Air Time

Chapter Twelve

“Speaking of tickets,” Franklin says. He stabs his orange violation notice to his bulletin board with a pushpin. “The good news is, the Delleton-Marachelle visit came through. Done deal. Got the message on my voice mail when we got back from Keresey. I already called the travel agent to check out schedules and plane tickets.”

“For when?”

“Tomorrow, if we can get there. Or the day after. Apparently the D-M marketing director.” He consults a pad on his desk, and holds it up to show me the name. “Someone named Urszula Mazny-Latos? She’s called Zuzu. Is jet-setting back to Paris first thing Monday. So it’s got to be a weekend deal. Saturday or Sunday. Maybe both, if tomorrow works out. I’ll work on getting us a crew from the Atlanta affiliate. If this Zuzu will let us bring a camera.”

This is great news. We’re getting unprecedented inside access, and the potential for fascinating video. I should be thrilled. Instead, I’m seeing a romantic makeup weekend with Josh slip-sliding away. And at a deal-breakingly terrible time.

“No way to do it Monday?” I ask. I twist one of my legs around the other. “You sure?”

Franklin looks at me quizzically, then snorts. “What happened to Miss ‘there are no weekends in TV news’? How many times have I heard you pronounce that j-school credo to your eager little interns? And now, suddenly Saturday exists?”

He’s right. For the last twenty years, almost nothing has come before my job. Dad’s funeral, of course. I struggle to come up with another example. And fail. Now I’m trying to change the date of an important interview to protect an important dinner date. Am I losing my edge? Or gaining something else?

“Don’t ‘oh, ho’ me, Franklin B. Parrish. Stephen is out of town anyway, right? On one of his accountant things? So you don’t care. But my future is probably at stake here.”

“Well, it certainly is if you don’t get on the plane to Atlanta G-A.” Franklin gives me an evil smile. “Unless you can explain to Kevin and Susannah why Brenda Starr has suddenly turned slacker.”

I sigh, and check the wall clock. Josh and I have dinner plans for tonight. Penny’s favorite Chinese carry-out at his house. Over egg rolls and dim sum, I’ll soon be forced to explain how our weekend just crashed and burned.

Crashed and burned. Not the best words to use before getting on an airplane.

A thought skitters through my head. A good one.

“Charlotte?” Franklin asks. “Yoo hoo, reporter girl. I’ve been talking for the past two minutes about the plane schedules the travel agent just e-mailed. Did you hear anything at all?”

“You know what I was thinking?” I ignore his sarcasm. “Let’s look at the undercover video again. You have the tape handy?”

Franklin pulls out a green plastic bin marked “Purse” from under his desk. Inside is a series of yellow tape cassettes, each carefully labeled in Franklin’s precise handwriting. He selects the one marked “UC-1. G Barrington. Exteriors and ints. Sally,” and hands it to me.

“Here. Pop it into the viewer,” he says. “But why?”

“Go with me here,” I say, sliding the cassette into the opening. I push Play and the black screen dissolves into those shaky pictures.

“Let’s look again, in another way,” I say, peering closely at the screen. “I’m wondering. What if just-call-me-Sally is actually the Prada P.I.? Let’s say, she’s infiltrated the Designer Doubles organization. Talk about counterfeit. You plop a wig of coppery curls on someone, you know? Change the makeup? We know my disguise worked for me. Those waitresses at the restaurant didn’t recognize me. And if Sally is actually Katie, she might not have recognized me, either. Katie’s not even from around here, remember? And I did wonder, in that mall, whether we were both pretending to be someone else.”

“Only you saw Sally in person,” Franklin says. “I probably won’t be much help. But, hey, it could happen. Brilliant idea, anyway.”

I scroll the video into fast forward, searching for the first time I got Sally on camera.

“Wish we had those photos,” I murmur. “It would make this easier.”

“Want to call the cops and ask for copies? Or call Keresey? I’m sure they’d be more than thrilled to help us.” Franklin wheels his chair up to the monitor, then takes off his glasses, cleaning them with his special wipe. “You know, that was quite the morning we had, wasn’t it? You, me, Yens, Keresey. And every one of us, at some point, was lying.”

Nothing like the smell of fried food. The pungent mix of salt, oil and forbidden carbs draws me, irresistibly, through the back screen door and into Josh’s kitchen. A brown paper bag, the top rolled down and stapled closed, waits tantalizingly on the island in the middle of the room. Grease stains already darken the bottom. Another brown bag, smaller, has already been ripped open. Beside it someone dumped a pile of chopsticks covered in paper sleeves, shiny plastic packets of duck sauce and hot yellow mustard, and a plastic-wrapped selection of multicolored rice puffs. Next to that, a crinkled pile of cellophane suggests a certain nine-year-old has no willpower. And proves her father has been out of the room.

“What does ‘Confucius say’ mean?” Penny is studying a strip of white paper, crumbles of fortune cookie still clinging to her mouth.

“It means your father is going to flip when he sees you’ve already eaten all the fortune cookies, my little unfortunate cookie,” I say, giving the top of her head a quick kiss.

“Not all of them.” Penny, the picture of innocence, pulls out one cookie from the flapped pocket of her cargo pants, then another. They’re crumpled and battered in their plastic pouches. Used cookies.

“I saved one for you, Charlie Mac. And one for Daddy.” She examines the brown bag, now literally oozing kung pao sauce. “Mom never lets us have Chinese food. She says it has monster glutamate.”

She starts unwrapping chopsticks, breaking each set apart with a twist and a crack. “I’ll help,” she says, putting the two “saved” cookies on the counter.

Maybe mine will say “you are going on a long journey.” That would at least provide a much-needed segue to the unfortunate conversation I’m soon going to have. I’d already gone home to pack my suitcase for Atlanta and it’s waiting now in my trunk. My plan is to leave my Jeep in Josh’s garage until I get home. Turns out, our plane leaves first thing in the morning. Josh doesn’t know any of this. Yet. And I want to savor tonight as long as I can.

“Where’s your dad?” I ask.

“Right here, of course.” A voice comes down the hall, followed by my darling Josh. He looks just out of the shower, hair still damply tousled. And he’s particularly fetching in his oldest Levi’s, ripped at the knees, and a stretched-out V-neck sweater, gray T-shirt underneath. It’s all I can do to keep from running my hands up under that sweater. I’ve always thought he looks just like my teen pin-up heartthrob from To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch. At least how Gregory Peck looked as Atticus in the movie.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I say. I fiddle with some paper napkins to give my hands something more socially acceptable to do.

“Hey, Daddo.” Penny looks up from her chopsticks project. A pile of shredded chopstick sleeves now litters the counter. “I’m helping.”

“I see that, Pen. Great job. Hey, sweetheart.” Josh smells of citrus and toothpaste as he winds an arm around my waist. He gently kisses my ear. “Weekend plans,” he whispers. “Listen to this.”

Josh keeps his arm around me, but focuses on Penny. His voice changes to the parental tone designed to convey information to me without letting Penny know his true meaning. “So tell me again-what time is Emma’s mom coming to pick you up for the slumber party?”

“Oh, Daddo, you know it’s seven, right?” Penny says. She’s using her long-suffering-child tone. “And then I get to stay all night at Emma and Kristin’s. Then Mom will pick me up tomorrow. Don’t you remember anything?”

“Nope,” Josh says. He reaches over and taps her on the head with a duck sauce packet. “That’s why I have you.”

I see what’s going on. And any other night, I would be doing a quick personal inventory-slinky-enough underwear, sleek-enough legs, toothbrush available-in preparation for the deliciously private and child-free romance-novel evening Josh clearly has in mind. This night, though, I fear his plot is going to be thwarted.

My stomach twists with what’s ahead. And I don’t mean the monster glutamate.

I have to tell him soon. I’ve stalled through the spring rolls and dim sum. I’ve stalled through the reheated General Gau’s chicken. Penny’s upstairs doing the last of her slumber party packing and Josh and I are trying to figure out what’s in a dish the Shing Yee Palace carry-out menu calls “Two Delights in the Nest.”

“I couldn’t resist,” Josh says, picking through the exotic concoction with one chopstick. “I could only think of you as a ‘delight in the nest.’ And once I had that mental picture, well, it just seemed too perfect.”

“You’re in a goofy mood, Professor Gelston,” I say. “I remind you of Chinese food?”

“Well, it’s delicious. And unpredictable. And always wonderful.” Josh points to me with his chopstick. “And I love it. So why not?”

The three white pillar candles on the dining room table flicker and drip into their chunky glass holders. I had snipped some bronze and crimson leaves from the backyard maple, and arranged them as a centerpiece among the candles. It’s just the two of us, Josh at the end of the table, me beside him, both with a view of the first fire of the season-unnecessary but hypnotic-crackling softly in the living room. We’ve uncorked a special sauvignon blanc. Our favorite Ella CD plays in the background. We’re a glossy ad for middle-aged lust. Exploring the second time around. And as soon as Penny leaves, I’ve got to stop the music.

“So listen,” Josh interrupts my doomsday thoughts. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

I hold my chopsticks in midair. A noodle dangles, then slithers back to my plate. “Tomorrow…?”

“Yup. If you’re not busy-” He pauses, smiling mysteriously, letting this preposterous idea hang briefly between us. “If you’re not otherwise occupied, I have a little treat in store.”

My chopsticks haven’t moved. Tomorrow night at this time I’ll be in Atlanta. There’s no way out of that. Even under normal circumstances, that was going to be complicated enough to explain. Now some unknown “treat,” which my frazzled brain is unable to fathom, is about to be dropped like a grenade into my life. Our lives.

“Treat?”

“The Royal Shakespeare Company. One performance only. And you know it was instantly sold out.” Josh is looking so pleased with himself, it brings tears to my eyes.

This is unstoppable. Maybe I could faint. Maybe I could throw up. Which actually doesn’t seem too unlikely.

“So anyway,” Josh continues, apparently unaware of my increasing distress. “Westy Peabody? Big shot on the Bexter board. Had two tickets and couldn’t use them. And now they’re ours. Tomorrow, the Opera House, The Comedy of Errors. And I made dinner reservations at Grill 23. Your favorite.”

Josh points a chopstick at me. “What do you think of that, my little delight in the nest?”

I think I have to kill myself. The Comedy of Errors. Thanks, universe. Irony is always welcome.

The Chinese food, remnants still on the table, has congealed into a toxic waste site. Josh has pushed his chair back from the table. He’s still sitting next to me, but he’s positioned himself as far away as possible.

“But I couldn’t know.” I’m pleading with him to understand my hopeless case. “About the tickets. I mean, it’s wonderful. And you’re wonderful. I’m devastated. But I have no choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Josh says. “I’m not sure how often I’ve said that to you. I’m not sure how often we’ve had exactly this same conversation. You do have a choice. And you always choose work.”

I put my elbows on the table, and drop my forehead into my hands. How can I convince him? I look up at Josh through my fingers.

“I know we’ve had the conversation. I know sometimes I have to work. But in my heart, I choose you. You know I do. And Penny. But this is the only time Franklin and I can get into the…”

Josh is shaking his head quickly and decisively. Dismissing.

“Charlie, maybe it’s not even you. Maybe I’m just not ready for this. Maybe the whole Victoria thing is still too raw. I never saw it coming, how she was pulling away. I worked, she worked. We had our jobs. And we had Penny. I thought everything was fine. And suddenly, it wasn’t.”

Maybe there’s hope here. “Maybe it’s that I’ve been on my own for so long,” I say. “I’m not used to making decisions that include, you know, other people.”

Josh backs his chair away from the table, stopping me. “You know what, Charlie? This is making you upset and defensive. I feel like I’m forcing you to explain who you are. And you shouldn’t have to do that. But I can’t let my life be controlled by your job. The other day, we decided to take it more slowly.”

He stands, waving his hand over the wine, the flowers, the candles. “Maybe we should have taken it even more slowly. Much more. Maybe we should take a break.”

His eyes narrow behind his tortoiseshell glasses. He puts both hands on the back of his chair, supporting himself. A thatch of charcoal-and-silver hair falls onto his forehead. He takes a deep breath. “You go to Atlanta. And then we’ll see.”

We’ll see what? See if we still love each other? See if we still want to be together? Are we supposed to know that yet? I swallow my fear and struggle to keep from asking the questions out loud, even though I’m aching for answers.

Suddenly, the aching flares into anger. Why does he get to make the decisions?

“We’ll see?” I can’t keep the sarcasm from my voice. I’m not this angry, but I’m hurt. And sorry. And trapped. And I know I’m saying the wrong things. “You mean, you’ll see. Whether what, it’s worth it? Whether maybe you’d like to date other people? See if you can find someone who’ll be available every minute?”

Say no, I plead silently. Tell me you love me, and I’m worth it, and we’ll work it out.

Josh looks up at me. “Is that what you’d like to do?”

No. Of course not. But of course that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “Is that what you’d like to do?”

“Daddy?”

Penny, lavender suitcase in one hand and a droopy-eared stuffed rabbit in the other, is peering through the banisters of the front hall stairway. She takes the last two steps down, deliberately, one step at a time, balancing her possessions. At the bottom of the stairs, she stops. Staring at us.

“Daddy?” she says again. And then she turns, drops her bunny and her suitcase, and runs all the way upstairs.

“I’ll-she’s-I wonder how much she heard, or if-” Josh begins. He starts toward the stairs.

“No. Let me. I’ll be right back.” I race after Penny, not waiting for his answer, taking the steps two at a time. This is my fault.

Penny’s sitting, back to the wall, on the window seat on the landing. Her feet are up on the navy-striped cushions, her pink sweatshirt stretched out to cover both knees.

“Penny?”

She’s silent, looking away from me.

I sit down beside her, slip off my heels and pull my feet up the same way. “Remember when Emma and Kristin went to the movies that time? Without you?” I twist my head around to check her expression. She’s staring, determinedly, straight in front of her.

“Their mom said only they could go.” She says to the hallway. “So what?”

“So remember how angry you were? We were in the kitchen and you told me you hated their guts?”

Penny looks at me sideways, just a flicker.

“Yeah. It was unfair. My dad let them both come with me when I went to see Princess Diaries. It was mean.”

I nod. “And you told me they were ‘gross,’ and you never wanted to see them again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And tonight, where are you going for your slumber party?”

Penny does a full-body sag. “Emma and Kristin’s.”

I pause, letting this sink in.

“So your dad and I…” I take a hesitant step into an emotional minefield. Realizing I’m explaining the situation to myself as much as I am to her. “Just tonight, we’re feeling a little like you did that time about Emma and Kristin. Sometimes people argue. And they have angry feelings. But that doesn’t mean they don’t feel different a little later. And they say they’re sorry. And your dad and I-love each other.”

I check for a reaction to what I hope is not overstepping. Am I going to make this worse?

Penny just nods. “Dad told me that.”

“Okay,” I reply. He did? I’m aching to hear more. When? Where? Why? But this time is for Penny. She’s scared and needs a friend.

Penny lifts the sweatshirt from her knees and turns toward me. Her feet, dangling in clunky thick-soled sneakers, still don’t reach the floor. She plucks at the pockets of her cargo pants. “Mom and Dad told me they loved each other, too,” she says. “I remember perfectly. But they got a divorce.”

I nod. Reality is reality. “Yes,” I say. “It happens.”

We sit quietly for a moment, then Penny thuds one rubber heel, then the other, against the base of the window seat. Punctuating our thoughts.

The thumping sound stops and Penny turns her head up to me. She tucks a lock of brown hair behind one ear, revealing a tiny pearl earring I hadn’t noticed before. Cargo pants, sneakers and pearls. Adorable.

“Charlie Mac?” she says. She locks her eyes with mine. “When is it real? How do you know when a fight is forever?”

I bend down to touch my forehead to hers and tell her the truth. “I wish I knew, kiddo,” I say. “But don’t worry-”

“You have to trust those you love,” Josh says, finishing my sentence.

We both turn to look at him. He’s two steps down on the stairway. Holding the banister. Who knows how long he’s been listening to us.

“Your dad is right,” I say. I’m looking at Penny. But I’m talking to Josh. “Life is complicated, sometimes. You know? But love makes it worthwhile.”