“You got your external audio potted up?” Franklin asks.
I can’t believe the boys are bickering again. J.T., battered leather jacket and broken-in jeans, foreign-correspondent cool and with a network résumé, is my age, but he’s still the new guy at Channel 3. Franklin, pressed and preppy in Burberry camel hair, is ten years J.T.’s junior, but still holds station seniority. Picking my way toward the car, I turn to watch, half amused, half annoyed, as they continue their battle for turf. Can’t we all just get along? Men.
J.T., aviator sunglasses now perched in his sandy hair, throws Franko an are-you-kidding look, but gives the camera’s built-in microphone a tap just the same. He checks to make sure the needle on the audio meter is moving. “Rolling with sound, Charlie,” he announces.
Franklin waves him off. “Just doing my job, pal.”
“Me too, brotha,” J.T. says.
Franklin hates when a white person calls him “brother.” And J.T. knows it.
“Guys?” I interrupt the escalation of World War III. “The car? Someone’s inside?”
We all head in the direction of the still-silent accident scene. All I can hear are our footsteps and the hissing splatter of cars streaking by on the crowded highway. Then I see the whole picture. The mangled car, its front end tangled in a now-twisted metal guardrail, is perched precariously over a shallow embankment. The hood of the dark red sedan is tented, crumpled, a discarded tin can. Tires in shreds. Something hot is hissing onto the snow beneath the chassis. I know the longer nothing moves, the more likely the news inside is bad. “Come on,” I say softly. “Get out of the car.”
And then, a quiet sound. Like a-cry. A baby. Crying.
“Guys?” I stop. Listening. But all is silent again. “Did you hear that?”
And then, the car’s front door creaks open. Driver’s side. Slowly. The car shifts, briefly, then settles back. No one gets out.
I flash a look at J.T.
J.T. holds up a reassuring hand, his eye pressed to the viewfinder. “Rolling,” he mouths.
Franklin points to me, then J.T., then to the car. He raises one eyebrow. We don’t want to say anything out loud-it’ll be recorded on the tape.
The crying starts again. Getting louder. Where’s the ambulance? And then I see what J.T. is capturing on camera.
A man hauls himself, hand over hand, out of the front seat. He leans against the open door, parka to window, and presses one gloved hand to his bleeding forehead. He’s thirtyish, suburban. His pale blue puffy jacket, striped muffler and jeans are spattered with blood. “Gabe,” he says. “Sophie.”
He gestures toward the car, then crumples onto the front seat, planting his salt-stained Timberland boots in the snow. Red drops plunk onto the white, then one splats onto his tan boot. “I’m okay,” he insists, waving a hand. “Just dizzy. Head on the steering wheel. Please. Gabe and Sophie.”
“Sir?” Franklin says, stepping closer. “We called 911 and…”
I’m already yanking open the passenger-side rear door. A boy, five years old maybe, in chunky mittens and red parka, is still in his booster seat, seat belt on. His cheeks are wet. His eyes are wide. The crying is coming from beside him. There, an unhappy toddler in a pink hat, squirming in her flowered sweater and matching snow pants, is strapped into a padded baby seat.
“Are you the doctor?” the boy asks me. “Daddy said you would come.”
“Hi, Gabe. I’m Charlie,” I say. Am I supposed to move him? I glance at the driver’s seat. In a newish car like this, I would have expected air bags in the front. “Everything is going to be all right, sweetheart. The doctor will be here in one second to get you out. Is that your sister? Do you hurt anywhere?”
“I was in a crash, so I cried a little,” Gabe says. He’s earnest, his brown eyes trusting. “But I’m a big boy. And I always wear my seat belt. So I don’t hurt. Is my daddy hurt? Sophie is crying. She always cries. She’s only one years old.”
“Your dad is fine, that’s a good boy,” I reassure him. Little Sophie begins to wail full blast. Her blanket is on the floor of the car. I can’t leave her there. Where is the ambulance? What makes a car blow up?
“Gabe? If I unhook your seat belt, can you get out? I’m going to get your sister, and then we’ll all walk away from the car. Can you do that?”
If I move the kids, am I going to make this worse? Neither seems really hurt. And the ambulance must be on the way. And except maybe for the hit-and-run element, this is not much of a story. Luckily for all involved. But we have to wait for the EMTs, at least. And maybe the cops, too, since, technically, we’re witnesses.
“I want out.” Gabe, his face suddenly racked with uncertainty, elongates the final word into a mournful plea.
I reach over, unclick four pink webbed straps from around the now-quieting Sophie and ease her out of the baby seat, grabbing the yellow chenille blanket from the floor and wrapping it around her as I back out the door. Sophie sniffles, once, then I feel her little body burrow into my shoulder. On the other side of the car, her father is standing again. Where’s the ambulance?
“The kids are fine,” I call to him across the car. “We’ll come to you.”
The sky is steel and ice, promising another bitter night. I tuck the blanket closer around Sophie, and wiggle my fingers toward Gabe. “Take my hand, honey. Can you get down?”
Gabe slides off the seat and grabs my hand. His lower lip gives the beginnings of a quiver. “I want to see my daddy,” he says, looking at me.
“Absolutely,” I say. “And we can tell him how brave you are.”
This has got to be the strangest interview I’ve ever done. The EMTs finally arrived, pleading “wicked traffic” and “buncha jerk” drivers. They checked the kids, plastered Declan Ross’s forehead with a gauze-and-tape bandage, pronounced everyone fine and took off. Now Sophie’s nestled peacefully over my shoulder, her little breath sounds snuffling into my ear. Franklin and Gabe, holding hands, are watching as I use my non-Sophie hand to hold the Channel 3 microphone, its chunky logo red, white and blue against the gray slush. I know we probably won’t use my interview with Declan Ross, or even the video J.T. shot of the victims’ car-Franklin’s already informed the assignment desk it’s too minor to make air.
And I’m yearning to leave, meet up with Josh, share our celebratory dinner. Take a step closer to becoming Penny’s mom. But we’re here, and my years of experience dictate it’s easier to erase an interview than regret not doing it. Better to be safe than scooped. Your job could depend on it.
“So just to be clear,” I say, bringing the microphone back in my direction, “this car is rented because yours is in the shop?” I flip the mic back to Ross.
“Yes, ours was recalled. Just a day ago. For bad brakes,” Ross says. His eyes are clear again, and he’s the picture of a middle-class dad with kids. And a bandage. “We got a, well, somewhat frightening letter from the manufacturer, indicating we should bring it in to have the brakes looked at. So, of course, we did. My wife dropped it off yesterday, got this rental. Gabe and Sophie, we’re certainly not going to risk-”
He breaks off, looking at his son. I can see his eyes welling. His yuppie-casual clothes are still ominously smeared with browning red. No question this family had a narrow escape. “Gabie, you okay?”
“You’re on TV, Daddy,” Gabe says. “And Franklin says I get to see a tow truck. And a police.”
“So what happened?” I continue, getting him back on track. My calculation, we’ve got only a few minutes of daylight left. And according to the EMTs, the state police should arrive any second.