Relay Fourteen

Krrt.

“Juniper Base, Repeater Fourteen. Radio check.”

The squawk comes from a cracked handheld beside the anniversary cake. Otis is arguing about candles. Sonia is telling everyone where to stand. Akira is taking pictures of all of us as if we are worth keeping.

Then that old radio makes its rude little cry, and I am forty-one again.

Rain drums on the roof of the former dispatch annex.

“Mr. Blue Sky” plays through an open door, cheerful enough to insult the weather.

A woman is losing a fight with six wet backdrop panels in the gravel.

One panel leans against a puddle. Another slides from her shoulder. She catches it with one hip and says something sharp at the sky.

Her rental file is still on my desk.

Akira Price. Thirty-four. Wedding photographer. New tenant in the annex.

I tell myself I cross the yard because the annex door is swelling in its frame.

The panels have nothing to do with it.

“Need a hand?” I ask.

She turns. Yellow raincoat. Dark hair clipped up badly. A strip of silver tape on one boot.

“I need six hands and a dry county.”

“You picked the mountains.”

“I was promised views.”

“You were promised a roof.”

“That is a low bar for customer service.”

I take the nearest panel before it can fall flat in the mud.

She watches me lift it.

“You work here?”

“Dispatch.”

“Ah. The voice on the radio.”

“The voice has a name.”

“Do I get to know it?”

“Merrill.”

“Akira.” She shifts her hold on the next panel. “Though I see you read the paperwork.”

“It is dispatch. We read paperwork for sport.”

She laughs, and I regret giving her a reason.

We get the panels under the equipment-bay overhang. Otis has hung a tarp there since last spring. It is ugly, patched, and still doing its job.

“Careful with that one,” Akira says. “It cost more than my first car.”

“Your first car made a poor investment.”

“My first car had character.”

“Your panel has mildew.”

“It has potential.”

I look at the warped annex door. “It has a bad latch.”

“It closes if I shoulder it.”

“That is not how doors work.”

“It has worked twice.”

“Twice is not a system.”

I head for the maintenance cabinet.

Akira follows me to the threshold. “You do repairs too?”

“Base safety.”

She folds her arms. “Is that what you call every favor?”

“This is not a favor. Your door does not secure.”

“Still sounds kind.”

“Don’t make it strange.”

“I am a wedding photographer. Strange is where I live.”

The latch is old brass and cheap screws. The wood around it has gone soft from years of rain. I replace the screws, shave the swollen edge, set the strike plate right.

Akira stands behind me while “Mr. Blue Sky” reaches its bright middle.

“You’re very serious about this,” she says.

“Doors are serious.”

“Noted. I will respect their inner lives.”

“You mock things you do not understand.”

“I understand doors. You put one between yourself and people.”

I look over my shoulder.

She raises both hands. “I am new here. I am allowed one bad joke.”

“One.”

“Generous.”

The latch clicks cleanly when I test it.

“There,” I say.

Akira opens it. Closes it. Opens it again.

Her face changes in a small, pleased way.

“Thank you, Merrill.”

“Base safety.”

“Of course.”

Sonia finds me in the main building ten minutes later, wet medic bag at her feet and coffee in hand.

“New tenant settling in?” she asks.

“Her door was broken.”

“So you fixed it.”

“It was broken.”

Sonia takes a drink. “That must have been difficult for you.”

Otis looks up from tying a length of rescue cord around a crate. “He carried panels, too.”

“I moved equipment out of rain.”

“Did the rain ask nicely?” Otis says.

“Both of you have jobs.”

Sonia smiles into her coffee. “So do you.”

Before dark, I pull the county road closures onto the dispatch screen. Mudslides. A washed-out bridge past Elk Hollow. One narrow road with a tree across both lanes.

I mark the safe routes in red. Fuel stops in blue. The closest hospital in green.

Then I laminate the map.

No signature. No note.

I leave it against the annex door while Akira is inside arguing cheerfully with someone on her phone about floral delivery times.

When I turn to go, the door opens.

She holds the map up.

“This yours?”

“Road closures.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Base safety.”

Her grin is quick and bright. “You are terrible at this.”

“At maps?”

“At pretending you do not care.”

Rain ticks against the metal roof.

I walk back to dispatch before she can say anything else.

After that, reasons appear everywhere.

A loose gutter. A dead exterior bulb. A bad outlet. A crooked step.

Every job has the same name.

Base safety.

The next morning, I find the ramp before I find Merrill.

It runs from the annex threshold to the gravel: three cedar planks, level over the rut that eats my camera-case wheels. Orange rescue webbing holds its edges in place. The ends are melted neat.

I crouch beside it.

Yesterday, I hauled the case over that lip one ugly bump at a time. Today it rolls down clean.

There are favors that come with invoices. There are favors that wait for applause.

This one has neither.

The webbing is bright as a construction flag. I see its twin half an hour later, looped through Merrill’s field pack beside the radio room door.

He has a clipboard in one hand and coffee in the other. He looks at me, then at the case rolling behind me.

“Ramp holding?”

“So it was you.”

“It is holding.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It appears to be.”

I park the case beside his boot. “Did you take rescue webbing off your own gear to fix my problem?”

“It is base stock.”

“Did you build me a ramp?”

“You have a case with bad wheels.”

“Say yes. It will not ruin your reputation.”

“My reputation is already poor.”

“You have one?”

“Unfortunately.”

I laugh. He looks startled by it, which feels unfair.

“Thank you, Merrill.”

He studies his clipboard. “Base safety.”

“That phrase is getting lonely. You should give it a friend.”

“I will put in a request.”

“You’re difficult.”

“So I have been told.”

I claim a dry patch of equipment-bay floor for the new identification-card photos. One backdrop panel has survived its first week in North Carolina. I clip it to two light stands, set a stool in front, and play “You Can’t Hurry Love” from my speaker because the bay needs a better attitude.

Sonia arrives first.

“You want me to sit for a portrait?” she asks.

“I want you to have an ID photo that does not make you look like you escaped a county jail.”

She checks her old badge. “That bad?”

“It is mostly forehead.”

“Cruel work.”

“Sit.”

She drops onto the stool, medic bag at her feet.

“Do not edit out the lines,” she says.

“Not a chance.”

“Good. I earned those.”

“You did.”

I take three frames. In every one, she looks capable of carrying someone twice her size down a wet mountain and then correcting their paperwork.

Otis comes next with his rescue helmet under one arm.

“Should I wear this?” he asks.

“Only if you want your ID to say emergency mushroom.”

He considers it. “No helmet.”

“Wise.”

“I have reliable hair.”

“You have a hat-shaped problem.”

He gives me a pleased grin anyway.

One by one, the crew takes the stool. I show every person the preview before I save it. A photograph belongs first to the person in it. Wedding clients taught me that. So did being photographed badly enough times myself.

Merrill stays at the radio-room doorway.

I point at the stool. “Your turn.”

“I already have an ID.”

“It was taken under fluorescent lights. It makes you look like you owe someone bad news.”

“I usually do.”

“Not in my picture.”

Otis leans against a supply shelf. “Get in there, Kincaid.”

“I am working.”

“You have been holding that same clipboard for ten minutes,” Sonia says.

“It contains work.”

“It contains a weather report from seven o’clock.”

Merrill looks down at it.

I put my camera on the tripod. “Before you sit, I have a question.”

“No.”

“You do not know the question.”

“I do.”

“How often do you build ramps for strangers?”

“I do not.”

“You built mine.”

“I fixed an access issue on base property.”

Sonia checks the photo on my camera screen. “He never builds ramps for strangers.”

Merrill turns toward her. “Sonia.”

“What?” She hands the camera back to me. “He does not. He will pull somebody out of a ravine at three in the morning, make them tea, and walk them to their car. But woodwork is reserved.”

“That does not make it better,” I say.