Cameron Andrews Box Set

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2The turning point in her life had been early March. In little more than a month, Cameron would celebrate her thirtieth birthday. It was time for her to make a decision. As she sat back, evaluating her life, she had had the feeling that she would come up short.

Ten years before she had been the golden girl, near the top of her class, one of only three women taking the special joint courses being offered at Radcliffe and Harvard. A bachelor’s degree, summa laude, in International Affairs, with offers for scholarships for graduate school flowing in like water. One: the special opportunity to start her graduate work as one of five U.S. students invited to study at Universidad de Barcelona, with prospects of working in the Diplomatic Corps almost assured. After that, she had been recruited by the State Department and opted to work as a linguist/interpreter for the CIA. But where was she now?

It had been seven years since she’d moved to Baltimore; six years since she’d quit the CIA and enrolled in the Baltimore Police Academy, and four years since Karen had kicked her out. Now she was on the Baltimore Police Force and she’d risen to the rank of Detective Sergeant in the Narcotics Division in record time. She was the first woman of rank in the division and on a fast track for promotion. But how much longer was she going to run around playing cops and robbers? When did all this education and achievement begin to mean something?

She’d just been appointed to a new International Task Force on Drug Traffic Control. International? Yes, International. United States and Canada. Two countries. That made “International.” And Drug Traffic Control? They’d probably end up writing “How To” books for Police agencies and catchy little jingles on “What-To-Do-If-Your-Child-Is-Toking-Weed-But-Won’t-Share-With-You.”

“You know your problem, Andrews?” she chided herself. “You’ve got a bad attitude. And you haven’t been laid since before Thanksgiving. What kind of life is this?”

She leaned back into the big overstuffed chair that dominated her living room. She loved that chair, bought at a junk shop when she was starting to set up her own apartment. It had reminded her of the chair in her mother’s study, the one where she used to curl up and watch Mom pound away at the typewriter as she wrote all those speeches and articles for the League of Women Voters Newsletter. Even then, she’d known that Mom was doing something special, that people were listening to her ideas and politicians were using her words to convince voters about the things that were really important! Cameron would wrap up in her Mom’s quilt, nestle into that chair, and let the rhythmic sound of the typing rock her to sleep. It had been her security blanket. This chair…well actually, any big overstuffed chair…had the same effect.

What a time she and her friend, Paul, had getting it up the stairs and into the apartment! They almost had to take the door off to get it in. And the hours she had spent, carefully measuring and fitting material to re-upholster it by herself. Damn! Was this what her life was reduced to?

She got up out of the chair and walked into the kitchen. She looked around, opened the refrigerator and the cabinet, and then turned back toward the living room. Somehow, nothing looked right to her. She wanted something but couldn’t identify what.

Just then, the phone rang. Had it been that phone call that had changed her life? It seemed so innocent at the time. And it still felt that way but Cam knew that it had been a turning point. What would have happened if she hadn’t answered it?

It was an interesting hypothesis. But she had answered it:

“Hey, Girl Friend,” came an all-too-cheery voice from the other end of the line. “Have you had dinner yet?”

“Hi, Pauly,” Cam smiled at the sound of her best friend’s voice. “No. I thought I’d just sit here and eat my heart out. What do you have in mind?” Cam leaned back against the kitchen cabinet and reached for a cigarette.

“There’s a new gay bar just opened over near Fells Point. Want to check it out? I’ll even spring for dinner on the way.”

“Hey, have you ever known me to turn down a free meal?”

“As long as you remember that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” He chuckled at his own joke. “I’ll be right over to pick you up.” With that, the line went dead.

Good old Pauly. They’d met at the Police Academy. Being two of the oldest in the class (she at the over-the-hill age of twenty-six and he after an eight year stint in the Army), they’d immediately struck up a friendship, which became even stronger when they learned that the other was gay. Since that time, they’d seen each other through devastating break-ups and lost lovers and had managed to keep each other on a balanced track even though they’d eventually been assigned to different precincts.

Cameron walked into the bedroom and opened the closet door. Nothing in it looked comfortable or even appropriate to wear to a bar opening. And there was nothing in any drawer or shelf. It just wasn’t a good night to find anything. s**t, she thought, What difference will it make? It’ll probably be all men anyway.

She hadn’t dated in several months. Not out of a lack of opportunity. It didn’t seem worth it. Most of the women she met were either turned off because she was a police officer or turned on because she wore a uniform. Go figure.

She finally chose a white cotton shirt and brown corduroy vest that looked good with her jeans, then pulled on a pair of boots.

It would be a lot easier if I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up, she thought. Even her little sister Lori had found her niche and was very happy to fit neatly into the role of housewife and mother. But being the oldest, the smartest, the one most likely to make the right decisions for everyone involved, had finally taken its toll. Cameron had come to a place where she had to make decisions for herself. And that wasn’t something she was good at.

“Well, who knows? Maybe I’ll meet someone tonight.” She tucked her wallet into her back pocket as the doorbell rang.

The bar, The Oak Tavern, was almost a museum with a long heavy dark oak bar and antique fixtures and wall hangings that had obviously been there since it had first opened as a neighborhood pub over a century ago. There was the glass-doored ice box cooler which held imported bottled beer in neat rows. And along the floor at the base of the bar, there was still the tin trough that ran into the drain so that the men who drank there wouldn’t have to give up their places to go and relieve themselves. It spoke of another era when women entered bars through a back door and stayed out of sight in another room to sip their little glasses of whiskey where they wouldn’t be bothersome to the men, that was, if they had any morals at all.

But now, the two men who owned it lived upstairs and were well on their way to making it a homey neighborhood place that members of the gay community could feel comfortable in without bright lights and blaring music.

As she anticipated, most of the bar’s inhabitants were men and the few women who were there had been neatly paired. She played a couple of games of pool in the back room while Pauly danced and flirted with someone he obviously knew but didn’t introduce. She’d had a few casual conversations, but there was no one who seemed interested or interesting.

As the bar started to clear out, well after midnight, Cam sat on a bar stool nursing her scotch and soda. Sorting through some ideas and bouncing a few thoughts off Pauly, Cameron made a decision, or at least came to a place where she felt comfortable.

She’d have to see how it felt in the cold light of the next morning. What had Mom always said? “If you really want to do something badly enough, you’ll do it. And if you’re not sure; sleep on it. If it hasn’t given you nightmares and it still seems good in the morning, it’s probably the right choice.”

It wasn’t that Cameron didn’t enjoy her job; it just wasn’t quite enough, somehow. Enough what? Challenge? Excitement? What? What was making her so restless? She had been responsible for the arrests of dozens of small-time dealers and had busted many college kids who thought that the one hundred dollars for a quick rush wasn’t a high price to pay, but then she’d been in on a joint bust that the Department had co-operated on with the Feds. They’d seized over a ton of the powdery white stuff and another ton of grass aboard a luxury yacht in the harbor before it ever had a chance to make its way into the city. Cam had felt that she’d finally made a difference in this war they were fighting.

Craig Roberson, who’d been in charge of the big bust, had remembered her from her days at the Agency and had complimented her on her work with the Force. She’d been proud when he also mentioned that he’d been following her career. He’d made her an offer. “Give me a call if there’s ever anything I can do for you.” Cam hoped it hadn’t just been polite conversation.

* * * *

The next morning Cam reached for the telephone and dialed the number on the dog-eared business card she’d carried in her wallet since that night. After a few minutes, Craig’s secretary answered and after taking her name, had put her on hold. Cam expected that she’d get the I’m-sorry-he’s-in-a-meeting-right-now,-can-I-take-a-message routine, so when the secretary returned to the phone and Cam heard, “I’m sorry but he’s in a meeting right now,” her heart sank. But the voice continued. “He wants to know if you can come see him here tomorrow at three P.M.”

“I’d love to,” Cam’s stomach was rolling, “but I’m on the four to midnight shift tomorrow. Can he see me earlier?”

There was silence except for the flipping of some papers.

“What about nine forty-five A.M.? I think he can fit you in then.”

Cam wanted to reach through the phone and kiss her. “I’ll be there. Thank you.” When Cam placed the phone back in its cradle she let out a wild yell. Yes! He was willing to see her, the second to the top man in the Agency wanted to talk to her! Maybe it hadn’t been just polite conversation. Tomorrow would tell.

What should she wear to the interview? Nothing too casual but still nothing too formal. This was a job interview of sorts, but she knew the interviewer and he knew her. It wasn’t like she had to make a stunning first impression. She wanted to appear business-like and strong, so nothing too femmy or frilly, yet nothing too powerful that would make her look, well, like what? Okay. What she was going after was a competent, I-can-handle-anything image. She must have stared into the closet for a full ten minutes before she settled on a grey lightweight wool suit with a peach silk shirt.

She looked at her watch. It was three-thirty already. s**t, she had to get to work. She pulled on her jeans, a heavy wool sweater, and her tennis shoes, grabbed her Orioles baseball jacket and went out the door.

* * * *

The alarm clock rang at six A.M. and shocked Cam out of deep sleep. She’d been dreaming of running, chasing a person she couldn’t quite see but knew she had to catch. She knew that her life depended on catching up with the runner who was always just rounding the next corner. It took her a minute to realize why the clock was blasting when it was still dark out.

“Damn,” she said to herself sitting up. “Hit the shower, lady, this day has just begun.” She glanced out her bedroom window to the quiet yards that stretched behind the abutting apartment buildings. At least it wasn’t snowing. That was a plus. But the traffic around the Beltway would be heavy with rush-hour commuters and it took over an hour to get from Baltimore to the Virginia border even on the lightest days. She’d best leave by seven forty-five to make sure she had enough time. Didn’t want to be late for this one.