Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(39)

I approached the guard again and held the phone out to him. “It’s Araceli,” I said.

The beginnings of an I’m in trouble look came into his eyes and gave me a flutter of hope. He looked at the phone as though it were a rotary-dial antique, then took it from me and grunted a few monosyllables into it. Glancing at my prosthetics, he said, “Yes,” in a tone of deep chagrin. Then, crisply, “I’m on it.” He hung up the phone and handed it back to me.

“Well?” I said, still too shaken to be smug.

“Go on through,” he said.

I was so relieved that I forgot how very far away Berenbaum’s office was, and that I didn’t quite remember the way there, until I was all the way at the intersection of four enormous soundstages. I knew the general area of the lot where his office was located, so I kept hobbling along in the right direction until I spotted another security guard, a black guy with a sprinkling of white hair. Once he spotted me approaching, he moved to meet me halfway.

“I’m supposed to meet David Berenbaum,” I told him, “but I can’t remember exactly where I’m going.”

“Let’s see if we can get you a lift,” he said. He called in his location on the radio. “Got a young lady here with a cane, en route to DSB on foot.”

I couldn’t hear the response, but he laughed out loud and said, “I’ll bet!” He put his radio back on his belt. “Just sit tight a minute,” he said to me.

“I could kiss you,” I said.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“What’s your name?” I asked him. “I want to tell Mr. Berenbaum how helpful you were.”

“I think he can see for himself,” he said with a smile. He pointed over my shoulder, and I turned; a golf cart was approaching. Its driver had an unmistakable head of white hair. The sight of him was like daylight pouring through clouds.

“Millie!” said Berenbaum as he stopped the cart by the curb and got out. “I’m so sorry. Minor crisis in editing. Please tell me you didn’t have to walk far.” He took my hand and held it solemnly for a moment. His grip was firm, his hand soft in that old-man kind of way.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Exercise is good for me.” I didn’t mention the cuts under my silicone prosthetic socket, which were starting to smart a little.

He moved to help me into the cart, then stopped, suddenly boyish. “You want to drive?”

“Is it . . . I mean, do you think I can, with my . . .”

“It’s just a gas pedal and a brake, nothing fancy. A kid could drive it. Go on.”

He seemed so delighted by the idea, I couldn’t refuse him. I limped around to the driver’s side and eased my way into the seat. I hesitated, looking for somewhere to put my cane, but Berenbaum just took it and laid it across his lap as though he were always holding women’s canes for them, no big deal. I grabbed the wheel, and after Berenbaum released the parking brake, I used the muscles of my right thigh and knee to push my BK prosthetic against the accelerator. The cart puttered forward.

“Straight on, then make a left at soundstage twenty. Also, feel free to go faster than this.”

I pressed down harder. It felt odd without direct contact between me and the accelerator. Also I hadn’t been behind the wheel of anything in over a year, and now here I was, driving David Berenbaum around in a golf cart.

“We’re headed to the editing suite,” he said. “We’re behind schedule, so I want to stay nearby. Is that all right with you?”

“That’s fine,” I said. “As long as it’s safe to talk freely there.”

“I’ll kick everyone out of the room for a few. You know, you can really floor it if you want, it’s okay.”

I looked dubiously down at the golf cart, which was starting to vibrate and whine like a frightened dog. “Honestly, I’m afraid this thing is going to fall apart under me.”

“Don’t talk about Bessie that way,” said Berenbaum. “She’s a good soldier. Pedal to the metal, come on.”

“I—”

Without further ado, Berenbaum simply bumped my right leg with his left, knocking my prosthetic foot off the accelerator and stomping down on the pedal himself. The high-pitched shriek of alarm I made as I clung to the steering wheel made him laugh out loud. I’m sure the average grandmother could still have outrun the thing on foot, but to me it was exhilarating, steering while he accelerated, trusting him to brake in time to keep us from hitting anyone.

“Remind me to never get behind you on the freeway,” he said.

Soon we came to the northeastern edge of the lot, to a larger bungalow than the one where his office was located. I guided the golf cart into a parking space; he put on the brake and helped me out of the driver’s seat. He also held open the door to the building for me, and while that sort of thing would have driven me nuts a year ago, I had recently stopped resenting people for making my life easier.

The editing suite itself looked more like a living room than an office. A large flat-screen TV hung on a wall opposite a comfy--looking caramel couch, and a skinny college-aged kid sat at a computer desk with an older man leaning over his shoulder, staring at the screen. Nearby a young woman was writing on a spiral pad, looking stressed out and sleep deprived. Three of the four walls were decorated with framed movie posters and photographs of people shaking hands; the fourth was almost entirely covered in stills from Black Powder.