“There wasn’t until a few minutes ago,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “I had an interview scheduled for two o’clock. Roberto tells me it’s been cancelled.”
“That’s right,” she said pleasantly. “We decided to limit our print interviews to major newspapers.”
“The Examiner has a circulation of 700,000 on Sundays, which is when we’d planned the story for,” I said. “We’re the fourth-largest city on the East Coast. And nobody bothered to tell me the interview was off.”
“That was Roberto’s responsibility,” she said, raking him with her gaze.
This was clearly news to Roberto, but he wasn’t going to contradict Miss Kitten with a Whip. “Sorry,” he muttered to me.
“I appreciate the apologies,” I said, “but as I told Roberto, we’ve now got a hole in our Sunday newspaper, and I’ve wasted my day off.” Which wasn’t technically true. Stories fell through all the time, as April probably knew, and we’d just pop something else in the hole. And as for wasting my day off, any time I got a free ticket to New York, I always found something to do there.
But I was furious. The nerve of these people, to treat me so rudely, and to be so patently, completely not sorry about it!
“Isn’t there any way she can see me for a few minutes? Since I’m here?”
April’s tone was becoming decidedly less pleasant. “She’s running late as it is, and she’s flying right back to location this afternoon. To Australia,” she emphasized, as if this was a place a country mouse such as myself had most likely never heard of. “And,” she continued, snapping a small notebook open, “we’ve already scheduled a telephone interview with your boss.”
My boss? It was inconceivable that Betsy would do this, beyond inconceivable that she’d do this and not tell me.
“With Gabby Gardiner,” April concluded.
I was stunned. “Gabby’s not my boss!”
“I’m sorry,” April said, sounding not sorry at all, “but those are the arrangements we’ve made.”
I backed into the hospitality suite and plopped into a chair by the window. “Look,” I said. “I’m here, and I’m sure you’d agree that it would be better for all of us to do an in-person interview – even a quick one – with someone who’s seen all of Maxi’s movies, who took the time to prepare for this – than something over the phone. I’m happy to wait.”
April stood in the hall for a moment. “Do I have to call security?” she finally asked.
“I don’t see why,” I said. “I’ll just sit here until Ms. Ryder finishes up with whoever she’s in with, and if it happens that she’s got a minute or two to spare before she has to go rushing back to Australia, I will conduct the interview that I was promised.” I clenched my hands into fists so she wouldn’t see how I was shaking, and played my final card. “Of course, if it should turn out that Ms. Ryder doesn’t have a few minutes for me,” I said sweetly, “then I’ll be writing a thirty-inch story about what’s happened to me here. And by the way, what’s your last name?”
April glared at me. Roberto sidled closer to her, flicking his eyes back and forth between us, as if we were playing a very fast game of tennis. I stared right back at April.
“It’s impossible,” she said.
“Interesting last name,” I said. “Is it one of those Ellis Island specials?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, for what would be the last time, “but Ms. Ryder’s not going to be speaking to you. You were sarcastic to me on the phone…”
“Ooh, a sarcastic reporter! Bet you’ve never seen one of those before!”
“… and Ms. Ryder doesn’t need your kind of attention…”
“Which is fine,” I exploded, “but couldn’t one of your lackeys or flunkies or interns have had the courtesy to call me before I came all the way up here?”
“Roberto was supposed to,” she said again.
“Well, he didn’t,” I told her, and crossed my arms. Standoff. She stood and glared at me for a minute. I glared right back. Roberto leaned against the wall, actually shaking. The larvae stood in a row, their eyes darting back and forth.
“Call security,” April finally said, and turned on her heel. She looked back over her shoulder at me. “You,” she said. “Write whatever you want. We don’t care.”
And with that, they were gone: Roberto, shooting me a final, desperately apologetic look over his shoulder, the larvae, all in black boots, and April, and whatever chance I had of meeting Maxi Ryder. I sat there, until they’d all piled into an elevator. Only then did I let myself cry.
Generally speaking, hotel lobby bathrooms are great places to have breakdowns. People registered at the hotel are mostly using the bathrooms in their rooms. People on the streets don’t always know that they can breeze right in to the lobby of even the fanciest hotel and almost always use the toilet unmolested. And the bathrooms tend to be spacious and fancy, with all the amenities from hairspray and tampons to actual towels for wiping your tears and drying your hands. Sometimes there’s even a couch to collapse on.
I staggered down the hall, into the elevator, and through the gold door reading “Ladies” in elaborate script, heading for the handicapped stall and peace, quiet, and solitude, grabbing two neatly rolled towels on my way in. “Fucking Maxi Ryder!” I hissed, and slammed the door, sat down, and pressed my fists against my eyes.
“Huh?” said a familiar voice from somewhere over my head. “Why?”
I looked up. A face was peeking over the top of the stall.
“Why?” Maxi Ryder said again. She was just as adorable in person as she was on the big screen, with her saucer-wide blue eyes, her lightly freckled, creamy skin, her cascade of auburn curls, seemingly brighter and more glossy than standard-issue human hair was meant to be. She was gripping a slim cigarette in one tiny blue-veined hand, and as I watched she took a generous drag and blew it out toward the ceiling.
“Don’t smoke in here,” I told her. It was the first thing I could think of. “You’ll set off the alarms.”
“You’re cursing me because I’m smoking?”
“No. I’m cursing you because you stood me up.”
“What?”
Two sneaker-clad feet plunked lightly onto the marble and came to rest outside my stall. “Open up,” she said, rapping at the door. “I want some explanation.”
I slumped down on the toilet seat. First April, now this! Reluctantly I leaned forward and unlocked the door. Maxi stood outside the stall, arms crossed on her chest, waiting for her answers. “I’m from the Philadelphia Examiner,” I began. “I was supposed to interview you. Your little Gestapo-ette told me, after I came all the way up here, that the interview had been canceled and rescheduled with this woman at my office who’s just…” I gulped. “Vomitous,” I arrived at. “So it kind of ruined my day. Not to mention our Sunday section.” I sighed. “But it’s not your fault, I guess. So I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have cursed at you.”
“Bloody April,” said Maxi. “She never even told me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I’m hiding,” said Maxi Ryder, and gave a nervous giggle. “From April, actually.”
In person her voice was soft, cultured. She was wearing bell-bottomed jeans and a scoop-necked pink T-shirt. Her hair was piled into the kind of artless updo that probably took a
