A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [15]
From her perch atop the bike, surrounded by a mélange of houseplants, every one of which she could name, Angie turned her set off, then on again, and did the same with the cable box. In that time, the stations managed to display their version of a technical difficulty announcement, letting viewers know they were working on the problem.
Angie hopped off the bike and crossed her airy living room to the kitchen, where she grabbed a bottle of vitamin-enhanced flavored water from the fridge. At thirty-eight, despite her disciplined vegetarian lifestyle and deep knowledge of herbs and nutrition, she knew her metabolism had begun to slow. The changes in her hips told her so every day, even though it was likely that she was the only one aware of them.
The bike and a set of weights were her way of battling back. Best of all, for someone who struggled to sit through most movies, plays, and concerts, the equipment allowed her to multitask to her heart’s content. E-mail and riding. CNN and lifting. Reading and pedaling. Unless she were asleep, at the most five hours a night, she always seemed to be doing something, and something else at the same time. That trait had been a constant source of dismay and even annoyance to her boyfriend, Bill Collins. But had been were the operative words now that Collins was a thing of her past.
On her way back into the living room, Angie grabbed her BlackBerry to check e-mail. Nothing about the loss of signal had arrived in her inbox. Just the usual digital mountain of PR pitches from some of the brightest minds in science. They all wanted the same thing—a story in her paper, The Washington Post, and more important, for the paper’s respected science reporter, Angie Fletcher, to cover whatever latest breakthrough or discovery they felt needed covering.
Angie tried the television again. Nothing new. She had voted for Allaire, as had most of her friends, and like them, she had been looking forward to tonight’s speech. She loved that his background was at least as much about medicine and science as it was about politics. In addition, his oratory skills could make a laundry list sound important, so Angie felt more than a little disappointed to be missing any part of the first State of the Union message of his second term.
Figuring that Webcasts might be working, she used her BlackBerry and tried CNN.com and then her own paper’s Web site. Both ran virtually identical headlines in bold lettering: Broadcast Interruption at State of the Union Address. Utterly curious now, Angie checked, but could not find, any links to a more detailed explanation.
It had been six months or so since she had moved from Georgetown to the refurbished brownstone in the highly desirable Dupont Circle area of D.C. Her neighbor in 2B, the unit directly below her one-bedroom condo, worked at the White House, and Angie considered asking if he had heard anything unusual going on at the Capitol. Instead, she decided to towel off and cab it.
She darted into the kitchen, still clutching her BlackBerry, then suddenly paused to grab a spray bottle from the counter to spritz her herb garden, which seemed nearly ready to harvest, at least the mint anyway. The queen of ADD, Collins had called her, more than once. So what, she thought, racing into the bedroom to throw on a pair of slacks and a bulky fisherman’s sweater.
She hurried back into the living room and over to Horace, on whom she kept her coat, hat, and gloves. The movers had said nothing about hauling an adult human skeleton, but she did notice them exchanging uneasy glances when they unpacked him.
Over the months she had dated Collins, a lobbyist for the insurance industry, he continually found it odd that she had a skeleton