J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“Midnight? That’s all?”

Melton and I traded poor-me stories until we were both sleeping on desktops, surviving on tic tacs and tap water.

The conference call got around to taking another vote.

“Thanks for the help, Melton. I got another call.” I hung up before he could pump me for more on Jost.

After I weighed in on title graphics, I tried to call Ainsley in the truck and got no answer. Either he wasn’t in the truck or couldn’t hear the ring over the downbeat of WKiSS-FM. Guess which one I was betting?

“Ms. O’Hara? I’ve been looking for you.” Shirley Shayla, my new general mother, stood there, hands on hips. She was almost eye level with me, if I slumped in my chair. Aggravation or a long day had crumpled her Donna Karan suit. Not a good sign.

“You found me.” I waved to the line of empty conference room chairs. The machine clucked into standby and the speakerphone suddenly cracked out an “O’Hara?”

I held up a one-minute finger to Shayla and answered, “Yeah. I’ve got a couple stories on the burner right now. For the first week, I like this piece on a local suicide.”

“Details,” the New York guy barked.

“Guy was a refugee from a local Amish community. The suicide had signs of being autoerotic asphyxiation.”

Bits and pieces of my colleagues’ opinions popped through: a snort, a chuckle, a drawn out shiiiit. “Sounds good,” was the final answer.

What followed was a sequence of feelings that were fairly familiar when I sold a story based on salacious spin-relief, shame, and as I met Shayla’s gaze, guilt hunkered down for the long haul.

I hit the mute. “What can I do you for?”

“ That’s the story you’re putting together for the premiere?” She made a firm nod in the direction of Grace’s sweet image on my monitor cart, twitching rhythmically in freeze frame. “Former Amish Sex-Death?”

“Actually, I’m not sure what the story will be yet.” Guilt made me sound grumpier than was polite for a new boss. Thumbing toward the phone call, I tried to work the charm as I admitted, “You know how it goes. These conference calls are fairly, um, promotional. Until I have it in the can…” I let it drift into a long pause.

“That topic would certainly sell ads.” Her arms were folded across her bosom and her feet were planted wide and toe out. She was not smiling. “Although, I have to say I’m surprised. It’s not what I expected from you. Rather predictable.”

Amish autoerotic asphyxiation was predictable? Where had she been living?

I opened my mouth, hesitating to stick my foot straight back in there, when the cell phone vibrated. Saved by the bell. “Yeah?”

“Maddy? It’s me,” Ainsley whispered in his undercover voice. “I’m at the fire station.”

“Great.” I started talking, hoping Shayla would lighten up on the hairy-eyeball she was giving me. “Here’s my-”

“You won’t believe the visuals! They’re training on car fires. Torching old beaters in the back lot. It’s incredible. We can totally work it in. Tom-the-Amish-firefighter, lighting a car on fire? Get it? And Pat just came in to pick up his check.”

“What? Ask-”

Ainsley would not shut up. His whispering got fierce. “Pat got all over me when I told them about the bank guy out at the Jost farm.”

“Really?” I went to full stop.

“I’m going to try for an interview.”

“With Pat? He wants to give you an interview?”

“I can handle it. Leave time in the story. I’ll call you later.”

“Wait!” Too late. I hit ring-back and the guy at the firehouse who answered laughed loudly as he passed the phone back to Ainsley.

“That’s three, College Boy. You’re grounded. Never, ever hang up before I do.”

“Right, right. Can I go now?”

“No. Pat’s in this thing deep. Watch yourself. Ask what he fought with Tom about and find out when-before or after Rachel. Ask what he said to Nicky Curzon. And find out how the fire service call came in about Jost. Did they hear through the cops or was it direct?”

“Okay. I can handle this, Boss.”

The words “I can handle it” were a little too scary to let slide. “Don’t get fancy on me, College. Get your shots and get back here. Don’t make me give you the J-school speech again.”

“Anything else?”

He was being such a pain in the ass, I snapped, “Yeah. I need you to pick up Jenny on your way back.” Too late, I thought of Shayla and the fact that I really didn’t want to spread the word I was permanently responsible for a kid these days.

“From school?” Ainsley asked.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. It wasn’t in me to ask for a personal favor without justification but it felt tricky explaining my motives to Ainsley. “I’m going to check something out at the Jost farm and I may run late. If you get her by six, we can rendezvous back at my place and watch whatever you get at the firehouse.”

Silence.

Conference call went lull.

Shayla tapped her foot.

“You want to talk to Mr. Jost again, don’t you?” Ainsley’s mental wheels were turning. “Don’t go back there, Maddy. He’s going to call the cops or something this time.”

“He might talk now that he’s had all day to think about what I dropped off this morning.” Quietly I added, “And there’s something I need to say to him.”

“Oh, man.” Ainsley sounded worried. “Don’t make me give you the J-school speech.”

“Ha. Funny.”

Shayla stood there watching me with one eyebrow cocked, so I could only penalize the boy with the silent treatment. The conference call droned on. A close-up image of Grace flickered before me on the monitor, waiting. I felt caught in a paused moment, waiting for someone to press the button that would release me from the sameness of it all. Something had to change.

“I’ll pick up Jenny by six,” Ainsley relented. “No problem. Maybe call a pizza, too? Delivery to your place?”

Pizza, the ultimate Prescott peace offering.

All I could say was, “Thanks. I’m hanging up now. Get back to work.”

“Do I rate your attention, yet, Ms. O’Hara?” Shayla drawled.

“Absolutely.” I stood to face her.

The conference call shouted, “O’Hara?”

I tapped the mute button. “Yeah?”

It was the voice of my New York production counterpart. “Are you going to up-link your story for everybody to preview?”

“No.”

“We’d really like to see it,” the shark from Dallas cooed.

“Oh well, in that case, hell no, ” I said with a smile. Shayla can vouch for me.

There was a laugh or two and then someone started to argue about how the stories would be previewed and I was off the hook again, for half a second anyway.

“Sorry. This may go on a while.” I waved at the speakerphone. “Can we schedule something later? We could preview tomorrow before the up-link.”

She wasn’t fooled, but she wasn’t a time-wasting moron either. I was hired to do a job, and she’d been doing her job long enough to recognize when to stay out of the way. “Fine. I’d prefer to see what you do for us, before we talk anyway. So, ‘get back to work,’” she mimicked.

I shot her with my pointer finger and nodded.

That I could do.

6:09:16 p.m.

The sun was all the way down and it was really cold now. It hadn’t even been warm when she got out of the car. Jenny pressed farther under the cover of the bushes. She pulled her knees against her chest.

School was really far away. Home was probably closer. Maybe.

She’d lied. She really wasn’t all that sure where she was. Luckily, she’d gotten pretty good at waiting, giving herself time to figure things out.