Tied to the Tracks Read Online Free Page A

John Grant, so Angie kept that thought to herself. She said “The endowment? Rich alums? It doesn’t matter to us where it comes from.” She kept her eyes on the paper, but even so she could feel Rivera’s attention fixing on her.
     
    “We’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this forever. We can’t pass this up.”
     
    Angie forced herself to hold Rivera’s gaze. She said, “Of course we can’t. Of course we’ll do this.”
     
    Rivera narrowed her eyes and then made up her mind to believe Angie. “Good.”
     
    “Good?” Tony echoed. “It’s fucking great.” And he grabbed her for another polka around the room, leaving the details to Angie.
     
    That’s what Angie did: she took care of the details, she kept things going, she talked suppliers into another month’s credit, the clients into seeing things Rivera’s way. Tony Russo did camera work and sound, Rivera Rosenblum directed and edited, and Angie did a little of everything, from writing the script and lending another pair of eyes to the editing process, to balancing the books. She was the practical one, lacking the urge to polka, or even to be unreservedly happy about this change in fortune. And after three unfunded grant proposals and a year made notable by the fact that even wedding work wasn’t coming their way, “miracle” was the only word that came to mind.
     
    And now, according to the words on the page in front of her, she would be talking to John Ogilvie Grant, chair of the English department, about the arrangements for a long stay in Ogilvie, Georgia. Starting as soon as they could get there.
     
    Rivera looked up from the fax. “We could teach, too, if we wanted. In the fall semester. They’ve got film theory for you and introduction to digital filmmaking for me. Or the other way around, but I don’t think Ogilvie undergraduates are ready for my film theories.”
     
    “We’ll be done shooting by September,” Angie said. “And we can come back here to do the editing.”
     
    “We aren’t going to get footage of her in the classroom?” Rivera’s tone made it clear that this wasn’t really a question but the opening salvo in a battle.
     
    “And they’ve got an editing suite—” Tony began, and then stopped, entranced by what he was reading. He thrust the fax sheet under her nose. “We can’t rush out of there, Ang. It would be the death of us if we took shortcuts on this one.”
     
    Angie shot him her sharpest look. “You mope, when have you ever known me to take a shortcut?”
     
    “So we won’t be back here in September,” Tony said. “Admit it.”
     
    One thing Angie prided herself on was knowing how to pick her battles, and this one, she could see very clearly, was well and truly lost. She nodded. “Okay.”
     
    Rivera did a shimmy that made her earrings dance while Tony rushed to the windows. He leaned out over Washington Street and bellowed. “So long, Hoboken!”
     
    Rivera touched Angie on the wrist and she jumped. “Angie, Zula Bragg asked for us.”
     
    “She did,” Angie agreed.
     
    “So what’s the problem?”
     
    “No problem,” Angie said, producing her biggest, brightest, falsest smile. “Not a problem in sight.”
     
     
 
Tied to the Tracks was located in a warren of small rooms over An Apple a Day, the diner that belonged to Angie’s parents. The advantages of this arrangement were substantial: they paid rent only in those months when they had the money to do so, and food was always available in abundance. The disadvantages were small by comparison. Ten-gallon cans of tomatoes stacked in every corner, boxes of pasta, crates of eggplant: these were things she could live with. Angie repeated that to herself as she went downstairs an hour later, hoping to slip out without being noticed. At least for now; at least until the signed contract was in the mail.
     
    “Give it up, Angie,” her father’s voice boomed as she opened the door to the street. “I got your lunch