An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(77)

“We trust him, though, right?” my dad said.

“He seems like a very nice boy,” followed my mom.

“He is indeed, and no, we’re not dating.”

“So?” my dad again.

“OK, I won’t call or text anybody.”

We talked for another twenty minutes, and they barely even brought it back around to how I had been stabbed in the back due to my own stupidity.

“Concentrate on getting well, we’ll be there in the morning,” Mom said. They were cutting their vacation short.

“I love you guys.”

“We love you too,” they said simultaneously, and then we hung up.

I was a little shocked that I hadn’t seen Andy or Robin yet. I kept expecting them to walk in the room and it kept not happening. What I learned later was that as I lay there in bed, there had been a mad rush to keep our footage safe and secret while both the NYPD and the FBI attempted to find and control it.

Andy had gone back to his apartment, where he had seen a succession of uniforms asking him where his footage was. They couldn’t legally search his apartment, but apparently there was a pretty good chance they were listening in on our phone conversations and text messages. Of course, Andy didn’t have the footage, Robin did, and thus far, Robin hadn’t been a person of interest.

I knew none of this. I knew that what had happened to Martin Bellacourt was horrifying and impossible, but I wasn’t processing it as newly weird. Carl was a space alien, so weird was done with. As far as I was concerned, we were already at peak weird.

Hundreds of people had been killed in terrorist attacks, so while I assumed the fact that someone had tried to kill me was going to be in the news, I didn’t think it was going to be front page.

And I thought that as the day stretched into evening and I started to wonder why no one had come in to tell me I was being discharged. And then a tall guy walked into the room with an earpiece and an intensity of awareness and readiness that I had never seen before. After taking in the room, he came up to me and said, “Ms. May, I’m Agent Thorne, and the president will be here shortly.”

That was all the preparation I got. About five seconds later, another agent walked in, followed promptly by the president, a third agent, and a young woman in a suit. The president was wearing a blue blazer and white silk blouse. Her gray hair swept over her shoulders casually.

It was intensely surreal. There was a bit of that “Oh my god, they’ve got three dimensions and a size and a shape and I’m seeing a person with my own eyes that I have previously only seen through the eyes of cameras” feeling that you get with any famous person. That’s a weird thing, and it’s a very interesting and complex experience.

I had had that several times in my life by this point. But there was something much more impressive about the president. I mean, I was a big fan of hers, so there’s that. She and I shared a lot of values and goals, and she had done so many things that I respected and was amazed by. My appreciation for her was and remains very deep, and while I could hang with any Hollywood celebrity and not be intimidated by their status, this was a very different thing. I was intensely intimidated, and yet, at the same time, there was a frailness to her.

I don’t mean any particular physical frailty, of course. I simply mean that she was very much a human. Just bones and organs and stuff, like the rest of us. That became very real as she moved in to shake my hand. Firm, practiced, her skin rougher than I expected.

“April, it’s wonderful to finally meet you, I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances. How are you doing?”

I wanted to ask her why she was here, but that seemed rude, so I just answered her question: “I’m fine. They say I can go home tomorrow, really just a scratch and some broken ribs. I’m more emotionally messed up than anything, to be honest.”

“You’re wondering why I’m here. Well, April, first, where is the footage from your attack? Everyone seems quite certain that it exists, and yet lots of people have failed in trying to find it.”

“You’re here for . . . my footage?” I was astounded.

“Among other reasons, yes. As I said, you have a way of being at the center of things, April. I am not holding that against you, and I hope it’s clear that we are friends, but there are a number of fast-moving parts right now that need to be either slowed or harnessed, and there is a lot of concern that the footage that was on that camera is one of them.” She was efficient as ever.

“You aren’t making a ton of sense to me,” I said.

“Be that as it may, I need your footage.”

I was caught off guard and did not really know how to handle it, so I stalled.

“It’s starting to feel a little bit like I need to know what will happen to me if I don’t get you the footage.” I said “get” instead of “give” to make it clear that I didn’t have it.

“Nothing, April. To me, you, whether you like it or not, are a member of the press. It would be an extraordinary step for me to take information away from you or bar it from being broadcast. That would be the sort of thing that requires lawyers and judges, and I have neither the time nor the desire to go that route. But I can, as the president of the United States, ask you to do me a favor.”

“Oh, maybe it would be better if I understood why?”