The Slammer

When the telephone rang this time, Maggie wanted to wave it away. She kept her head bent, her eyes focused on the computer screen. As long as she lived inside that computer screen she didn’t have to remember the room was only sixteen paces wide and fourteen paces deep. She didn’t have to remember that the virus might be silently duplicating itself inside her body. Diving into her work had always helped her push aside her emotions, helped her to compartmentalize the stress, the chaos, the throbbing inside her chest. It would work. It could work, if that stupid phone would stop ringing.

After a half-dozen rings she finally looked up, more annoyed than resolved.

When she saw the woman on the other side of the glass Maggie slid back her chair and stared. Finally she realized she was holding her breath, afraid she was hallucinating. If she attempted to breathe, if she moved, would the image disappear?

She stood up. Took a quick swipe at her eyes, pretending they were tired and not moist with emotion.

This was ridiculous.

Twenty-four hours in this place and she was already letting it get the best of her. She left the sanctuary of the computer and snatched up the telephone receiver off the wall.

“Hey, kiddo,” Gwen Patterson said with a smile that couldn’t hide her concern.

The petite strawberry-blonde wore a black power suit, her makeup impeccable, never mind that it was Saturday. To the Army scientists that peopled USAMRIID she probably looked like a Wall Street power broker. To Maggie she looked like a lifeline and she found it difficult swallowing, the carefully compartmentalized emotion was now stuck in her throat. She could barely get out a simple response.

“How in the world did you get in here?”

“Are you joking? I’m the psychologist of choice to half the Army colonels in the District.”

Maggie laughed…hard. It felt good. But she knew Gwen wasn’t exactly joking. She did have a client list that included members of congress, senators and even colonels.

“God, it’s good to see you,” Maggie said with a sigh that ended up more a gasp for air. She didn’t care that it sounded needy, not with Gwen, only with Gwen.

“Have you been able to get any sleep?” Gwen put her hand up against the glass as though she could recognize that Maggie needed at least the gesture of a touch. “What about food?”

Maggie smiled.

“Seriously, have you eaten? Is there anything you need?”

Maggie shook her head thinking, ever the mother hen. Gwen Patterson was fifteen years Maggie’s senior and sometimes it showed up in their friendship.

Finally Gwen waved her hand for Maggie to sit down. Gwen sat in the plastic chair on her side of the glass at the same time that Maggie dropped into her own. Again, Maggie wiped at her eyes. Damn it. She would not cry. Funny how four walls behind a steel air-lock door had a way of shoving all your emotions to the edge and then pricking at them over and over again.

“You got my message. You talked to Tully,” Maggie said.

“He should have called me last night.”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Maggie told her friend. “Cunningham and I missed this one. We should have seen it.”

“Okay, so tell me everything,” Gwen said, sitting back and crossing her legs as if they were back at Old Ebbitt Grill, their favorite hangout, getting ready for one of their chats. “And don’t leave anything out.”