She would find out what it was.
“Yeah, yeah it’s great,” Mihail muttered, pushing her phone away from his face and interrupting her thoughts.
“Right?” Ava poked him in his bony side with a finger. “It couldn’t be more perfect if it was a Spider-Man movie.”
“Spider-Man? That’s not wimpy Peter Parker; that guy is Clark Kent.”
Ava ignored this. She didn’t need Mihail’s reminder that Luc was tall, broad shouldered, and gorgeously dark-haired. She was doing her best to forget that little fact.
“Okay, now look at this one…”
“I told you, I’ve seen the damned videos.”
Ava pulled up the second video anyway. This one was shorter. Less than a minute, but it was every bit as poignant.
Taken a couple months ago in the middle of a late-winter cold snap, the frail figure of a homeless man sitting in the deserted Diamond District, his back against the wall of a long-closed jewelry shop, huddled against cold.
The now familiar figure of Officer Moretti approaches, his footsteps slowing as he spots the man. The video has no sound, but it’s easy to see Luc crouching down, speaking to the man, his face kind, his smile easy.
The conversation apparently doesn’t go the way Luc wants, because for a moment Luc’s chin drops against his chest, as though in defeat. Then Luc moves, shrugging out of his winter coat.
Luc extends the jacket to the man, who doesn’t reach for it. Then, incredibly, Luc creeps closer, gently maneuvering the man so that the warm coat is wrapped around him.
As though sensing the camera on him, the homeless man slowly turns his head, finds the camera before giving a heart-wrenching smile as he clenches the coat to his shoulders.
Officer Moretti stands, wearing nothing but his uniform as it starts to snow.
The camera jerks to the side before going to black, but the jarring end to the video doesn’t ruin its impact.
If anything, it highlighted the spontaneity of the moment, giving the watcher the sense that he or she was a spectator to a private moment.
Not so private anymore, Ava thought.
The coat video had been taken a few weeks before the East River one, but the tourist behind the camera hadn’t uploaded it until after the later video had been picked up by a small local news station.
From there, it had exploded.
And Ava had every intention of making it explode even more.
“Okay, you proved your point. It’s good stuff,” Mihail said, finally pushing her phone away and putting the key in the ignition. “I just don’t see why we have to be the ones to cover it. Especially if this cop guy doesn’t even want to be in the story.”
Ava put her phone away, faking confidence she didn’t entirely feel. “He’ll come around. Once the advertising offers start rolling in, he’ll be kissing my four-inch heels.”
“Which are where, exactly?” Mihail looked pointedly at her flip-flops.
Ava pretended she didn’t hear him.
“You know, I’ve never seen Gwen Garrison in anything other than five-inch spikes,” Mihail said.
Ava inspected her manicure. Yup. Chipped. “Your point?”
He shrugged as he turned the ignition. “Just that Gwen’s been anchor for a good many years now, and you’ve been chasing crap stories for how long? Maybe it’s time to accept that you’re destined for the gritty, in-the-trenches journalism and not the plastic talking head thing. And maybe you like it that way.”
Ava dug out a gummy worm from Mihail’s stash and ignored him. The guy was one of her best friends, nasty cigs and all, but she was tired of this conversation. It brought up unsettling thoughts she had no interest in dealing with.
She did want to be anchorwoman. She did. And Mihail was right in that Ava tended to choose the scrappy, real stories, no matter how small, over the more glamorous, attention-grabbing ones. That was about to change.
This was her break.