"What happened?" Erik asks, his arm around my shoulders, his voice confused.
I shake my head, not wishing to talk about it even to my best friend. Not sure that I can talk about it.
"I didn’t even pay, Kels. We ran out and stuck her with the check."
"Good," I say and I mean it. She deserves it. She’s such a confident, pompous bitch. How in the hell did I get into this mess?
Erik opens my door and settles me comfortably in the passenger side before trotting around to slide behind the wheel. "Kelsey, you know I love you," he says as he pulls away, starting our short drive home. There’s a ‘but’ coming, I know it. "But," he doesn’t disappoint me, "you are a different person around her. What is it about her? I know she’s a cad and shameless, but you’re above that, honey. Why does it eat at you so?"
I shrug my shoulders and settle more deeply into my leather seat.
"You don’t want to talk about it?"
I shake my head. He catches the movement out of the corner of his eyes and he nods.
"Okay. But if you do, you know I’m here."
I reach over and pat his knee. I do know that.
It’s just too hard to admit that I don’t know whether to rip her clothes off or kill her.
Episode Six: Clueless
I sit behind my desk doing my best to forget last night. Dinner wasn’t so damn bad – in fact, it was kinda fun watching Kelsey squirm - it was what happened after.
I shuffle a stack of tapes from one side of my desk to the other as the memories come back to me.
There I was blissfully enjoying the natural wonders of Victoria (I can remember her name when I focus) when it happened. Right in the middle of what should have been one of the most incredible experiences of Victoria’s life, Kelsey Stanton’s face and voice came into my mind and I couldn’t shake them. It was all I could do to keep from yelling her name.
It was that comment Kelsey made to me about staying out of ‘my bedroom.’ Not ‘our bedroom’, but ‘my bedroom’. Oops, told on yourself, Kels. I chuckle as I move to the file cabinet and try to get it organized. I glance through the large plate glass window to my office and watch as Kels makes her grand entrance. Good God, she is attractive. Why does she have to be such a pain in the ass?
I notice she’s dressed down today: tailored slacks and a very nice, silky, blue blouse. Hmm, must be a tad cold in the hallway. I grin again as I shake my head and stick my head back in my file cabinet; it’s wonderful to have good eyesight. There’s a knock on the door before it opens. Franklin Saunders, the General Manager, comes in without waiting for an invitation and closes the door behind him.
"Good morning, Harper."
"Good morning, Big Boss. What can I do for you?" Saunders is over Chambers, who is the News Director. He is older and fatter. This is how you can tell the two apart.
"Harper," he begins as he drops himself down on the couch that lines the wall across from my desk. "Do you have any experience with undercover camera work?"
Well, there are a thousand different smart ass answers to that one, but I’ll play it safe and assume he’s talking about work. I close the file cabinet and lean against it with my arms crossed. "Yeah, I know how to be discreet. You got something in mind?"
"I got an insider tip this morning about some serious drug dealing going on in one of the local high schools, one of the more elite ones, you know. With white kids."
My eyes narrow at this blatant racist remark. "You know, my parents moved from Louisiana for exactly that reason."
He is confused. "What?" Then he smiles knowingly, like we’re in the same club or something. "Oh, to be around better people."
"Yes, exactly," I agree, but not for the same reasons. "Dr. King was a good friend to my parents before his murder. And I grew up calling Ms. Parks my favorite adopted grandmother."
Saunders looks perplexed, then angry as what I have said sinks in.
I’m not a member of your club, buddy. I don’t even use white cotton sheets on my bed. Always preferred flannel, or satin, depending on the activities planned. That is another story, however.
And I’ve hardly warmed up to this one. "I’m named after Harper Lee, the novelist. She wrote about the wrongful conviction and murder of a man whose only crime was being born with the wrong color skin. My family has been in Louisiana longer than Louisiana has been in the United States. My parents love New Orleans because it is such a wonderful blend of cultures and people. But, when the South grappled with issues of racial justice in the Sixties, my parents moved to Birmingham, at Dr. King’s personal request, to be on the front lines. I don’t think I realized I was white, or a girl, until I was old enough to know that neither of them meant shit if I wasn’t a decent human being first and foremost." I stare long and meaningfully at him.
"I didn’t mean it that way," he mutters. "And I don’t even care that you’re a dyke. But I don’t think that voting for Prop 109 was the wrong thing to do."
Prop 109 was a recent California ballot proposal that cut off access to all public services by illegal immigrants. Somehow or another the lawmakers and a number of California citizens actually believed that not having a green card was a good enough reason to let little kids die without medical assistance.
"And I don’t care that you’re a homophobic racist who will be in need of long-term physical therapy if you ever say something like that to me again. But let’s not go there. Okay, Boss?" I place just enough emphasis on the last word to get my own dig in.
Saunders clears his throat and resumes his mantle of authority. Apparently, I’m not fired for saying what I just said. Almost wish I were. " I want you and Kelsey to go in to the high school and see what you can find out about the drugs."
"You got it." We don’t have to like each other to work together. This I know from long experience.
He’s happier now that we’re talking about the story again. "Apparently there’s a pretty major dealer in that school somewhere and I’d really like to see us take him out of there. It’d be great for the ratings."
"And for the kids too," I can’t resist adding. "I may need some new equipment." Typically, in this type of situation, I use a minicam, a tape deck, several battery packs, and a directional pen mike. The minicam looks like a pager, so it’s easy to wear without raising suspicion. I clip it on my belt and just turn my body toward the subject. The camera has a wire running to the tape deck for recording sound and image, which I run under my shirt and into a backpack I carry with the batteries and tape deck. The directional pen mike is exactly what it sounds like – a microphone shaped like a fat fountain pen. When I do these types of shoots, I merely affect the nervous habit of playing with my pen, thereby pointing it where it needs to be to catch the conversation. The pictures aren’t gorgeous, but they have good resolution and they’ll play in prime time.
"No problem. Just tell Chambers what you need."
"I’ll get a list together for him then. I need to speak with Kels. We need to figure out how to get her in there, without her being recognized."
"I wondered about that myself. Do you think it can be done?"
I grin as I look into Kels’ office across the hall. She’s sipping her tea, reading through a file. It’s then that an evil idea pops into my head. "Oh yeah," I say to Saunders as I turn for the door. "I think I know a way."
Saunders pulls himself up from my couch and follows me out the door, patting me on the back. "I’ll leave in your capable hands then," he says as he peels off to go back to his office, hiding from the explosion he knows I’m about to cause.
"Yeah, I know you will, you phobic, racist, chicken shit," I mumble as I knock on the door of Kels’ office. Don’t want her to think I’m a complete barbarian.