Falling Off Air Read Online Free Page A

intensity of the accent,
     the breathless undertone when she was on an adrenaline high. I could hear it now, and it confirmed my identification of the
     woman who had died. No garden variety Paula Carmichael would have excited Jane like this.
    “Why are you assuming she didn't kill herself?” I asked.
    “I'm not. But why should she?”
    I glared at her. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and my head was beginning to throb. There was a time, when
     I was working with Jane, when she held no terrors for me, I gave as good as I got or else I ignored her, but I knew I was
     about to be bullied and I was out of practice.
    “You'll do an interview for me, won't you? I haven't spoken to Jez yet, but I'm just going to hand him a fait accompli. We'll
     be doing a special tonight, and we'll get friends and family on board of course, but if you could do that ‘I saw her plunge
     out of the sky,’ moment, that would be a really moving counterpoint. Frankly, if you could talk to us, and not to anyone else,
     I'd really owe you.”
    We gazed at each other, and she must have misinterpreted my reluctance, because she plowed on.
    “When I say … I mean I don't see how we could actually pay you—”
    “Jane,” my hackles had risen, “talk to me like that and you can leave right now.”
    Silence, a couple of heartbeats long.
    “I'm sorry, I wasn't implying …”
    “Of course not.”
    “I only said it because I know Adam gives you nothing, and while he's busy swanning around on the telly here you are living
     in a slum bringing up his … For God's sake, it should be you editing
Controversies
tonight, not me … I cannot bear to see you—”
    I slammed a cup of coffee down in front of her so that a tidal wave of liquid slopped onto the table. It stopped her in midflow.
    “This isn't a slum,” I said through gritted teeth, “and they're not his children. Not anymore.”
    I eyed the twins who eyed me back. I could say these things now and they wouldn't question, wouldn't complain. How many years
     would that last? Jane was staring at me, eyebrows raised.
    “Adam gives me nothing because I want nothing from him,” I said, miserable because this was so obvious to me and because other
     people seemed to have such problems with it.
    “Of course, of course.” Jane was struggling, which isn't something you see every day. “I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking …”
    “Forget it.”
    It took Jane exactly five seconds to recover herself and forget it. Then she was back on the scent like a terrier.
    “So did you know her?”
    “I don't think so.” I knew it sounded ridiculous. Surely either you know someone or you don't. Only minutes before I had dismissed
     the thought that Paula Carmichael lived opposite me as fanciful, but now my mind was, of its own accord, presenting me with
     shreds of memory dug up from months back. Pushing the twins in their stroller one day in the summer, I'd passed a woman walking
     under the pigeon-infested bridge by the underground station, and I had nodded at her in recognition, only moments later realizing
     why I knew her face; that I had seen her on television and that she was Paula Carmichael. She had been hurrying, a briefcase
     in her hand, papers sticking out of it as though she had stuffed them in, and it had not occurred to me then that she was
     going home, or indeed that home was anywhere close at hand. This little person—she couldn't have been more than five foot
     two—seemed too small and insignificant to be the huge persona that Paula Carmichael had become. Even her hair, dark and untamed
     on television, seemed a graying brown in real life. I remember that I had looked around after her when I realized who she
     was, and that I had caught her doing the same thing, twisting to look back at me. Catching each other's eye, we had turned
     back quickly, embarrassed at ourselves. I knew why I had wanted a second look, but why in the name of God had she turned to
     look at me? I had