Chapter Three
There were three messages on Em's phone the next morning. One from Isabel, telling her that the exchange had made their rival station's deejay duo's local recap show, Radio Rewind. One from her mother, desperate to relate some piece of distressing news and demanding Em phone her back immediately. And one from Bill Lucas's assistant, telling her to come to his office before lunchtime.
"Doctor Emma! Good show yesterday — the phones rang off the hook. Off the hook! People couldn't stop talking about it. About you, about the whole tension between you —"
"I'm sorry about that, sir," Em answered. "Believe me, I know how it must have sounded."
She was seated across from the beaming radio station manager. Isabel was also present for this meeting, along with a couple of public relations reps from the station.
"It sounded fantastic!" Lucas clapped his hands together, as if applauding her. "Bravo, Doctor Emma! We want conversation; we want people talking about your show. And that's why everybody wants the two of you back together again."
"What?" Em replied. She was startled by this reply.
"You. Him. Together on your show, or a separate format. Debating what therapy truly is. It'll be brilliant, just ask your producer. The two of you together are like ice and fire. Maybe that's what we should call it."
"I think that one might be taken already, sir," answered Isabel from her position near the doorway. She hid a smile with these words.
"All right, then. Something else. Doesn't matter what, so long as it's the two of you and sparks flying in the heat of debate."
"What? No. No, sir. My show is — isn't a format for that kind of thing —" began Em in protest. "Surely the station realizes that our everyday audience would be marginalized by fewer call-in opportunities."
Doctor Colin Ferris invading her show? Sitting in the studio with her week after week — and for how long? Em could feel her heart sink through the floor, as if horror had taken the form of rocks piled within it.
"It doesn't have to be Heart Therapy. No, maybe we'll team up with one of our media partners for this. Some news program, some debate show on WMZ. What's the name of that TV show — the current affairs one where all those politicians debate each other?" He glanced at one of the P.R. reps.
"In the Moment," piped up the female rep in glasses.
"That's the one, yes. The two of you, the host to moderate, and a whole hour to keep the audience glued to their seats with fascination. We'll make it — what? Three weeks for the whole project? Six? I like six."
Over a month of misery spent defending her work from his opinion! How could she survive it?
"Or, better yet, helping someone specific. Helping Harriet." Bill Lucas was still talking, she realized. He glanced at one of the reps. "Wasn't that the caller from yesterday afternoon? Harriet, the lonely girl from Seattle?" The murmurs of agreement in response halted Em's miserable train of thought.
"She's local, she's in trouble, she wants a guy. Perfect. Who better to help her than Seattle's number-one relationship therapist and a best-selling author of a book on guys and dating rules?"
"Wonderful idea, sir," the male rep in the tie was talking now. "I think that may be the best part of the whole campaign yet."
"You two will work with her. Fix her love life, help her soul search and find that perfect mate, or whatever. Like matchmakers fixing up Cinderella, only you're giving her an emotional makeover instead. Starting on the first — that'll give the producers a week to fix things up, build a website, et cetera...during which time you can push the thing on your show. Create anticipation."
Em found her voice again. "He'll never agree," she said. "Doctor Ferris is extremely uncomfortable on the air. And he would really, really hate the idea of getting stuck with me again."
"No problem there," answered Lucas. "He's already signed on for this. We were just waiting for you."
When she emerged from Lucas's office, her heart was pounding. Lucas hadn't noticed her distress, thank heavens, which had been increasing the longer she listened to this idea take form.
No, no, no. Surely there was some way to stop this from happening. It didn't seem possible that the same person who had sat in her broadcast booth yesterday would actually say 'yes' to this proposal.
Isabel emerged behind her. "It was the easiest way out, Em," she said. "I did not want to hand over our show, and this was the only compromise Lucas would accept."
"That doesn't make it any easier," Em answered. "You know that, right?"
"Think of it as great public relations," answered Isabel. "A great boost for the show. I know you can hold your own against this guy. Sympathy will be with you, anyway, since he's got all the charm of a goblin king."
"Six weeks, Iz! There's no way I can endure that. It's just so ... so frustrating that no one would listen. I just can't do it, Isabel." Em turned away and began walking — blindly, although it was in the general direction of the studio elevator and escape from the building.
"So what are you going to do?"
"Get out of it somehow."
"How?"
"I don't know. I'll think of something. Anything will do right now."
The phone in her hand buzzed with an incoming tweet. On the screen, Isabel's name, and a phone number below. The number for Colin Ferris.
"There's his number," said Isabel. "Call him and maybe you can talk him out of it."
"I intend to." Em began punching the numbers on her phone's keypad.
"Doctor Ferris? This is Emma Benton — I'm sure you remember me. We need to talk."
*****
He was waiting for her at the restaurant. A noisier spot than Em would normally pick, but it was the closest lunch spot to the station. He looked out of place in his suit and tie — did he ever wear anything else? — as he sat at a table for two in the middle of the skylight dining area.
She exhaled deeply, then approached. "Doctor Ferris," she said, sliding into the chair across from him.
"I was surprised by this invitation —" he began, but Em didn't let him finish.
"Look, doctor, I won't waste your time. I asked to meet you here because I want to change your mind about agreeing to this — this ludicrous suggestion by the station to pit us against each other on the air again."
Behind those square-framed glasses, she saw a flicker of surprise in the dark eyes. "You do," he stated, flatly. "I would have thought the suggestion would have appealed to you."
"Well, it doesn't," she answered. "I have to confess, I'm astonished you actually agreed to do it. Did you? Or did I misunderstand my boss?"
"I did," he answered, calmly.
"Then you want us to be paired up for some kind of matchmaking contest?" Em's voice couldn't contain either her disgust or astonishment.
"No. Of course not," he answered, sounding equally revolted for a split-second. "I think it's a horrible idea. But I can't refuse. My agent insists. I'm not the easiest client to engage in public relations, so I'm rather limited now on what I can refuse."
That he regretted refusing less repulsive ideas than this one was evident in his voice. Em, however, didn't soften towards him in response.
"You hate the idea also, I gather?" he asked, dryly.
"Hate is a strong word. But maybe not strong enough." A shadow of a grin on Em's face before she grew serious again. "No, it's better than cheapening my show with a gimmick. But the thought of us paired up together for six weeks, like the psychology version of What Not to Wear..."
"Six weeks? I thought it was eight. Thank God." Her lunch companion's stony expression relaxed slightly.
"Feeling better?"
"A little, Miss Benton."
"You really should stop calling me that." Em hesitated. "Enough with the formalities. Since we're going to be working together for awhile, you should call me something else."
"I'm not calling you 'Doctor Emma,'" he answered, with a slight grimace.
"Fine." She shrugged. "Emma is good, or Emmy —" She saw him blench again at this second suggestion, "Or Emma," she concluded, politely — if by a thread.
"Emma, then," he answered.
"And I'll call you Colin. Is that all right?"
With a twinge of pain, she thought of an old joke of her father's, about calling him any name in the book, just don't call him her mother's husband. Maybe Doctor Ferris found it insulting, to have a quack-psychiatry radio therapist call him by his first name. If so, he showed no sign of it this time.
"Of course," he answered. "Apparently, we're colleagues now." He said it in a tone of voice that made it sound like a bad joke. "In that spirit, Emma, I think we're in agreement on three subjects. First, that this project is barbaric. Second, that we're hardly qualified to be meddling in this young woman's love life. Third, that we both want to get through this as quickly and gracefully as possible, for the sake of our respective careers."
She was astonished by this speech, the longest and friendliest he had ever made in front of her. "Agreed," she answered, feeling a little relief. "I mean, who are we to help this girl find love in six weeks? Even if we help her self confidence, it could take months before she was ready for a relationship."
"The media sources expect too much of us, absolutely," he said. "Even my agent, who's usually a voice of reason, thinks this is an acceptable plan."
"Obviously, she's not a hopeless case, " continued Em.
"It depends on your definition of hopeless after we examine the evidence." A snort of contempt from Colin. "There's every possibility this young woman is an impressionable, empty-headed half-child who's in love with a pop star and measures every man by celebrity standards. Contending with that would be a perfect horror."
"I didn't think she sounded delusional," Em countered. "Just a little sad and impressionable. She's probably timid and easily bullied, so she needs to learn to focus on her personal core, not outside influences."
"She needs to face reality before anything else," said Colin. "And the truth that love is largely painful." He took a sip from his water glass. "Again, who are we to influence her after a mere three minutes' phone conversation? One half of our team doesn't have the capability of conducting an authentic psychoanalysis — and as for myself, I'm hardly prepared to assume a therapist's role —"
Yet another slap at her career. Em did her best not to look insulted by this, although it rubbed against her nerves like sandpaper. "I'm sorry," she interrupted him, "but I think I'm just as capable of analyzing Harriet's problems and limitations as you are. Degree or no."
"Is that your vast listening audience speaking for you?" He was hiding a smirk, she thought, judging from the way his eyebrow quirked with this question. He had remembered her defense from yesterday.
"Just ask them," said Em, stoutly. "I think you'll find that the majority of my callers felt our conversation was the first step in a lifetime of change for them. You'd be surprised how high therapy patients rank the sound of a sympathetic voice — or, then again, maybe you wouldn't be."
She took a sip from her water glass, studying the affect of this verbal shot. Colin's face was giving nothing away. Arrogant, she thought. If you hit him in just the right place, he'd topple like a big, stone pillar.
She was supposed to be playing nice, wasn't she? She made herself smile at him. "Never mind how we each think it should be handled," she said. "We get our chance to prove our respective points on the air, right? And may the best man win." She held out her hand in a truce.
"Or woman," he replied. For formality's sake, she supposed. He shook her hand, but with more enthusiasm than before. She felt the strength of his fingers this time.
"Best of luck to you, Doctor Ferris."
"And to you."
*****
"I think it's great." Frank motioned to the bartender for a second glass. "This is exactly what you need, Em."
"It's cheap, Frank. It's a cheap reality show, with the two of us making some poor girl jump through hoops — romantic ones — for entertainment. Surely you see that, of all people." Em was nursing her own glass, with little interest in its contents.
This was supposed to be a quick late-night drink to discuss his book, but they had been sidetracked by the stunning developments of Em's day. Talk of the manuscript had dropped off quickly in the face of the televised debate, the horrifying website link Isabel had emailed her, where the powers that be would keep tabs on their weekly progress with Harriet.
Frank loosened his tie, the one he had worn to his business dinner. "Does it have to be?" he asked.
"Can you expect better of me and Doctor Frankenstein?" she asked. "Well, that's how he thinks of us. The cold scientist with the half-brained assistant at his elbow. What kind of monster do you think the two of us will create?" Frank was hiding a smile for her comment, one hand over his mouth as he listened.
"I know your opinion of him," she reminded Frank. "You don't have to say it for me to see that you think he's as much a pompous prig as I do."
"True," admitted Frank. "He's not my taste in relationship theories, as you know. But maybe that's just because of the difference between us. Established authors never like the wunderkind who just pops up overnight. Until the star burns out, the world is blind to the rest of us."
"I wish he had burned out a lot faster," said Em, ruefully. "Then I wouldn't have to face a future with him. And with poor, poor Harriet, the victim of our dueling opinions." She puffed her cheeks out with frustration.
"If you're worried he's going to show you up somehow, metaphorically spank your hand with a ruler like an errant schoolgirl, I don't think it's going to happen," said Frank. "You are so much better than him, Em. I've scraped stuff off the bottom of my shoes that would be more therapeutic to this girl than his opinion."
Em stifled a giggle. "I'm not afraid of him," she answered. "I'm afraid this will turn into a horrible mess that won't do this girl any good at all. How am I going to help her with his opinion contradicting mine every time?"
"Save some for when he's not around," suggested Frank.
"Not fair. That would be going behind his back. We're supposed to be a team, inasmuch as our advice is stated publicly — at least whatever part the video editors choose to show on the website."
"You don't think he'll go behind yours sometimes?" Frank asked, archly.
"Let's not go there right now, Frank." Suddenly, she felt tired at the thought of it all. Pretending to smile, pretending to know all the answers — or could she simply be honest if she didn't know, and let the coldhearted Doctor Ferris surpass her on that occasion?
"He's like a fish," she said, not realizing she was speaking her thoughts aloud at first. "All cold and clammy and flat-eyed. No wonder he stuck to academia."
"Who would think a romantic would be such a realist?" muttered Frank, as he took a sip from his glass.
"What?"
"His book. You know, Chivalry for Cavemen in an Era of the Genderless, Enlightened Society." Frank grinned at his own little joke.
"Oh. That." She fell silent again.
Frank glanced at her. "This is an opportunity to show him that therapy is about humanity," he said. "Show him that it's more than just the degrees, the books, the knowledge. And that a certain amount of personal charisma is essential if you're going to help people understand human relationships."
"That's easy for you to say," Em answered. As Isabel once put it, Frank's charm could lure a lizard out of its hole in the dead of winter. "You have all of them. Degrees, knowledge, and charm."
"Maybe." Frank's expression was dismissive. "But this is about having that intuitive spark, Em. You have a gift. Don't sell yourself short." He raised his glass and toasted her with these words.