Alastair smiled again, this time far more warmly. "Thanks." He drew back for a moment, then opened the door and entered, holding it open for the rest to follow. "C'mon in, folks. Dar's got only a minute, so please keep it brief."
A group of four people entered, two men dressed in khakis carrying cameras with pockets full of technical items, a tall man in a turtleneck and a jacket, and a medium height woman in a leather coat and boots.
"Hi." Dar briefly wished Kerry was in the room. "What can I do for you folks?"
The tall man approached the desk. "John Avalls." He held a hand out. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Ms. Roberts. We won't be too long."
Dar stood and took his hand. "I'd appreciate that. We're in the middle of a lot of activity here."
"This is my colleague, Sarah Sohn." The man indicated his female companion. "And our cameramen John and Barry."
Dar gave them all a brief nod. Then she stuck her hands in her pockets and waited.
The reporters came closer to her while the camera people set up their gear. Alastair loitered in the background perching on a credenza that held a set of glasses and probably hid a large screen television panel.
"Okay." Avalls was flipping through a notepad. "Sorry, Ms. Roberts. It's been a long couple days for us too. I'm trying to get my questions straight here so I don't waste your time."
"No problem." Dar watched the cameramen wrangle their gear. "I can imagine that you folks have been going without any sleep just like we have. "
"Exactly." Sarah nodded. "You almost feel guilty taking a nap, like you're going to miss something if you do." She had a portfolio open, and she took up a position near the short edge of Dar's desk. "For a while there, even going to the restroom felt like that."
Dar nodded. "Can't be like that forever though."
"No," Sarah said. "It's funny you say that because I was thinking that this morning before we met Mr. McLean, I had so many other things to do--personal things, laundry, you know, shopping--that I haven't even thought about since Tuesday. "
"Life's moving on," Alastair suggested. "I know we feel it. Our customers were completely understanding the first few days, but now, their priorities are changing too."
Avalls looked up from his notes and nodded. "I found myself hoping over coffee this morning they'd find me an assignment somewhere else," he said, honestly. "You can just take so much. I felt like going to cover baseball in Wisconsin."
Dar nodded slowly. "Wish I was home in Miami, myself, matter of fact. Alastair and I were in London when it happened, and we've been going full out since then."
"I was at my in-laws in Virginia," Avalls said. "My father in law was having his sixtieth birthday party, and we had the whole family in for a big barbeque." He glanced up from his notepad. "Now he never wants to celebrate his birthday again. "
They were all silent for a moment. "Tough to know who to be mad at, isn't it?" Alastair came over and settled on the far edge of the deskDar was standing behind. "Anyway, here we are."
"Here we are," Avalls said. "John, you ready?""
"Yeah. I think there's enough light in here not to use ours," the cameraman said, peering into his lens at Dar's image. "We're good."
"This is a high pickup mic," Sarah said, "so we don't need to do the whole stick it in your face thing. It's picking you up fine." She looked at a meter on the device she was wearing over her shoulder. "And it's quiet in here."
"Great." Dar rocked up and down on her heels. "One warning. I'm tired, and I'm not a talking head," she said. "Don't ask any questions you don't want to hear the answers to."
Sarah looked up and smiled at her. "We know. Ms. Roberts, I've bee a fan of yours since you did an interview about that ATM breakdown for a colleague of mine. I can't speak for John, but we're not here looking for a headline on the crawler. We just don't understand some things we've seen happening and we'd like to, and we think you have the answers."
"You speak for me,"Avalls said, mildly. "I am just the talking head."
Dar relaxed, sensing a weary doggedness in the little crew she understood at a gut level. She was usually wary of the press, given her recent experiences with them sometimes more than wary, but in this time, in this place, she felt like it was going to be okay.
Alastair, after all, knew her well enough not to put her in front of a couple of antagonistic reporters, didn't he? She glanced over at him, seeing only mild interest on his face. "Nice shirt, Alastair."
Her boss eyed her. "Laundry's in the hands of the hotel, Paladar. I wasn't banking on spending an extra couple of weeks on the road with you."
Dar grinned, then she turned back to the reporters. "So, what can I answer for you folks?"
"Okay."Avalls studied his pad and paper. "Let me put on my weatherman voice and get this started." He cleared his throat. "Ms. Roberts, we all know everyone rushed to New York to help in this time of great tragedy. But what did that mean to you? What are you doing here?"
"Dar, be good," Alastair got in, just as she was taking a breath to answer. "Remember this will probably be national."
Dar merely laughed. Then she sighed. "What am I doing here." She mused."Well, for one thing, we didn't rush up here. This was our second stop."
"Second?"
The door opened and a familiar blond head poked inside. Dar motioned her partner forward, then returned her hands to her pockets.
"We went to the Pentagon first, physically, but in reality we were every
where after it happened."
"Can you explain that?"Avalls asked.
"Not without a white board and at least ten colored markers," Dar replied. "In brief, we reached out and connected all of our corporate resources so we could understand what was happening and mitigate the effects when we could, and where we could."
Kerry came over and took a seat out of camera range in one of the comfortable leather chairs to one side of the desk.
"Then, after we got a team on the ground at the Pentagon and resolved their immediate infrastructure problems, we came here." Dar concluded, "and since we've been here, we have been using the resources we have to try and help the city knit itself back together. "
"The city asked you to come?" Avalls asked.
"We came for our people here,"Alastair answered. "City didn't have much to do with it."
"But once we were here, and they knew we were, they gave us a priority list and we did what we could with it," Dar added.
"Yet you brought your infamous bus with you."Avalls consulted his pad. "This bus, which I've heard about from roughly everyone including all our production people, has been seen all over the city passing out drinks and cookies." He glanced up. "Was that calculated?Good corporate PR?"
"I'm sure it is good corporate PR. The name of the company is plastered over the outside of the damn things," Dar replied. "But in fact, no.We sent the buses because we knew we had people here who needed help. Not people in general, our people here in the city."
"I'm sure a cynic would doubt that," Avalls said, but he smiled.
"I'm sure they would,"Dar agreed. "And in the end, it really doesn't matter because the buses did what we wanted them to do and more. No matter what anyone considered the motive to be, we know better."
"So what now? What are you doing now, and what do you intend to do in the future here?" Avalls asked, after a brief pause. "How long do you focus on New York?"
Dar remained silent for a moment, pondering what to answer to that. "We focus on all our customers," she said finally. "So in that sense,we'll be busy here for a while. We have a lot of facility down that we need to take care of."
"That's not exactly what I meant,"Avalls said. "I understand, of course, you take care of business. What I meant was, how long will you be acting in this--well, let's call it philanthropic mode? I'm sure you're not billing Manhattan for the cupcakes."