Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Will lifted his foot off the brake to allow the car to roll forward a few inches before pressing it again.
He and Naomi were making their way to the West Loop on a perfect Saturday afternoon, which is where everyone else in the city seemed to be heading too.
“I just thought of something. I think this is the first time that—” Will looked surreptitiously at the two GoPro cameras suctioned to his dashboard.
“First time that …” Naomi prompted.
“Thaaaat,” Will gave himself a second to decide how to finish his sentence. “You-know-who and you-know-who will be in the same place since you-know-what.”
“Ooh, good point.”
“Do you think there will be any—” he tried, unsuccessfully, to mime a physical altercation while also holding onto the steering wheel. “Or—” he fluttered his eyes at her, in a cartoonish version of flirtation.
Naomi, rightfully, laughed at him. “Unless you know something I don’t, there has been no … indication either way.”
Will shook his head. In all the months since they’d crashed NGN and strategically leaked a story about Abby’s secret feelings for Freya, his boss hadn’t said a word to him or even so much as hinted that something was amiss.
For all he knew, she hadn’t even overseen the entire production they had put on for her.
The walkie-talkie resting in the cup holder of Will’s Prius crackled. “Rude,” a tinny voice said.
His colleague, Annalisa, was riding in an NGN van a few cars behind them, listening to the entire conversation.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Annalisa,” he teased. “It has nothing to do with the wedding.”
“Uh huh.” Annalisa sounded unconvinced. “Anyway, has anyone told you what to expect for your bachelor/bachelorette party?”
Annalisa wasn’t asking for herself. She was asking to get them talking for the cameras, which would be collected from the car this evening and edited for tomorrow’s wedding special.
As someone who spent nearly every waking hour in the vicinity of cameras, Will had thought that being in front of them would come naturally.
But it had not. It required a kind of ambidextrous thinking akin to patting your head and rubbing your stomach.
Like now, he didn’t only have to answer the question, he had to make sure he didn’t a) look at the camera b) talk to Annalisa or c) answer the question without repeating it first.
Will looked over at Naomi as he tried to keep the rules in mind.
“I don’t know what to expect at our bachelor/bachelorette party, aside from being told to dress up in prom attire from the era of our choice.
Do you, Naomi?” He had gone full 1970’s, and rented a powder blue tuxedo, complete with bow tie, cummerbund, and—most importantly—a chest full of ruffles.
Naomi had hit up a vintage store down the street from her office and had picked up a puffy-sleeved tea dress in a metallic pink not seen since the 1980’s.
She had done something to her curly hair to make it poof up like she had touched a live wire before pulling it up into a high ponytail at the top of her head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
NGN had put the wedding party in charge of planning the joint bachelor/bachelorette which, on paper, sounded like a great idea.
In reality, though, Will had tried to figure out how he could explain to the higher-ups the dynamics of that group and why putting them all together might not work so well.
There were Abby and Freya, who might start throwing things at each other or could potentially be in the throes of discovering intense feelings for each other because of a very elaborate prank.
And then there were Becca and Riley who were …
well, they were Becca and Riley. Individually, they were a force to contend with, but together they could combine like Power Rangers to create a new form of unstoppable strength or in their case, chaos.
With Naomi’s blessing, he had decided the best course of action was merely to do nothing besides hope for the best. “The invitation did say ‘Set Sail for Love’ so I have to assume it’s some kind of nautical prom bachelor party mash-up.
” When Naomi didn’t answer, he glanced at the passenger seat.
She was hunched, clutching her phone and reading something with a peculiar intensity. “Everything alright?”
She looked up with a start. “Huh?” She locked her phone before setting it in her lap and smiling. “Yeah, some work stuff.” But her smile, like the rest of her face, was taut.
It was that familiar, hollow expression that always left him with a similarly hollow feeling in his stomach.
It wasn’t about work. It was about something else.
The something else he had never been able to decipher.
And he had started to think he wouldn’t need to.
Since Rosh Hashanah, those incidents had tapered off. But here they were again.
Static, and then Annalisa, broke the silence. “Anything you’re especially looking forward to?”
Naomi violated the Prime Directive and looked into the camera. “Do you think we could finish these questions when we get there?”
A long pause and then, “Sure.”
Naomi turned her head to look out the passenger window and placed both hands over the phone like she was trying to stop whatever was in there from coming out.
He’d already asked her if everything was ok.
What else could he do but sit within her silence and, like the party they were about to go to, hope for the best?
“Looks like Freya is here,” he said as he pulled in between the white lines of a parking space.
“Why don’t you go ahead? I need to do some adjusting.” She tugged at the tulle peeking out from her skirt.
He got out of the car with a nod and began walking to where Freya was sitting in her parked car, staring into her visor as she applied lipstick.
When she didn’t notice him, he raised his hand to tap on her window, but stopped, almost instinctively, to glance back at Naomi first. She didn’t appear to be adjusting anything.
Instead, it looked like she was taking a call.
He turned back to the car and rapped on the window a little more intensely than he meant to.
Freya jumped so hard Will was glad she still had her seatbelt on.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said when she rolled down her window.
“You didn’t. I’m a bit groggy from the trip.”
“Yeah, I bet.” In between the wedding preparation, the filming, and the onslaught of interviews, Will had not been able to do much real work, though he still did his best when he could.
A week ago, he had finally gotten an email giving him the go-ahead from the San Jose Department of Corrections to conduct an interview with a death row inmate that was the focus of a story he and Freya had been working on around prison reform.
This had been incredible news smothered in terrible timing.
They had waited years for this interview, and time was, quite literally, running out for the inmate who deserved the chance to speak.
Asking for an extension so that he could be filmed picking out kitchen appliances for his registry wasn’t an option.
But neither was leaving for three days. With no other alternative, Freya had gone with another producer and conducted the interview without him.
He couldn’t stop the breath of frustration from escaping.
“I can’t believe I couldn’t come with you.
We’ve been trying to talk to this guy for how many years? ”
“Many.”
“How did it go?”
“About as well as you might expect it would go sitting across from someone who knows they’re helping to fight for something they’ll never get to see.
The courts have basically said that at this point, even DNA evidence wouldn’t exonerate him because it wouldn’t eliminate him from the crime scene.
It’s utterly incomprehensible. But, for a few hours, at least, let’s not talk about work and enjoy your bachelor party, shall we?
” She smiled at him, but even the red lipstick couldn’t disguise the fatigue.
No, more than fatigue.
It seemed like there was an uneasiness underneath her cheerful front.
But he knew better than to ask, so instead he said, “Fine, but I want to hear more right after. I can’t believe that’s the end of the road. I just can’t.”
“Yes, later. Are you heading in?”
“Yes, Naomi stopped to …” He turned to look back at his car.
Naomi was still sitting in the passenger’s seat exactly where he had left her, still clutching her phone to her ear.
He looked back at Freya, trying to remember what he had been saying.
“Um, do something with her dress. I’m not entirely sure. ”
Freya gave him a dismissive roll of her eyes before getting out of the car.
He wanted to tell her that while, yes, he was not entirely sure about women and their dresses—including Freya’s dress, which looked like it belonged at the Oscars, not a prom-themed party—in this case, his uncertainty was much more complex than that.
He had thought, many times, about telling Freya about the nagging worry he had and asking her thoughts.
But he still hadn’t been able to make sense of Riley’s advice, and the last thing he needed was more nebulous suggestions that only left him feeling further confused and incapable of handling things.
It was, as he reminded himself often, probably nothing.
Merely a Naomi quirk that he wouldn’t even notice in ten years.
When Naomi joined them a minute later, slipping her arm through his and smiling up at him, he felt reassured in his decision. She was fine. And they were fine. And now it was time to celebrate.