"Hey." She keeps my hand. Obviously, I’m not doing the camouflage job I thought I was. "I never said I was taking it."
"Don’t be silly. You should. These offers don’t grow on trees."
"I know that, but…."
Interrupted again. This time by my cell. Christ. For once I’d like my world to fall apart without an interruption.
Okay, I have this terrific offer on the table. A chance of a lifetime, especially for someone my age. Senior Producer with CBS, working on their premiere news magazine. It means moving to New York. It means leaving Kels. Wonder if she’d move here with me? One of the networks has to want her here. They’d be crazy not to.
I take a drink of my coffee as she takes her call. She looks at me and gives me a ‘thumbs up’ sign. Seems like something is going well for her too. This is good. This is very good. I know she wants a spot in New York. Wonder if she’d be upset if I took one too?
Nothing says we come as a team. Nothing says we ever see each other if they do hire us both. Even if we’re at the same network. Unless it’s in her contract to work with me, I could be in Siberia for all it mattered. They’d pair her up with their more seasoned producers, give her exposure, a chance to work with their best. I’ll be producing real exciting stories like the National Spelling Bee.
We’ll be in Manhattan and never see each other again. This is the perfect city to lose someone in.
Like hell.
She’s crazy if she thinks I’m giving up so easily. We don’t necessarily have to work together, but I refuse to give up on us if we’re both living in New York.
Oh shit. Beth lives in New York. Maybe she’d rather be with Beth if she moves here. Maybe that’s why she wants to move here.
Damn.
No! I refuse to think like this. My Papa’s words, "Don’t you be scared, Harper Lee," ring in my ears. Shut up and jump.
"I’ll have my agent give you a call. You’ll be hearing from her right after the New Year." Kelsey smiles triumphantly at me. She hangs up, laying her phone down on the table. "CBS," she says softly, "just made me a hell of an offer."
Same network, thank God. "Was there ever a doubt, Little Roo? They know real talent when they see it."
"Was that a dig?" she teases. ‘Talent’ is not a nice word in our profession.
"No way, sweetheart. You deserve it. It’s about damn time."
"We should celebrate."
"Absolutely. And we will, just as soon as we wrap our story." The story that could be our last one together. God, suddenly, I’m not very hungry anymore. And I sure don’t want to celebrate.
We’re standing in the middle of Times Square, by TKTS, facing the building where the ball will drop later tonight. It’s already crazy here. The millennium extravaganza includes hourly celebrations as each time zone in the world enters the year 2000. There are seven huge television screens stretched out around us, hundreds of speakers blaring music, light towers illuminating every nook and cranny in the area, and already more people than I can tolerate in one space.
Right now, the Indian subcontinent is welcoming the New Year on the big screens. And, to mark this occasion, a twenty-two foot elephant is making its way down Broadway. It’s not a real elephant, of course, but a huge puppet, propelled by a dozen workers, and is rather interesting looking. Deafening the ears is an authentic soundtrack and cascading down from the surrounding building rooftops are red streamers. This is going to be a bitch to clean up. I hope the sanitation workers’ union negotiated triple time.
And I hate crowds. I’ve been jostled, pushed, bumped, hassled and grabbed one too many times in the short period we’ve been here. I’m carrying heavy camera equipment for our shoot, and I’m ready to kick the next person who even walks too close to me.
Kels is practicing her intro beside me, trying out different word combinations and inflections. I always enjoy hearing this. It’s interesting how a story comes together. In our industry, we can change a word or two and give a whole new meaning to what we’re covering. But, of course, as professionals, we’re unbiased. Yeah, right.
I stake out a spot that I like, and drop a couple bags of gear at my feet, marking my territory. Jims is with us, acting as my pack mule, and he’s complaining bitterly about the cold.
"We were happy in LA, Harper. Then you drug us to Texas, that wasn’t so bad. But, why did you have to bring us to New York City on the coldest day of the entire millennium?"
I roll my eyes. "I’ve had enough of the millennium crap, Olson. It’s not even until 2001. And don’t quote that Mulder line to me again." I shake my finger at him. He and I love ‘The X Files’. We both watch it for Gillian Anderson. Wow. What a knockout.
"I meant this millennium, Harper," he continues, interrupting my thoughts. "And I’m more than happy to come back here around 2001. Maybe by then global warming will have caught up with us."
I take off my wool scarf and wrap it around his neck. "There. Be quiet." I then pull a five dollar bill out of my wallet and thrust it into his hands. "Go over there and get us some coffee and Kels some tea." I point to one of the numerous coffee and roll vendors dotting the sidewalks.
"Can I pour it on my hands?"
"Get going!" I growl playfully and give him a shove. He trots across the street to stand in line. With any luck, he’ll be back with it around midnight.
"I’m ready," Kels announces, finally pleased with her narration.
"Great. Jims went to get us something to drink. I sure hope to hell that they catch the lesser professor soon. I sure don’t want to be here otherwise. I may be insane, but I ain’t stupid."
She smiles at me, warming me better than the coffee will. "No, you’re not. If he’s not caught, I don’t see a need to stand here and expose ourselves just to get the exclusive."
"No, chér, but I can think of other places we can expose ourselves."
"Stop it!" She slaps my arm without any sting. "Now," she begins scanning the surrounding buildings, "if you wanted to make a bunch of anthrax spores airborne, where would you do it?"
I shrug. "I might put them in the ball, so that when it dropped they’d be released."
"FBI has someone stationed up there. Nothing is in it right now and nothing will get it," Kels repeats SA Donovan’s earlier comments to us.
"Lots of rooftops around."
"NYPD and FBI are on all of them, as well as the staging crew for this event. The whole Osama bin Laden organization has them worried. They figure he’s targeting three locales – Times Square, the National Monuments in DC, and the Space Needle in Seattle."
"Damn. Couldn’t it be a Starbucks? I mean, what’s one less of them in the grand scheme of things."
"Hey, I’m not a coffee drinker so it wouldn’t bother me."
We share an easy laugh, enjoying these last few moments of relative peace before the evening really gets crazy. "You know how Iraq supposedly has enough of this stuff to kill every man, woman and child on the planet?"
"Yeah. You trying to scare me even more?"
"No, just thinking. How would Saddam deploy the shit?"
Kels shrugs, the answer obvious. "He supposedly builds it into the payload of the missiles. Some of the spores get burned up by the explosion, but enough are left to wipe out plenty."
"The rockets’ red glare," I confirm.
"Fireworks," we say together.
"Same idea," I continue. "Launch it up, and let people ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ while you poison their ass. The fireworks are sent up over the Hudson River, not four avenues from here. Just a little breeze and you’ve got two million infected."
I’m not finished speaking when Kels is on her cell phone and speaking with SA Donovan about our hunch. This is gonna make a great Movie of the Week one day. Wonder who’s gonna star as me?