Air Time

Chapter Four

I’m starving. I’m exhausted. But my eye is on the prize. Josh. Grabbing the curlicued wrought iron railing with one hand and my keys with the other, I drag myself up my front steps. The motion detector flips a spotlight onto the red-lacquer front door, where someone’s placed an elaborately twisted wreath of flaming orange bittersweet and a blaze of amber maple leaves over the brass lion knocker. Pots of tiny golden chrysanthemums in concrete urns flank the front stoop. In the entryway, a slender cherry table holds a crystal vase of red gladiolas. My condo fees at work. I clamber up the zigzag stairway, fueled by hunger, lust, my airport idea, and the knowledge that this day could possibly have a happily-ever-after ending. What was Josh getting at this morning? Am I almost-engaged? I pause on the second-floor landing, stopped in my tracks by the weight of my own question. What if?

One way to find out. One more flight to go. Maysie will go bananas. Mom, too.

I can hear Botox before I even hit the landing. She’s probably been in full-blown feline pout mode, clawing open paper pouches of cat food, knocking over wastebaskets and flipping kitty litter as far as she can. The meowing gets louder as she hears my key turn in the lock.

“Hey, baby cat,” I say. I bend to pick her up, but after a baleful glare, she flips her calico tail at me and flounces into the kitchen.

“Fine, be like that,” I call after her. Amy, the cat sitter, has piled the mail on the dining room table, an outrageously expensive mahogany antique cleverly converted to a staging area for my embarrassing stack of definitely-going-to-read-them-soon Vogues and New Yorkers. It’s also a handy storage spot for to-be-paid bills. The curvy navy silk-upholstered dining room chairs are gorgeous, too. Those I use as coatracks.

Mom’s wedding album-the new one-also currently lives on the dining room table. She and Ethan sent me my personal copy soon after they got home to Chicago last month, fresh from their honeymoon. With a note. “You next. Love, Mrs. Mom.”

Honeymoon.

With a burst of energy, I sprint down the hallway, past my gallery of family photos, as always, saluting the framed shot of Dad in his cub reporter days, and head into the spare bedroom I’ve cleverly converted into a walk-in closet. I peel off my tired white T-shirt, now permanently infused with two days of stale airplane air. Pants, too, wrinkled beyond redemption, into the hamper. I can’t even imagine wearing either of them again.

I’ll shower. Twist my hair up and ignore my salon-needy brown roots. Throw on my good Levi’s. No. Dammit. They’re in my “lost” suitcase.

The blast of hot water and foaming grapefruit shower gel erases my annoyance. I continue mapping out my unalterable plan. Shower. Clean clothes. My second-best jeans, high-heeled black boots, a black cashmere v-neck with a lacy come-hither camisole underneath. Grab a power bar. Sneak past Botox. And then, I’m going to Josh. After all. This morning I made a vow.

Just as I have my hand on the doorknob, finally headed for some potentially life-altering answers and a memory-making night, the phone rings.

Answer it. It might be Josh. The phone rings again.

Don’t answer it. It’s undoubtedly a telemarketer. It rings again. I can’t stand it. And I can’t resist.

Rule one in journalism, every phone call might bring a good story. Rule two, it most likely won’t. Rule three, if you don’t answer the phone, refer to rule one. Another ring. I dash to the kitchen and grab the receiver from the red wall-mounted phone.

“McNally. I mean, hello,” I say. But I’m too late. My voice mail has started. I hear my recorded self saying “We’re not here to take your call right now…” Now the machine and I are both talking, in a double-talk babble that must be annoyingly confusing to whoever is on the other end. “Sorry, hang on,” I say, raising my real voice to compete with my recorded voice. “The message will be over in a second.”

When there’s just one of me, I continue. “Hello?”

“Charlie McNally, from Channel 3 News?”

The voice is low. Almost gruff. And unfamiliar. Which is strange, because I’m obsessive about keeping my home phone number private.

“May I ask who’s calling?” I say. Don’t need to confirm who I am.

“You think you’re on to something, don’t you, hotshot? You and your hotshot buddy.” The voice continues. There’s a sound in the background, like a clicking? But I can’t place it. “I’m going to warn you just once, hotshot. Knock it off. We saw you at the airport. Got me? And that’s not all we know about you.”

Clutching the phone, I look out my third-floor window, through the birch tree leaves and past the glare of the streetlight to the well-tended square of garden and sidewalk below. Scanning. Searching. Nothing.

I have to be smart. Keep whoever it is on the line. I can call 911 from my cell phone. If I can keep this guy talking, the police could trace the call.

I guess.

“Who is this? What do you want?” I ask. I try to sound afraid, which isn’t actually that difficult, but I figure my “weakness” could convince whoever it is to keep threatening me. And buy me some time. Problem is, the tote bag with my cell is in the other room, still parked by the front door.

Of course I’m on my landline. Stretching the curly cord around the corner, pulling it to the limit, and then stretching out one arm as far as I possibly can…I still can’t get to my bag. “Just tell me what you want,” I say. My voice is as taut as the phone cord.

“You know exactly what we want,” the voice says. It’s muffled and raspy, but definitely a man. And there’s that sound again. “We want you and your hotshot pals to stay away from our business.”

I stretch one leg backward toward the bag, manage to hook the heel of one boot around the loop of a handle, and drag the black canvas across the sisal rug toward me. Got it. Tucking the kitchen phone under my chin, I dig through the bag for my cell. Got it. I check the window. Now a dark-colored car is pulling up. My eyes widen, contemplating who that might be. And why they’re here. I flatten myself against the pinstriped wallpaper, away from the window, out of sight.

“I’m so sorry, I just don’t understand,” I say. Suddenly I can’t hold back the genuine tremor in my voice. Then I frown at myself, regrouping. This is just some jerk. I’ve handled worse. And I have a plan. Just keep this guy talking. “Your business? What’s that, exactly?”

I get the cell open. Smash the green on button. Finally, finally, I hear tim-tee-tum of the power up music. And so does he.

“Smart,” he says. “Cell phone.” And the line goes dead.

“Call the police,” Josh demands. “Now.”

I’d waited, staring out my window, waited until I saw his pale blue Volvo pull up under the streetlight. Watched him, holding my breath, as he opened the car door, got out, walked to my front door. For the brief moment he was out of sight, I know my heart stopped beating.

Then his footsteps, running up the carpeted stairs. His key in the lock. And then he was inside and I was melting into his arms, protected, relieved, safe.

And now. He’s angry. After almost a year together, I’ve seen him tired, almost drunk, in bed with a fever, bored, passionate, cheering for the Red Sox, playing Twister with Penny. I’ve seen him annoyed, suspicious, and briefly unhappy. But I’ve never seen him this angry.

“If you don’t call the police,” Josh says, unwrapping his arm from around my shoulders and leaving me, longing, on my midnight-blue leather couch, “you’re simply allowing yourself to be in danger. That’s not ‘intrepid tough reporter.’ That’s absurd.”

He goes to the bay window overlooking Mt. Vernon Square, and pulls aside the delicate oatmeal muslin curtain. “You were planning to notify the cops when-whoever it was-was still on the phone, correct?”

He’s holding the curtain open and facing out. Directing his questions to the window. “So what’s the difference with calling them now?” His voice is arch, critical. The voice I’ve heard him use on the phone to Victoria.

I’m simmering a bit myself. Shouldn’t he be comforting me? Isn’t this the part where Prince Charming is supposed to draw his sword and protect me from evil-doers? Why do I have to defend myself and my actions? I’m the one who, apparently, just got threatened. I don’t need Josh’s advice. I don’t need him to tell me what to do. I just need a reliable friend.

But maybe he needs something, too. Coming up behind him, I prop my chin on his shoulder. “I’m so glad you came over, sweetheart. I must say I had a few freaked-out moments. And I wasn’t happy about going outside just then, so thank you for coming over. You’re right, I was going to call the cops when the guy was on the phone.

“But now,” I step back, turn his shoulder so he’s facing me and take both his hands. I try a tentative smile. “But now, what could they do? Besides, if an investigative reporter gets flummoxed by a crank call-well, I’ve handled worse. Right? I’ve gotten dozens over the years. Nothing has ever come of them. It just means I’m on the right track. Of whatever it is. And that’s a good thing. Right? Listen, I promise I’ll tell the news director about it tomorrow. Kevin can notify the cops if he wants. Right?”

Josh is silent, so maybe I’m succeeding.

“And now you’re here,” I continue, “and now it’s fine, and now let’s finish our wine and maybe even finish the evening we were supposed to have when we were so rudely interrupted. This morning, you were saying?”

I scan his face, gauging my attempts at reconciliation.

“The last time you had a ‘good story,’ you were chased down the interstate by murdering thugs,” Josh replies, ignoring my question. His voice is cold. “Then held at gunpoint. Twice. A ‘good story’ almost got your own mother killed, just two months ago, and now-”

“Well, no, that’s not quite accurate.” I take a step back, and I can feel a frown creasing my forehead.

“It is accurate.” Josh shrugs, then looks down, slowly shaking his head. “I know you’re devoted to your job. And getting the bad guys, as you always say. And that’s admirable. And scoring yet another Emmy.” He looks back up at me. “But if someone is calling you at home, threatening you, how can I protect you? How can I protect any of us? And you’re calling it a good thing?”

“Well, in TV news, you know, ‘good’ is kind of relative, and-”

“Let me finish. If we’re a team? You and me and Penny? You can’t be putting us all in danger. If they know where you are, they’d know where she is.”

“But they’re not going to-”

“Who are ‘they’?” Josh says. “You have no idea what ‘they’ would or wouldn’t do, because you have no idea who ‘they’ are. And for you to just dismiss a threatening phone call, not even report it to police, seems irresponsible.”

Josh steps away from the window. I see him eyeing the front door.

He’s going to bolt? Without even having a real conversation?

“Honey?” Then I stop. He’s displeased because I’m not doing what he says? I’m not one of his errant students, a kid who disobeyed orders or passed notes in class or whispered or cheated. I’ve been fine on my own for all these years. Which used to worry me. Now I see why being on my own might have been much, much easier. But do I want to be on my own anymore?

“Honey?” I say again. I’m teetering on angry, but trying to soften my voice. “Maybe we should really talk about this. Not fight. I mean, I give my opinion, then you give yours. And we discuss it. But if I give my opinion, and then you say I’m wrong, that’s not a discussion. You know?”

“It’s not just about calling the police,” Josh says, ignoring my question. “Covering that plane crash was more important to you than coming home. To me. To Penny. She relies on you now. Her mother left us. She chose her job. And now, you-”

“I wasn’t choosing my job in Baltimore,” I interrupt. My hands are on my hips. I didn’t decide to put them there. “I chose it twenty-five years ago.”

Botox pads into the room, then stops. She eyes us, her tail waving. She hops onto the couch and begins daintily licking a paw. As if the entire world wasn’t about to fall apart.

“I see,” Josh says. In three controlled paces, he’s in the dining room. He yanks his leather jacket from the back of a mahogany chair, thumbs it over one shoulder and marches toward the front door.

“Josh?” I say. My hands drop to my sides. My chest turns to ice and my eyes swim with tears of indecision. What do I do? What do people do? People disagree, don’t they? Sometimes?

“Let’s talk tomorrow,” he says. In a voice I’ve never heard.

“Whatever,” I say. In a voice I’ve never heard.

The front door opens. And closes. And Josh is gone.

I’ve lost my luggage. That I can handle. But now, what if I’ve lost the love of my life?