“Then who did?” I asked.
She had no answer.
Purple and white balloons floated from lampposts and fences on the way back to the ANC studios. Hundreds of them. They seemed to be everywhere. But in the narrow beam of my flashlight, I noticed something else. Bouquets of purple and white flowers graced countless stairs and doorways to apartment buildings. They were simple arrangements—purple coneflowers and a kind of daisylike white flower tied together with brown twine—but during the blackout they seemed especially vivid and radiant.
“I don’t know who they’re from, but I love them,” a very pregnant Chinese woman told me. She brought the bouquet to her nose and breathed deeply. “I found them here on the steps. Gave one to my neighbor. Keeping this one for me.”
I pulled together footage and a few more quick sound bites, then zipped back to ANC to show my report to Mark.
His eyes were cold, unsentimental, as he watched the images on the screen. Then he was silent. The kind of long moment that made me think he was either having a stroke or very angry.
“People are getting looted. A guy in the Bronx went missing. Food shortages are coming if power doesn’t come on soon. And you want me to run a story about balloons and flowers?”
“Aren’t you curious what it’s all about?” I pointed at the monitor as images of balloons and flowers floated by. “And why?”
I met his eyes and saw something mocking in them. “Balloons and flowers. That’s a story for children. Not a news network.”
I shook my head. “It’s part of the story.”
His eyes suddenly seemed smaller. Darker. “It is if you’re looking for a very short career at ANC.”
Was he threatening to fire me? Or seeing how far he could push me?
“Maybe more good things are happening out there, if we’re willing to look for them.”
He crossed his arms. “Tell that to Jim Hollister, who just had his clothing store looted in SoHo. They broke down the door and stole armfuls of T-shirts and sweatshirts. Go interview him, take a look at the broken glass and massive loss, and then tell me about ‘good’ things happening.”
CHAPTER FIVE
By early morning, power was restored throughout the city, and Manhattan went back to business as usual. Kids trudged off to school, the trains were running mostly on schedule again, people commuted into work, the emergency generators were moved off the streets, and workers were back to fixing potholes and sewer lines.
But something had changed. When I got into work, the first text I got was from one of the women I interviewed who’d found flowers on the doorstep to her apartment.
Felicia here. You interviewed me last night. I work at the DMV in Lower Manhattan. Someone left flowers on every single person’s desk here this morning.
Anyone see who did it? I typed back.
Boss thinks they must have snuck in with the early morning cleaning crew.
Moments later, Stephanie rushed in and tossed her bag on her desk. “This is a first. I had breakfast with Ashley Clark at Le Pain Quotidien on Broad Street. She’s the executive producer of ANC Investigates. You’ll never guess what happened.”
“Dead rat?”
She frowned.
“Homeless guy dropping his pants?”
She flashed me a wry smile. “Seriously?”
“What? Both those stories were on the NYC news rundown this week.”
“True. But get this, before we finished eating, the waiter came over and said our bill had already been paid. We looked around, figuring maybe someone had seen us on ANC or something. But whoever it was paid cash for everyone’s meals, not just ours.”
“The whole restaurant?”
“There had to be forty, maybe fifty people there. No one could believe it. We all started talking to each other because of it. I ended up meeting a guy I’d seen in there lots of times but never talked to until today. Turns out he lives in my building.”
“Any idea who paid for all the meals?”
“Our waiter told us a girl came in when they first opened up, dropped two thousand dollars cash on the counter, and told them to use it for everyone’s breakfasts that morning.”
“Did he say what she looked like?”
She applied a quick coat of gloss to her lips. “All they remember is that she had blonde hair. Maybe a teenager.”
“A teenage girl paid for everyone’s breakfasts?”
“Crazy, right?”
I tried to focus on my report about the government shutdown, but my mind kept wandering, thinking about the events happening around Manhattan. Maybe because they gave me a glimmer of hope that the unbearable city I’d been trying to survive wasn’t as heartless as it seemed. Or maybe I just needed a distraction from the maneuvering and negotiating and posturing that was happening on Capitol Hill.
Politics was never supposed to be my beat. I’d made that clear when Andrew had recruited me. Andrew had assumed I avoided political coverage because my father was a senator, but I told him that I didn’t like sifting through a rising churn of spins and lies and closed-door meetings to get at the truth. But Andrew was still out of town, and until he got back, I had no doubt Mark was going to confine me to this miserable beat.
As I started a call with someone in the justice department about the furloughed employees, my cell phone chimed. Unknown number.
The text read: I started a Facebook group. NYCMiracles. Check it out.
My phone didn’t recognize the number, so I figured it was spam. Until:
This is Corinne. You interviewed me after I was trapped in the elevator last night. I started the group because I just found a car key dangling from a purple ribbon on the door handle to my apartment.
Blue dots flickered on the screen, indicating she was still typing.
With a note saying to take it to the Chevy Dealer in Hell’s Kitchen.
Did you?
Key is to a van. With wheelchair lift for my daughter. Free.
From who?
They don’t know. A woman paid cash. And told them to give the van to me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Mark was saying. “But the answer’s still no.”
“You’re saying no before I ask the question?” I pressed, trying to keep pace with his fast clip through the newsroom. I’d heard Mark thought sit-down meetings were a waste of time, so if you wanted to talk to him, you had to do a “walk and talk,” pitching your ideas as he paced through the newsroom checking in with other reporters and producers.
He cracked his lower jaw like he was trying to clear his ears. “You’re thinking that since you had big success with the Good Sam and Robin Hood stories in LA, that maybe you should chase this story about a couple of good things happening after the blackout.”
“More like an avalanche of good things,” I said, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. My tone must have been sharp because the producer whose desk we were standing by looked at us and quickly slipped on her headphones.
“It’s not a national news story when some people do a few kind things.”
“But it is a national news story when people are looting and stealing?”
A vein bulged in his forehead. “I’m not having this debate with you.”
I steadied my voice. “This isn’t all that different from the crime wave story Stephanie’s been covering. Instead of killings and assaults, we’ve just got a wave of people helping others.”