The Elegant Gathering of White Snows (19 page)

It was easy to find the road where the women walkers were staging their escape. Bob spotted another television station's antenna about a mile away. “Damn,” he said as he steered the car around a corner, and a horde of about two hundred people lined up on the highway came into view. “They're broadcasting live,” he said out loud, hoping Claudia might offer some kind of response. “All this for a bunch of women.”

Claudia muttered into her notebook, “That took about fourteen seconds.” She got out of the car while it was still rolling to a stop. She stood quietly at the side of the highway for a few minutes, just gazing off into the fields, noticing the line of trees that looked as if they surrounded someone's piece of property. Rocks piled almost intentionally around a fence that ran from the road and then disappeared beyond a quick dip in the field.

Bob was already pushing his way through a crowd, shaking his head at those gawkers gazing down the highway as if the Second Coming were impending. Claudia had decided to approach the story from the women's point of view. She wanted to see what they were seeing, understand where they had come from and where they might end up. This kind of thinking, she knew already, would get her into trouble. Burt would want something fast and dirty, and she already wanted to spend way too many days trying to find out every possible angle she could about the women. He'd want to know what they did for a living, the last time they had sex, if they slept on their sides, where they bought their underwear—just the facts. Claudia was wondering about their lost loves, missing dreams, what they had all left behind.

Before she could reconcile those contradictions, Claudia felt Swine Man at her heels. He was such a throwback that she almost laughed every time she saw him. Twice divorced, an avid reader of
Soldier of Fortune
magazine, and part owner of a shot-and-beer bar, Bob, thought Claudia, was one small-dick-big-compensating-ego-asshole totally beyond saving.

“Well,” he said quickly. “There's shit here to shoot. Some asshole sheriff won't let anyone near the women, and there's a deputy on the other side keeping people away from them. To get through, that leaves us, like I said, shit. Now what?”

Claudia said calmly, “Why don't you get some crowd shots and let me talk to a few people. I want you to scan the horizon too, let's show our happy viewers how beautiful the Wisconsin scenery can be.”

“Thrilling choice,” Bob sneered.

“Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will pull a gun.”

“Really? Did you hear something?”

“Bob, get a grip. I'm kidding. This is what we call a ‘human interest story.' If you need some blood, go poke out your eye.”

“Ah, Claudia, don't get me all excited like that.”

“Look, Bob, we might be here for a while. Let's just do the best job we can and try to be decent to each other. How's that for a novel idea?”

Bob let his eyes roam to her breasts. “Like I said, there is shit to shoot here. What the hell are we going to do?”

Whatever they did, Claudia was determined that their coverage would be different from the other reports. Claudia knew there was more to it than that. One thing that she had learned from Chris Boyer was to always try to connect to a story on a human level. When she was out of the newsroom, Claudia could unveil a heart she rarely shared with journalist colleagues.

“Bob,” she said suddenly and softly. “Run into town and book us a couple of rooms at whatever fleabag hotel you can find. I'm going to slip into the backseat while your little head is turned and change my clothes.”

He didn't say a word but managed to shake his head up and down while he clenched his right fist into a tight ball. He was already thinking about her, the hottest, sexiest woman he had ever seen, climbing into the backseat and removing her silk blouse and then those long, dark slacks that covered up legs as shapely as a marathon runner's. The fantasy made him weak-kneed and definitely aroused.

“Bobbie,” said Claudia, putting her hands on his shoulders and turning him away from the car, “you stand here and think about driving into town, and I'll be right out.”

Thanking her brilliant mother for everything she had remembered to keep in her little suitcase, Claudia quickly transformed herself from a high-powered reporter in broadcast drag into what she guessed was the local fashion in about two minutes.

Claudia's mother told her to always wear clean underwear, and she also taught her to be ready for anything that came along. That's why she had a jogging suit, tennis shoes, a small backpack, and everything from a toothbrush to a few tampons in that magical suitcase. She slid out of the Chevy. “Bye, Bob, get me a queen bed.”

“Uh-huh.” As Bob turned the car around, adjusting the rearview mirror so he could watch Claudia as long as possible, she turned away from him and called Paula on her cell phone.

“Paula, corn city reporting in here.”

“Did you kill Bob yet?”

“No, I called a truce and just sent him packing to get a hotel room. Wanna bet he claims there was only one room left?”

“Oh God,” Paula moaned.

“Listen, Paula, this is weird down here. The cops have the women sealed off on the highway and the other networks are filing those cornfield pieces, just like you told me.”

“So what are you thinking?”

“I'm not sure yet, but there's definitely something happening here, Paula. It feels like more than just a bunch of goofball females walking on a road.”

Paula was quiet for a minute. Claudia liked Paula, she was one of the few people in the newsroom whom she trusted. They often had dinner together and talked about the rest of life that happens outside of all the heartache and sorrow they brought to life on the television screen. Claudia also knew Paula was in love with her, and she was on the brink of asking her out on a date. That would drive Swine Man and every other man on the face of the earth into a deep depression.

“Claudia?” Paula said her name like a question, feeling through the phone, through the vibrations in her friend's voice that something was up.

“Paula, don't ask me much right now. I've got about an hour to figure this out before Bob shows up back here with his penis wrapped around his camera lens. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm just not sure.”

“Hey sweetie, remember the time we saw that Sundance movie about the photographer in New York who was messed up on drugs and was just, like, so close to getting back out there and then she blew it?”

“Yeah, I know, don't blow it,” Claudia said, not really sure if she knew where anything, including the conversation, was headed. “Hey, I'm just trying to figure out where to go with this story. I don't think this is some life-altering situation here, but geez, just thinking about these women and what they're doing, well, it makes me want to just say piss on it and join them.”

“And?”

“Come on, Paula. We've talked about this. Shit, last week we were all but headed to the airport for Bora Bora so we could find a couple of twenty-year-old well-hung boys or just be with each other. I'm thinking, Paula, that being with each other would have been the best choice and that too many women make the wrong choice and never follow their hearts.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying who the hell doesn't want to walk down a highway and keep going. Why the hell didn't we get on the plane and just go? Everyone is so goddamned afraid, and here's a bunch of women about whom we know absolutely nothing, but they just did what the rest of us only dream about.”

“So these women have, like, real balls?”

“Yes, really big balls.”

“So?”

“I don't know the next part yet except I keep thinking about all those women I do stories about who get pregnant or raped or shot or beat up, and then that's it. Their lives turn into little piles of shit.”

Paula got up from her stool and moved quickly into the video storage closet so no one could hear her. She looked left and then right, then closed the door, slid down its back side and sat in the dark, hugging her knees, touching the phone as if it were the soft skin of her friend's face.

“Claudia, did Bob give you a joint?”

“No, I'm sure he's saving that for the big night he's busy planning right now back at the hotel.”

“Listen,” Paula said, slipping into her producer persona. “Before we decide what to do, why don't you do some interviews. Get your bearings. Who's hanging around there? Can you get to the cop? Fish around a little bit, and then call me back before you rip off your bra and run through the cornfields.”

Claudia laughed, and then searched through a group of women who stood in a clump gazing down the empty highway. Before she said good-bye to Paula, she focused in on a fortyish woman in hiking boots who was hopping from one foot to the next, clearly agitated.

Claudia sucked in her breath and walked up to her, trying to decide on a good interview line.

“Hi,” Claudia said, touching the woman on her right arm.

The woman started and then turned to put both of her hands on Claudia's shoulders. Her eyes were dark, and red veins popped out from their centers as if she had been crying. Before Claudia could see anything else, the woman pulled them both together and embraced her.

“Oh my gosh,” the woman whispered in her ear. “You scared me so much.”

“I'm sorry,” Claudia said, wondering instinctively what she could do to make the woman feel better. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm just like, don't you want to just get out there and walk too?”

Then she added, “You look kinda familiar.”

“Well,” Claudia said, “I'm a reporter. CBS out of Chicago.”

The woman stopped for a moment and looked into Claudia's brown eyes as if she were searching for something she had lost just a minute ago. “Thank God they sent a woman.”

“Do you know any of the women?”

“Is this on the record?”

“I don't know yet.”

“What do you mean?” The woman inched closer to Claudia.

“Just between us?”

“That's what I asked.”

“I'm thinking how great it would be just to chuck it all and go off with them.”

The woman leapt forward then, sweeping Claudia off her feet and lifting her into the air as if she were nothing more than a wisp of cornstalks. Claudia was amazed at how strong the woman was, how she pushed her toward the sky with an ease that made her think she had some kind of physical job, like log rolling or lifting entire buildings off of their foundations.

“Who are you?” Claudia asked as her feet touched the ground.

“I'm a friend of a woman they stayed with the other night. She called me and told me she thought it was wonderful what they were doing, and I laughed at her. But you know, I only did that because I was scared. The minute I heard about this, I wanted to go too, and I thought the world would laugh at me.”

Claudia wondered if she could have it both ways. Could she just walk off with this woman she didn't know, and throw her objectivity out the window on such an important story? Could she go and be one of them and still do her job? Could she just say “fuck it” and not worry?

“What's your name?” Claudia asked her.

“Sue.”

“Sue, I'm Claudia and what the hell are we going to do?”

Sue put her head down and started fidgeting again and that's when Claudia understood that Sue was scared to take the first step. In a flash, she could see Sue always with someone, never alone, always waiting for someone else to go first.

“Hey, Sue, what are you leaving back here if we do this?”

“A couple of kids who can take care of themselves and a husband who loves me but kind of forgets he does. That's it, plus lots of empty spaces and things I've never done and, geez, I can't believe I'm even telling you this.

“I could talk to Lenny, my friend who runs the hog farm, like this for hours but out here like this, you know, living kinda in the middle of nowhere, there aren't that many of us.”

“Well, shit,” Claudia sighed as she put her arm around Sue's shoulder, thinking about all the times she wanted to reach out and touch someone she was interviewing but never did. “Have you thought how you can get past the cop?”

“Wait,” said Sue, pushing herself away but not letting go of Claudia's arm. “What about you? What are you leaving?”

Claudia laughed louder than she expected to. She thought of the condo she had never bothered to decorate, all the stories in her tickler file that she hadn't finished, she thought about Paula crouched in the video storage closet and how she really was in love with her too, and about how this could either be the dumbest thing she ever did or the only thing she ever did that made any sense.

Sue tilted her head toward the sky. Claudia looked up too and moved her eyes back and forth across the tops of the trees.

“Do you hear the geese?” Sue asked.

“Yeah, but where are they?”

“The sound is a little fast, you should always look back, or forward I suppose, depending on what you hear.”

“That's pretty damn funny, Sue.”

“That's the kind of stuff I know from living out here in the country. I know about migrating birds and how to load the rear end of a pickup so you don't screw up the shocks and the alignment. I wouldn't know a news story from a horse's ass.”