She rented a furnished condo, two bedrooms. She kept the second one dark, using it only once for a visit from her mother.
“You like living like this?” her mother asked, staring around the sterile rooms.
“It’s okay.”
“Yes, well …”
That about described it. She did add the two artist-signed posters bought after too many glasses of free art show wine. The framing cost more than the posters. But, they pleased her. Her only concern was how much trouble it was going to be to move them when the time came, and it would.
She had nothing more than a nodding acquaintance with her neighbors. They included an older man from New York who seemed to be bleary-eyed drunk every day by noon, two homosexuals from Indiana, well-dressed and tight-assed, and a middle-aged man who appeared to have money but no job. The people living next to her spent almost all of their time traveling in an RV the size of a small house.
Some nights the clicking sound of high heels running down the concrete paths would bring her out of her bed. She would go to the window to see who ran in such a panicked steps and once caught a glimpse of a brown, red, and gold print dress as it curved out of sight around a corner of the building.
There had also been the incident with a skinny, rodent-faced renter who brought all of them out of their beds one summer night with the shouts of, “I’ve got a Three-Fifty-Seven in here. I’ve got a Three-Fifty-Seven, man, a Three-Fifty-Seven.”
He screamed it at the police in their light beige uniforms. Screamed it at the tenants who stood in their doorways or behind the dark windows of their condos.
“What the fuck, man. Can’t a man do what he wants to his own wife? You got a law against it or something?”
What he wanted to do and did do to his own wife was beat her up at two o’clock in the morning. When she tried to run from him, he caught her and dragged her by the hair across the grass and back into the condo.
The policemen spoke to him in whispers while he taunted them. Then, he saw her, or she thought he saw her, standing, arms crossed, in her doorway. That’s when she knew that sooner or later he was going to shoot her with the Three-Fifty-Seven, man, his Three-Fifty-Seven. He disappeared soon after with his wife and, she surmised, with the gun.
For the most part, it was a quiet complex where she only had to acknowledge fellow residents with a short smile and a nod. In the winter, it was dark by the time she got home from the station. In the summer, it was too hot to go outside even at night. For over a year, she came home to sit, read, drink wine, and watch television.
She tried to explain to Paige Allen why she didn’t go to parties.
“I can barely stand to work with those people. Why would I want to party with them?”
“Come on,” Paige insisted. “You really should. It’s a birthday party for Kim and you like Kim, don’t you?”
She did like Harding’s assistant. Kim was young and funny. She had none of his depression and horror-filled stare at yet one more newscast to fill.
“Okay, okay,” she agreed in defeat. “I’ll go.”
She dressed for the night, tight jeans and a white silk blouse. She knew she looked good. She liked the strong, sexy look of her short hair. That haircut cost her a job in San Diego.
The news director called and told her that, after seeing her tape, he only had one question.
“Is you hair long or short now?” he asked.
“Short,” she said. “The way it was in the prison escape story.”
“It really looked good long.”
“Yeah, when I first got here it was long.” She waited, knowing what was coming.
“So, are you growing it?”
“It does grow,” she replied.
“Well, yes.” He gave a little laugh.
“Are you saying the length of my hair has something to do with the job?” she asked evenly.
“Hey, we’re not talking jobs here. I was only wondering. You did look great with long hair.”
There had been no second call, no offer of a free flight out for an interview. The tape came back one month later without a note. She kept her hair short.
At the party, they all turned when she came in the front door. Everyone in the room filled with sitting, standing, talking people, glanced over or up. No one missed her entrance, as silent and as uncomfortable as it was.
The new weatherman from Across the Street stood completely still, his six feet two inches giving him enough height to be seen in a perfect pose with a slight smile, his eyes looking over and beyond her. They were all like that, all the other media faces, frozen in the moment. Even their breathing stopped for the few seconds needed for the self-recognition they knew would come.
Then, snap, the movement began again as they realized she was one of them. Only the weatherman from Across the Street held his pose. He could hear the sounds of someone else coming up the front walk.
She elbowed her way to the kitchen and the jugs of cheap white wine. A few people nodded and smiled. The network reporter from New York leaned against the refrigerator. He was in town using the Best’s editing equipment for a story on water use in the Southwest.
Even though he had been on story for three days, most of the footage he sent back to the network came from the station’s files. He did manage to cut the necessary stand-ups while out in dry fields and along the canals. He gave her a unblinking stare.
“So, what is it you do?” he asked, his dark eyes demanding.
“Report, mainly. Some documentary work.” She tried to smile and relax. “I get
