Next, he moved to a list of specific police and lawyer TV shows he thought they could recommend. Since, he said, he was sure the lawyer shows were as accurate as the cop shows were, watching them would be helpful in understanding how the entire justice system worked. She asked how the hell he had time to watch so much television when he was a working detective. However, she added, since he was headed in that direction, maybe there was a way they could play the opening for laughs and she outlined an idea he readily accepted.
Before she took off for her mother’s, Tony asked if they could spend part of each of the following days working on the presentation. Margo quickly agreed. After all, that would make their speeches better. The fact that it meant they would be together every day was incidental. Wasn’t it?
Monday they got the opening scripted during lunch at the Reading Terminal Market, the mother of all farmers’ markets, and Margo’s favorite source of sticky buns and cheese steaks. Tuesday they had drinks after work at a little neighborhood bar near his apartment where she met several of his colleagues and his favorite bartender. Over glasses of wine, they discussed their personal experiences, developing a list of the points they wanted to emphasize and examples they could use to illustrate them.
When she’d casually mentioned on Tuesday that she’d never ridden on a motorcycle, Tony picked her up at the end of the day on Wednesday so he could take her for a tour of Fairmount Park on the back of his bike. After an hour’s ride, they parked and walked through the sculpture garden, rehearsing. By the time he delivered her back to her hotel, they were both satisfied with the information they were presenting.
All week she looked forward to seeing him, saving up stories and nuggets of information from the conference to share with him. They didn’t revisit the heat they’d generated on the dance floor or in her hotel room that Sunday but he always seemed to have his arm around her, or his hand on hers. He kissed her hello and goodbye, sometimes kissed her just because. And she loved holding him so tight her fingers cramped as they took the corners of the winding roads in the park on his motorcycle. If they’d had more time, she thought, maybe …
She was sure as hell in no hurry for Thursday to arrive.
But arrive it did. As they got to the meeting room where they were scheduled to present, she hesitated outside the door. “I’m nervous about pulling this off, Tony. We’ve really only had two run-throughs of the whole thing. That’s not a lot of practice.”
He opened the door and waved her into the room. “It’s show time, counselor. You’ll do fine.”
They began with Tony.
“Working with Deputy District Attorney Keyes to get this presentation organized was a pleasure. Although she’s now in Portland, Oregon, we grew up next door to each other here in Philadelphia. We’ve always had great personal and professional respect for each other so … ”
The blast of a whistle interrupted.
Tony turned in the direction of the sound. Margo was sitting at the end of the table, a Police Athletic League lanyard around her neck and the whistle at the end of the lanyard in her mouth. “Margo,” he said in a stage whisper, “what are you doing?”
She took the whistle from her mouth and smiled sweetly. “You told me to be timekeeper. Your time’s up.”
He looked at his watch. “But we have ninety minutes.”
“Didn’t you get my memo about this?”
“A memo?”
“Yeah, you know, paperwork.” She pulled a three-inch thick sheaf of papers out of her messenger bag. “You said you should go first because that’s how the system works — we bat cleanup after you guys have done all the hard work — and I could be the timekeeper. It’s all in here.” She pushed the stack of papers toward him and he picked it up.