Finding Mr. Right (13 page)

“You can start opening the boxes if you want. I’ll go get us some utensils.”

I eagerly started opening up the boxes to see what goodies he had gotten for the night. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment. What was this crap? Stephen had ordered brown rice, some sort of vegetable stir-fry, and a tofu dish. I wanted to cry. This was not going as planned at all.

Stephen walked back into the room with the plates and took a deep breath.

“Ooh, doesn’t this smell delicious?”

“Sooo delicious,” I lied. I decided that I would make Blake bring me some real food when he came over; it was the least he could do. I helped myself to the smallest serving of each dish and pretended to ooh and ahh over every bite.

“It’s sooo good, isn’t it?” Stephen grinned at me as he helped himself to more brown rice. “Want some more?” He was handing me the box.

“Oh, no thanks. Gotta watch what I eat,” I said sarcastically.

“Oh, I know. This stuff is so good but I only get it once every few months. It’s so bad for you!”

I looked up at him, ready to join the laughter I was sure was going to come after that comment. But he looked so earnest that I realized he was serious.

“Ha, yeah. I definitely don’t treat myself like this everyday.” Thank God.

“Maggie, you really are something special.” I looked up to see Stephen smiling down at me, his lips glistening with oil from the stir fry. He really was such a good-looking man.

“Thanks, Stephen, you’re pretty special yourself.”

The meal was over pretty quickly, and Stephen immediately cleared up the mess and took the food to the kitchen to package and put away in the fridge. I was impressed by his due diligence and realized that I would have to do a thorough cleaning of my place before I ever had him over. I also noted that I would likely be spending a lot of time in this austere museum house of his if we ever dated because there was no way that I would have time to clean my place every day in preparation for his coming over. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be impressed by all the half-eaten takeout boxes in my fridge.

“So, let me hand you the file that my contact at the LA Times gave me and you can start going through it and jotting everything down you think looks out of the ordinary.”

“Sure.” I really wanted to ask him who his contact was. He kept mentioning it and I was curious to know whether or not it was the EIC himself. I mean, that would be kind of incredible. I could be in on some sort of Watergate project here. There might be movies made of this night, and I would get to choose which actress would play me. My name would be in history books for people to read about for years to come. Maybe Vera Wang would pay me some sort of royalties if I made sure to include the fact that I wore her perfume on this night.

I eagerly reached for the file that he handed me and was surprised at how small it was, only about 20 pages thick. The contact must have made sure to send only the pertinent information. Boy was I in luck, this wasn’t going to take long at all. I eagerly pulled out the papers and got a pen and pad ready to note down anything I thought looked unusual. It took me about 10 minutes to go through the papers thoroughly.

“Hey, Stephen,” I called out to him, “I think you may have given me the wrong file.”

“What?” he walked back into the room with a glass of wine. I noted that he had not offered me any. What was I, the secretary who wasn’t allowed to drink on the job?

“I think that perhaps you gave me the wrong file.”

He looked at me confused. “No, no, that’s the file.”

“Oh.”

“So, you find anything as yet?”

“Um, well, no, not really,” I paused. “Who exactly is your contact at the LA Times?”

“Well, I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone, you know. He could lose his job.”

“Yeah, I understand that. I was just curious. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Okay. I guess it won’t hurt to tell you. His name is Jose Vargas.”

“Jose Vargas?” I had never heard of him before, and I had just looked through the entire list of editors and reporters listed on their site hours before.

“Yeah, Jose Vargas.”

“So, uh, what role does Jose have at the paper? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“He’s a janitor.”

“A ... a ... janitor?” Was this a joke?

“Yeah. He was cleaning out some trash cans from some of the offices a few weeks back and thought that these papers might be helpful.”

“Helpful?” I said weakly looking down at the papers.

“Yeah. He said all the numbers had to mean something. And he knows that some of the reporters are working on a big story about the education system.”

“Really? He knows this how exactly?”

“He overheard a conversation, but anyways, that doesn’t matter now. We have our own story to work on. This could make us famous.” Stephen flashed a brilliant white smile at me, only I didn’t react the way I would have a week before. My stomach didn’t jump with excitement; I didn’t see myself in magazines; I just felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Uh, yeah. Famous, for sure.” Famous for being dumb, I thought to myself.

“So, see any patterns yet? Who’s going down?” Stephen asked eagerly.

“ Um, not sure yet. I need to study it a bit longer.”

“Oh okay.” Stephen smiled down at me admiringly. He was looking at me like I was some sort of Einstein about to solve the greatest problems in Physics. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was nothing to be found in the papers he had given me, unless he wanted to know who ordered what at McDonald’s during the last lunch order.

“Can you still concentrate if I put some music on?” Stephen looked at me inquiringly.

“Sure,” I said, “that would be fine.” I was a little surprised to hear Marvin Gaye crooning at me from the corners of the room, but it did help to relax me and relieve my boredom from pretending to study the numbers on the pages. I looked down at my phone and realized that Blake had texted me to remind me to call him when I was done. I groaned. What was his problem? Didn’t he have a girlfriend he should be more concerned with? It annoyed me that he was treating me like an irresponsible little sister. I sighed.

“Everything okay, Maggie?” The eager look on Stephen’s face was almost too much to take. He really thought that I was going to find something here. Or did he? I nearly fainted when I felt his hands on my shoulders, massaging me.

“I’ve often found that it helps people concentrate and relax more when they are getting a massage,” he whispered in my ear as he continued to knead my shoulders. Whoa! Was he trying to get me into bed? Had this been a ploy the whole time?

I laughed. Thank God! I knew no one could be that stupid. This had been Stephen’s way of getting me over to his house so he could seduce me. I was a little annoyed, but flattered at the same time.

“Oh yes, it is very relaxing.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, tilting my face up a bit for the inevitable kiss.

“What are you doing?” Stephen looked at me weirdly. “Don’t let me stop you from concentrating.” He stopped massaging me and looked anxious.

I looked back at him in confusion. Shit! He wasn’t trying to seduce me. He really thought I would find something here.

“Stephen, you do realize that these are photocopies of lunch receipts from McDonald’s, right?”

“Of course. I was hoping you could figure out the code.” He looked at me like I was the dumb one.

“The code...” I spoke weakly.

“Yes, obviously there is a code here hiding what the money was really being spent on.”

“The money?” Why would anyone care about coding where 100 dollars was going each week?”

“Yes, I mean, let’s be realistic. No one is eating McDonald’s every day.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” I didn’t bother telling him that I had gone for weeks eating McDonald’s every day. That that was likely the reason why I had to go to the gym and had a wardrobe full of ugly clothes.

“But, uh, why do you think I can work out the code?” I know that I had thought the CIA was interested in me, but that was because I knew how easily I solved murder mystery novels and thriller movies. I always figured out who the murderer was before the main characters did and was right about 50 percent of the time. However, I hadn’t really shown any of those skills to Stephen, so I wasn’t really sure why he thought I could help.

“Because Blake told me how bright you are. That you have a brain that works like no other. Frankly, that’s why you got the TV host job; I figured I could use you as a researcher and investigator as well.”

I grew warm inside at the thought that Blake had talked so nicely about me and softened a little in my attitude towards him. It wasn’t his fault that I had fallen for him while he had a girlfriend.

“Well, yes, I am smart.” It felt good being able to say it aloud and not cringe. It was true, and I wasn’t going to shy away from being positive about myself anymore. “But I don’t think there’s a code here, Stephen. I think what we see here is what we get.”

“Oh.”

I felt bad that he looked so disappointed. “I mean, there may be something else going on with the Department of Education that is shady, but it is not concealed in these documents; although, we do have an angle for a show...I think.” I paused as something came into my mind.

“Really? What?” Stephen looked excited.

“Well, I think we could do something about lunchtime—”

“Lunchtime?” He looked disappointed.

“No, listen to me.” I looked up at him. “The Department of Education recently revamped a bunch of cafeterias, and they proposed some new rules for what can be served during lunchtimes. I read an article about it today.”

“So? That’s good.”

“Yes, ideally that is good. But here’s the thing, the new programs have corporate sponsors. And there has been a lot of controversy over one of the sponsors providing healthy meals...” I paused, waiting for him to ask me who the sponsor was, but he just looked at me with a blank face.

“That sponsor is McDonald’s! How ironic is it that McDonald’s is sponsoring the new healthy lunch program in schools?”

“McDonald’s isn’t healthy.”

“Exactly. And another thing is that there is one thing wrong with these receipts. All the meals have huge discounts. A Big Mac value meal is no way 3 dollars. It seems as if McDonald’s is bribing the DOE to get into schools and brainwash kids.”

“Oh wow.” Stephen looked excited again, well, excited and a bit clueless still.

“We can do a special trying to figure out exactly what is going on with these sponsorships and the school board.”

“We can call it ‘Fast Food Schools’.” Stephen grinned, “Take that, Michael Moore.”

I smiled at Stephen weakly. I was pretty sure he was referencing ‘Fast Food Nation’, and I was pretty sure that Michael Moore hadn’t made that movie, but I decided to keep my mouth shut.

“You rock, Maggie.” Stephen leaned over and gave me a big kiss that felt warm and a little moist, but I kissed back to see if it would get better. I didn’t feel much when he pushed his tongue into my mouth, but a birdy inside of me was happy that he was obviously interested in me, so I let it continue.

It was when his hand went down my back and seemed to be fumbling over my bra strap that I decided to pull away. I definitely wasn’t willing at this point to go all the way with Stephen, no matter how bad I wanted to show Blake that I too had someone.

“Sorry, Maggie. I got a little carried away. I’m just so excited right now.”

“It’s okay. So am I.” I had a feeling that both of us were referencing the TV special we had been talking about and not the feelings in our loins.

“You know, Maggie, Blake was really right. You are truly something special.” And with that, Stephen leaned in and kissed me again.

I felt my heart lurch a little as I kissed him back as passionately as I could. It seemed as if everything were finally coming together for me; work, confidence, love. Yet, as I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the wet glob trickling down my chin, it was Blake’s smiling face that I saw in my mind.

Dear Diary,

Blake sucks. That is all I have to say. I am so mad right now I could kill him. And his pretentious, bossy-boots, all-knowing self.

I left Stephen’s at about midnight. Not because we made out all night though (I wasn’t drunk enough to pretend to enjoy his juicy, wet kisses). We ended up watching a movie, or really I should say a documentary. What is it about documentaries that can bore the bejesus out of you? It makes me feel bad to admit it, seeing as I may soon be making my own foray into the genre, but most documentaries suck. Perhaps I feel that way because I am a Philistine. I just don’t get it. So many times people have said to me, “Oh, did you see so-and-so? It was sooo good.” And I think to myself, “Well, no, I didn’t see it because it is a documentary, and they usually suck.” And then I decide to watch it because of the recommendation. And then I waste my 4 dollars and rent it and fall asleep after about 5 minutes. Or I just change the channel and watch ‘Law and Order: SVU’ because that show is usually playing on at least one channel, no matter what time of day.

Unfortunately for me tonight, there was no way for me to change the channel after 5 or 10 minutes. Stephen was engrossed in the tale of corporate greed in pet stores. He decided he wanted to do an exposé on Petsmart after the education piece, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I couldn’t get involved in that one; Petsmart had been very good to me over the years. Lucy had destroyed so many toys and had so many accidents in the store that I felt as if I were indebted to them for life.

I sighed with relief when it ended and I got up to go. Stephen kept trying to convince me to stay the night, but I reminded him that I was meeting up with Blake and had to go home and walk Lucy.

“You are going to make me jealous if you keep rushing off to meet other men like this,” Stephen pouted at me. It wasn’t his most attractive look, and I was slightly annoyed. I had barely known him a few weeks, and this was only the first time we had even kissed.

“Don’t be jealous.” I smiled up at him coyly. I didn’t really have any other options and so decided to brush off my irritation. As I stared at him, I softened up a little bit. He really was good looking and well, he was going to make me a star. And Blake didn’t seem to like him that much.

“Tell Blake I said hi, and that I will see him next week.”

“Oh?” I always seemed to forget that Blake and Stephen knew each other outside of me.

“Yeah, he says he needs to talk to me about some stuff, legal stuff.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You’d better go now, before I don’t let you go.” Stephen pushed me towards the door, but not before I saw the screen of his phone ringing with a call from someone named Gloria.

I was too annoyed at his pushing me to ask him who Gloria was and decided to just let it slide. No point arguing with my director before I had even starred in one episode of the show; plus, I truly was interested in doing the exposé on the McDonald’s sponsorship of schools.

“Before I go, Blake said he had mentioned to you that I was writing a children’s book...do you think it would be possible for us to do an episode with me reading to the kids?”

Stephen looked at me distractedly. “Yeah, yeah, let’s talk about it next week.” He gave me a brief kiss on the cheek and turned away from me. “Hey, you can let yourself out. Yeah, I’ve got something to tend to.” And with that, he left me by the front door and went running through to the living room.

He really was a strange guy. I really wasn’t feeling him very much, but he seemed to be the best way to get over Blake. At least, that was what I had to keep telling myself. I let myself out and called Blake.

“There you are...finally,” Blake drawled through the phone, his voice sounding husky and firm.

“I never told you I would be done early,” I said defensively. “If it’s too late, you do not need to come over, you know.”

“No, it’s not too late, Moo-moo.” Blake laughed. Argh. How irritating men could be.

“Well, I will be home in about 30 minutes.”

“Okay, see you then.”

“Oh, and Blake...”

“Yeah?”

“Bring a pizza.” And with that I hung up. My stomach was growling, and I was irritated. I looked at my reflection in my rearview mirror and groaned. My hair was all messed up, and my lips looked full. I had to stop myself from making retching noises when I noticed the dry saliva under my lower lip.

“Gross,” I mumbled to myself under my breath. Stephen might be cute but he sure couldn’t kiss well. Not like Blake could. I groaned. I could not allow myself to think about kissing Blake right now. Or ever. I decided to send a text message to Bridget; maybe if I kept myself in contact with her more, I would feel more guilt every time I thought about Blake.

Hope you are well - let’s meet up soon
.

And then I started my car, hoping to make it back to my house before Blake arrived so I could tidy up a little bit.

Of course Blake was there waiting at my door when I got home. He was nothing if he wasn’t punctual. I debated inside my head whether or not I could ask him to wait outside for about 10 minutes while I cleaned up my place. I came to the conclusion that that would be a bit rude and it was unlikely that I could get it looking much cleaner and tidier in anything under 30 minutes.

“Hey there, superstar.” Blake smiled at me; his eyes seemed to be laughing at me. I wondered if he knew that I practiced my Oscar acceptance speech every night before bed when I brushed my teeth.

“Blake,” I tried to sound cool, calm and collected and hoped that he couldn’t tell how flustered I was. He looked so tall and handsome standing there, and he reminded me of home and warmth. I just wanted to snuggle up to him on the couch while he stroked my hair and whispered sweet nothings in my ear. It would also be a plus if he was feeding me Salted Caramel Talenti ice cream.

“So how was it?” He looked at me intently.

“How was what?” I was annoyed. Not because of the question, but because I could feel my insides tingling at the look he was giving me. Argh. I hoped I wasn’t blushing. I opened the door and was glad that Lucy frantically ran to the door to greet me.

“Your meeting with Stephen? Did it go well?”

“It was fine,” I mumbled as I stroked Lucy and pliantly accepted her wet licks. It was quite sad to realize that Lucy left less saliva than Stephen had.

“Whoa.”

I turned around to look at Blake. “Whoa what?”

“Whoa this bomb site, what happened?”

I glared at Blake before turning around to survey my living room. Shit! It did look like the aftermath of a tornado. There were clothes lying all over the floor and couch, magazine papers were ripped up (thanks to Lucy), and there were dirty dishes and plates stacked on the side tables.

“I’ve been busy,” I said defensively while writhing inside with embarrassment. I was definitely going to make sure that I tidied up my apartment every other day now. Well hopefully.

“Very busy, I’m guessing.” Blake’s voice was muffled. I turned around to look at him and saw him stifling a laugh.

“Ass.” I hit him on the arm.

“Messy.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him, attempting to tickle me.

“Stop, argh, stop!” I laughed, trying to wrench myself away from him. “Stop, ha-ha-ha!” I broke down onto the floor laughing uncontrollably. I was super ticklish and couldn’t stop my body’s reaction.

Blake pulled me up off of the floor and pulled me to him for a second. My heart beat quickly. Was he going to kiss me? He brought his hand up and twisted my nose and let me go.

“Let me help myself to a drink while you attempt to tidy the couch up a little bit, Maggie Moo.”

Argh, it infuriated me that he treated me like a younger sister.

“Yes, Pops,” I whispered under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Go get your drink and while you are at it, pour me a big glass of chocolate milk, please.”

“Sure thing...daughter.”

I threw one of my throw pillows at him and he laughed his way into the kitchen. I grabbed up as many clothes as I could fit into my arms and groaned at the sight of a couple of bras that were on the couch. Blake must really think I didn’t have it together. I ran back and forth quickly, dumping the clothes on my bed; I would have to sort through them in the morning to see which ones were clean and which ones were dirty.

“Wow, it is looking clean already. I’ll have to remember to hire you if I ever need a big clean-up job.”

“Yeah. If you want to pay me 100 an hour.”

“What are you going to do for the 100?”

“Clean!”

“More like make more of a mess.”

“Ass.”

“Is that my new name?”

“It is when you act like one.”

“I’ll have to let the judge know that next time I’m in court. I’m sure opposing counsel will be happy to know that someone outside of the courtroom agrees with them.”

“I would be happy to come in and tell the court.” I grinned at Blake as my stomach grumbled. “Oh yeah, where’s my pizza?”

“You were serious about the pizza? Didn’t Stephen feed you?”

“He did, but it was gross. I need real food.”

“Oh, Maggie. When I am around you, I can’t help but laugh. I’ll order one now.”

“Yay! Ham and onions, please.”

Once I was sure Blake had the order right, I went into the bedroom and changed into my PJs so I could get comfy. If Blake wanted to come over so late at night, he could take me as I wanted to be. I made sure to brush my hair and add some lip gloss to my lips before I went back out into the living room though.

“It’ll be here in 30 minutes.” Blake looked up from the couch. Lucy was in his lap, and he was stroking the spot right between her ears. She looked like she was in heaven, and I was slightly envious of her at that moment.

It was a struggle for me to not lean my head against his shoulder when I sat down next to him on the couch. I felt like there was some sort of magnetic force drawing me towards him, and all I wanted to do was touch him and be connected to him in some way.

“So how are things, Mags?” He looked over at me seriously, with real care in his voice. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine, Blake.”

“I just wanted to make sure that you were doing okay. It had to be a shock.”

“Yeah, I mean it was a shock at the time, but now I’m over it.” I smiled up at him.

“Wow, that was quick.”

“I mean, it wasn’t that quick, but I was never actually in a relationship with Ben, so I couldn’t get too upset.”

“You are such a great girl, Mags. I don’t know if I would have been that cool if it had been someone I loved that had gotten engaged.”

“I didn’t love...wait, what? ENGAGED? They got engaged? What!” I screeched. I couldn’t believe it. “Gayle and Ben are engaged?” I jumped up off of the couch.

“Wait, you didn’t know?” Blake looked like he wanted to slap himself.

“Do I sound like someone who knew?” I paced up and down. “I cannot believe this.”

“I’m sorry, Mags. I thought you knew.”

“Why didn’t she tell me? What is going on with Gayle?” I shouted.

Lucy looked up at me from Blake’s lap with disapproving eyes. I was interrupting her sleep.

“Is there anything I can do, Mags?” I could see Blake grappling with the decision of whether or not he should get up off the couch or not. He was attempting to shove Lucy off of him, but she wasn’t moving an inch.

“I’m not mad because she’s engaged. I’m mad because she didn’t tell me! When did you find out?”

“Well, she called me this morning. She said that she was worried about you. Said she had tried calling you, but you hadn’t been responding.”

I stopped pacing and bit my lip. It was true. I had been really bad at returning calls lately, between writing my book and working with Stephen. I had been caught up in my own life. Plus, I had been worried that she was calling to talk to me about the marathon. I was still in no shape to compete and hadn’t wanted to deal with her asking me why I hadn’t been to the gym in a long time.

“Mags?” Blake looked at me with concern. If I didn’t know better, I would think that he had really strong feelings for me, but I knew it was just because he saw me as a little sister.

“It’s okay, Blake. I think it may be my fault that she hasn’t told me yet.” I sat back down next to him and looked at him, trying not to stare at his manly chest. “I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“So, you sure you aren’t still hung up on Ben?”

“Would someone who was hung up on Ben have kissed Stephen tonight?” I retorted.

“What? You kissed Stephen?”

“Well, he kissed me. And it was great.” Okay, so that was a lie, but he didn’t have to know.

“Was that wise, Maggie?” Blake frowned at me. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be making out with your boss.”

“Why not?” Say you love me!