Free Falling Again by Peggy Bird

tell you and see if your ‘previous engagement’ was still on, but I couldn’t reach you. Were you out shooting without your phone?” Amanda said.
    “I was at Mt. St. Helens. Had a phone but no reception in spots. And, to be honest, I was in a hurry when I got back and didn’t check for messages.”
    “No cell coverage? That’s not good, Nicky. Were you alone? You shouldn’t go places alone if you can’t be sure you’ll have cell phone coverage.”
    “Did you know there was no reception at all when I was in the Amazon six months ago?”
    “No, I didn’t, but I don’t live in the Amazon and wouldn’t have Mom on my back if something happened to you. She’d be after some magazine, not me. You really shouldn’t be out there alone.”
    “Amanda,” her husband interrupted, “maybe you could have this conversation with your brother when he doesn’t have a dinner companion with him. What do you think?”
    “Thanks, Sam. I appreciate the help,” Nick said. “A lecture from my sister on looking both ways before I cross the street doesn’t exactly put me in the best light when I’m trying to impress a woman.”
    “Sorry, Fiona, I’m behaving like…” Amanda started.
    “Like she usually does, if you want to know the truth, Fee,” Nick finished.
    “He’s right, Fiona. His older sister and mine spend too much time intruding into their brothers’ lives and making damn nuisances of themselves. Right, Nick?” Sam asked.
    “I wouldn’t think of contradicting my older and much wiser brother-in-law.”
    “I don’t intrude, Nicky, I’m just concerned,” Amanda said.
    By this time the host had become impatient waiting at the table for the foursome. Nick said, “How about we continue talking after dinner? I’ll treat for dessert and a nightcap to celebrate and to make amends for trying to earn a living when my interfering sister wanted to talk to me.”
    “Great,” Sam said. “Grab a table in the bar here, if you can, and we’ll join you when we’re finished. If you can’t get a table, we can go down the street to the Heathman.”
    “Since my date has an in with the management, we’ll let Fiona get us a table. Champagne, Amanda, or something else?”
    “Oh, definitely champagne,” she said. “I think being in a gallery in New York is worth champagne. Especially if you’re buying.”
    A little over an hour later, the six of them were at a table in the bar where, thanks to Fiona’s intervention, there was a “reserved” sign and a bottle of chilled Veuve Cliquot waiting for them. Nick arranged with their server to get the bill, then returned to the table where he settled next to Fiona and draped his arm proprietarily around the back of her chair.
    When they’d ordered desserts, poured the champagne, and made a toast, Fiona said, “This is so exciting, Amanda. How’d it happen?”
    “The gallery owner saw my work last fall in Seattle and contacted me. Everything is all signed and I may have a show there as early as this winter.”
    “Mom will be all over this,” Nick said. “She’s already been to D.C. to see my exhibit, accompanied by friends she’d dragged in from the surrounding states. For New York, she’ll set up base camp someplace in the city and bring in the whole Eastern seaboard.”
    “When I called to tell her about it I swear I could hear her clicking keys on her laptop. If she wasn’t checking out some ultrasound images she was probably researching hotels close to the gallery,” Amanda said.
    “The good news is her friends bought some of my work. You’ll probably have the same thing happen.” He turned to Fiona. “Have you ever met our parents, Fee?”
    “For a few minutes at Sam and Amanda’s wedding. Not to talk to.”
    “Conversations with our mother are an interesting cultural experience. Like being examined in an adolescent rite of passage in a tribal society someplace.”
    “It sounds like I need to be on assignment far, far away when they come to