Air Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan

blocking. We give it out whenever we need to stay anonymous.
    Franklin and I ignore the crosswalk and scuttle through the middle of Cambridge Street traffic. “But why not, I guess, when it’s all about the money,” I continue. “So here’s the plan. You put together the hidden camera equipment today. Tomorrow I’ll hop on the Turnpike and pay a visit to the purse ladies. I’ll come back with some knockout video and some knockout evidence.”
    “Charlotte—” Franklin briefly puts his hand on my arm as we step onto the sidewalk. “We need to talk this over. What are you going to do at this purse party, wear a paper bag over your head?”
    My brain is so absorbed by my collapsing universe I’m barely keeping up with what Franklin is saying. I used more than my quota of under-eye concealer this morning. And I’m grateful that September has provided just enough sunshine so I can logically wear sunglasses. They’ll at least prevent Franklin from focusing on my certainly still puffy-from-crying face. FBI Special Agent Marren Lattimer has never met me, so he’ll just have to live with it.
    “Wear what? A paper bag over my head?” I’m confused. Then I get his point. “Oh, come on, Franko, no way the women at the purse party are going to recognize me, way out in western Massachusetts.”
    We revolve through the front door of the anonymous-looking gray stone building and show our station ID cards to the front desk guard. Self-important in his blueblazer and packing a two-way radio, he shows us how conscientious he is, holding up each card briefly and matching our faces. He doesn’t ask me to take off my Jackie O sunglasses, though. So I could be anyone.
    “Channel 3’s signal doesn’t carry out to Great Barrington,” I continue. “They get TV from Albany, New York, someplace like that. Not Boston.”
    Franklin and I sign the loose-leaf notebook, as instructed, struggling with a pen attached by a tangled and too-short strip of plastic. “I’ll leave off all my makeup, pull my hair back, wear my glasses, some dumpy outfit. They won’t suspect a thing.”
    I lower my voice, so the guard won’t overhear. “They especially won’t suspect that I’ll be carrying a hidden camera.”
    Ignoring us, the guard is now comparing our sign-in signatures with the ones on our ID cards. My signature is illegible, so he’s just matching scrawls.
    “I still think, Charlotte, that you may be taking an unnecessary chance.” Franklin says, shaking his head. “If you get recognized, you’ve blown our story. Maybe we should think of another way.”
    Somehow Franklin’s tone clicks the “upset” button in my brain and tears well in my eyes again. Why is everyone suddenly criticizing everything I do?
    “I hardly think I’d put our story in jeopardy,” I say, hearing an unusual haughtiness creep into my own voice. “I have thought this through, you know. It’s not like I’m some kind of novice.”
    The guard shoulders his way between us to slip a glossy white key card into a slot outside one chrome elevator. With a ping the door instantly slides open. Motioning us in, the guard taps a five-digit code on a number pad, then pushes the button marked sixteen. He holdsthe door in place, looking stern. “Someone will meet you on sixteen,” he instructs. “Wait there until they arrive. Don’t leave the sixteenth-floor lobby until they escort you.”
    He looks up at a corner of elevator, gestures with his head. “Surveillance cameras. They’re watching you.”
    As the doors slide shut, I push my sunglasses onto the top of my head, which knocks the reading glasses I’ve perched there onto the elevator’s carpeted floor. This is the last straw.
    “Dammit,” I hiss. I snatch up the glasses and stuff them, without putting them in a case, into my bag. I hear Franklin make some sort of sound of disapproval.
    “What?” I look at him, challenging. They’re my glasses. I can put them in my purse however I want. If