I am on my way, driving across town in pre-rush hour traffic, to conduct an interview, my first interview, with a well-respected, award-winning actress.
I fidget uncomfortably in my cloth car seat. I roll my window down, then up, then down again – repeatedly, like a child with a jack-in-the-box, the toy, not the fast food chain.
It’s cold outside but it is a furnace inside my car, my erratic breathing and spastic movements are creating a sweat lodge.
This is no big deal, I tell myself, fingers gripped so far around the back of my steering wheel, that my nails dig into my palms. People are interviewed every day. People are interrogated, put on stands, assessed for jobs, and asked questions for magazines or papers. Every. Single. Day.
But my heart is beating furiously. My palms aren’t sweaty, but my mouth is dry, and yet there is no water in my car. To my right, on my passenger seat, sits the eco-friendly bag I take to the market, except today it’s filled, not with groceries, but my journalistic tools: a legal notepad, my laptop, my iPad, a smaller notebook, about eight pens, one highlighter, a few jumbo sized note cards, three sheets of paper that hold all my questions, and two voice recorders, one Sony, the other of a non-discernable brand. I am paranoid, at best. I panic halfway across town. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. I run through the checklist at the next red light. It’s all there, exactly in the same place where I packed it, just forty minutes prior.
I return to the task at hand.
I’ve mapped out the whole exchange. My body language. My questions. Where I should place my hands. The modulated tone of my voice; I think a slow gait is best, a breezy trot, inviting but serious, calmly inquisitive.
This is like an artfully planned seduction, without any of the passion.
My approach is perhaps too scientific, too much method, not enough melody. This won’t be a dialogue or anything akin to common conversation. My rehearsal might ruin this whole meeting.
There is such a thing as being overly, neurotically prepared, I tell myself, signaling left two blocks too early. The car behind me honks angrily.
I, of course, have planned enough time that the traffic does not faze me; red lights instead, allow me to calm my thoughts, the silent army marching in formation.
It’s always the same. The most tense moments, the ones we try our hardest to prepare for, are always the ones over which we have zero control. I know this, and yet it doesn’t stop the laundry list.
I’ll be refined though vaguely improper.
I’ll be inquisitive but not desperate.
I’ll keep my hands still.
I’ll refrain from saying “like.” She is British after all. They don’t say that. Ever.
I will have no hopes, no illusions, and no great expectations. This way I will be pleased with the results, no matter what.
I will extract but not probe.
I will be professional but personable.
It does not strike me yet as ironic that I’ve managed to extract any hope of personable from this exchange before it has even begun.
These are my thoughts as I shift my car into park, turn off my ignition, and swing open my car door. It squeaks, the same way it always has; everything is still the same, the whole still spins, the traffic still roars. 26th at San Vicente is still backed up. I don’t even have to walk to the crosswalk, but slip in between paused cars. Everything is still.
Even my hands. They are steady as bricks.
She is just another person, another woman with hands, feet, a heart that beats the same as yours. Here goes nothing.
I have all accoutrement in tow, weighing heavy and pressing a crease into my jacket.
I walk through the front door and all my preparation lingers back outside, refusing to follow me through the threshold. My bag plops heavy to the floor.
I pull my recorder, the Sony, from my bag, my three question sheets, and the smaller notebook to shorthand anything I find particularly compelling.
I glance down at my questions, outlined as though a proper thesis, scratch my head, run my tongue across my teeth, letting it pause in the upper part of my front gums. There is something about this that doesn’t feel quite right, something that is plaguing me, stuck in my teeth like a kernel of popcorn. I run my tongue back and forth again, and I realize, it isn’t what is stuck in my teeth, or anywhere else – it is everything that was crammed in my bag, now strewn across the table.
So I push it away, the outline, the pens scattered across the table, my preparation; I’ve prepared enough that I can leave it behind. I don’t mind it lurking outside the door.
After all, if all you hold is a hammer, all you are going to hit is a nail.
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