BACK IN BROAD BAY POINT Greens I stowed Michelle's Jeep in the garage. I was already packed, so I dumped everything by the front door. Then, pacing back and forth in the hallway, I ate a sandwich while I watched for the airport shuttle.
Beginning with both elation and concern over the baby, quite an assortment of emotions jazzed my nerves. I was worried about Doug's precarious status with the police. This morning's meeting with Pamela Wilkinson had been inconclusive and, therefore, frustrating. It seemed I knew far too much about the problem and scarcely anything that pointed toward a solution.
Traveling always unnerved me, too, no matter what the reason for the trip. At home familiar doorjambs and tables and chairs guided me when it got dark. I knew where to buy Chelsea's favorite jeans and the back way from King of Prussia to Ludwig. Gretsky’s soft muzzle awakened me every morning. Rip was near. In other words, I knew where I was. Maybe if I plugged into my home outlet for a day or two I could shake off my growing sense of foreboding.
The limousine arrived, and I rode in strained companionship with an elderly couple just finished a visit with their serviceman son. With them they carried their own gamut of emotions, world tensions being what they always were.
At the airport I watched twilight become night outside the walls of glass. Boarding was the usual crush of impatient people stowing far too many carry-on bags.
Once we were underway I slept, but soon whistling, roaring jets and the thump and squeak of tires on tarmac announced our arrival in Philadelphia. Like everyone else, I couldn’t wait to be out of the confining cabin. At the very first food vendor, a cart on tall wheels, I purchased an exorbitant candy bar then didn't have a hand free to eat it until I got to Baggage Claim.
A lone woman at night in an airport full of strangers, I watched my surroundings as if every move exposed me to another risk. Then a gentle older man wearing a tan uniform finally persuaded me to use his taxi. We set off through a cold drizzle along highways lined with closed industry.
Sunday night. Some football games were ongoing, others were over. Probably crews of NFL camera and sound men needing to drop off equipment and film at their office had been in the airport. I might have paged one of them and thrown myself on his mercy, yet my initial instinct probably had been best. Arriving at the Mt. Laurel facility unannounced would be awkward, but the miserable weather upped my chances of being invited inside to wait for Ronnie. At least I hoped so.
When we got there, I paid the cabbie and prepared to step out into a steady rain.
The old gentleman touched my sleeve. “You sure this is the right place?” We were stopped right next to the NFL Films sign, but there was no activity in sight.
"Yes," I assured him. "I'm meeting my cousin here."
Water sizzled off the tires of the departing vehicle. When its headlights were gone, only a half dozen balloons of misty lamplight remained.
I slung my carry-on over my shoulder and hunched down inside my coat collar. Getting more and more drenched as I rolled my large bag across the macadam, I began to fear that I would indeed be turned away.
Not bothering with tact, the man who answered my knock demanded to know what I was doing there.
"I'm Ronnie Covington's cousin, Gin Barnes." My teeth chattered from the cold, and I added a shiver for good measure. "His sister just had a baby–premature–in Norfolk. I just came from there, and I'd like to wait for Ronnie–if I may."
"Jeez, you took a chance coming here," the man said as he reached for my heavy bag and ushered me inside. "What if Ronnie'd come and gone already?"
"He's been in Green Bay,” I said. “I thought I'd catch him."
"Yeah, but..."
"I'm sorry. It's crazy, I know. But it's been that kind of day."
"Come on, come on. Get out of that wet coat. Ya want some coffee?"
"That would be heavenly."
"Mark," he called to another somewhat younger fellow dressed in olive drab. "Do you know how to make coffee in that thing?"
My benefactor finished delegating the kindness. Then he showed me into a central sort of room and guided me into a tweed armchair. I can only imagine how I looked to be treated with such deference.
Muscular and weather-worn, with short, thinning black hair and plenty of stubble, my rescuer called himself Bob. "Is Ronnie's sister all right?" he asked.
"Yes."
"The baby?" he asked with a wince. Apparently he knew enough about premature babies to fear the worst.
"She's fine," I said, "so far. But you'll let me tell Ronnie myself, won't you?"
"Sure. Sure. Trouble is, you can't wait here without somebody around, you know?" From his expression, I realized that he had already finished his chores and was ready to leave.
A little panic fluttered in my chest. If a succession of returning film crews didn't show up to pass me along like a relay baton, I would be back out in the cold.
"Would you like to see some I.D.?" I asked, hastily pulling out my wallet and flipping it open to my driver's license. Coming in we had passed through an area loaded with valuable electronic equipment and stacks of videotape in blue cases. Another room housed another library, also filled with video tapes.
"That ain't it," Bob replied, waving off my wallet after only a glance. I assumed that meant he wasn’t allowed to leave me alone no matter who I was.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I pictured guys all over the place working all night. I didn’t realize...”
Bob waited until his buddy delivered my mug of steaming black coffee. “Oh, hell,” he said. “I might as well stick around a little while." He didn’t have to add, but not too long.
A simple "Thank you” was grossly inadequate, but it was all I had to offer.
So it was with strain in the air that Bob puttered around while I finished one mug of coffee and started on another.
At one point I wandered over to a doorway where the most Sunday night activity seemed to be taking place. Weary men who never removed their casual outdoor garb rolled in hand trucks loaded with cases of equipment, stored everything in metal cages marked with their names, then headed for home. My watchdog looked after them longingly.
"Could I wait in Ronnie's van?" I asked at one point.
"It'll be at the airport," Bob lamented.
More crews came and went, a straggling of rain-soaked, confederates speaking to each other in the familiar way men do when women aren't around–inside-jokes, a little profanity, remarks about the games they'd done that day. To me they sounded closer than most co-workers, more like the members of a privileged club.
"Ronnie's cousin," Bob introduced me to each curious new arrival, but that didn’t begin to explain my presence. I was an uninvited female, and this was their locker room. I would have welcomed a blanket to protect me from the chill.
About eleven forty-five Bob looked at me and shrugged.
"You've got to go home," I said for him, rising from my chair.
"Yeah, sorry. Drop you somewhere?"
"Hey! Gin, baby," Ronnie's welcoming voice called from across the broad main room.
Bob and I sighed in unison. Then I kissed the kind cameraman on the cheek and told him, "Thanks, you're a prince." He was gone within the minute.
Ronnie's face blanched as he absorbed the meaning of my presence. "Michelle?" he asked.
"Fine. She had a little girl–Jody probably–and she's doing well too. Pretend you didn’t hear it from me when she calls you tomorrow morning."
"Wow!" Muddy down jacket and all, my cousin sank into a chair across from the one I'd used so long. His dark-edged eyes sparkled as he absorbed the rest of the details–weight, what the baby looked like, what the nurse said. When I finished he was still grinning, and his hands flexed as if they needed to slap a shoulder or grab someone to tell.
But just as I anticipated, his expression soon altered. Delight became concern combined with confusion. He raked through his brown wavy hair and stated, "You didn't come up here just to tell me about the baby."
"Not really," I had to admit. "I need your help."
Someone was headed our way carrying a boom mike, so I lowered my voice and quickly added, "I'd like to watch last week's Tomcats game again."
Astonishment wiped away Ronnie's fatigue. He popped up and nodded to the approaching crew member, whom he introduced as his soundman, Dave. Then he hustled me around the corner out of earshot.
"Have you got something?"
I sighed. "Why don't you finish up here, and then we'll talk." By then the place would be even emptier, and maybe Ronnie could set me up with the film.
"Right, right," he agreed.
"Dave," he called to his co-worker. "Look after my cousin here a minute. I'm gonna deliver my film to the lab."
Dave cracked his gum and said, "Sure,” but neither of us realized what Ronnie had just asked.