A Girl Like You

by Maria Geraci

  Ben arrives and calls the meeting to order. We do the same thing we do every Monday morning at the editorial staff meeting—we brainstorm stories and Ben catches us up on anything newsworthy. I wait for him to make an announcement about the move to Orlando, but he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he ends the meeting by telling everyone that I’m going to interview Trip on Wednesday in his private home in Naples.

  Lisa and Jackie murmur their congratulations. Richard looks surprised. I give him an I’ll-tell-you-later look and he nods. Weird. Richard and I are now communicating in secret code.

  “When do you think you’ll have the article written?” Ben asks me.

  “Um, maybe sometime next week?”

  “Do you think you can give me a rough draft by Monday? Just something I can show to T.K. and the sales team?”

  “Sure.”

  Ben ends the meeting the same way he always does, by telling us to Facebook and Twitter, only he doesn’t bother looking at me because he knows it’s a waste of time.

  I make arrangements with Paul, Trip’s limo driver, to pick me up at eight a.m. Wednesday morning at the office. I’m to spend the day at Trip’s mother’s house in Naples, then Paul will drive me back to Tampa. Since Ben insisted on coming along for the interview, I call his cell phone, which goes instantly to voice mail, and I give him the details. But when I arrive at the office, instead of Ben, Richard is waiting for me.

  “The boss says I’m not to let you out of my sight.”

  “Why isn’t Ben here?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but he’s got business to take care of.”

  There’s been a lingering tension between Ben and me ever since our dinner the other night, so I wasn’t looking forward to spending what will essentially be six hours alone in a car with him. Now that I recall, I don’t think Ben ever said he would be the one coming along, so given the choice between Ben and Richard I’m actually kind of relieved that it’s Richard. My relief is short-lived, however, because all Richard wants to talk about is his novel.

  “Have you even opened up the file?” he asks.

  “I’ve just been so busy with this interview—”

  “You’re not going to read it, are you?”

  “Of course I’m going to read it.”

  “That’s what everyone says, but they never do.”

  “Who else did you give your novel to?”

  He hesitates. “Jackie.”

  I give Richard the stinky eye.

  “Okay, I tried to give it to Ben too but he wouldn’t even let me send it to him.”

  “Am I the last person in the office you asked to read your novel?” Before Richard can answer, I add, “Besides Lisa?”

  Richard shifts around in the seat.

  “You asked Lisa to read your novel before you asked me?”

  “I honestly thought you’d shoot me down.”

  Unbelievable. I was Richard’s last choice. Should I be insulted? Oddly, I’m not. What I am is…hurt. “I promise, as soon as I get this interview written up, I’ll start reading. But let me warn you, I’m going to be brutally honest.”

  Richard looks offended. “I never asked you to be anything else.” He stretches his long legs out in front of him and settles into a nap.

  The limo is stocked with bottled water and juice and is a lot roomier than my cramped cubicle at the office. Since there is no longer any reason to try to impress Trip, I have dressed for comfort—lightweight slacks, a sleeveless blouse, and flat sandals. I’m armed with my laptop, a legal pad, a small tape player, and my high school yearbook (for nostalgia’s sake).

  I open up my laptop to review the notes I’ve made regarding the interview and jot a few of them down on my legal pad. I know this sounds like extra work but I’m a visual person, and the more I see something in different formats, the more it sticks with me. Since Trip has pretty much eliminated anything that the public would be interested in knowing about him, I’ve had to come up with questions that will pass the “Trip Test.” I’m working on these when I catch Richard peering at my computer screen.

  “So you write notes before you do an interview?”

  “Of course I write notes.”

  “You probably do research too, huh?”

  “How do you know what questions to ask if you don’t research the subject?”

  “I do research. Sometimes. But sometimes I just go off my gut instinct.” He eyes my legal pad. “So first you write notes in your computer, then you rewrite them all over again on that thing? Seems like a lot of wasted time to me.” He reads my notes and frowns. “Don’t tell me those are the questions you’re going to ask this guy?”

  I fill him in on my meeting with Chuck and the specifics outlined in the contract.

  “And you signed it?”

  “What choice did I have? I wasn’t getting the interview without signing it.”

  “Does Gallagher know about this?”

  “Of course he knows.”

  Richard shakes his head at me.

  “And what would you suggest I have done?”

  “You should have said thanks, but no-the-fuck thanks, Chuck. This is America and I’ll write whatever the hell I want.”

  “Maybe that works for you, but it’s not my style. Besides, Trip is an old high school friend. Sort of. I really think that once we sit down one-on-one, it’ll all be fine.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I put away my legal pad. “Okay, obviously we’re not going to agree about this. So tell me, O Great One, what do your instincts tell you about Trip Monroe?”

  “I won’t know till I meet him. I’ll be honest, this is the last place I thought I’d be today.”

  “Speaking of which, how did you get roped into babysitting me?”

  “The boss called and said he had some last-minute meeting to go to in Orlando. So he asked me to do him this favor and I thought, ‘Why not?’ You, me, Trip Monroe. I’ve always wanted to try a ménage à trois, except I was hoping it would be me and two chicks. Still, it beats sitting in my cubicle all day.”

  I can’t help it. I start laughing. “Are you for real?”

  “Want to find out?”

  Although this is the sort of banal flirtation Richard and I have come to excel at, something in his tone flusters me and all I can come up with is a weak, “Um, no, thanks.”

  He shrugs. “Your loss.”

  “So what’s this last-minute meeting about? Do you know?”

  “Probably something to do with the move to Orlando. Or about Ben taking over T.K.’s job when he retires.”

  I spin about in my seat. “You know about all that?”

  “Did you think you were the only one Ben told?”

  “Well…”

  “He said he was meeting with T.K. to finalize something, so I assume it’s about the big move. But the feminine side of my intuition tells me that poor Benjamin is conflicted about something. It sounded to me like he didn’t want to be alone with you.” Richard looks me directly in the eye and says, “What did you do? Confess your undying love for him?”

  I almost choke on my bottled water. “Ben said he didn’t want to be alone with me?”

  “Of course not. But I’m good at picking up subtext.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know—”

  “Admit it, Emma. You have a crush on Ben.”

  And Ben calls me Dog with a Bone? It’s obvious Richard isn’t going to let this go, so I might as well make his day. “Okay, you win. I had a crush on Ben. As in had.”

  “I think you’re getting your tenses mixed up.”

  “Think what you like.” I stare out the window for about five seconds before I can’t stand it any longer. I turn to face Richard again. “How long have you known?”

  “Emma, we’ve worked together now, what? Six years? It’s not like I haven’t figured you out.”

  “Does Jackie know too?”

  “And Lisa. Don’t forget her.”

  I slump down into my seat. “I feel like a world-cla
ss idiot.”

  “Hey, it’s not like he discouraged you.”

  This makes me sit straight back up again. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that he shouldn’t have led you on. Gallagher could have nipped it in the bud anytime he wanted, but he didn’t. Personally, I think he got off on it.”

  “You think Ben led me on?”

  “Look, I like the guy, but he’s a schmuck. He’s a good boss and a good editor, but he’s a guy, and guys like to have their egos stroked, and there you were every day, running at his beck and call, looking at him with those brown doe eyes of yours, laughing at everything he said—”

  “I didn’t run at his beck and call!”

  Richard glares at me.

  “Okay, maybe I did run. Just a little. But that’s in the past.”

  “Whatever. But as a twenty-first-century kind of guy, I found the whole thing rather…disturbingly old-fashioned. Single, lonely spinster pining away for her boss. Very Mad Men, if you ask me. So when you found yourself a boyfriend, I thought maybe Don Draper deserved some payback.”

  “Payback?” I struggle to come up with whatever it is Richard is talking about. And then it hits me. “You mean the Facebook fiasco?”

  “You don’t think that skit was spontaneous, do you?” Richard suddenly looks pleased with himself. “I guess my acting skills are better than I thought.”

  “Let me get this straight. You planned that little show?”

  “I came up with the original premise. Lisa and Jackie ad-libbed some of it. I thought they did a pretty good job.”

  I am completely speechless.

  “Look,” Richard says, “the minute I saw you’d hooked up with this other guy, I thought, why not rub it in Gallagher’s nose? Let him know your days of oohing and aahing at everything he said were over. And it worked. You should have seen the look on his face. He was like a little kid who just lost his new toy truck.”

  I don’t know whether Richard is a Machiavellian genius or my Knight in Shining Armor.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “Hey, you’re like a little sister to me, so it was my pleasure. Girls like you, Emma, you don’t give yourselves enough credit. So you’re no Jennifer Aniston. Who is? Lots of guys like your cop are smart enough to see that you’ve got a lot to offer. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  chapter twenty-four

  We pull into the mansion. “We are definitely in the wrong business,” says Richard, peering out the car window. “Get a load of that view.”

  Trip’s mother’s house is probably the largest house I’ve seen. It’s also directly on the Gulf. I don’t want to think how much Trip must pay in hurricane insurance coverage alone. It’s probably more than I make in a year. Richard doesn’t wait for the limo driver to open the door; he does it himself and offers me a hand. We’re immediately greeted by Chuck, who ushers us inside the house. Chuck does not like the fact that Richard is here. When I explain that my boss insisted I be accompanied by another journalist, Chuck clamps his jaw and nods curtly. No way am I going to be alone with you people, my smile says to him. Not that I’m afraid of Trip. But Chuck? I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.

  Chuck shows us a room where we can “freshen up.” We learn that Trip’s mama is away on a cruise with friends. The cook has fixed us a light brunch and we have until one p.m. to complete the interview. This gives us barely two hours. Chuck makes it clear he will be present the entire time.

  Trip looks nothing like the way he did in his hotel room. This time he’s wearing a shirt and shoes. He’s bright-eyed and clean-shaven and looks decidedly sheepish as he shakes my hand. “Emma, it’s good to see you.”

  I have to admit, I’m relieved that he seems so “normal.” “It’s good to see you too, Trip.”

  This seems to relax him and we make some perfunctory small talk about the weather, his beautiful house, etc. We’re served a seafood quiche and a salad and mimosas. Trip demurs at the mimosas and opts for water instead. Richard breaks into the food with a gusto that makes me smile.

  “We really missed you at the ten-year reunion,” I say to Trip.

  “Reunion? Oh, yeah. Sorry I couldn’t make it.”

  “Busy racing?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure why I didn’t go.” Trip frowns.

  “So, Miss Frazier, what have you been up to these past years?” Chuck asks in a smooth voice. “I’m sure Trip would love to know.”

  Prompted by Chuck, I tell them all about my work at Florida!, emphasizing the really great stories we do on conservation and wildlife, in hopes that Trip will show some enthusiasm. I tell him that his interview will be the headliner in this October’s “Famous Floridians” issue, which has featured some really awesome people in the past, like Jimmy Buffett and Carl Hiaasen. Trip smiles politely. I get the sinking feeling he’s never even looked at a copy of Florida! magazine.

  “So tell me, big guy, what do you like to shoot?” Richard asks Trip.

  Richard calling Trip “big guy” is sort of funny. I bet Richard is just as tall as Trip.

  “Anything that moves,” Trip says.

  “Except humans, of course,” Chuck chimes in.

  Richard laughs. “Too bad. There’s a couple of those I wouldn’t mind bagging.”

  All three of them laugh now.

  Why don’t I happen to find this funny? I clear my throat and start to open my mouth to comment, but immediately stop when I feel Richard’s hand on my knee beneath the table. He squeezes firmly in warning. I feel my face go warm. Strangely, I feel a few other parts of me go warm too. Yuck. This is Richard, I tell my girl parts, since they appear to be confused.

  When it’s obvious I’m not going to interrupt him, Richard inconspicuously removes his hand. I know what he’s trying to do. He’s using his “instincts” to lead the conversation in order to draw Trip out. But this isn’t going to be another one of Florida! magazine’s stories on hunting and fishing that Richard loves so much. This is my story, damn it. Not his.

  I am now subjected to listening to Trip’s hunting antics for the rest of lunch. He promises to show Richard his fishing gear before we leave and Richard practically has an orgasm at the thought of seeing Trip’s fishing poles. Finally, lunch is over and we move to a living area that faces a beautiful swimming pool. Chuck asks me if I want to “freshen up” again.

  “No thanks, I’m ready to start.” I glance at my watch. It’s almost noon, which means I have exactly one hour to conduct the rest of this interview. I take my things out of my tote bag—the laptop, the tape recorder, the yellow legal pad, and my yearbook—and place them on the coffee table in front of us. Trip sits in a wingback chair, facing the sofa on which Richard and I are seated. Chuck stands behind us, in prison-guard stance. I feel like one wrong move and Richard and I will be cuffed and thrown back into the limo, never to be seen or heard from again.

  I lean forward and turn on my tape player.

  Chuck comes around to the table and turns it off. “Sorry, no taping allowed.” At the look on my face, he adds, “It’s in the contract.”

  Trip shrugs as if to say Chuck is in charge and knows what he’s doing.

  Before I can ask Trip my first question, Chuck hands me a folder. “I thought this might be a good starting place.” I open the folder and find two slips of paper. One has a listing of all the charitable boards Trips belongs to, all the monies he’s donated, things like that. The other paper contains a list of ten questions. I guess this is what I’m supposed to ask Trip.

  “Before I start, I wanted to give you this.” I hand Trip one of Kimberly’s business cards. I give one to Chuck too, since it’s obvious he’s the decision maker.

  “The Yeager Agency?” Chuck says. “I’ve heard of them, of course, but we’re perfectly happy with our PR firm in Dallas.”

  “Yes, well, they’re a friendly bunch, I’ll give you that. But since Trip’s home base is here in Florida, I thought a local agency might be convenient. The rep on the card is a
Catfish Cove alumna.”

  Trip peers at the card.

  “Kimberly Lemoyne,” I say, addressing Trip specifically. “She graduated a few years after us. She’s top-notch. A real sharp cookie.”

  “Thanks for the recommendation,” says Chuck. “Now, can we get on with the interview?”

  I’d love to clobber Chuck over the head just about now. I know if Trip could ever meet Kimberly she’d be able to persuade him to at least give her a shot at a real presentation. As frustrating as it is, I go back to the sheet Chuck gave me and read question number one aloud. “What got you interested in racing?”

  Trip gives me what sounds like a stock answer, which I jot down on my legal pad. I go through all the questions and this takes about twenty minutes.

  Chuck claps his hands and rubs them together, satisfied. Any second now I expect him to throw a bone my way as a reward for good behavior. “So it looks like we’re done here.” He looks at Richard. “Ready to see the fishing equipment?”

  “I thought we had till one p.m.,” I say.

  “Yes, but I think we’ve covered just about everything, haven’t we?”

  “Not quite.” I scroll through my legal pad and try to think of something (anything) that will prolong this interview. “So…what’s your favorite color?” I ask Trip.

  Richard stifles a choking sound.

  “Red,” says Trip.

  “Favorite food?”

  “Pizza?”

  “Is that a definite? You sound uncertain.”

  Trip begins to look uncomfortable.

  “Tell me about your uncle Frank’s auto shop,” I ask.

  Chuck jumps into action. “I’m afraid any mention of Trip’s relatives are out of the scope of the interview.”

  “I understand. I’m not asking about his uncle, I’m asking about his uncle’s shop. I believe that was your first job?” I say, looking directly at Trip.

  For a moment Trip looks confused, like he’s not sure whether he should answer. “Yeah,” he says finally. “I worked for Frank after school. You know, after my daddy died.”

  I nod sympathetically.

  “I really loved that place,” Trip says.

  “I love all the pictures on the wall. Especially the one of you with the grease smudge on your forehead. You’re standing next to Frank with your arm around him and the inscription reads, ‘To Uncle Frank, love, Trip.’ That one’s my personal favorite.”