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Chapter 49
As Jennifer had expected, it was a lot of fun to walk into the Record-Herald office the next morning with her hair done up, wearing a pair of cutoff bluejeans and a T-shirt advertizing a rock concert ten years past. As expected, the mailroom crew was all smiles, and
there was a lot of reminiscing and gossiping that went on all through the early hours, while the staff waited for Mike's return from Camden.
Only Kirsten seemed out of sorts; and that wasn't surprising, as heavily pregnant as she was, on a day that was already hot, and would get hotter before it was over with. Jennifer could remember how joyfully pregnant Kirsten had been with Tiffany, ten years before,
and how out of sorts she'd gotten near the end.
It seemed that pregnancy wasn't the only thing that had Kirsten out of sorts. "Nanook of the North and his buddy, Sergeant Preston, picked up another dog last night," she reported to Carrie. "This was a stray that someone had picked up. He looks like a husky, and his
name is King, so they didn't think about it," she went on. "Any minute now, they're going to be studying maps of Alaska."
Jennifer had heard about the dog team on a phone call with her mother a couple weeks before, but she was the only one that hadn't heard about the latest adventures, so Kirsten had to fill her in. Mark had taken the tractor and mower, and had cut a series of trails into
the weedy, overgrown field across the road from Mike and Kirsten's. It seemed like every evening, Mark or Mike were out being towed around the field on the ATV. Never for long in this heat; just long enough to give the dogs a little workout and work on their training. "At
least usually they'll come to a stop within a hundred yards of where you tell them to stop," she reported, "So, I guess that's progress."
"I'll have to come out and watch. It sounds like fun," Jennifer observed.
"It sounds like madness," Kirsten said. "And, the madness is catching. Last night, Tiffany made a real serious pitch to me. If little hemmorhoid-maker here is a girl, she wants to name her `Susan.'"
"That's a nice name," Jennifer said.
"Not when she wants to name her after Susan Butcher," Kirsten snorted. "You know who Susan Butcher is? She's the gal that won this thousand-mile sled dog race in Alaska the last two years."
"I can think of worse reasons to give kids names," Jennifer said. "In fact . . ."
"Don't you dare," Carrie broke in, knowing that her daughter was about to needle her about Brandy's name again, "We were a little goofy when we did that."
" . . . Susan is a nice name, and the fact that her namesake is such a strong, powerful person would be kind of nice. Can't you just see the first woman president being named, oh, `Candy' or, `Peaches'?"
They all laughed at that one. When the laughter died down a little, Jennifer asked, "Well, have you worked out a name?"
"If it's a boy, it's going to be `Mike, Jr.,'" Kirsten said. "That was settled a long time ago. We really haven't come up with a name for a girl, though `Amanda' seems to come up fairly often." She frowned, and gritted her teeth for a minute, then went on with a more
serious tone in her voice, "And, if it's a girl, we're going to have to settle it pretty damn soon."
The tone in Kirsten's voice alerted Carrie. "How soon?" she asked.
"Real soon," Kirsten said. "I mean, REAL soon."
"Are you saying . . ."
"Yeah," Kirsten said. "They've always come quick. I don't think I'd better hang around waiting for Mike to get back."
"I'll take you," Carrie offered.
"Somebody had better be sure that Mike gets over to the hospital as soon as he gets back," Kirsten said.
"I'll go with you," Jennifer offered. The three went out to Carrie's car. Kirsten told Jennifer that she'd been keeping a bag in the car with her for days, and Jennifer ran over to grab the bag. The drive to the hospital only took a few minutes, but Kirsten was glad to be
there; things were happening quickly, now.
Carrie and Jennifer decided they'd better stick around until Mike arrived, just in case. It was a good decision; because as Kirsten had predicted, things did happen quickly. They couldn't have been at the hospital twenty minutes before Kirsten was being rolled into one
of the delivery rooms. "Come on along, you guys," Kirsten said. "If Mike's not here, I want someone to hold my hand."
Jennifer wasn't sure she wanted to, but knew enough not to argue. It turned out she knew the nurse that got gowns for her mother and herself, and there was a second of greeting of old friends, and a second of greeting of Dr. Brege, who had been her doctor when
she'd been a kid. Beyond that, Jennifer didn't know what to expect, but Jenny sort of helped out, right then; she realized that it might be something to remember, since there was no telling when something of this sort might come up in a role. Fortunately, Mike arrived a few
minutes later, and she was able to stand back and watch a baby girl be born.
There was something to think about in what she saw; in fact, much to think about. "I think it's time we left," Carrie whispered, and Jennifer agreed. Quietly, they snuck out into the hall, to leave the proud new parents to their privacy.
After their robes were off, they walked out into the parking lot. "That was quite an experience," Jennifer told her mother. "I've never seen that before."
"Well," Carrie smiled, "That's the first time I've ever watched, rather than having been the center of the action. I could feel right along with Kirsten, but none of you kids were ever that easy."
"That's really something to remember," Jennifer said, exhiliarated. "It sort of makes me . . . what the hell?"
"What?" Carrie looked over at her daughter, who was staring at a dark green Dodge.
"Did you just see two guys duck behind that car?" Jennifer asked. "One of them looked like he had a videocamera."
"I didn't see anything," Carrie said. "We'd better get back. They're really going to be shorthanded."
Jennifer was pretty sure she had seen what she thought she'd seen. What's more, the videocamera wasn't a home camera; it was a big, professional job.
Two or three blocks up the street, Jennifer turned around and looked behind the car. There, well back, was the green Dodge, following them. All of a sudden, fear mixed with sadness hit her. Perhaps Jenny wasn't in L.A. after all.
She looked again, and realized that she couldn't see the car, now. Perhaps she was imagining things.
"What took you so long?" a sweating Webb said from the chair at the Addressograph machine when they walked into the mail room at the Record-Herald.
"A little baby girl," Carrie smiled. "Mike got there just in time. We got to watch."
"Well, that's great," Webb smiled back. "Now we'll have Mike down here passing out cigars tomorrow."
There was a minute of reportage to the mail room staff, while work came to a halt. "Well, I suppose we'd better get at it," Carrie said finally. Sally and Pat were just about ready to go out running the dealer route, but the inserters were already pulling ahead of Webb,
who was running one of the two Addressographs that they normally used.
"Do you think you could call Danny in to tie?" Webb asked.
"Danny's out brakeing, but I can stamp," Carried offered.
"Well, I haven't forgotten how to run a Saxmayer," Jennifer said.
Webb nodded. "Good thing," he said. "There's already a pile to get started on."
The next hour was out of a dream for Jennifer. It was like she was still in high school, working in the mail room on Wednesdays during summer break. It was hot and noisy in the mail room, and throwing the bundles around and running the machines was noisy and dirty,
but wonderful. Everybody there was a friend, and it was fun to talk, even though they had to talk loud over the noise.
For that wonderful hour, she almost forgot about the two men in the green Dodge, but when she went to the front office to use the bathroom, it was sitting in the parking lot across the street, and the two men and the videocamera were waiting in the shade of a tree.
She hadn't been dreaming, then. Heart sinking, she went to the camera cabinet, pulled out a Canon body and a big telephoto lens. From the shadows in the office, the aimed the camera out of the window and checked it out.
There was no doubt. Though she could not quite read the lettering in the viewfinder of the camera, the logo on the side of the videocamera was from "Hollywood Tonight"; the men were that weasel-faced producer that she'd talked to at the Defenders of Gaea shoot,
and the same cameraman, a thin white guy with a greasy fifties haircut.
Carefully, Jennifer set the camera down on the nearest desk, then collapsed into the nearest chair, feeling like she was going to cry. "Blake, where are you, now that I need you?" she said aloud.
