Farah woke to the sound of her ringing cell phone. It was almost nine o’clock on the morning after the party.
“Hey, uh, hi, Wayne.”
“Hey. Are you asleep?”
“No, of course not. What’s up?”
“I just need a quick update before I go into this senior staff meeting. The corporate overlords are going to want an update on this project. What can I tell them about our progress?”
“Ah, well...” She jumped out of bed and pulled the curtains back. Outside, Lucas was trying to teach the puppy to roll over in the wet grass while Cameron recorded it. Farah’s mind raced as she tried to think of something substantive. “So there’s the Senator’s past affair, and they had this big fund-raiser birthday party yesterday, and...”
“Do you have anything new, though?”
“Not really, Wayne. I’m not a breaking-news reporter. All I have right now is hundreds of hours of video in a shoebox. It’s getting interesting, though. You can tell them that.”
“I know. Sorry. I’m just feeling their impatience to pull the plug on this. There’s a new series in the works about homegrown terrorism, and accounting thinks that’s where our resources should all go. They want to start pulling people from other projects for it.”
“Don’t let them pull me off this, Wayne. Please. There is still the potential for some very interesting stuff to happen here. I don’t think Senator Bright’s affair is totally resolved.”
“Okay, that’s good news. Can I tell them that?”
“I don’t know, I—”
“I’m going to tell them that the drama is just getting started. We have to keep you on this because things are really heating up with the Bright family scandal.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s the story.”
“It’s the story today, Farah. And if you want this project to be your breakout, then pray for more scandal.”
“Okay.”
“Good, thanks. Later.”
“Later.”
Farah plugged her phone in and went to the bathroom. She took a quick shower, brushed her wet hair and pulled on clean clothes. She grabbed a shoulder-mount camera and ran out the door, down the garage stairs and into the overcast morning.
As she stepped through the door to the lake house, Farah could hear John Senior speaking in a commanding voice, his media voice. She followed the sound to the study and panned in to see JJ, Spencer and Charlie watching silently as John boomed into the phone, his eyebrows pointed inward. This was a serious discussion.
“Yes, Eileen, I believe state preparedness for terrorist attacks has a long way to go,” John Senior said. “Ultimately, city police forces are the first line of defense in situations like these. State governments have a responsibility to give them the resources and authority they need to thwart incidents at the local level, before they become national threats. And as governor of Massachusetts, I’ll make terror preparedness a top priority.”
John stopped talking and nodded along as the voice on the other end spoke. Farah captured the looks on his sons’ faces, which were serious, but also glimmering with excitement. Farah put the camera on a nearby tripod and pointed it back at John Senior, then left the study to find out what was going on.
In the kitchen, Patty was rolling out pie dough while Philip read the newspaper at the table. Farah walked over and picked up the front page.
“Terrorist Plot Halted in NYC.”
Philip looked up at her. “What a world.”
“Yeah.” Farah wanted to know what neighborhood it had been and who had been targeted. She wanted to know how close it had been to her apartment (not close) and whether subway transportation had been halted (briefly). She had done this before.
“Scary,” Philip said. “I’m glad you weren’t there.”
“It was blocks from my place.”
“Still...scary stuff.”
Farah put the paper back down on the table. “There are almost nine million people in New York City, Philip. It’s probably statistically safer than the Berkshires.” She walked outside and sat on the front steps, leaving the screen to slam behind her.
It may or may not have been true, about the Berkshires, but the spirit of it was true, and she hated having to remind people of it. She wished to be home in New York. She wished to avoid having one more of these conversations about terrorism and cities and fear. And she wished to not be here, listening to the faint voices of Bright men in another room, discussing ways to weaponize that fear for their own political gain.
Farah took two deep breaths and resolved to not make this moment about her, the invisible documentarian.
Instead, Farah pulled out her phone and called Jeff, the reporter.
“Farah, what’s up?”
“Hey, so, that thing you were telling me about? Why don’t you tell me more and I’ll see if I can help.”
“Really? Well, sorry, you’re too late. It’s showtime. We’ve confirmed the story and it’s ready to go. Would have run it today, but we didn’t want it to get buried in all this terrorism stuff.”
“So when does it run?”
“Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Hard to say.” It was clear that he enjoyed being the one with the power.
“Well, can you tell me what the story is?”
“Nope, I cannot. You’ll just have to learn about it when the rest of the world does.”
Farah felt foolish. She should have bitten when she’d had the chance. The fate of this documentary was hanging by a string, and she’d demurred because...why? Because she felt some sense of loyalty to these people, exactly what she wasn’t supposed to do. And now it was too late, which meant that she would need to follow John Senior around for every waking second until the news broke to be sure to record his response at the very moment it hit him. Whatever it is.
“You know, Jeff, you’re exactly as I remember you,” Farah said bitterly.
“Really? You’re not. I never took you for such a softy.” Jeff waited for her response, which did not come. “Farah, can I ask you why you changed your mind?”
“I guess I just remembered what I came here to do.”
No one said anything for a moment. Their usefulness to each other had run out.
“Okay, well, good luck with things.”
“Bye, Jeff.”
Farah ended the call and walked back inside.
Philip jumped up as soon as she came in. “Hey, Farah. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ignorant back there. I was just trying to think of something to say.”
“It’s fine. I know. Sorry if I was weird.”
“No apology necessary.” He looked around, searching for something else to offer her. “Hey, um, do you want to take a walk along the lake path while the rain is stopped?”
She did, despite it all. And she wasn’t mad at Philip about the thing he’d said, which was perfectly innocuous. She was just exhausted by the world, which he’d surely understand because it was the sort of person he was.
“I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “No worries. Another time.” And then he reached out and put his hand around her arm, just above the elbow, in a soft squeeze-hold. “Again, I’m sorry for sounding like an idiot earlier about the New York thing. I’m often an idiot.”
“You’re really not.”
And then Philip’s hand was gone and the moment was over.
Farah was aware of Patty’s presence at the other end of the kitchen where she was slicing peaches and piling them high in a bowl. They had nothing to hide from her, and yet the moment felt too intimate for observers.
Farah went back to the camera on the tripod in the study just as John Senior was finishing his phone interview. She smiled wordlessly at his sons and adjusted the settings on the machine. It was good and right that she’d declined Philip’s offer; she was proud of herself for it. And it was appropriate that she’d called Jeff and tried to seize on this professional opportunity. Farah was there in only one capacity, to work. It was showtime.