Page 101 of We Could Be So Good
Nick writes all that down and they get a couple pictures of her and the kids, then move on to the people who actually intended to be at the protest. They get a couple good quotes about how the only way to survive a nuclear war is by not having one in the first place, and then the sirens sound. Lilian gets a picture of cops arresting a bunch of sweet Catholic grandmas. They don’t arrest the mother, probably at a loss for what to do with the kids, instead escorting them all into City Hall, two cops awkwardly hauling the stroller up the stairs.
As they walk back to theChroniclebuilding, through streetsemptier and quieter than they are even in the middle of the night, it’s the mother’s words that repeat in Nick’s mind. She hadn’t said anything especially new, but the way she said it still hits him like a punch in the gut. Maybe she can’t do anything about the disaster that other people want to bring about, but she can hug her kids, she can kiss her husband, she can live her life. No, it’s more than that—she was willing to get arrested just to make a point.
It worms its way into Nick’s mind as he types his story and files it. His lead is that line about feeding the ducks before a nuclear holocaust and Jorgensen can fight him on it later if he wants to.
If anyone asked him whether he’s afraid of nuclear war, his knee-jerk response would be yes. Of course he is—everybody knows that any attack on America would hit New York. But if he starts thinking about it—his mother hurt, Sal frightened at school—he won’t be able to do anything else. He can’t contemplate nuclear death and also go grocery shopping and leave milk on the fire escape for the idiot cat and make sure Andy has clean handkerchiefs.
And maybe it’s like that with everything else. Maybe the trick is to put fear in its place so it doesn’t take over. He can relegate the vice cops and petty rumors to the same corner of his mind where he puts atom bombs and other lurking evils.
What he can do is— God, he keeps thinking of that woman. He can feed the goddamn ducks and he can kiss his boyfriend. He can believe that the future they have is worth more than his fear, and he can do what it takes to make that future as safe and happy as possible.
***
Nick gets up from his desk and goes to find Andy.
“I’m dropping the police evidence story,” Nick tells him. Andy’sin the process of taking over a shitty old conference room next to the newsroom and making it his new office because he says the seventh floor is too quiet to get anything done, too far from everything that matters. Lou Epstein has been watching this with covert approval; the managing editor is going to be in Andy’s corner even if Andy turns the place upside down.
Andy drops his half of the desk they’re moving. “You sure?”
“Yeah. You were right.”
“You sure you aren’t doing this for me?”
Of course Nick’s doing it for Andy. If Nick gets exposed, Andy gets exposed, and Nick isn’t letting that happen. And he keeps thinking about what it would mean if he got hurt—what it would mean to Andy. When he thinks about that, he figures he ought to keep himself safe. At some point he had gotten used to the idea that, when it came to his job, he could take whatever risks he liked, because ultimately he was on his own. But Andy’s had enough people putting him last and Nick isn’t going to be one of them.
“Don’t like to think about you waking up alone,” Nick mutters.
Andy stares at him.
“If you don’t already know that, I’m really making a mess of things,” Nick says. “Look, if I have to choose between work and you, between a story and you, between anything and you, I’m picking you.”
“I don’t—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re not asking me for anything. I’m just telling you the way it is. It’s no sacrifice. Just a fact.” And it is a fact, settled and steady, something he’s known for a while. Andy’s first.
“I want to write about neighborhoods,” Nick tells Andy. He’s pitched a series to Jorgensen, who sent him to Epstein, who gavehim the go-ahead. “A series. Robert Moses might be an asshole, but I don’t think he’ll send goons to follow us around.”
He knows that Andy will hear what Nick isn’t saying. He’s moving away from covering news. Not all at once, but that’s the direction he’s heading. When he thinks about what he likes about his job, what he’s best at, it isn’t reporting hard news, but telling stories, and he’s kind of pissed that Mark Bailey was the one to put the idea into his head.
“Can’t wait to read it,” Andy says, his mouth tipping up in a smile.
***
It takes Nick two hours to catch the cat. That little fucker wanders into Nick’s apartment every few days, but the one time Nick actually wants him he’s nowhere to be found. He isn’t outside the fish store or the coffee shop or even in the dumpster behind the deli. Nick finds about fourteen other cats and a lot of animals he doesn’t want to think about, but not the one he wants.
“Have you seen that orange cat?” he asks a group of kids playing stickball in the lot next to St.Veronica’s.
“The stupid one?” asks a girl in braids.
“The one who gets stuck on fire escapes?” asks another.
“The one who sleeps in dumpsters?” asks a third.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick says. “That one.”
The kids all point in different directions. Useless.
Nick eventually finds him curled up next to the laundry, enjoying the hot steam seeping out from the cellar door despite the fact that it’s got to be seventy-five degrees today. He gives a halfhearted hiss when Nick picks him up.
