“What if this comes up in the interview?” I finally ask, breaking the uncomfortable silence between us. “Maybe it’s a chance for us to set the record straight?” I ask hopefully. It seems like the logical approach to me.
“No,” Ben says immediately, firmly, as he turns to face me. “James and I discussed it yesterday. He says we should focus on our current working relationship. Don’t get into the romance stuff. I mean, we can’t deny that our parents were married. That’s obviously public record. But we don’t need to get into details about our personal lives.”
“I see,” I reply slowly, my stomach fluttering with nerves. “So, we’re going to keep our relationship a secret?”
“Not a secret, per se. We’re just going to focus on talking about the professional component of our situation. That’s all that matters for this interview anyway. I mean, it’s with an indie music magazine. They’ll want to talk about the music and the songwriting. Stick to that,” Ben concludes firmly, leaving me little room for argument.
I had been feeling confident about this interview, but now I’m a bundle of nervous energy. At least Ben and I have synched our stories. And I’m glad he’ll be by my side. Seeing him handle the reporters yesterday, I have no doubt that he can handle whatever questions this reporter may throw our way. As we pull up to the magazine’s offices, I reach across the seat and give his hand a quick squeeze.
“Thank you for doing this interview with me,” I tell him simply.
“Of course. Part of our deal, right?” He replies with a warm smile. “Nervous?”
“A little.”
“You’re going to do great. Just remember the pointers from yesterday.”
“Got it,” I say with a small nod.
“Ready?” Ben turns to me, pausing with his hand on the doorhandle.
“Yes.”
We exchange one last glance before stepping out of our respective sides of the car. Conscious of what Ben has just told me in the car, I refrain from reaching for his hand as we walk into the magazine’s offices together. As we’re led to the office where the interview will take place, I feel my confidence slowly building again.I can do this, I tell myself. By the time we’ve finished introductions and the interviewer has started asking us questions, I’ve found my stride. She alternates her queries between me and Ben.
“So, Lacy, it’s your first book, how do you feel?” She asks.
“A little nervous, to be honest,” I reply. “Putting creative work out there is scary.”
“But also exciting,” Benjamin adds, giving me a reassuring look.
“Any poets you love that have inspired you?” The journalist asks me again.
“I’m a big Nikki Giovanni fan,” I say earnestly.
“And any poets you aren’t such a fan of?” The journalist asks pointedly.
I start to open my mouth, wanting to tell her that I could never really warm to E. E. Cummings, but Ben cuts me off.
“Lacy is an all-rounder,” he says earnestly. “She’ll read everything from the modern stuff to the classics. Dickinson. Yeats. Frost. She reads it all.”
“You’re a real bookworm, then,” the journalist says, eyeing me approvingly.
“You could say that, yes,” I reply, shooting Ben a grateful look. I can fully appreciate that he just kept me from putting my foot in my mouth. A young, as-of-yet unpublished poet, criticizing other creators in her field? Not a good look, to say the least.
We continue like that, lobbing questions and answers back and forth. More than once, Ben steps in to save me from saying something that could be misinterpreted or twisted to use against me or make me look bad. But there’s one question that leaves even Ben stumped.
“So, how did the two of you meet, anyway? The word on the street is there’s a familial connection,” the interview says brightly. But I can see the killer look in her eyes: She’s asking a touch question and she knows it.
“The word on the street got it wrong this time,” Ben replies gruffly.
I see the interviewer perk up, her eyes lighting up even more. Clearly, she can see she’s hit a nerve and she’s prepared to make the most of it.
“But your parents were married, right?” She presses on insistently. “So you’re technically siblings?”
“That would make us step-siblings,” Ben says in annoyance. I can tell he’s losing his cool and his control over the interview. We shouldn’t be talking about these kinds of semantics at all if we’re going to stick to his plan. What had he said in the car?! I rack my brains, trying to remember what he told me, the advice that James had given,focus on the working relationship.
Ben is straight up glowering at the interviewer now, looking incredibly stormy. This is not good. Before the interviewer can ask more questions and piss him off even more, I cut in.