Drive Time (7 page)

By the time the boys get back to the car, I’ve moved the front seat up so far it’s impossible for them to squeeze in. At such short notice, it’s the only way I could think of to pay J.T. back for the older-sister crack.

“Funny girl,” J.T. says. He scoots the driver’s seat back into place. “And after I risked my life doing all that dangerous reconnaissance.”

“Some danger,” I say. “Maybe from hair-spray inhalation. Young Kelsey starting a fan club?”

“She’s the owner’s niece, I’ll have you know. And Miss Kelsey Kindell knows her cars. When your uncle is RandallC. Kindell, the Rental Car King, you’ve got to—”

The picture on the poster. Now I recognize it. And that’s a problem. “Randall Kindell?”

“He’s the owner, Charlotte,” Franklin chimes in. “Owns a string of RCK franchises. Didn’t you read the e-mails I sent you this morning? It’s all in there.”

Franklin twists around and glares at me over the back of the seat. Frowning. “Can’t know it if you don’t read it.”

It was much easier when my job was my whole life. I was lonely sometimes. But I never missed an e-mail.

“The memorial service,” I explain. Lame excuse. But thinking again, maybe it was lucky I was there. Kind of. I mentally review the faces of the mourners. “Thing is, I’m sure I saw him this morning. Randall Kindell. He was at the service, too.”

We pull out of our parking place, J.T. heading us back to Channel 3. I was hoping we’d be able to prove rental cars from RCK were unrepaired, and potentially dangerous. But now, it seems, if we wind up going on the air with that, we may face an unexpected roadblock.

“Really? Does Kindell have a kid at Bexter?” Franklin asks.

“Wouldn’t that be something?” I say.

“Well, you can’t let that stand in your way,” Franklin replies. “And clearly, if we think a Bexter bigwig is renting dangerous cars, you certainly can’t warn anyone there about what we discovered. And by anyone, I mean Josh. We have to follow the story, no matter where it goes.”

He’s lecturing me about journalism ethics? I’m instantly seething.

I’ve never yelled at Franklin. Not even close. And wouldn’t consider it, much less with J.T. in the car. As I do a calming mental count to ten, I sinkingly realize that part of my anger is directed at myself. Feeling guilty for missing the Borum reconnaissance. Guilty for not reading my e-mail. Guilty because it crossed my mind that maybe—if Randall Kindell is a Bexter bigwig—we could leave him out of our story. And that is unacceptable. There are no divided loyalties in TV.

“Lighten up, Franko,” I say, making my voice cheery. “Think I’d let anything get between me and our next Emmy? No way.”

I hope I’m telling the truth.

“Y
ou’re on the air in three, two…” Saskia Kaye, her beaded mass of braids swinging with the motion, points a showtime finger at me from behind the Plexiglas that divides the producer’s booth at WWXI radio from the onthe-air talent in the studio.

Tonight, I’m the talent.

“This is Charlie McNally from Channel 3 News, sitting in this Friday night for Maysie Green, thank you so much for inviting me! And tonight—a change in the conversation.” I’m acting like someone else is in the glass-walled WWXI studio with me, but really I’m just talking to the thousands of listeners who tuned in for Maysie’s weekly half-hour sports talk show. They’re gonna be disappointed if they want me to talk about sports, unless it’s Ralph Lauren’s spring sportswear line. But I figure anyone who likes sports likes cars.

“New mother-to-be Maysie’s off tonight, and if she’s listening, we wish her well. Can’t wait to see the baby, Mays,” I say. I’m going for breezy radio voice and channeling the seventies, when I had a part-time job in a Chicago suburb as a radio reporter. Until the news director found someone who had already graduated from college. I did farm news, mostly. But experience is experience.

I check through the Plexiglas as I continue my
opening patter, raising a “how am I doing?” eyebrow. Saskia smiles back, her dark eyes twinkling, and gives me a thumbs-up. Okay, then. I’m back on the radio. And I’ve decided to use this gig to troll for some info for our TV story.

“Tonight, I’ll be taking calls about your cars. Anyone get a recall notice? Did you do the repairs? Love to hear about it.”

In an instant, the lighted buttons on the phone console of front of me begin to flash red. One, then another, and another.

“Good girl. You’ve got callers.” Saskia flips a toggle switch so I can hear her voice through my headphones. She punches a button on her phone console. “Transferring caller number one. Here comes Edward from Saugus.”

“Hey, Edward,” I say. I know Saskia writes down the names and e-mail addresses of all the callers for the station’s mailing list before she switches their calls to me. I hear their voices and mine in my headphones, and lean closer to the silver mesh of the football-size microphone. “Tell me about your recall.”

Two flashing bright green readouts on the digital clocks in front of me tick off the seconds, one showing how much time I have left, the other showing the actual time of day. The calls never stop. As the back-timer approaches zero-zero-zero, my radio re-debut winds down without a hitch. And, bonus, in my thirty minutes of airtime I may have found several possible victims for our story. People who bought used cars, not knowing they had unrepaired recalls. I’ll get their e-mail from Saskia. Suddenly she’s giving me the one-finger “wrap it up” signal.

“And that’s all the time we have for tonight,” I say. Saskia holds up a piece of poster board with big block-printed letters. I get it. Radio’s version of a prompter. No problem. “Keep your dial on Wixie for all the news,
sports and weather. Stay tuned for
Taylor and Tyler’s Drive Time,
coming up in just three minutes. Got a car for sale? Tell ’em all about it. And we’ll see you back here real soon.”

“And you’re clear.” Saskia slashes a finger across her neck. She punches a couple of buttons and the red On the Air light above my console fades to black. I take off my headphones, hoping my hair isn’t hopelessly dented. Josh is waiting for me. If Maysie was right, we might be heading to the hospital.

Two lanky, identical-looking men, twenty-somethings in tucked-out plaid shirts and jeans are now lounging in Saskia’s booth. They’re poking at each other with the pointed metal plugs dangling from the curly cords of the padded-ear headphones they’re wearing.

The heavy glass door to the studio clicks open as they saunter into my studio. They’re obviously next on the air.

“I’m Taylor,” one says.

“I’m Tyler,” says the other.

“Two minutes, guys,” Saskia yells as the studio door closes behind them. Time for me to go.

“What I heard, not a bad show,” one of them says, looking me up and down.

The other one nods. “Ever thought of going into broadcasting?”

“We’re not going to crash, that’d be way too much irony.” I open the driver’s-side door of the black Vallero hatchback J.T. and I just rented from the Rental Car King and slide into the driver’s seat. No news from Maysie yet. It’s Saturday morning. There are no weekends in TV.

“Take as long as you want, McNally. Listen, I’ll shoot you driving from the backseat. Then I’ll hang the camera out the window—get us some hot on-the-road video. We did it at the network. It’ll rock.”

“Just get a few shots of me driving from inside the car,” I say. I don’t want to squash his enthusiasm, but I’m not so happy behind the wheel of a car the feds say needs to be repaired. It’s only ten-thirty or so, but the morning’s electric-blue sky has dulled to gray and white. And it’s starting to snow.

“Then I’ll pull over, you hop out, and you can get some footage of me driving by. We just need about a minute of usable video. Four or five good shots, okay? Franklin will meet us at the mechanic’s.”

What’s more, technically, I shouldn’t be doing this. Only J.T.’s name is on the rental agreement as a driver, since it’s too risky for me even to show my face inside RCK. But local news is all about “reporter involvement,” so if I’m doing a story about driving recalled rented cars, I’ve got to be driving a recalled rented car.

Yes, it makes no sense. Yes, I have no choice. J.T. clambers into the backseat, struggling to fit his camera onto his shoulder without the light bracketed to the top smashing into the fabric-covered roof.

“When I was with the network in the Mideast, we were lucky to have a car at all, let alone with power steering. One that’s recalled, who cares, right? Piece of cake.” J.T. flips on his battery-powered camera light, glaring it briefly in my rearview, then adjusts it so I can see again. “Okay, McNally. I’m rolling. Hit it.”

Flicking on the windshield wipers to battle the intensifying snow, I slowly back out of our parking spot, then turn into the shopping-mall lot. The power steering seems to be fine.

“These recalls are precautionary, anyway,” I say, reassuring myself as much as him. I maneuver around a few shoppers and head for the exit to the highway. “But if the power steering goes, make sure you get the whole thing on camera at least. Ha-ha.”

“Ha-ha,” from the backseat. “You can get your Emmy posthumously. They can roll my spectacular video of the fiery crash at the awards ceremony. Very network.”

“Just get the shots and then we can get this baby’s rotary valve fixed,” I say. “Whatever a rotary valve is.”

At least I understand the accelerator. Easing it down, I guide the hatchback up the ramp onto I-93 North. Our destination is the Power House, the state-of-the-art garage run by the top-notch mechanic who takes care of Franklin’s silver Passat and the adorable Stephen’s red Miata. Apparently the two of them take their cars in for service together, just like they do everything together. Somehow, Franklin never worries about his job distracting from his love life. Somehow, that relationship works perfectly. Of course, they live in the same city.

“A rotary valve is the thing that gauges how hard you’re turning the steering wheel,” J.T. says. “I had to deal with all our cars at the network. Check it out. You’d have big trouble turning a two-thousand-pound car. So the rotary valve is what makes the power steering—”

I glance into the rearview. J.T.’s still shooting. And talking. And talking. And, though it’s not his fault, he’s annoying. Every time he says
network
it reminds me of Kevin’s offer. And that reminds me of Josh. And that reminds me I’ve got a decision to make. An impossible decision. Unless I can clone myself.

“Let’s make sure the audio is clean, okay?” I say, trying to come up with a reasonable reason to keep him quiet. “Tell me all that later. We need the sounds of the highway. Without anyone’s voice.”

“You’re the boss,” J.T. says. “It’s your funeral.”

I wish people would stop saying that.

I see it almost in slow motion. Coming right at us. A rickety dump truck has been an annoying obstacle ever
since the Neponset Road exit. Every time I try to pass the thing, some jerk driver, who for some reason needs to stay one second ahead of us, refuses to get out of the way. Other drivers, panicked by the increasing snow and squalling wind, decide creeping along at thirty miles an hour is somehow safer. Trapped, J.T. and I stay in the center lane.

Now something big is flying out of the back of the truck. A—bat? Part of my brain struggles to name it, while the rest of me, focused, calculates the best way to avoid it. A huge piece of—paper? It’s metal. Metal. Metal. A huge scrap of metal, caught by the increasing wind, is flying toward us. We’re caught. Hemmed in. I have no place to go. Teeth gritting, I steer straight ahead, hoping it won’t slam into our windshield.

“Holy—” J.T. leans forward, clamping both hands on the seat in front of him. “Look out, Charlie! Floor it! Or get out of the—”

The hunk of debris misses, flying over us. Behind me, brakes squeal, horns blare, tires skid on the slickening highway. Both my hands clutch the steering wheel. Every part of me is clenching.

“That was close,” I say. My heart is thudding, relief making my voice shaky and thin. Danger never feels real when you’re shooting a story. Fires, floods, tornadoes. You’re just doing your job. I hadn’t really thought about the stupid power steering thing. Now I do.

“Yeah,” J.T. replies. “Should we call the police?”

And then another flash of solid black escapes from under the fluttering green tarpaulin in front of us. Another shard, the size of a newspaper, careening across the highway, cutting through the snow. The driver—hauling scrap metal—must be oblivious. His wooden-sided panel truck picks up speed in the center lane. He thunders across a massive pothole, the truck lurching, and then the
entire tarp comes loose, unleashing from its moorings, ropes flailing, plastic flapping.

It’s a barrage of metal, piece after piece. All sizes, weird shapes, scattering in the wind, picked up by gusts and flying, like demented crows. Random. Wild. Terrifying. And inescapable.

On either side, other drivers, each attempting the same impossible calculations, are slowing. Dodging. Speeding. Swerving. Slowing. Switching lanes. And everyone honking. I’m as frightened of getting too close to the cars around me as I am of being battered by the slicing shower of metal. Which would be worse, to plow into another car? Or to get slammed by a knifing scrap of jagged-edged—

And then I can’t avoid it. I see it, black metal, broad and flat, twisting across the snowy pavement and sliding to a stop. Right in front of us.

If I slam on the brakes, we’ll skid. I glance to each side. I can’t steer to avoid it. No room.

“McNally! Watch out for the—” J.T.’s voice is tense.

“I see it!”

Our wheels clatter over the bent and battered fragment, jouncing us out of our seats. J.T. yells something from the backseat. Whatever he says is drowned out by my own cry of dismay.

The truck, tarp now attached by just one corner and billowing like the cape of some comic-book supervillain, turns off the exit. I feel our right front tire make an unmistakable and stomach-churning rumble.

The rear of the car swings wide. Cars fly by us, but my view through the windshield is no longer forward. I’m seeing the side of the highway flash by. And we’re spinning.

“We’re skidding!” J.T. yells. “Steer in the—”

“Shut up!” I reach down for the stick shift, then remember I’m not in my Jeep.

“Quickly align your tires with the direction of your
intended travel.” It takes me half a second to recognize the voice of Mr. Grosskopf, my grouchy but effective drivers’-ed teacher at Anthony Wayne High School. We practiced exactly this in a slippery A & P parking lot. I take my foot off the brake, and quickly turn the wheel back the way I want to go. As soon as I see “ahead,” the car starts skidding in the other direction.

Yes. I turn the wheel back the other way, straightening us out again. Back and forth, smaller and smaller turns. And finally it’s clear road in front of us. And we’re going—more like klunking—in the right direction.

I check the rearview. Nothing.

“I’m pulling over into the breakdown lane,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice. “You okay, J.T.? We have a flat.”

Once we stop the car and get out, J.T. starts unsnapping straps from the floor of the trunk. He’s searching for a jack and spare tire that had better be there. Being stranded on the interstate was not in our plan. “What if the power steering had—”

“It didn’t,” I say. My heart rate is back to normal. My voice is, too. My knees, not quite yet. “I must admit, though, the words
defective rotary valve
did cross my mind.”

The narrow, rutted breakdown lane of I-93 is never the safest place. Now, huddled behind our rental car, Saturday at noon, in freezing, bleak January with snow swirling and cars streaming by and a slashed-to-rubber-ribbons flat tire lying dead at my feet, I wonder, briefly, about my years-ago flirtation with law school. Choices then, choices now. I pull my wide plaid shawl up over my head, wrap it tighter and try to keep the glass half-full. “What they don’t teach you in journalism school, right?”

J.T.’s hair is frosted with the falling snow, his sandy curls damp, cheeks ruddy. With one quick motion, he hoists the spare tire from deep within the trunk. Thank
fully, it bounces on the pavement. At least the spare tires haven’t been recalled.

He balances the tire with one gloved hand, pushes his sunglasses up onto his head with the other. He looks at me. Up and down.

“All in a day’s work,” he says. “But you know, McNally, you pretty much rocked back there. That was some smart driving. Most women would have—”

‘Most women?’
Ignoring his scrutiny, which is almost unacceptably unprofessional, I open my mouth to inquire what “most women” is supposed to mean. J.T. holds up a hand, stopping me.