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Abra Moore's publicist set up the phone interview for Saturday morning, 10 AM Albany time. Abra was in Austin, Texas, so it
was 9 AM her time. It seemed a bit early, yes, but
hey, I had a small child, so I'd been up for four hours already, seeing as
how it was summer and children (or at least my child) rise with the sun.
Abra, on the other hand, did not. When I called,
the phone rang twenty times or so, leaving me worried about whether I'd
botched the time, or whether the publicist had botched the interview.
Finally, though, I heard the phone lifted from the receiver in Austin, with a clunk, then heard some susurrus
sorts of sounds, then silence.
"Hello?" I said, the repeated myself, louder, half a dozen times or
so, until finally I heard fumbling noises and then a soft, barely detectable
"mmmm . . ." It was a very
evocative noise, and I instantly had Tennessee Williams visions, imagining a
sweltering southern bedroom, a glass of melted ice tea and an empty bottle of
bourbon on the bureau, a dusty fan barely twirling above a king size bed, the
petite Miss Moore lolling and stretching languorously amidst a tangle of
sheets. And then I heard the sheets tangling some more, and a throaty sound
that made it clear that Abra was indeed stretching,
and I suddenly found it very difficult to remember what I wanted to talk to
her about.
"Hi, this is Eric calling from Albany, New York," I said in my most businesslike voice. "Your publicist ask me to call to interview you about your show
here next week."
More mumbling, something that could have been a giggle, all of it very quiet,
very intimate sounding. A yawn. "I'm sleeping," Abra finally said. "I was out late last night."
"Do you want me to call you back later?"
"No, s'alright." Then silence again, and
gentle breathing.
So what to do? I had interviewed angry rock stars, bored rock stars, boring
rock stars, rock stars who gave away nothing, rock stars who bared their
souls, but never a rock star who let me sit on the phone, long distance,
listening to her breathe. I decided that I needed a quick attitude and
approach adjustment-so grabbed the phone, climbed into my own bed, pulled my
grandmother's afghan up over myself and sighed contentedly. And loudly.
"I'm sleeping too," I lied. "Late night here as well. Wonder
why they made us talk to each other so early this morning?"
"Mmmm . . . dunno."
Pause. Yawn. "Whad'ja do
last night."
I made something up, or maybe I didn't, maybe I told the truth, but I told
her something, and she told me something, and we snuggled, each in our space,
and chatted softly, intermittently, as Abra
("Miss Moore" being too formal for such a cozy arrangement, don'tcha think?) flitted in and out of consciousness. Go
with the flow, I figured, get what I can-which wasn't much, except for a
sense of Abra Moore as a real person, not as
a façade or promo product, not as a collection of canned quotes that were
being shared with every other journalist who had called or was going to call
that day. I mean, I not only got into her head, I got into her bed, kinda sorta.
"Are you gonna back to sleep?" she asked
after a while.
"Yeah, how about you?"
"Mmmmm . . . . ," and in that sound, I
saw the mosquitoes beating against the screens in her bedroom, and her
clothes from the night before, strewn across the cedar chest where she kept
her sweaters, safe from moths, and the smell of magnolia drifted into the
room from the verandah, where later she'd sip juleps and eat biscuits and pet
a huge Persian cat named Big Daddy, as his tail flicked restlessly while he
watched black-cap chickadees hoping about the packed dirt yard. And then she
hung up on me.
I didn't write any of that, of course. I just cribbed some stuff from Abra's official bio and slapped a couple of juicy (or at
least juicy sounding) quotes from my notes into the article, pulling together
a nice professional looking puff piece from cobwebs and ether and mist.
Because honor the morning after is the hallmark of a true gentleman, after
all.
Copyright 2001: J. Eric Smith.
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