5
Window Reflections
A Class Act
Amanda straightened up from bending over the sink full of dishes and looked through the kitchen window. Her back was aching because of the judo throw that Peggy had performed on her at Station One, and she needed to stretch it. Reaching behind herself to massage the sore spot around her lower back, she thought about her experience with her first formal Agency training. Nothing was straight forward for her as far as the Agency was concerned, was it? All that she wanted to do was go through the process of learning all the appropriate skills for the work that she was already doing, instead she ended up being targeted as the "ringer," the top agent that some Russian assassin was supposed to take out.
Why on earth would an enemy spy think that she was the best agent there? After all, Lee was the actual ringer, and no one could confuse her skills with his. Well, being mistaken as a "top agent" had happened before she remembered with a sigh full of irony, but that had been because she had answered his phone while she was cleaning his apartment, not because of any skills she exhibited during a training camp. This time they had watched her and picked her out of a group of recruits as the experienced and well trained intelligence operative because of the way she had jumped to rescue Peggy and her "squeaky clean file". Now that was a ridiculous thing!
Placing her hands on the edge of the sink, she dropped her head and slowly shook it. She was not very satisfied with her performance at Station One. She had asked so many times for Mr. Melrose to authorize formal training for her, and she couldn't help but feel that she had bungled most of it. Why? She was a capable woman. After all, she could take a group of Junior Trailblazers into the woods for a survival weekend and hadn't she spent years single handedly raising those two boys? Even before her mother had come to live with them, she had done the lion's share of the work around the house while Joe was in Africa. She could remember the sundry details of all of their lives, handle any injury or emergency young boys could throw at her and multi-task almost constantly. Why did she freeze up when it came to remembering lists of items, swinging from ropes and encountering heights and zip lines? Of course, she didn't think she would ever learn to be proficient with a gun, but maybe she could learn some more of that self-defense stuff that she had started a while back with Dean. She probably could get pretty good at swinging her purse and improvising with other odd objects that might be at hand she laughed to herself.
Part of the reason she had not performed as well as she knew that she could have was because she had gotten herself all wrapped up in the apparent sabotage that was going on during training at Station One. Her mind was quickly occupied with trying to figure out which recruit was the one who had broken in to search the records. Emily had encouraged her to try to "think rings around the enemy" hadn't she? Maybe she had tried too hard. After all, the pieces had finally come together for her while she was helping mother pick up the fallen groceries. Come to think of it, maybe she didn't need to have all those amazing skills that Lee and Francine had. Didn't each one of those recruits at Station One have a specific skill that the Agency found useful? One knew Russian and one had a photographic memory. What did she have? Lee had said that she had come in handy sometimes as well. Why? Why would a housewife from Arlington be useful to the Agency?
She didn't really need to think hard about this one she realized. A year ago she would have had to spend some time thinking about it and then just shrug her shoulders and go about her life's business until Lee would pop up and involve her in another case. But now she'd had enough experience to at least know that she had something to offer. Maybe it wasn't the usual skills that intelligence operatives had; she wasn't proficient at hand to hand combat or the intricacies of international sabotage. But she knew people, and she did have a quick, logical mind. She was resourceful, and she saw things that Lee didn't always see. Maybe she could make connections that Lee couldn't because she was a mother and a housewife, maybe her mind worked differently than the other employees at the Agency? How many times had Lee looked at her with that questioning look? Gosh, he never would have been able to figure out that Emily had put clues in her drawings because he probably had never paid as much attention to a boys magazine recently like she had. But Emily probably had realized that it never would have even occurred to him to look at the pictures. That was why she had sent for her, to be Lee's partner.
Lee. She was good at working with Lee. They really did make a good team. She could help Lee by watching his back and paying attention to details while Lee used the skills he had acquired during his Agency training. She really did like working with Lee. That last trip that they had taken to Salzburg and these past few days at Station One had seemed different between the two of them; to her they felt more like a team, working together with more give and take now. Maybe Lee was right even if he hadn't meant it as a compliment; maybe they were as different as Laurel and Hardy, but they still made a good team. Even if she didn't get to go through Dodge City and it was Lee that had to be the bait, it would have gone very differently if she hadn't recognized those bean sprouts and the connection with the error in her file. Lee needed her whether he thought he did or not, and she was glad she was able to use her own set of skills to help him.
Remembering Lee offering himself as the bait caused her breath to catch in her throat. That had scared her. Why? She knew that was what he did for a living; he put himself out there to keep the rest of them safe. Maybe she used to be able to have a bit more distance from that truth. Lately though she realized, she was getting more drawn into his professional life, and she cared about what happened to him. It wasn't okay for her anymore to just let Lee put himself out there alone. She knew he had to, but she worried about his safety and well-being. He was her friend, and she cared what happened to him. As she thought about this, she remembered clearly how he had scooped her up into his arms after his cabin had exploded. "Are we okay?" she had asked. She couldn't help it. She and Lee were a "we" to her. They were a team. She was going to look out for him; she was going to watch his back. Maybe she could be real a partner to Lee? Maybe.