He took us down the hall. “Thank you guys for coming out. We really appreciate this interview. This is a big win for us.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “We’ve been looking for an angle to do on you guys since you moved here.”
He showed us into a conference room with a long white table and about a dozen black swivel chairs.
“Have a seat,” he motioned, and then he gestured toward a full coffee bar.
“We’ve got coffee and water,” he said. “Help yourselves.”
Vicki and I shook our heads and sat down at the table. Matt picked up a phone.
“Josh?” he said. “They’re here. Get everyone. Thanks.”
Matt sat down with us and rubbed his palms together. “We’ve got a pretty big team on this story. Did you get a chance to go over the prep document?”
“We did a bit this morning,” I said.
“Yeah,” Vicki said.
“Great,” he said. “‘A bit’ is perfect. What we want from these interviews is for you to be natural and yet prepared.”
A crowd of about five people appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, guys,” Matt gestured them in, and they filed into the room. “This is Vicki and Henry.”
“Hi,” one young man stepped out from the crowd and shook our hands. “I’m Josh, I’m the video editor, and can I just say, we are really excited to meet you.”
“Hello, Josh,” I said. “Well, we’re really excited to meet you, too.”
Josh looked to be about Phoenix’s age, tall, lanky, with a brown shoulder length ponytail, and he wore jeans and a black t-shirt.
“Josh is really good,” Matt said. “He’s going to be directing this piece.”
Everyone slowly took their seats, and Josh leaned into the table as he spoke.
“What we,” Josh gestured around the table to his compatriots, “really admire about you, is your success both in Los Angeles, and here in Sedona. A lot of people in this town look up to you. They think you’re amazing. And your style, you’re like... GQ man.”
Everyone laughed in agreement, and I shifted in my seat and glanced over at Vicki, who looked just as uncomfortable as I felt.
“Well,” I said. “They just haven’t told you about the cases I’ve lost, then.”
Everyone in the room laughed at that.
“Or how bad his breath smells in the morning,” Vicki said.
Everyone laughed harder, and I turned to Vicki and raised an eyebrow. She just laughed.
“So, now,” Matt said as he gestured with a pen in his hand. “You two are together, right?”
We both nodded.
Matt leaned forward in his chair, as if he were preparing for an exciting tale. “What’s your story?”
Vicki and I looked at each other, and finally she started it. “So, the first time I met him, he doesn’t know this, but it was at a screening.”
“What?” I asked. “No, we first met in the coffee room. I asked you if there was any more sugar and, then you bent over in that red skirt--”
This revelation caused laughter and whistles around the gathered staff.
“No,” she shook her head. “And I still have that skirt by the way. That’s just what you think. We met before, you just don’t remember.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“So,” she said. “We both worked for this firm in L.A., and he had just made partner, and I had just started working there. I found out quickly that Henry Irving was a big deal, he was the heartthrob of the office.”
“I was?” I repeated. “I don’t remember this.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Everyone was trying to get with you. You didn’t notice?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think I was there for this part of my life.”
“He’s being modest,” she said.
“Okay,” I admitted, “there were a couple of women that I was talking to, but--”
“A couple?” she repeated. “There were cat fights over you.”
“Cat fights? Who?” I asked.
“Like I’d tell you,” she said.
Everyone laughed at the banter, and then she continued her story.
“So anyway,” she said, “you guys have heard of Downton Abbey?”
There was a murmur of approval.
“Our firm did the American licensing for that show,” she said. “So, we did a big screening party for the U.S. release. Everyone was there, even the director and some of the cast flew in from London.”
“You were at that party?” I asked.
She winked. “So, I went with a couple of friends from the office, and I saw Henry sitting with some Heidi Klum knockoff in a skanky blue dress.”
That part of the story I very much remembered, but I sure wasn’t going to let Vicki know.
“During the viewing, my friends and I sat a few rows behind them,” she said. “I saw him clearly trying to make moves on this woman, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then, after the screening, there was a cocktail party, and everyone was hanging out and drinking, and I saw Blue Dress get into a car with someone else. I was intrigued. Henry Irving just went up in flames.”
“Not my finest hour, I admit.” I muttered, and everyone laughed.
“So,” Vicki said, “I saw an opportunity with the hottest guy in the office. So, I went up to him, with my best moves, and he totally blows me off.”
Everyone booed at this revelation.
“I really don’t remember this,” I said.
“Oh, it was so bad that it was cute,” she said. “He was sitting at the bar, drunk and miserable, whining to some friend about Blue Dress, and I asked him
