Welcome to Meta-Reality Crossover Conversations, a series in which characters from different books interview one another. In this, the initial installment of the series, John Plow from Open Stage interviews the Mayor’s Daughter from The Hermit.
John’s introductory comments: I met the Mayor’s Daughter at Olive’s Coffee Shop on a bright, Saturday afternoon when I could have been putting my time to better use hanging out with my buddy Gilbert and drinking beer. Now, I’ll admit that I might have made a bad impression by showing up an hour and a half late, but I was channel surfing and found Scarface. So I had to ride it out. Right? Say hello to my little friend. Anyway, when I showed up, she was sitting there reading a magazine, so, like, you know, it’s not as if she was just sitting there bored out of her skull. Right? She seemed on edge about it for some reason, but she was polite. Well, at least at first.
JP: Well, hello there. I’m pleased to meet you.
MD: Hi. I’m pleased to meet you, too.
JP: No. What I’m saying is, I’m really pleased to meet you.
MD: Uh, well . . . all right. What would you like to ask me?
JP: [impatient sigh] For starters, what are you doing later tonight?
MD: Okay, look. I’m sure you’re a nice guy and all, but I think we should just stick to business.
JP: Is it because I was late?
MD: It seems to me you should have had plenty of time to find a better shirt to wear than “FBI: Female Body Inspector.”
JP: You don’t like the shirt?
MD: Let’s just get on with the interview.
JP: I think we could conduct a better interview at my place, with soft music and a bottle of wine.
MD: I understand that I have something of a reputation, but really, I’m not desperate to bed down with any goofball who happens to come along.
JP: Okay, I see how it is. I’ll be on my way. I’ll go home and make something up and send it to Ray.
MD: Whatever.
Editor’s comments: At this point, John notes that he doesn’t really need to make anything up because a verbatim transcript of what they actually said will show him to be charming and lovable, and her to be contrary and uncooperative. He then went on a four-paragraph rant about how he could score dozens of hotter babes with better attitudes just by spending fifteen minutes calling random phone numbers. But I’ll spare you that.
Join us next time, when Maxwell from Open Stage interviews the Neuralgia Sisters from Goliath.