Hot Ticket by Deirdre Martin, Julia London, Annette Blair, Geri Buckley

see them, because every day she would look down at those puppies and sigh with happiness.

    Kelly O’Shay had died and gone to heaven. This was heaven, the stuff of dreams. The pilot tests went great—of course they did—with the makeover and the clothes, she was practically singing her way through it, dishing the upcoming football season so well she had the crew laughing. Better yet, she had a couple of past greats to interview: Troy Aikman and Joe Montana, two very charming men who made some fun predictions and laughed at her jokes.
    It just didn’t get any better than that: sitting in a studio behind a desk, wearing haute couture with a fab new ’do, and having Troy Aikman and Joe Montana laugh at your jokes.
    Frankly, the only thing missing from the fairy tale was Parker. She wished he could be here, could see her fabulous new look and watch her work.
    As it was, she hardly ever spoke to him. With the time difference and the Mets’ grueling season, it was difficult to catch each other on the phone. When they did connect, she told him everything—how great everyone was, how fabulous the show was going to be, how fun it was to talk to two football greats, how they were hoping to move her to Connecticut in a few days to tape some segments they would have ready to go if ESPN picked up her show.
    “That’s great,” Parker would say, listening attentively as he always did and seeming excited right along with her. “But when are you coming home?”
    It was a good question and one Kelly had no answer for. They had sent the pilot segment to Connecticut, and her agent and ESPN management told her to sit tight—they’d tell her something in the next few days.
    When the call finally came—ESPN wanted six segments for the fall—Kelly was ecstatic. Unfortunately, she had no one to celebrate the news with. Her mom and sister were on the East Coast, and while they were supportive and wanted this for her, neither could take time from their jobs to come out. Parker was on the road again. So she had a split of champagne by herself, packed her bags,and flew to Bristol, Connecticut, where they put her up in a tiny corporate apartment, and got to work on her show.
    Kelly was so busy writing and working with the producers that she didn’t know they’d begun to air teasers for her show. Nor did she know that Parker was hitting another slump. She’d come home at night completely exhausted and go straight to bed. In the mornings, she got up with the dawn, tried at least to get a run in, and then returned to the studio. She was disconnected from everything in the here and now, connected only with her future.
    In those rare moments she actually had time to phone Parker, she could never seem to reach him. She figured he was traveling and resting between games and thought little of it, but she missed talking to him very much. She assumed he would call her in a few days to tell her how much he missed her and needed to see her, too. Of that, she was confident.
    Parker was on the road a lot, but he wasn’t resting. He was pacing every floor he could find, trying to stay away from TV and trying to figure out what was really in his head. Both things were difficult to achieve, because with twenty-eight guys on the active roster, someone was sure to be tuned into ESPN, and he’d be forced to endure the agony of hearing it all over again.
    He just couldn’t seem to think. He just couldn’t seem to breathe.
    The teasers ESPN ran for Kelly’s upcoming talk show were all about him. He still couldn’t wrap his heart and mind around the idea that Kelly had done this, couldn’t believe she would use him so blatantly just to get a gig. He began to question if he’d ever meant anything to her, or if he was nothing but a stepping-stone on her way up the ladder.
    God help him, but he was humiliated—they had flashed her picture across the big Jumbotrons in the stadium while broadcasters everywhere announced she was his girlfriend. Now, the