Max and I take a seat in the small diner and start to scan the menu. In this part of LA its small diners or Italian restaurants, and this isn't exactly formal.
I sigh and set my menu down, I already knew what I was getting, its not exactly like my order ever changes.
"About the interview- It's not gonna be some flop band like the one I just interviewed, right?" Max shakes his head and takes a sip of his black coffee.
"They have a T.V show, here." He pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and slides it across the table to me, and I pick it up and scan it.
"A T.V show? Is it in color?" He nods his head and takes another sip.
"This could be big, please don't screw it up Maggie." I sigh and shake my head.
"I'm not gonna screw it up, but I'm gonna have a nightmare thinking of questions tomorrow, I have so much to do, moving out of my house, arrangments-" Max cuts me off, as he usually does.
"Maggie, this interview is in three hours, its at four o'clock." Its obvous shock has registered on my face, because he attempts to correct himself. "It's not- Its only a forty-five minuet interview-" I can Feel the color drain from my face.
"Max, please bring some food back to the office for me!" And then I take off.
I'm sitting back in my office, typing, and retyping my questions. With the way I operated a typewriter you would think I didn't know how to spell. My fingers fl across the keyboard, making it difficult for the machine to keep up.
Eventually Max gets back to the office, a bacon and Swiss burger and fries wrapped up in a brown paper take out bag. He drops it on my desk and takes a seat next to it, ruffling some papers. He frown and sets to fixing them while I open the bag and take a bite of my burger.
"You owe me." I scoff and consider rolling my eyes.
"Thank you, Max." I set my food back down and get back to typing.
"You know, my dad died today." It still doesn't feel right to say it.
"I... I didn't know that. I'm sorry, Maggie."
"It's not your fault." I shrug and turn back to my typewriter. "How's Molly? And the baby?" Max had only been married for a year when they found out about the baby, he claimed he wasn't ready for it, but I knew he was.
"The baby's doing well, it's going to be a baby girl." He smiles and looks at his shoes. "Molly just sent out the baby shower invitations, you should be receiving them shortly." I frown at this.
"I'm uh... I'm moving houses soon, actually." He nods his head.
"I can just give it to you in person, that would make it easier on the post office." He checks his watch. "Three-Thirty. You should get going Mags." I stand up and start to collect my things.
"Can you give me a ride? I didn't take his car today." It was still technically his car, but I constantly drove it around, to get to work, to eat lunch with my friend Lynn, to get to interviews. It was better then it just sitting in the garage. But since dad left everything in his will to me, it's now my car. Or will be, after the reading of the will and testament. Max nods his head and runs his hand through his hair, a nervous tick of his, as I have come to learn.
"Of course, Magnolia." he smiles and taps his fingers on the entrance to my cubicle. "I parked in front of the building, see you there in five." I nod my head in response and go back to collecting my things, shoving my questions and other interview things into a separate folder.
As it turned out, the studio was only a ten minuet drive from the newspaper's office so it was a fairly short ride, and I was grateful because the longer I was in the car with Max, the more awkward it got.
Max dropped me off by the security gates, and after I showed him my press pass and was cleared, I walked into the building.
As soon as I stepped in it felt like I was in Wonderland. It was absolutely chaotic, with interns running around, dragging props behind them, screen writers standing up and dramatically shouting out lines, and the director throwing his hands up and yelling. I laugh and shake my head, drinking in the chaos.
"Excuse me? Ma'am? Can I help you?" I turn to a short blonde, at first I mistake him for a girl, possibly do to the bob cut he sports.
"Oh," I laugh nervously. "I'm uh, here to do an interview of the main characters? Do you know who I go to for that?" The blonde guy laughs and at first I think he's making fun of me.
"Oh! I'm Peter, I play bass and piano, follow me." He smiles and leads me into a hallway, where a young man runs into me head on.
"Hey, watch it!" He frowns at me and shakes his head before scurrying off.
"I'm sorry about that, the prop designers usually don't look where they're going." He pushes open a heavy brown door as he speaks, revealing a room that bore a strong resemblance to my own living-room. "You can have a seat, I'll go get the rest of the guys." He gives me one last inviting smile before disappearing out of the door.
