Near Love Stories
by J. B. Hogan

The Interview

He tried very hard not to show how nervous he was but when her manager introduced them, he awkwardly shifted the small, stuffed briefcase he carried from his left to right hand, nearly dropping it. Feeling foolish he reached out and shook her hand. It was firm but smooth, her grip relaxed and comfortable. He wanted to keep holding her hand but forced himself to let go so that she wouldn't think he was anymore of an idiot than he already felt himself to be.

"I'll let you two talk then," her manager said, after the introduction. He gave the manager an appreciative smile and felt a pair of light green eyes appraising him as he watched the manager walk back out into the hotel lobby. With great effort he composed himself and turned back to face her. She was smiling at him.

"Thank you for letting me share some of your time," he said, looking briefly into those lovely eyes. "I know you have a busy schedule."

She just smiled again and he was temporarily silenced by the enormous absurdity of the situation he had placed himself, and her, in. How could he possibly expect to convey to her in this short conversation what he'd been thinking about her for years, without, that is, sounding like a lunatic and sending her scrambling for the safety of her entourage. But she rescued him, just as he had foreseen she would in one of the myriad variations of the current scene he had projected in his past fantasies about meeting her.

"What kind of writing do you do?" she asked in her sweet voice, a voice even more down to earth than it had sounded on the many television interviews of her he had watched hungrily in the past few years. "Are you a reporter?"

"Oh, no," he said quickly, desperately not wanting to be identified as some sort of written word paparazzi. "I write, uh, fiction. Novels and stuff like that."

"And stuff like that," she echoed, eyes crinkling in a smile that devastated him. Was she making fun of him, being ironic? He couldn't tell, and didn't care. She could bop him in the head with the glass of water a waitress now placed in front of her for all it mattered to him. "A coke," he heard her tell the waitress from his fog. He declined to order and felt relieved when the waitress was gone.

"Would I have heard of them?" she asked.

"Heard of what?" he asked her back, still in a mental haze.

"Your book, or books, or whatever you write."

"What … uh, oh, no, I'm sure not," he stammered. "I'm not very well known."

She laughed a small laugh, cute and lilting. He knew he was already in love with her and would make a complete fool of himself. He laughed happily.

"I have a couple of books out," he told her, "but they only sold enough to keep the publishers from coming after me for my blood." She laughed that laugh again.

"What are they about?" she asked politely after a short pause.

"About?" he said. "Oh, uh, you know, this and that."

"Very mysterious."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm being dense. I'm just not comfortable talking about my poor little writings, especially when I'm with a real artist. It seems a bit silly."

"I'm sure you're wrong," she said kindly. "I bet they're good, whatever they're about."

"Well .…," he said.

"Do you write poetry, too?" she asked.

"No, no poetry. Well, I used to. Every now and then I write a poem if the mood strikes me. But, no, I write almost exclusively fiction."