Page 9 of No More Bad Boys
“That’s how we get to the network,” he says in a teasing, instructive tone.
“Who’swe, kimosabe? I like it fine just where I am. You go on ahead and chase stories around the globe. I’ll just stay here in the greatest city in the world, drink my Coke, watch my Braves, and visit my fishies.”
She extends a hand in the general direction of the aquarium.
“I like the fishies, too. That’s why I’m going to swim with them on live TV.”
“You’re going to dowhat?” I nearly shriek. “But you’re doing the live shot out here, right? Outside the building?”
Blake gives me a naughty grin as he shakes his head in a definitiveno.
“Under. Water.”
He reaches into the bag and pulls out a wetsuit then a gigantic pair of swim fins, all of it bearing the Georgia Aquarium logo.
“But how? I mean… it’s impossible… right? We don’t have enough cable to reach the building.”
Blake’s confident smile never drops. “One of the biggest tanks is near the exterior wall in the back. They said you could park in the alley behind the building and lay cable through the emergency door there, since they’ve just closed for the night. We’ll have a PR ‘escort’—”
“Guard,” Luce corrects.
“Right. A guard will open the door for us, and the truck won’t be any further away from our shot location than usual.”
“It makes more sense to do it right here—we’ve got a great backdrop of the aquarium—nothing can go wrong with the shot,” I argue.
“Yeah, but it’s so muchcoolerto do it in the fish tank.”
Blake’s cheeks dimple to their fullest mind-bending capabilities.
Must. Concentrate.
“What about your microphone? You know you can’t just put one of our mics in a Ziploc bag and use it underwater right? Sound transmission in water is totally different from sound in air. You’d need a hydrophone made from piezoelectric materials to convert the underwater sound waves into an electrical signal and feed it into an external speaker system or recording device, and…”
My voice trails off as I catch Blake’s bemused expression and realize I’ve gone full-blown engineering geek on him.
He gives an exaggerated shrug, a smile tucked in one corner of his mouth.
“Yeah. I knew that.” And the rascally smile is joined by a glint of mischief in his green eyes. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Spock. Youarethe science officer aboard this vessel.”
I freeze in surprise at his Star Trek reference. Is he mocking me? Does he somehow know about my Trekkie tendencies?
Studying his guileless face, I decide no, he doesn’t know any more about me than I’ve told him.
At least he didn’t call me Uhura. As far as the crew of the Starship Enterprise is concerned, he’s pegged me just right. I alwayswantedto be Mr. Spock, so smart, so sensible, always sure of the right course of action.
Logical. And not prone to irrational statements and fits of wild emotion like my mom.
I decide to take it as a compliment. “Okay. Whatever. Since we don’thavea hydrophone handy, I guess we can leave a stick mic on the pool deck just outside the tank. You’ll have to surface and grab it and start delivering your live lead-in. But if you drop it in the water—you’regoing to explain it to Frank. I want to go on the record as saying this is abadidea.”
Blake pauses for a second before agreeing in an undeterred tone.
“All right. Duly noted and recorded.”
The two of them stay in the back while I get into the driver’s seat and maneuver the truck into the alley Blake indicates.
As promised, a door is propped slightly ajar. Luce gets out and takes her camera and tripod inside to set up while I begin pulling cable from a giant spool inside the truck, dragging it up a short flight of concrete steps and through the back door of the building.
The security guard, a large middle-aged woman in a dark uniform, nods to me and holds the door a bit wider.
