This is serious.
Mitch
To: Mitchell Hertzog <mitchell.hertzog@hwd.com>
Fr: Stacy Trent <IH8BARNEY@freemail.com>
Re: We need to talk
It isn’t one of the kids, it’s Jason, he’s on the phone with his grandmother. It’s their semi-annual “what shall we invest our fortune in” discussion. What seems to be the problem?
Stacy
P.S. How was your big dinner last night? Did it work? The aphrodisiac shrimp scampi, I mean.
I’ll tell you, it would take a lot more than shrimp to get ME to forgive a guy who’d gotten me fired. Hope she wasn’t THAT easy, or you’ll lose interest, I just know it. You always did love a challenge. Especially if it had breasts.
To: Stacy Trent <IH8BARNEY@freemail.com>
Fr: Mitchell Hertzog <mitchell.hertzog@hwd.com>
Re: We need to talk
It’s Sean. She showed up at my apartment last night. At a very inopportune moment. I don’t want to talk about it over the office e-mail system. I don’t want Stuart to know about this. Can you come into the city and meet me for lunch today? It’s important.
Mitch
To: Mitchell Hertzog <mitchell.hertzog@hwd.com>
Fr: Stacy Trent <IH8BARNEY@freemail.com>
Re: We need to talk
I’ll be there with bells on. Such a mystery! See you at noon.
Stacy
P.S. I’ll call you from the building lobby. I don’t want to run the risk of bumping into Stuie.
To: Kate Mackenzie <katydid@freemail.com>
Fr: Jen Sadler <jennifer.sadler@thenyjournal.com>
Re: SO?????
HOW DID IT GO???? I can’t believe you didn’t call me last night. Did you even come HOME last night? Because I talked to Dolly already and she said by the time she and Skiboy retired to the boudoir—her exact words, by the way—you were still in absentia.
Oh my God, are you STILL with him? Where ARE you? CALL ME AND TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT!!!!!
J
P.S. I’m glad SOMEBODY is getting some. I mean, not that I’m not. But with this whole baby thing, it’s kind of a drag only doing it when a little stick tells you to, and not just when you feel like it. Anyway. DISH!
To: Jen Sadler <jennifer.sadler@thenyjournal.com>
Fr: Kate Mackenzie <katydid@freemail.com>
Re: SO????
Sorry, I got back here really late and then overslept. I am turning into SUCH a slacker. I mean, just because I’m unemployed doesn’t mean I have to ACT like it. But here I am already sleeping past ten. It’s HORRIBLE!
Plus I missedCharmed.
Anyway, sorry to disappoint you, but nothing happened. Well, not NOTHING, but not what you think. I mean, we kissed. On his couch. For a long time.
And Jen: he has VERY strong lips.
I’m so confused.
Want to have lunch? Somewhere cheap ’cause I’m broke.
Kate
To: Kate Mackenzie <katydid@freemail.com>
Fr: Jen Sadler <jennifer.sadler@thenyjournal.com>
Re: SO?????
No offense, honey, but I ate lunch at noon, like a normal person. You’re on your own with that one.
And as far as ‘fessing up goes, Kate, that was pathetic. You KISSED? That’s IT???
You MUST be confused, if a hot, wheelchair-basketball-playing lawyer makes you dinner, and all you do is KISS. I know it’s been awhile, Katie, but please. You couldn’t come up with anything better than THAT?
J
To: Jen Sadler <jennifer.sadler@thenyjournal.com>
Fr: Kate Mackenzie <katydid@freemail.com>
Re: SO????
Please. That’s not what I’m confused about. We’d have screwed like rabbits if his doorman hadn’t buzzed. Mitch wasn’t going to answer it, but I was like, “What if the building is on fire?” and he swore (!!!!!!!!!!) and went and answered the buzzer, and the doorman was like, “Sean is here to see you,” and Mitch swore even more (!!!!!!!!) and said “Let me talk to her,” and this woman’s voice came on, and she was crying and going, “Mitch, you’ll never believe what she did to me.”
I swear to God for a minute I thought it was that praying mantis lady, the one I told you about, from the museum?
But then Mitch looked at me and said, “It’s my little sister.”
So of course I was all, “She sounds upset, you should let her up.”
Which he did, but you could tell he didn’t want to. Next thing I knew there was this girl with green hair crying on the sofa where we’d been making out (I can’t believe I just wrote that. But it’s true. We’d been making out! On his couch! AND IT WAS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, God, I am so going to hell).
Anyway, poor Sean—that’s his sister. Or really, her name is Janice, but she wants everyone to call her Sean, and who can blame her, really? Janice is a bit of an old-fashioned name for a girl like her. I mean, she’s only nineteen—was clearly in crisis and was just busting to tell Mitch all about it. I offered to leave, since I figured she didn’t want a complete stranger to hear whatever it was.
But before I could go she just spilled it all out—about how their mother had made her leave college because she was concerned about a “friendship” Sean had developed with one of her roommates, and how Sean had tried to be reasonable about it, but how Mrs. Hertzog had forbidden her to communicate with this girl—Sarah—and how she’d taken away her (Sean’s) computer so she and Sarah could not even exchange e-mails. Because of course Mrs. Hertzog had secretly been reading Sean’s e-mails to Sarah, and had figured out that the girls’ relationship wasn’t exactly of the platonic variety, if you know what I mean.
Poor Mitch! I mean, it was clear he loves his little sister very much, and he was very good and gentle with her, offering to make her some hot chocolate—“the kind with the mini-marshmallows”—and let her stay the night if she wanted to.
But when he heard the part about Sean and Sarah’s “forbidden love”—her words, not mine—I thought he might run out of there and never come back. I mean, he deals—or dealt, rather—with murderers every day, but the thought of dealing with his little sister’s sexual identity crisis clearly threw him into panic. He sent me a look of such total and complete helplessness, well, I knew I couldn’t possibly leave. I mean, he NEEDED me, Jen. He genuinely needed help coping with his tiny little lesbian sister.
So I sat right down and, just like Professor Wingblade told us to, I held Sean’s hand and I listened to everything she had to say, which was most of the usual stuff for a kid who was coming out to her family for the first time. And I explained to Sean that her mother still loved her, but that Mrs. Hertzog was just frightened and confused, and that she hadn’t meant any of the things she said, and that Sean should give her a few days to process the information, and she’d probably calm down and be able to discuss the situation rationally again.
Only Mitch didn’t look as if he believed this. In fact, he even snorted . . . which, I let him know, wasn’t helping. You know, when Sean wasn’t listening. But Mitch just said I didn’t know his mother, and that rational thinking was not one of her strong points.
But I find that so hard to believe. I mean, she gave birth to Mitch, didn’t she? And—aside from the whole getting-me-fired thing—he seems like one of the most rational people I have ever met. I mean, after his initial shock, he took the whole thing with Sean in stride. In fact, when we said good night—after Sean had calmed down and stopped crying, and even cracked a joke or two about how sorry she was to have spoiled our “date”—he told me not to worry, that getting my job back was his biggest priority, especially now that he’d seen me “in action,” as he put it.