,” Tom said. “We were on Carter.” He told the PA to open me a bottle of water.
    “Here, let me touch up your mouth,” Stacy said. “You’re all smeary.”
    As Stacy worked, her hands flying, I could see the three guests for the first segment milling around on the edge of the set. Finally, I swiveled my chair forward again.
    “One minute. You okay now, Robin?” the director said in my earpiece.
    “Yes, thanks, Stan,” I replied.
    “You sure?” Carter said softly as the guests started to move in our direction.
    “Yeah. Of course, you’re such a pro, you would have just swallowed the freaking thing.”
    He chuckled. “Only because I practiced eating bugs in Boy Scouts. If you’re lost in the woods, that’s a survival tactic.”
    “Good to know I picked up a new skill today.”
    I did my best for the rest of the show, but I never felt fully in the groove. Once, when my thoughts wandered back to that disgusting crunchiness in my mouth, I almost gagged.
    The second the show ended, I was out of there. I wanted to be home in the tub with Mozart playing.
    On the car ride uptown, I noticed a text from Maddy. “Tried to catch u after show,” she wrote. “So sorry about what happened. Do u need anything?”
    “Thx,” I texted back, touched by her concern. “I’m okay.” I was lucky the incident hadn’t ended up on the air, or it would have been all over the Internet.
    A few minutes later, as the driver cut through Central Park headed east, another text came in, this one from Ann asking me to call her.
    “Will you ever drink coffee again?” were the first words out of her mouth when I reached her.
    “Wait, you heard ? Where are you, anyway?”
    “I’ve been downtown all afternoon at a meeting, but one of my team was in the newsroom at the time. She saw the commotion and asked what had happened.”
    “She wasn’t with a reporter, was she?”
    “No, she was with our dear friend Vicky. We’re setting up a profile of her, and she was deciding on the best place for her photo. I don’t think she’s set foot in the newsroom in years, but that’s where she wants the shot taken.”
    “Wait, don’t tell me Vicky saw what happened.”
    “I’m sure she was too busy focusing on her own needs to notice. So other than nearly swallowing a cockroach, how are you doing?”
    “I had one great piece of news today. My book’s in the top hundred on Amazon.”
    “Really?” Ann said, sounding surprised. “I mean, I’m thrilled for you, but I thought they kept saying it was only a niche book.”
    I laughed. “Maybe they say that to most of their authors so they don’t expect too much.”
    “Bravo, then. We’ll have to celebrate. By the way, you didn’t see Carter after the show tonight, did you? He said he wanted to talk to me, but he’s not picking up on his cell.”
    “No, I just got the hell out of there tonight.”
    “He did the same thing last night. Asked me to call him, then wasn’t around.”
    There was no way I was going to mention my dinner with Carter to Ann. She’d take it the wrong way. “Well, you know Carter. International man of mystery.”
    “You doing anything exciting tonight?”
    “I’m going to soak in a tub and try to figure out what’s wrong with my work karma this week.”
    “ Please . Your karma’s just fine.”
    “Oh yeah? For one thing, Tom’s annoyed with me—he thinks I squealed to Potts about the Vicky incident.”
    “Robin, you need to relax a little.”
    In an almost Pavlovian response, I leaned back against the leather car seat. Though it wasn’t dark yet, the streetlamps in the park were on, shimmering in the twilight.
    “Can I ask you something?” I said. A thought had begun to