Finding Dad: From "Love Child" to Daughter (10 page)

Woo hoo! I couldn’t wait to get to work!

I hugged my father when he came home, jumping up and down. “Thank you so much! I’m so excited!”

“Just remember to work hard. People will be watching everything you do because you’re my daughter.”

He was right, I could feel the eyes on me in the newsroom. The newspaper reported it wasn’t fair that I got a job in such a competitive industry with no experience.

I’ll be forever grateful to the awesome producer Nancy Dederian, and photographer Les Breault. They knew I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and helped me through every step. We decided I would report on anorexia and bulimia and how it was affecting teens in the area. I started making calls and lining up interviews, impressing Nancy with my hard work. She was happy we were getting such emotional interviews, since the girls felt safe opening up to someone their age. I felt bad working while Dayna was visiting, but one day Nancy told me to bring her with us. We were interviewing random people on the beach about eating disorders, and decided to use her in our story.

I asked her, “Do you think being thin makes someone attractive?”

“Honestly, I hate to admit it, but I really do think being thin makes someone attractive,” Dayna answered looking skinny in her bikini and jean shorts.

I loved having my best friend on TV with me, and it was a great end to our time together. Dayna would have to go home, but I felt good knowing when I joined her at college she’d be the one friend who could understand everything that had happened to me over the summer.

Everything was perfect until the day before my series was set to air. I was running late, as usual, and I got stopped for speeding on the way to the TV station. I was driving my father’s white campaign minivan with the license plate WIN 92. I had to pass through a section of Massachusetts that was famous for speed traps and very, very expensive tickets. If only I’d known.

The trooper looked down at me with my big purple Velcro rollers in my hair. “License and registration, please.”

“I was on my way to work, sorry if I was going too fast.”

“I clocked you at eighty-two miles an hour.”

I winced. Eighty-two? Yikes! “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Here’s all my information.”

“Sit tight.”

I sat there sweating in my seat, wondering how big the fine would be. He came back about ten minutes later and handed me a ticket.

“Here ya go, everything you need is on this.”

He never mentioned anything about my father, and neither did I, though I assumed he knew exactly who I was since my name was on my license and the van was registered to Governor Bruce Sundlun. How embarrassing! As I drove into the station, I knew I’d keep this as quiet as possible. However, by the time I got to work a totally different story was percolating.

Nancy pulled me aside. “The other stations are reporting you got a speeding ticket and tried to get out of it by saying ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ ”

I was dumbfounded. How could they report something so blatantly false? “Nancy, I swear it’s not true. I didn’t have to say anything, since I was in the campaign van that’s registered to my father. They knew exactly who I was.”

Nancy believed in me, but the question was whether the station would have to run the story as well, since it was making news.

“You need to call the reporters who are looking for you,” Nancy said, “and I’ll talk to management to see what they want to do.”

The chill in the newsroom was palpable.

I had already been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go on the air as a teenager just because of who I was, and now it looked like I was a spoiled brat trying to get my Governor father to fix something else for me. I decided to just keep my nose down and do my work. But first, I had to call my father—a call I was dreading. My fingers shook as I dialed his office,

“Hello, Governor’s office. May I help you?”

“Hi, it’s Kara, may I speak to my father, please?” I hoped my voice wasn’t quaking.

“One moment.”

“Kara,” he said sounding unhappy.
Oh God, he knows!
“What’s this about you getting a speeding ticket and telling the police I’d take care of it for you?”

“Dad, I swear I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything! All he did was write me the ticket.”

“How much?” he asked.

“Um, I don’t know, let me look…oh my God, it’s $225.”

“Well, you’re going to pay every cent of that right away on your own. I don’t pay traffic tickets.”

“Of course—I’m so, so sorry—but I swear I didn’t try to use your name.” I had a sudden flash of fear that he’d tell me to go home.

Our relationship was just forming, and I needed him to know this was not who I was. I fought back tears, worried about the damage I might have done.

His voice softened a bit. “That’s fine, Kara, just take care of this right away, okay? Goodbye.”

It’s easy to see now that my father was just trying to be a good parent by setting limits. But his disapproval made me sick with fear that I might lose all I’d worked for. Today I know those fears were unfounded and they were just leftover scars from the old wounds he’d created, but at the time, I was beyond scared. This was the first time he’d had to show me fatherly tough love in a way that would teach me a lesson. This was new territory, so every misstep got blown out of proportion in my mind.

Back in the newsroom, I was just hoping I didn’t do too much damage to my job.

“Good news,” Nancy said, putting her hand on my shoulder, “they aren’t going to run the speeding ticket story, and your series will go on as scheduled.” I exhaled for the first time in what felt like several minutes. “Thank you, Nancy. You have no idea how relieved I am.”

The other stations ran with the false story, and I had no recourse other than to grit my teeth and bear it. But thankfully, the news cycle was short and my embarrassing moment was over quickly.

The next night we ran Part One of my taped series, and it went so well the news director came into the studio and asked me if I wanted to join the anchors live on the set for Part Two the next night.

At first, I felt like doing a handspring over stacked cars, but then the idea of LIVE TV—which meant sitting next to the avuncular Walter Cryan, who was the Cronkite of Rhode Island—made my knees shake. “Thanks so much,” I said, hoping I sounded calm, “that sounds terrific.”

Thankfully, my father had passed on his genes that allowed me to survive under pressure. Then again, just being his daughter gave me more confidence and determination to enter the industry where he’d been a Titan.

I really wanted my father to approve of the job I’d done, and couldn’t wait to see him when he came home. We settled in for our usual Oreo cookies and milk in the study as I sat on pins and needles waiting for his opinion.

“You did great, young lady,” he said with a proud smile, “and the folks at the station tell me you have been working really hard. Keep up the good work.”

I could have danced on the ceiling! He approved! He thought I’d done a great job! “I hope you like the next two nights.”

It was too soon to call him Dad, but my father was well on his way to becoming a real father. He had gone from presenting me as his new baby on the beach, to guiding me through my teenage misstep with the ticket, and now helping me into adulthood with my career as we neared the end of our time together. We had crammed a lot of growing into one summer, but I felt good knowing he wanted to do more to help me as I went off to college. I felt confident that our relationship would remain rock solid after I left in a few weeks.

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