The Interview

The interview was not going well. He had been certain that if he asked the right questions, he would get the answers he was expecting, but it was not turning out that way. He fiddled with his pen, he moved his recorder one half inch to the right, he considered where to go next, and across from him she sat, silent but with a faint smile. As if she were enjoying this. As if it were fun.

He considered smacking the smile right off her face and was surprised at himself, for this was not his usual tactic when dealing with interviewees. Not that he had much experience at dealing with them; he was fairly new at this, and had only received this chance because he knew someone who knew someone who was willing to go out on a limb and give him a chance.

It was his first interview, and it was not going as he'd planned. He'd thought they'd have witty repartee, though he can't have said when he last engaged in such a thing, and he thought they'd be in sync.

Instead, the morose yet somewhat smiling woman across from him was an enigma.

"Where do you get your ideas?"

She snorted, not a ladylike sort of snort either, but derisive and penetrating.

"Where do you get your clothes?"

He wasn't sure what the relevance of this question was, and thought he was to be the one asking the questions, but he answered anyway. "From the store."

"There you have it. I get my ideas from the store."

"Ah, the idea store!" He boomed rather loudly, trying to make a joke of it, but her smile, if that's what it had been, only faded.

He decided to try a different tack. "I've read that you write for yourself, that it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks."

She looked at him in mock horror. "Where did you ever read something like that?"

He tried to remember, and realized he'd made that up, on the spot, hoping to elicit something from her, though he couldn't have said what. "Er, in an interview?"

"I've never said anything like that. If I wanted to write for myself there'd be no need to put it down on paper. I could keep it in my head, couldn't I?"

He thought this was a rhetorical question and did not answer.

"Couldn't I?"

"Erm, yes, I suppose you could. So who do you write for?"

"Them. The people who pay me to write, the people who read what I write. Without an audience, I may as well just talk to myself, and then I'd be known as the crazy lady who talks to herself."

This was the most she'd said in the hour he'd sat there asking innocuous questions that had merited answers of a few syllables at a time. He thought he might be on to something.

"Do you worry about that?"

"Worry about what?"

"Being the crazy lady who talks to herself."

"I don't think you got the point." She looked more than bit annoyed, an indicator of which was one flared nostril and one raised eyebrow. At least that was what he thought he saw, before her face resumed its slightly morose look.

"Ahem. Well, okay then. What do you enjoy about writing for an audience?"

"What makes you think I enjoy it?"

"Don't you?"

"Not usually. It's a lot of work."

"Then why do you do it?"

"It's my job. Why do you go around asking silly questions of people?"

He wasn't sure what the point of this was. This surely wasn't his job, it was in fact the first time he'd been allowed to interview anyone. His job was working behind the meat counter at Safeway and dreaming of the day he could find a real career.

"Because I'm interested in people." There. He thought that was a good answer.

"Then why aren't you out asking them questions?"

"Who?"

"People."

"Okay, then," he murmured, and shifted his recorder a quarter inch to the left. "What do you look for when you write?"

"A response."

"A response?"

"A response."

"What kind of response?"

"Any kind of response. Clapping, derision, disgust, approval. A response."

"And do you get one?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes not. I suppose if I were more offensive I'd get more of a response, or more shocking, or more controversial, but that's not me."

He felt the lightbulb go off over his head, which was a rather odd sensation, but one which he could not ignore.

"What is you?"

"What?"

"What is you? The author? Who are you?"

She snorted again, but he wasn't certain it there was derision in it or just disgust.

"Who are you?"

"We're not talking about me."

She settled back in her chair and lowered her head, and for just a second he thought that perhaps she might be going to sleep.

"I am the ghost of Christmas past," she intoned, mocking him and his foolish questions.

He looked down at his notes. He had nothing. All this time, and he still had nothing he could use. At least nothing of substance. He did have a recipe for kiwi marmalade (she'd insisted it was quite good and he'd have to try it) and he had some pictures he'd scribbled in the border when she'd excused herself to make a few telephone calls. He'd overheard the calls from the other room, and they hadn't been urgent, or even necessary, more of the "Hi, Helen, just calling to see what you're up to," variety, which had made him grow hot and uncomfortable.

"What do you do for a living?" He was surprised when she asked this, and felt his hands tremble.

"Well, like you, I'm a writer."

"Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. But what do you do for a living? How do you make money?"

"I cut meat at Safeway."

"Aha! At last, an honest answer from the reporter!" She was obviously delighted at this turn in the conversation, and he was afraid she would start squealing. "And what do you enjoy about it?"

"Nothing."

"Then why do you do it?"

He was at a loss. Obviously he did it to pay his rent, and buy his food, and things of that nature, but that should be self-evident. He wondered what she wanted to hear before he admitted, "I don't know."

She smiled at him, "And that is why I write. I don't know why. But it pays the bills."

And he knew that was the most information he would ever get from her on the subject of writing.