Forever and a Knight

by Bridget Essex

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you probably already know that something’s very wrong,” she drones and frowns. “I’m sorry, but we appear to have lost the Moran Grant. It’s not a rumor. It’s the truth. I don’t have much more information than that right now. I’m waiting on a call with the chief trust holder for the Moran association, but since he hung up on me in the last hour...” She waves her coffee mug to the side and shrugs. “I doubt that he’s going to be receptive to another begging session.” Her mouth goes into a thin, hard line. “Without the grant’s monthly check, we don’t have the money to pay last month’s debts, so the power had to be cut immediately before we go into a black hole we can’t return from. This means that, as of immediately, LEM Public Access Radio is no longer, and LEM Public Access Television is close to dead.”

  “How did this happen?” asks Carly, stepping forward and spreading her hands. “Deb, seriously—”

  “You kids know that funding for public television and radio has been on the downward slope for years, thanks to that damn Internet,” says Deb, patting her pockets in her search for the bulge of her cigarette pack. She finds it and takes it out of her breast pocket, tapping the cardboard container irritably against her right palm. “And we’ve already lost grants left and right, and we haven’t been getting funding from the public, and we really, really counted on the Moran grant. They were stringing us along this last month, or I would have known sooner. I’m sorry, kids—it’s been a blast,” she mutters, fitting an unlit cigarette to her frowning lips. “I’m going to do my best to get to the bottom of this and get some answers. But until that time...there’s really no reason for you to stay here. I’ll keep in touch. On your way out, please don’t riot or spray paint our walls or steal our equipment; it’s all second-rate, anyway. Questions?”

  I thought that everyone would start yelling at once, but in all seriousness, we are a bunch of liberals who have been criminally underpaid for years in service to public radio and television. We just aren’t the rioting type.

  “I hope we get severance pay,” mutters a guy near the front. “Will we get severance pay?”

  “Yeah, right,” laughs Deb ruefully, then starts to fiddle with her lighter, turning it over and over in her nervous fingers. “Look, I wish I had better news. You’re a damn good team, all of you...” She sort of deflates at that moment, shrinking smaller than I’ve ever seen her.

  Deb has such a glowering personality and air of command that she could get paint to peel on her orders, and I’ve seen big, burly guys easily cowed by a few choice words from her. She’s one of the most terrifying and intimidating women I’ve ever met, and she’s always daunted the hell out of me. And, truth be told, inspired me. Seeing someone I’ve always thought was so strong grow so sad and small...well, it’s heartbreaking. And I can’t stand it.

  “Look,” I say then, stepping forward and taking a deep breath. Carly raises her eyebrow at me, and every single person in the station turns to look at me, waiting to see what I’m going to say. I’m not even sure what I’m going to say, not until I’m talking. Call it the gift of the radio host: my mouth is always thinking before my brain.

  This can sometimes be a good thing. Or a very, very bad thing.

  “The Moran Trust needs to understand that public radio is very important,” I say quickly. “They need to understand that public access programming can’t go the way of the dinosaur, and that it’s important enough to support.” I realize I'm preaching to the choir, so I cut to the chase: “Could we get a meeting with the trust committee, do you think? Have the Moran trust guys meet with a couple of people from the station? Like...like me and...” I turn to glance back at Carly, brows raised.

  We see eye to eye on almost nothing in this whole big world. But we do both believe completely in these stations. It's the one thing we have in common.

  “I can go, too. Together, I think we can convince them,” Carly says smoothly, stepping forward and running a hand through her tightly coiled curls. She casts another glance at me as she bites at her lip. “We got the highest viewership ever with that Boston Beast stuff,” she says, shoving her hands deep into her jeans pockets. “I don’t understand why they’d pull the grant now, and I think they’re making a big mistake. If they heard succinct and passionate reasoning to the contrary, they would listen and reinstate the grant.”

  Overhead, the last lights in the building—the ones in the managers’ hallway—go out with an undignified sizzle.

  “It’s a sweet thought, ladies,” intones Deb in her gravelly voice. Though there are many “no smoking” signs posted up and down the corridor, she has obviously stopped caring and lights up the cigarette, the lighter flashing brightly in the now-dim hallway. She takes a deep inhale and closes her eyes, holding her breath for a long moment. “Look, if you think you can actually convince them,” she mutters, blowing the smoke out with her words, “I think I can probably get you a meeting with the trust committee tomorrow morning. Possibly. But I hope you both know that it’s a fool’s errand.”

  “Those are my favorite type,” says Carly, with a quick nod and wide, encouraging smile. “And I think we can do it, Deb.” She starts to tick a list of things to do off her fingers. “I’ll get all the viewership reports pulled, run the statistics on everything we’ve done here at the station. We’re such a part of Boston’s culture that—”

  “It was our viewership that most concerned them, Aisley,” says Deb, taking another drag on her cigarette with a frown.

  “Viewership isn’t everything,” Carly huffs, “and our viewership was growing. Seriously, we doubled day over day with the Boston Beast stuff. We were starting to head toward the right direction and really fast. I mean, why pull the funding now? It makes no sense.”

  “I don’t know,” says Deb, blowing out a puff of smoke. “But if you want to talk to them, you can.”

  Carly and I glance at one another, then at all of the waiting faces, a little hard to see now that there isn’t much light in the corridor. All of our fellow coworkers look at us hopefully, expectantly. A few of them are staring at us like we’re nuts.

  But every single person in this room will be out of a job if we don’t try, don't give this a shot. Hell, we’ll all probably still be out of a job, but at least we’re going to attempt to do something about it.

  “We’ll do it,” Carly and I say at the same time.

  “I’ll go try calling ‘em. Again,” says Deb with a shrug, shoving her way back into her office and shutting the door sharply behind her.

  In the dim silence that follows, Carly glances over her shoulder at me with a frown and raised eyebrows. “We’re in deep shit,” she mutters to me then, turning on her heel to walk back down the hallway.

  I run a hand through my hair, take a deep breath.

  God, what did I just get myself into?

  ---

  Carly and I meet for our “war council” at the coffeeshop around the corner from the station, if only for the electrical outlet to plug our laptops into.

  And the light. Having light is good, I've just realized, since my sound room and office currently lack light of any kind.

  “So, we don’t have much time,” says Carly, setting her steaming latte down next to her closed laptop and placing her elbows on the table. Carly’s very pretty, a fact that has never been lost on me. I lean back in my seat and let my eyes have a moment of appreciation as I glance her up and down. She’s wearing long, black slacks and a poufy white blouse, all very elegant. But it’s also never been lost on me that Carly’s as straight as an arrow and in a relationship.

  And there’s the small problem that we dislike each other extremely...

  I sigh and glance at her, hooking my elbows over the back of the chair, and stretch. “And...?”

  Carly straightens, her mouth in a thin, hard line. “I would like to get some things out of the way before we begin.”

  I raise one eyebrow.

  “The only reason I’m working with you is to try and sav
e the station,” she says succinctly, her head to the side. Her lips are pursed together, and her eyes are flashing aggressively.

  I smile at her as I shrug slowly. It’s a fake smile I’m sporting, but, hey—it’s still a smile. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream that we were working together for any other reason,” I tell her blandly.

  “You’re not on my list of favorite people, Josie. I don’t enjoy being called an idiot,” says Carly, placing her chin in one hand and staring at me while her nostrils flare.

  I bite my lip. “I never called you an idiot,” I tell her, wracking my brains as I try to think of the incident in question.

  “You called me an idiot to my face, Josie,” she says, snatching up her latte cup and blowing on it. “Remember? Last month?”

  “I think the word I used was stupid,” I tell her with a small grimace. Oh, yeah—she’s talking about the conversation in the break room when I was toasting a bagel. God, that was weeks ago. I spread my hands. “I still think that the footage you think you got of the Boston Beast was actually of a tarp in tree branches, and you were probably on some pretty strong drugs when you took said footage and thought it was an actual, honest-to-goodness, real-life monster, but”—I hold up my hand before she can protest, and I fake-smile at her again—“I don’t think that means we can’t work together on making certain Boston still has public access programming to...not watch.”

  She stares at me and snorts over her cup. “You’re a piece of work, Josie.”

  “I try,” I tell her, booting up my laptop. “And, for the record,” I say, with a long-suffering sigh, “I don’t think you’re stupid. Misguided, perhaps. But it takes a lot of balls to stake your reputation on what was probably a tarp in some tree branches and some pretty terrible, grainy footage. So, for that, I commend you.”

  She stares at me for a long moment before she shakes her head slowly. “Thanks. I won’t let it get to my head.”

  “So, you have all of the statistics for the stations?” I ask her, bringing up a blank Notepad document. I just want to take down a few notes to go off of for our meeting and appeal. Honestly, I think and speak best when I’m not going off a script.

  “Yeah, I have the stats,” she tells me, patting her laptop but not opening it. “I had this idea that I’d take one of the cameras out into the city this afternoon, maybe near Quincy, and get some footage of people saying they love the stations, get some real feel-good stuff about growing up with the station and its programming and then use that footage in our presentation to the trust members.” She stiffens, tapping her foot against the tiles under the table. “Honestly, I can’t just...just sit here and talk about why the station’s great. We both know why,” she tells me, and I glance up at her.

  Her eyes are full of tears.

  I’m rattled by that. First off, sarcasm is my default setting. I’m not that big into emotions. Second off, Carly’s just not the crying type. Or, at least, I assumed she wasn’t.

  But here she is, taking a deep breath as tears begin to fall down her face, gently at first, then a bit quicker as she grabs a handful of napkins from the dispenser on the table, presses them to her nose and breathes out.

  “I need to do something, Josie. We can’t just let the stations go like this. Not like this. Not now. Not on our watch. Not without a fight.” She glances up and holds my gaze. “Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, we’re going to go in there to that meeting with the trust guys, and we’re going to do what we do best, okay?”

  “What’s that?” I ask, surprised.

  “We’re going to talk the station out of this,” Carly says firmly. “And that’s all there is to it. Meet you out front of the building, okay? Nine o'clock tomorrow?” She stands up and picks up the news camera that she’d placed under the table.

  “Yeah, sure,” I tell her, still surprised, and without another word, Carly picks up her latte and storms out of the coffeeshop, into the bright August warmth of Boston in summer. Usually, Boston in summer is the best place to be. But as I look after her, with her shoulders slumped, diving into the laughter and happy faces of the sidewalk and bright sunshine...I wish I wasn’t here.

  Carly’s coping with the trauma of not only losing our jobs but losing the stations that we passionately love by going out and asking people why they love our stations and why they should remain on air.

  I can’t think of any other way to cope with all of this than...

  I take a deep breath.

  I can’t believe that’s the first thing I thought of.

  But I go with my gut, pick up my to-go coffee cup, and step out onto the warm streets of Boston.

  My feet point toward the West Side Methodist Church graveyard.

  I need to go visit my sister.

  Chapter 2: The Laundry

  The cicadas are out in full force, droning on and on as I walk the couple of blocks to West Side Methodist Church. My hands are deep in my jeans pockets, and as I make the walk, putting one foot in front of the other, I realize that I’m perfectly calm. My brain, which races at a speed that cheetahs would probably envy, is—for the moment—stilled.

  I always get like this when I visit my sister's grave.

  The graveyard is right off the sidewalk. You cut in through the little wrought-iron gate (that’s about three feet high, and wouldn’t even keep out a toddler) and walk down three rows of gravestones and to the right.

  And there’s her stone.

  My heart rises into my throat when I see it. I stare at that stone, crouch down in front of it, pressing my palm to the words carved into the granite, and then I sit down on top of my sister’s grave.

  Ellie Beckett, the granite reads. June 18, 1976 - December 31, 1999.

  I reach forward and again press my fingers into the different indentations in the granite of her name, tracing the big “e.” I take a deep breath.

  “Hey, El,” I say, and my voice is already thick, but I keep going. “Hope you’re doing okay. I miss you...” I trail off, wipe a single tear from my right eye that I won’t let shed. I lean back on my hands on the grass and sprawl my legs out in front of me with a sigh. “So, I’ve got some problems,” I tell her gravestone, clearing my throat. “The station’s in trouble.”

  I’ve been coming out here to the West Side Methodist Church cemetery and talking to Ellie’s gravestone once a week for fifteen years. When I was younger (I was born in ‘79, so when Ellie died, I was only twenty), a family counselor told me it might be a good idea to not actually talk to the gravestone since people might think I’m nuts. The problem is, I’ve never much cared what people think.

  So I kept doing it.

  Yeah, I know Ellie’s not really there, not sitting six feet underneath me, placing her ear to the underside of her coffin and listening for her kid sister to tell her all her woes. And I don’t claim to know what I think happens after you die.

  But I still believe that there’s some small part of Ellie still here in this world. Still looking out for me.

  At least, I like to think that.

  I’ve come out here to the graveyard and poured out my heart to Ellie about girlfriends and love troubles, about the time that I received the death threat because of a controversial show I did on commercial fishing. I’ve told Ellie everything good that’s happened in my life and everything bad. And, in a lot of ways, being that vulnerable (if only to a slab of granite) has helped me move through some pretty rough patches.

  It helped me cope with her death. It helped me move on.

  Though not entirely...because how can you ever move on, really? You cope and you keep living. And that’s good enough.

  Because someone you've loved so deeply is never truly gone—they're always with you. They’ve marked your heart forever, and that mark remains, long after they’ve left. And, in that way, they live on.

  “I’m not nervous about going in front of the trust committee, El,” I tell her, rolling my shoulders back and staring up at the bright blue sky and the unrelenting sun. It�
�s a pretty hot day here, the sun beating down at me with relentless warmth that sinks deeply into my bones. “I’m just...” I trail off, shake my head. “I'm just worried about what’s going to happen if I fail. All of those people at the station are depending on me to make a difference... I mean, in all honesty, all those people, including me. All of our jobs are on the line, but it’s not just that. The station’s done so much in the community. We can’t lose that...”

  I trail off again, running my fingers through the warm blades of grass beside me as I close my eyes and listen to the cicadas. Their steady thrum, and the steady lull of the traffic, soothes me.

  I know it’s kind of weird, but there’s no place on earth more peaceful than a graveyard. I mean, yeah, it’s a place filled with dead people—there’s no getting around that fact—and I guess it’s kind of spooky if you think of it like that. But said dead people aren’t exactly bothering you very much, and they're certainly not worried about anything at the moment. They’re, in fact, pretty chill about everything, and that kind of rubs off on you. You start to realize that a lot of the problems in your life? They’re really not so terrible.

  A graveyard is such a restful place, a quiet place that reminds you of the stuff that really matters. You can’t come to a graveyard and be worried about the argument you got into on your ex-girlfriend’s Facebook wall, for example. Because you realize, in a graveyard, that trivial things are exactly that: trivial.

  “Thanks for the chat, El,” I mutter, rising and patting off the seat of my pants before reaching out and pressing my fingers to the warm granite of the gravestone.

  But I snatch my hand back as if singed.

  I gasp, my heart thundering through me.

  Well, that was...weird.