Chapter 50 Interview-Pocalypse
My father’s kitchen is doubling as our makeshift studio.
I set up mics as Ted organizes our notes and laptops, getting everything plugged in and sorted.
I’m dreading editing whatever this audio becomes.
There’s no way these men are going to remember to refer to me as Rose Thyme.
It’s going to require a lot of clever chopping, and I don’t trust our in-house editor with this personal a topic.
Bruce’s an attractive medium-height guy with brown skin and dark, slicked-back hair. My stomach knots up as he walks toward our setup.
I hate this. I hate everything about this.
I press record on the mics, heave in a hefty breath, and exhale.
Bruce was the first guy I dated this year.
It was during date four that I told him about my job at Love Today.
He got so frazzled. Then he started taking twelve-plus hours to respond to texts.
I scheduled us for a fifth date to feel out what the fuck was going on.
The fifth date was incredibly awkward. He wouldn’t make any conversation.
I threw questions at him like the Riddler all night, and he answered with one-to-four-word sentences.
Neither of us texted each other after that.
I jotted little breakup recaps down for Ted next to every dude’s name in my notebook. He’s glancing at it now as Bruce gets settled in the hot seat (the chair across the table from us).
Ted puts down the notebook. “Thanks for doing this, Bruce. It should only take about twenty minutes.”
Bruce glances at me, and I give him a small nod.
“So, we just want you to be totally honest today,” Ted says. “Don’t worry about hurting any feelings.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “Yeah, I’m good. Speak your truth.”
This is such an invasion of my privacy. But my contract renegotiation is tomorrow afternoon. This is not the time to look like I’m not a team player. If having this on deck impresses the higher-ups, like Maya thinks it will, it can only work in my favor.
Bruce fixes his gaze on Ted. “Well, she straight-up lied to me for four weeks, and I didn’t want to date a liar.”
A pfft of disdain flies out of me. Bruce’s eyes dart to mine.
“Lied to you?” I blurt. “What are you talking about?”
“You told me you made greeting cards for a living.”
My mouth flops open. “I do make greeting cards.”
Bruce shakes his head. “You have an Etsy shop that you fulfill once a week. Four weeks into dating, you drop that you’re the Love Today columnist at the biggest paper in the tristate area and their podcast host?
It made me feel like our entire month of dating was a story device.
Like you were seeing me so you could talk about it on your various outlets.
You’re not a greeting card writer, Rose Thyme. ”
An offended noise scrapes up my throat. “I do write greeting cards!”
Ted shoots me a look. “Let him speak his truth.”
“I’m letting him. I’m just clarifying that I do make greeting cards every week. It’s a side hustle, but it’s real.”
“Rikki, I train dogs. It’s my main grind, but I also teach kids about the Bible once a week on Sundays. If I told you I was a Bible studies professor, that would be a lie.”
My brows pull together. “I didn’t say I had a doctorate in greeting cards!”
Bruce rolls his eyes and shifts toward Ted. “Anyway, that’s what turned me off. I felt used.”
“If I would have told you from the get-go that I wrote about relationships, you wouldn’t have even responded to my Hinge message!”
“We’ll never know, because you didn’t.”
I bulge my eyes at him. “I do know because it happened many, many times.”
“So Sal, you and Rikki went on five dates together. It seemed to be going all right, and then out of the blue, you ghosted? Tell us what happened.”
“On our first date, she told me she had a dog at home with separation anxiety and that she might have to leave early. I spent five minutes asking her questions about him, and she answered them all quickly before changing the subject.”
I drop my head in my hand.
“Fast-forward to five dates later, I come to pick her up at her apartment—by the way, she wouldn’t tell me where she lived until that point. I got there all excited, looking for the damn dog she hadn’t mentioned in two weeks, and there was no dog living in that apartment.”
I sigh, already feeling exhausted. “Sal, I just said that on our first date to give myself an out if it was bad.”
Sal throws up his palm and lets it flutter to the table. “I love dogs, Rikki. I was so thrilled I had met a fellow single dog parent! Why would you make up an animal? That’s fucked up. Just get a fake phone call or say you have to leave like a normal person.”
“Rikki told me she owned a little greeting card shop,” Ed says flatly as he stares at me.
Ted cuts me a surprised look, and I roll my eyes, leaning back in my chair.
“And on our fifth date,” Ed continues, “she divulged she was actually a relationship writer and wrote a column in The Minute about her dating experiences under a pseudonym. I asked her if she had talked about our dates. She said yes. I felt violated, you know? Like I thought I was getting to know this woman in private, but she’d been filming me the whole time, you know? ”
Ted nods like he does know. I swallow back a groan.
“So, question,” Ted says. “If you had known this from the start about her job, would it have been different?”
Ed widens his eyes. “Of course.”
“Ofcoursemyass,” I mumble.
Ed’s gaze flits to mine. “I’m sorry, what?”
Ted turns to me as well. “Yeah, Rikki, what? You mumbled a little bit over there.”
Cedric shrugs. “Well, she lied about what she does for a living for an entire month, man. It was wild. She said she had a greeting card shop.”
Ted starts laughing.
Rob shakes his head. “Date one she told me she was a relationship therapist, and then on date four, she said she technically doesn’t practice and didn’t have any patients. She apparently works for The Minute.”
“I do, but I am also a licensed relationship therapist.”
“Who doesn’t practice.”
“That doesn’t make it not true.”
Rob ignores me, talking only to Ted. “And she revealed this new tidbit like she was unveiling a government secret. Like she was in the CIA or the Witness Protection Program or something. Like lying about her job wasn’t an insane thing to do, but like, a sacrifice she made for the greater good.”
Dad [2:01 p.m.]: What in the hell is going on over there why are there so many guys coming and leaving the apartment?
Dad [2:18 p.m.]: Hello? Answer me.
Dad [2:20 p.m.]: So help me god Rikki, you tell me what’s going on right now.
Dad [2:25 p.m.]: Helllooo??!
I throw my phone down on the table, switch it back to “Do Not Disturb.” “I texted Neil not to come.”
“Why?” Ted says cheerily. “Let’s just see this through.”
I glare at him, tilting backward in my chair at a precarious angle while my insides churn in a pit of undiluted rage. “Because we don’t need to, Ted. It’s not interesting anymore. It’s repetitive.”
“It’s almost quarter to three—it’s rude to cancel on him now.”
“Well, maybe he’ll miss the text and show up anyway, and you’ll get to revel some more in this little game you’re enjoying so much: Shit the fuck all over Rikki.” I let the chair slam back to the floor.
“It’s actually hilarious. You thought everyone didn’t want you to write about them, when in reality they thought you were an unhinged con artist.”
“I don’t want to talk about this with you. There’s obviously more to it than what they’re saying.”
Ted laughs. “We have to talk about this! That’s the assignment.
That’s why I’m here!” He flops onto my dad’s couch with his open laptop.
“I’m sending you a Google doc with the transcripts so far and notes I’ve been taking as we go,” he says.
“I’m thinking, you open on how your longest relationship ended a year and five months ago, and six short dating escapades this year all ended within five dates.
You thought they ended because of a, b, and c—”
“Ted, I know how to do my job. I’m actually pretty good at it,” I snap as I open my laptop and click the link to his fucking Google doc.
This piece we’re doing feels wildly one sided. We haven’t talked to any of Ted’s recent relationship failures. As far as I know, he’s single. How have we managed to avoid that discussion?
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Ted close his computer.
He leans forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Rikki, I know you’re good at your job. Believe it or not, I am too.
And I still really care about you. And I don’t know, I think we kinda work well together.
” He shrugs innocently. “Maybe after this we could try again with all the new information we’ve learned about each other. ”
I slam my laptop closed and blink at him before standing abruptly. “Are you kidding me right now, Ted? I can’t even fucking tell.” I hightail it to the bathroom and lock the door.
I glare at myself in the mirror, willing the tsunami of emotions rising in my chest to recede. Pressure mounts behind my eyes, in my chest, at the top of my throat. I feel like an overinflated balloon.
This is too much. I should have said no to Maya. Even with the renegotiation meeting coming up, this isn’t worth it.
I startle as the doorbell goes off and glance at my watch.
3 p.m. Neil still came. Fucking great.
I hear Ted get the door.
I slap my cheeks in the mirror.
Pull it together. One more. You can handle one more.
Neil is the most recent of my date-scapades; the scientist I was banking on bringing to Whitney’s wedding. We stopped seeing each other because he told me he was moving to Washington DC.
Can’t wait to discuss that.
I exhale a gust of anxiety and head back into the living room. Someone with white hair is standing in the doorway. Neil had curly dark hair. Ted’s body is blocking the majority of the guy as he chats with them. I maneuver closer to see around his curly blond head.
It’s a guy dressed . . . as the Witcher. That video game character Henry Cavill plays in the Netflix show. My eyes pop out of my skull as the newcomer’s gaze slices to mine. No, not Neil. It’s Reed.