Meghan was scared, but she didn’t want to look that way. She asked for a little more blush.
Laurie Moran, the woman who had been hounding her on the telephone for the previous week, seemed amiable enough, but Meghan thought she had noticed a hint of sarcasm in the producer’s voice when she said she was happy to finally meet in person. Meghan was more nervous about going toe-to-toe with Alex Buckley. His cross-examination skills were well known.
Her laptop tucked away, she no longer had an excuse for delay. Okay, she said to herself, let’s do this and then Jeff and I can go home and move on with the rest of our lives.
The minute they were past introductions, Alex Buckley began by asking Meghan to explain the timing of her courtship with Jeff.
He clearly isn’t pulling any punches, Meghan thought. He’s going for the jugular.
“You had to have known that some people would disapprove of your starting a relationship with him when Amanda-his fiancée and your best friend-was still missing.”
Meghan had practiced her answer hundreds of times, but now that she was here, all she could think about was those hot lights and cameras pointing at her. She had worked so hard to avoid all this attention.
She managed to make it through her memorized response. “We were both as surprised as anyone, Alex.”
“You’ve told people over the years that you were the one to reintroduce Amanda and Jeff.”
“That’s right. At a coffee shop in Brooklyn. Amanda loved their bagels,” she said sadly.
“But you didn’t intentionally get them together, did you?” he asked in a sympathetic tone. “Isn’t it true that Jeff just happened to bump into you?”
“Yes, I guess that’s right.”
“In fact, weren’t you romantically interested in Jeff all the way back in college?”
She shrugged. “College crushes come and go.”
“So you did have a crush. And then you were excited when you both ended up in New York after law school and he invited you out.”
“Yes, I suppose I was.”
“And were you the one to tell him you didn’t want to see each other anymore, or was that his decision?”
“It wasn’t like that. We didn’t even have that discussion. We just never went out on a third date.”
“And is that because Jeff didn’t invite you?”
“Sure, I guess.”
Meghan could feel the implication in the pause that followed. The show had scored a point at her expense. All these years, she had allowed people to think that she played cupid between Amanda and Jeff. Would everyone see the truth now? Would they know that she had loved Jeff all along? That she had sobbed for hours after Amanda called her the day after the coffee-shop run-in to say that Jeff had invited her to dinner? Meghan had known instantly that she had lost her shot. She never could compete with Amanda.
Now in desperation, she tried to turn the tables on her interrogator. “Have you ever heard of tunnel vision?” she blurted. “Let me explain it. It’s when an investigator gets suspicious of one person and views all the evidence through that lens. I could point to any person in the wedding party and start raising questions. It doesn’t mean any one of us is involved. Take Kate, for example. On the night Amanda disappeared, she said she had too much to drink and needed to go to her room. But when I went to check on her, there was no answer, even though I banged on the door. In the morning, she claimed not to have heard the knocking, even though Kate is the lightest sleeper I’ve ever met. In college, she would wake up if someone played a CD two rooms away. Do I know where Kate was that night? Not really. But did Kate have anything to do with Amanda’s disappearance? I’d bet my life she didn’t. Are you going to play gotcha with all of us? Are you trying to make us all look guilty?”
Meghan felt like she had made a valid point, but realized the producers could always edit anything they didn’t like. By the time they were done with their creative splicing, she might come across like a defensive lunatic.
Alex shifted gears. “Did you threaten to sue Amanda for stealing a product idea from you?”
Meghan’s worst fears were coming true. Well, not her very worst fears, but she knew this interview was not going well. She felt even more nauseous than she’d become accustomed to in the past week. How in the world did they even know about the fight at the Ladyform offices? She thought Amanda’s disappearance had long ago overshadowed their argument. It must have been Charlotte. That woman never forgot a grudge.
“I didn’t threaten her, but I did let her know my feelings were hurt. Back in college, the two of us came up with a trick to hold our keys and our iPods while we were working out. We sewed neoprene pockets onto our exercise clothes. It kept the contents dry and tucked snugly into place. Plus, we thought it was pretty cute. When I saw Ladyform’s X-Dream collection in stores, I was so upset that I went to Amanda’s office. We argued over whose idea it was. I thought it was mine, or at least a joint idea. She insisted the real work and the ownership was hers and the company’s. In my opinion, if she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong, she would have told me in advance.”
“You were screaming loudly enough that people could hear you all the way down the hall. Did the fact that Amanda was going to marry a man you were still interested in add to your anger?”
Meghan was beginning to regret not trying to dissuade Jeff from coming here. Now she was trapped. She had no choice but to keep talking. “I admit, the argument in her office was heated. But she called me the next day. We met for lunch. She explained all the design work and experimentation that had gone into turning our simple little trick into a breakthrough product. She apologized for not telling me in advance, and I told her she could make it up to me by paying for the very nice bottle of champagne we were drinking and sending me a box full of free workout clothes.” She smiled at the memory. “In the end, it was a minor snit between friends. And it was over the same lunch that we had the conversation I always go back to. It’s the reason I truly believe that Amanda left this hotel on her own.”
Alex leaned forward. Meghan prayed that he would believe her. She had never told anyone this before, except Jeff. “Amanda’s illness fundamentally changed her. She told me that she would no longer do things only out of loyalty or obligation. She was going to live for herself. It was her reason for not giving me credit for X-Dream. In her heart, she didn’t believe I deserved it, so sharing credit with me would diminish her own accomplishment.”
“And how does that relate to her disappearance?” Alex asked.
“She was so different than the Amanda I knew before she was sick. In retrospect, I think she was trying to tell me she was no longer going to be the good girl. The good daughter. The good friend. The good wife. She wanted freedom, and she wanted power, and she didn’t want to feel guilty for being the strong, independent woman she’d grown to be. But, she couldn’t do all those things in the shadow of her family and friends and her impending wedding.”
“Friends have said that you were less frantic than everyone else when she disappeared. Why didn’t you tell anyone this before?”
“In time, I did tell Jeff. But it didn’t feel right saying it to anyone else. I felt like I was criticizing her, as if I was saying cancer made her selfish. Doesn’t that sound terrible? But that’s not how I saw it. I was happy for her. I thought she had found a way to start over again. That’s why I didn’t feel guilty when Jeff and I became closer. Do you know that the wedding bands were missing?”