Chap 34: Cowboy

The failed interview with Diana Sinclair had made us worked twice as hard for a replacement slot that was going to be equally interesting and sales inducing for Hey's new issue.

In the mean time, I just could not stop thinking about her. It had been few days that Diana Sinclair had stuck in my brain and eyes and ears. I could not get rid of her! I admit that I was very frustrated with what happened between us. Everything was planned and executed meticulously but it flopped for such a vague reason. Daniel did make a call to her manager for an explanation and all he got was "She should have asked Diana with something more productive and useful rather than those less than a thoughtful questions." In other words, he was saying that all those questions I asked her were all dumb.

"In other words, she had problem with your questions? Is that it?"

"Well. It seemed like it, Gina."

"It's ok. We'll talk more about this when you reach KL, all right? Don't think too much about it. Enjoy your time in Sarawak."

"At what time should I fetch you in the airport, again?"

"11 a.m, all right?"

"Okay! I'll be there right on time!"

"All right. See you!"

The next day, with permission from Daniel, I left the office to fetch Gina from the airport as promised. I reached there by taxi half an hour early and so I needed to find some place to sit at whilst waiting for Gina's arrival. Trying to make it a productive waiting, I brought along a file of drafts handed by Daniel to me earlier that morning. Just to check it if there was anything up for reconciliation. However, just as I about to read the very first word in it, I heard a familiar voice was calling my name from behind me. I turned around...and froze, as soon as I could see the owner of that voice. In an instance, I could feel my bloods were all pumped up to my face.

"Norman?" I said. My eyes did not even blink and my heart skipped a beat. I could not believe he was actually standing in front of me.

"Yes, I am, Marina. You are not dreaming!" Norman waved his hand softly across my face. That made me laughed on myself a little bit, for being such a dork. He took a few steps ahead and then sat next to me.

"What are you doing here Marina?"

"Waiting for a friend"

"Gina?" he guessed.

"Yes, Gina," I replied.

"Where is she flying from?"

"Sarawak."

"Ah… I see," Norman nodded.

Things got a little bit awkward after that and we both seemed lost for words. In my head, I was thinking...'is this the appropriate response for someone who dumped her fiancée out of the blue?

"And you Norman, where have you got back from?"

"Texas."

"Texas? Are you serious?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"Wow! What brought you to the land of cowboys?"

"Haha! Just travelling. Who knows I might bring home a cowgirl," he answered and laughed cheekily. That brought a smile on my face too.

"So how's life now, Marina?"

"Nothing new. Same old same old."

"I bet you are having amazing time at Hey, am I right?" That question caught me off guard. But it made me smile a little. I thought he never cared anything about me at all after we parted ways. But he had been keeping up with me, obviously with that question.

"Yes. Good time! Learned a lot!" I responded briefly.

"What are you really doing in Texas, actually? Trying to lasso a cowgirl for a future wife, really?" I asked him jokingly.

"Hahaha! You are such a dork. I'm looking for a business opportunity there. Why travel that far, if I can find a better wife here."

"So did you find it?" I asked again.

"Find what?"

"What you were looking for..."

"For business or for wife?"

"For business, of course!" I laughed

"Hmm it looked positive. I saw many potentials in some of the places there."

"Potential? Texas? I’ve never heard of anyone from here looking out for a business opportunity in that desert. If it's D.C, New York, California, it wouldn't sound so strange. But Texas..."

Norman just smiled. For a couple minutes we both went silent again. Apparently, he did not want to talk further about Texas. But I was totally okay with that.

"What about a soulmate. Seeing anyone?" I braved myself to ask, even though I could see it in his face how it made him uncomfortable. But being Norman, he was very good at hiding his feelings. He just laughed a little bit. "Well, I did send a lot of proposal letters for the girls. But none of them replied me. Maybe you can help me with that?" he answered playfully.

"I'm sorry. I'm no expert in this kind of thing. But a written marriage proposal? You should be more a gentleman…" 

"Hey, that's Gina!" Norman pointed to her walking towards us. From a distance I could see her eyes went as big as a golf ball, seeing Norman there with me. Her face was screaming 'What is going on here???'

"Hello you two! What an odd! Did you two plan to meet here? At the airport?"

"Oh, no! We accidentally bumped into each other just now," I explained in a little shaky voice. I knew she was not going to buy that.

"How are your parents, Gina?" Norman tried to break the awkward situation.

"They are doing well, thanks for asking."

"Let me guess, you went home because they wanted to discuss marriage with you, am I right?" Norman continued.

"Well, thankfully my parents don't like to get involved in my personal business. I was just clearing my annual leaves."

"So, they never asked you about it?"

"Once in a blue moon. But Gina is always ready with the answer! As usual, 'I haven't met the right one' "

While they both were busy chitchatting about their lives, we were slowly moving to the taxi point where there were a few people waiting for a taxi.

"That answer you gave to your parent, isn't that the only one you keep giving them since forever? Don't they grow tired out of it?" Norman still onto the same topic.

"Well, they have to accept it. You can't push things like this. Hah! How about you? Now is my turn to ask. Are you not worried about it?" Gina quickly diverted the spotlight on him, with both hands on her hips at that.

"Uhm..case is different with men. The older we get the more desired we are," Norman responded with such pride.

"Oh! You think women lost the market when we get older? Haven't you heard anything about the word 'cougar'?"

When I heard the cougar word came out of Gina's mouth, my heart quickly said 'Oh, no! Not here! Please, this is not the place or the time to talk about it.'

"So, you aspire to be a cougar then?" continued Norman.

"Well, why not? Nothing is wrong about it."

"Oh Gina..you know it right, that when a woman reaches a certain age level, their sexual level will..."

"Norman. Gina. We are in public, okay!" I could not stay silent anymore. I knew I had to stop them because I knew that their conversation was heading towards something more taboo and had a better place to talk about at, than at a taxi point, in the middle of strangers.

"It's all your fault Norman. You started it!" said Gina while laughing.

"By the way Norman, haven't you got anything for us? A key chain at least?" asked Gina.

"The same old Gina! Luckily I came prepared."

Norman unzipped his luggage and tried to reach something in it. It was a small green box.

"Here is it," he handed the box to Gina.

"Actually, I bought that for my girlfriend, you know," added Norman.

Gina did not seem bothered at all as she knew he was just joking. She unboxed it excitingly, like a little girl on Christmas morning.

"Oh, wow! A hand-carved ship replica! From wood!" shouted Gina happily. Her mouth remained wide opened for a few seconds.

I admit it, it was so beautiful and I tried my best not to show my excitement. But it did cross to my mind though, that had it not for Gina, that gift might have been in my hand, meant for me instead.

"Are you serious about giving this ship to me?" Gina reconfirmed.

"I am. Well if you don't want it, you can give it back to me."

"No way! I want it! How about Marina, Norman? Don't you have anything for her?" Gina bat her eyes at me.

"Oh, there's a taxi coming!" Norman pointed to a taxi that was slowly coming towards us who were at the head of the line. The taxi stopped and the driver quickly hopped off to assist Norman uploading Gina's luggages into the trunk.

"Take care both of you!" Norman shut the door for us and we waved each other goodbye, before we both laid our backs on the seat and simultaneously took a deep breath.

"Huh! I'm so tired!" Gina closed her eyes.

"Marina, you need to explain what just happened," said Gina keeping her eyes unopened.

"All right… All right… Actually.."

My phone rang before I could finish my sentence.

"Who's that, Marina?"

"Daniel."

"Oh wow. Just now, Norman. Now, Daniel. And who’s next? Eddie? What a player!"

"Don't be ridiculous Gina," I said to her and answered the call.

"Hello, boss!"

"Marina. Where are you now?"

"I just left the airport. Now on the way home."

"Can you come to the office?"

"Oh. Why? If there's anything I need to edit, you can just email them to me.

"No. Not that. It's about Diana. Diana Sinclair"

"What about Diana Sinclair?"

"Look, I have just had a conversation with her team just now and she has agreed to be interviewed for the second time."

"Are you sure? You did not mishear anything?"

"Hundred percent sure!"

"That’s great, Daniel."

"So how? Are you coming?"

"Okay, I'll be there! See you later."

"I've got a good news Gina. Diana Sinclair wants to meet me again!"

I said to Gina. But she did not respond to me at all.

"Hmm… Already asleep," I talked to myself when I saw her actually fallen asleep.

Before I could let my imagination fly from my meeting with Norman, I was forced to turn my attention to Diana Sinclair.

Diana! Diana! Diana! I tried to recall the recently failed interview with her and came out with a mind map that said 'Diana Sinclair: What Went Wrong?'"

All right. As far as I could remember, when Diana was trying to recall and quote something from Micheal Crichton, I was also starting to talk about the book she mentioned in the Secret Garden, which was Eleven Minutes by Paolo Coelho, of which she talked few things about sex based on what Paolo Coelho had touched in the Eleven Minutes.

According to Diana, the main reason she brought that matter up was to create awareness to the public. However, she was totally misunderstood. She was accused to be manipulating all the scandals and by bringing up this taboo topic explicitly, she had given sex and sexuality a bad name, worse than it was before. In other words, she had made the now startlingly acceptable and tolerable issue by the people, dirty again.

"So, why did you want to write about these issues, Diana?"

"Simply because I want to. It may seem like I am all alone in this like what I have spilled in the Secret Garden, but I believe there are many others who agree with what I have said in there. If they are too ashamed to write or to discuss about it, well let me do the honour and start the revolution myself.

"Ashamed?"

"Yes. Ashamed with their own fantasies and opinions, no matter what it is. Sex...fame...fortune...having coffee at the top of KLCC and all I wanted was something through women's perspective. But I never expected it to be twisted by these people.

"These people? You mean your politician and media friends?" I asked again. However, Diana just smiled cynically.

"You know Marina...some people said 'Oh! She was so daring with that write ups'...while some went 'Ah...there's nothing to be surprised of.'"

"So, what you are trying to say here is...?"

Diana went silent once again. Instead of answering my question,  she massaged her head, instead. Maybe I was wrong, for playing a psychologist there.

Whoever discussing this matter in such a downgrading way, to negatively criticize it, or to make it a laughing stock, would be perceived as an enemy no matter who that person was.

I had a feeling that she had enough talking about Secret Garden. Perhaps, she felt that there was too much about herself had been exposed.

On one hand, I felt a little guilty thinking about the way I brought everything up for her. But on the other hand, I thought, you could not blame the public for wanting an explanation for what you had put out there for them. You caused that to happen. You baited them for this. In other words, can you blame a thief for stealing something you left unguarded and even worse, purposely on your bike?

Out of the blue, my phone rang again. I left all the monologues unanswered to get the call.

"Yes, Daniel?"

"Marina. I think we have lost her. She cancelled the meeting."

"What did she say?"

"She said...this meeting is not going to be a fruitful one," Daniel replied.

I took a deep sigh, frustrated.

The day after that, I spent the whole evening just being in the office, going through our milestone so far for the upcoming issue. I spent the previous night watching the film, S.O.S produced by Diana and honestly I loved it and I loved the book by her that went under the same title as well. They were such a complement to each other and at that moment I blamed myself for not being able to bring the interview to success. I should have asked her about S.O.S., not about the unnecessary controversies surrounding her.

Suddenly an unknown number called in and as usual I would feel hesitate to answer them. But...

"Hello," I answered it anyway, with a slow and deep voice.

"Hello. Marina?" there was a woman's voice at the other side of the line. Her tone sounded beautiful but I could not recognize who the owner was.

"Marina's speaking. Who's on the line?" I asked back.

"It's me. Diana Sinclair here."

All of a sudden, my heart skipped a beat.

"Diana? Diana Sinclair?" I asked again in disbelief.

"Yes," she replied.

"How are you Marina?"

"I'm good. You?"

"I'm good too. Happy."

"Nice to hear that. Where did you get my number from?"

"From the interviewer's information you gave me the other day, remember?"

"Oh yes, I remember now. Hmm...Diana, about the other day, I think I owe you an apology..."

"Never mind Marina. I'm not mad at you. It's just that I was actually hoping something else from Hey. Something different."

"What do you mean?"

Diana spilled it one by one on the phone. Everything that made her disappointed with the interview the other day. According to her, she felt like she wasted so many times back then having to answer or to comment on all the things that were way behind her and no longer relevant. She felt like she was being interrogated by the police: sexuality, her stand on politics, the men she was interested in. She felt unhappy for not being given a space to talk about her career and her vision in life.

"I know there are a lot of people out there who want me to fall, head first. They want to see all my weaknesses and these people normally are living such a sad and pathetic life!"

I weaved my words carefully before I said "Forgive me if you feel that way. To be honest, you were among the first women who…"

"Enough. Are you trying to seduce me? This is not

 the first time I've heard sweet words from someone who..." She did not finish her words. Maybe she had an assumption on me and she was thinking about how true it was. While me, I could not believe what I had just heard. Diana thought I was sexually attracted to her? Wow!

"Forget about it. You should have made me comfortable with the interview, with you. We were supposed to be like sisters having a casual chat. Like a pair of lovers making passionate love," I gulped with surprise when I heard that.

"I thought I could leave behind all the shields, the jets and the canons that were always with me before, when I am being interviewed by Hey. Throughout our interview, I wondered if you were judging me  and seeing me as a slut.

"I am so sorry Diana. I did not mean to..."

"Hold on, Marina. Let me finish what have been weighing my heart down."

She spilled it all, from A to Z in full blast emotion. Being a good listener, I paid attention to her and not missing any single word. Obviously, she was just a human being, like the rest of us.

"I will fly to Kuching tomorrow and I will give you a call back. I want to see you again," Diana told me before she ended the call.