Chapter Two #5
“When I was in junior high and high school, I found myself home alone a lot. And when I would feel lonely, I would turn on the television. It helped me to not feel so alone. I know the criticisms about the rise of television—the downfall of society and all that—but I’ve always considered television to be a source of connection for people.
It’s a campfire you can gather around, a window into other people’s lives, a way to see how other people live and to understand what they’re going through—”
Vivian broke off, more than a little embarrassed to have been so honest with him, to have shared such intimate details. It was so unlike her, and there was the strangest dichotomy in the fact that she felt simultaneously nervous and comfortable around him.
The way he looked at her—with such marked interest—Vivian tore her gaze away for a moment, taking a deep breath, anything to steady the pounding in her heart.
Attraction she could understand—sure, he wasn’t exactly her type, but who could explain the different vagaries that brought people together like two magnets.
Attraction she could ignore. She didn’t want to like him on top of that.
She’d come dangerously close to doing so when he talked about what flying meant to him.
“I take back what I said earlier,” Joe replied, his tone so quiet that she could barely hear the words he spoke over the noisy bar crowd. “You aren’t a skeptic. Not at your core. You’re a romantic, too.”
How quickly he’d stripped away her armor. How easily she’d let him.
“With some things, perhaps,” she conceded, sipping her drink to break eye contact with him when she said it, her hand on the glass not as steady as it should have been.
“Not all things?”
Vivian flushed, the knowing gleam in his eyes sending that strange feeling through her body again, as though she was hurtling toward something inevitable and terrifying.
She met his gaze. “Definitely not. Maybe I’m romantic about television because at this moment my career prospects feel more like a dream than reality,” she conceded.
“I thought the hardest part would be convincing a station to take a chance on me, to hire me. I worked at a radio station in college, and I hoped the experience would be helpful in building my résumé, but postgraduation has been more difficult than I imagined it would be. There aren’t many women working in the newsroom, and those of us who are get treated more like glorified gofers than journalists.
” She sighed some of her frustration away.
“Maybe the romance is in how elusive it seems—kind of like aviation and space,” she acknowledged, the parallels between their respective careers both surprising and undeniable.
Joe held up his drink in a mock toast. “To the ambitions that are just out of reach.”
She raised her glass in rejoinder.
“Although, in your case, I might be able to help with that.” He glanced over his shoulder to the section of the bar where Graham stood. “Would you like me to introduce you?”
She followed his gaze and realized it was indeed resting on Graham. “You know Graham Carlson?”
Joe laughed. “Don’t sound so surprised. Polly didn’t tell you much about me, did she?” He rose from his seat, drink in hand. “Come on.”
Vivian got up from the table and followed him through the crowd, the entire evening taking on a surreal quality. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so off-balance before in her life.
“Carlson,” Joe said in greeting once they reached the group, clearly unfazed by the fact that he was standing in front of a journalistic titan.
Graham whirled around, a wide smile on his face.
“Joe Mitchell. How the hell are you doing?” He took Joe’s outstretched hand, pumping it enthusiastically.
“Doing well,” Joe replied, and at once Vivian realized that there was something different about him.
The man who had talked about his place in the universe with such thoughtfulness and care had been replaced once again by the version of him that had been holding court at the bar when they first arrived.
Which iteration was the real one, or were they both parts of him, much like she was arguably both a bit of a romantic and undeniably a skeptic?
“It’s been, what—eight years since Korea?” Graham asked. “I heard they promoted you. What are you—a major now?”
Joe nodded.
Graham turned to the group behind him, which did in fact include a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Gentlemen, allow me to do the honor of introducing you to one of our country’s greatest living heroes—”
Greatest living heroes?
Vivian glanced over at Joe only for her gaze to connect with his.
He wasn’t paying attention to the exuberant introduction that Graham was giving him; nor was he looking at the politicians and hangers-on who suddenly seemed very interested to shake his hand.
Instead, he was staring at her, a small smile playing at his lips and a twinkle in his eyes as though he enjoyed her seeing this bit of notoriety.
She inclined her head ever so slightly, acknowledging the praise being heaped his way.