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“Yes, fine,” she said. “I was just thinking about work.”
“This ought to change that.” He put the quarter in and hesitated for just a fraction of a second before pressing C and 7 at the same time. “Get you thinking about math homework instead,” he added with a small laugh.
The sound of an old Platters song drifted out of the small, tinny speakers. Meredith knew it because it had been one of her grandfather’s favorites.
Evan had known that once. Was it too presumptuous to think that was why he’d chosen it this time?
“You’re not the only one with a memory,” he said, as if in answer to her unspoken question.
“What do you mean?” she asked. Where Evan was concerned, her rule was going to be Assume Nothing.
He gestured toward the jukebox. “You picked this song about a million times.”
She repositioned herself, hoping her straightened posture would pass for a lack of sentimentality. “That’s funny, I don’t really remember that.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What?”
He cocked his head and said, “We have a past, Meredith. There’s no getting around it, no matter how much you might want to. We can’t pretend we don’t know each other.”
“We don’t,” she said, too quickly. She sounded defensive. She was defensive.
She was going to have to get some perspective.
He shrugged and fiddled with a sugar pack from the little container on the table. “We did once.”
“What did we have, Evan?” She looked him squarely in the eye, even though it made her feel weak inside. “Obviously, it wasn’t that close, or that special, because you up and left it without so much as an adiós”
“That wasn’t because of you, Meredith.”
If she’d been successful at pretending nonchalance at all, she lost it then. “I didn’t know what it was about.”
“It was just … me. My own stuff. I’m sorry if it hurt you.”
That was it? After all these years, that was what she got in the way of retribution? I’m sorry if it hurt you.
Like there was some possibility that it hadn’t.
Like maybe she hadn’t even noticed, at seventeen, that the boy she adored more than anything on earth—the guy she was sure she was going to spend the rest of her life with—had just disappeared into the night. Lord, she’d been so sure—so wrong, but so darn sure—about his feelings for her that for the first six months she had continued to insist that something must have happened to Evan.
Imagined him wounded somewhere, needing help…. Thoughts had plagued her, night and day. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus.
And now he was sorry if he’d hurt her?
“It wasn’t just about you,” she said quietly, holding her outrage and disbelief deep inside.
“What do you mean?”
If he didn’t know, she didn’t want to have to explain it to him. It was all such old news now, anyway—how could she talk about it without sounding like a desperate loser who had been stuck in the past for all this time?
How could she explain what it was like for her—the girl who had trusted, and given of herself, and who thought if there was one thing in the world she could count on it was Evan Hanson—to find out that everything she’d thought was real for two and a half years was just an illusion? And even that revelation had come only after she’d gone through the undue stress of fearing the worst.
It sounded small to the disinterested audience, yet to Meredith it had been a life-shaping experience.
“What I mean is, we need to keep this about business,” she clarified. “Whatever we had was over a long time ago. And opening old wounds isn’t going to achieve anything positive or productive for either one of us.”
“Right.”
She went on, “Like I said, we don’t know each other anymore, and if we move forward acting like we do, based on ancient information, it’s just counterproductive.”
He hesitated, studying her, then said, “Okay, then. Business, not personal. Got it.” He pushed the menu aside. “I already know what I want, how about you?”
She knew she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, so she pushed her menu to the end of the booth with his. “I’ll just get a cheeseburger.”
“Medium well, cheddar cheese, no raw onions, right?” Evan didn’t smile, but he may as well have. His eyes clearly showed that he had won a point.
And her heart conceded that point privately. Though she wouldn’t have wanted to admit it to Evan—or anyone else, for that matter—she hadn’t changed so much since she was a teenager. Basically Meredith Waters had always been the same person—she had simple tastes, a good work ethic and she could be counted upon to take the slow-but-steady route.
The only real difference, and it had come courtesy of Evan himself, was that now she had a very cautious heart.
Meredith Waters was determined to never fall in love again.
Chapter Four
“You’re consistent,” Evan said to her, having predicted her order. “That’s a good thing.”
“You’re right.” She looked at him evenly. “It’s a quality I’ve really grown to appreciate in people.”
He paused, then said, “But you don’t mean that personally, right?”
“Right. It was just a general comment.” She didn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears, so when the waitress appeared to take their orders, she was glad for the interruption.
As soon as the woman turned away, Meredith tried to put the conversation back on track, or at least get it off the track it was on. “So let’s talk about your plans for Hanson Broadcasting. I understand you’re planning to change the format to all talk?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before he followed her into that line of conversation. “It’s hard to do anything unique in music radio these days, but with talk we can corner the market if we get or develop popular talents.”
“But there’s a lot of danger in that, too,” Meredith pointed out, comfortable to be back on less intimate turf. This she could talk to him about. This she could talk to anyone about. “As soon as I heard you wanted to switch to talk, I did some research. Almost every radio network that’s succeeded with talk has done so with shock jocks.” She hesitated, waiting for him to interject, but he just nodded, so she continued, “And though there’s reward potential, the risks tend to be high. Too high.” Especially given her current job description, though she didn’t add that. It would be awfully hard for her to do a good job if she was trying to put out obscenity fires all the time instead of gathering pertinent information about Hanson Media Group.
“What risks are you referring to?” Evan asked.
She chose her words carefully. “A lot of these DJs have trouble toeing the line. They want to be outrageous so people talk about them and listen to them.”
Evan shrugged. “If we want ratings we need people who are willing to push the envelope.”
Meredith frowned. It sounded as if things she thought were dangers were assets to him. “Which envelope are you planning on pushing and exactly who do you have in mind for the job?”
He tapped his fingertips on the gray-and-white tabletop. “Envelopes, any. I don’t care. Who do I have in mind? Several people. I already secured the Sports Addicts, Bill Brandy-wine and Zulo Gillette. But the biggest coup is that I’ve already talked to Lenny Doss about coming here for the morning-drive hours. I think I can get him onboard.”
Suddenly it felt like the air-conditioning had gotten very cold. “Lenny Doss,” Meredith repeated. His name had come up quite a few times in her research. So had the Sports Addicts, and though they weren’t her cup of tea, they were essentially harmless. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope.” He looked quite pleased with himself. “All it took was the right offer.”
Alarm bells were going off in her head and he was oblivious. “Evan, you can’t hire Lenny Doss.”
That got his attention. “Why not?”
Did she really need to spell this out? “The guy is a major liability. The last company that hired him ended up paying the FCC more than half a million bucks in fines.”
Evan nodded with apparent understanding. “You’re referring to him dropping the F-bomb on the air.”
“No—well, yes, but not just that.” She couldn’t even imagine trying to clean up after Lenny Doss. “He also had his listeners go to the Washington Monument and—”
Evan put his hand up. “I know all about that. You’re right, it’s inexcusable, but it’s not going to happen again.”
She couldn’t believe he knew this stuff and still wanted to hire the guy. “Evan, if you hire Lenny Doss, you are in danger of putting the final nail in the coffin of Hanson Media Group.”
He looked at her and she noticed his jaw was tensing the way it always had when he was frustrated.
Evan Hanson didn’t like being told he couldn’t do something. Never had.
“I’m aware of the dangers,” he said. “This business may be new to me, but as soon as Helen put me on the job, I did my research, and I surrounded myself with some pretty knowledgeable people.”
“I’m not saying you can’t do your job,” she said. “I’m saying …” What was she saying? How could she finish that sentence without coming off more adversarial than she already had? “That if you do this, you’re going to make it hard for me to do my job.”
Evan looked at her evenly, then smiled and said, “Tactful recovery.”
Fortunately, they were interrupted by the arrival of their food.
“That was fast,” Meredith commented gratefully as the young redheaded busboy set a plate down with a clatter in front of her. A French fry fell off and landed next to the plate, leaving a small splatter of gravy on the formica.
“I’m sorry,” the kid said quickly, reaching to clean it up and nearly knocking her glass of ice water into her lap.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” she said quickly, noticing Evan pushing her plate a little to the side before the kid accidentally knocked into it, too.
Funny how they could be a good team in such a small way, or at least work in harmony to save a plate, and yet they disagreed about virtually everything of any importance.
“We’ll take it from here,” Evan said in a way that was distinctly dismissive.
“Thanks,” Meredith added to the kid.
The busboy left and Evan turned his attention back to Meredith. “I could almost swear that same kid worked here when we used to come.” He smiled, and Meredith’s heart did a stupid flip. “He looks like he hasn’t aged a day.”
She couldn’t help smiling back. “There’s always a kid like that working in places like this. I think they hire them from central casting.”
They laughed and for just a moment the tension was lifted from the conversation. It was back a moment later, though, when Evan said, “Now, where were we?”
Meredith picked at her French fries. “I believe I was trying to get you to see how crazy it would be to hire Lenny Doss and you were being bullheaded about it.”
“Ah, yes.” He smiled again. The tension in the air between them lessened a bit. “You don’t mince words.”
“Not when I’m this serious about something.”
He let out a long breath. “Look, Meredith, there’s also the chance that it will work, and it will raise the profile of Hanson Media Group in a really positive way. The business world needs to take us seriously and this could do it.”
“I agree with your theory, but I’m not so sure about your methods,” she said. “Are you willing to do this and take the chance of it blowing up in your face?” The air conditioner kicked off halfway through her sentence, and Meredith realized she was practically yelling to be heard. “Do you really want to be the one to blow this for your whole family?” she finished in a lower voice.
Evan tapped his fingers on the table again, louder, faster. His whole face—a face she’d once known so well, but which, at this moment, seemed like a stranger—pulled into a frown. Even his eyes appeared to darken. “Yes, Meredith, I guess I am willing to take that chance. And, with all due respect, I don’t think it’s your job to worry about it.”
“But that’s exactly what my job is. My department already has its hands full trying to salvage the image of Hanson Media Group from the whole porn scandal. Adding Lenny Doss to the mix is like trying to put a fire out with gasoline.”
Evan shook his head and took a big bite of his hamburger, looking unperturbed.
Understanding began to dawn in Meredith’s mind. “Oh, my God. You don’t care, do you?”
He raised an eyebrow in question.
But it wasn’t really in question. She’d seen this gesture before. It was an invitation for her to tell what she knew so he could either confirm or deny.
“You don’t care if the whole company goes under,” she went on, half to herself and half to him. “If you succeed, you’re all right with that, but if you fail.” She studied his face. “My God, Evan, if you fail, you don’t care about that, either, do you?”
The moment of silence that passed between them seemed so long that she felt as if she’d sat staring at him for five minutes, listening to the clanking of utensils and plates and the shouts and laughter around them. It was a standoff and he wasn’t backing down.
Well, neither was she.
“You always were afraid to take a chance, weren’t you?” Evan said finally.
“What?”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t do this because it’s risky. I think that’s coming from a personal bias on your part. You’ve always been afraid to take a risk.”
She thought of the risks she’d taken with him. The ultimate risks she’d taken in giving him her virginity and entering the kind of intimacy she could never erase. “I’ve taken a few.”
It didn’t appear that he took her meaning. “As I recall, you were as straitlaced as they come, always playing by the rules. Even in science class, instead of switching the chemicals up a little bit to see if we could make flubber or something, you insisted on following the program.” He made it sound like an insult.
But she was proud of having played by the rules in high school. It was easy to cheat, to lie and to deceive—she’d found that out later on. “Yes, I preferred to use the method that worked, that was tried and true. It’s just good sense.”
“Good thing Thomas Edison didn’t feel that way.” He took another bite of his burger.
How could he eat at a time like this? Meredith couldn’t even think about her food. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’re not trying to invent the lightbulb, you’re just trying to hire a proven jerk to put on the air so you can have the sublime pleasure of watching your family business explode like a firecracker.”
“That’s not true,” he protested, gesturing at her with his burger. “I am not trying to make the company go under. Despite what you think, I do care. I’m trying to help. But you’re right—if it doesn’t work out, it’s not going to be the end of my world.”
“So you’re willing to put everyone’s future on the line.” She felt the tug of an anger she hadn’t felt in a long time. “And if things don’t go the way you want them to, you’d rather bail on everyone who cares about you—no matter how much it hurts them—than do a little hard work to try and get along.”
He winced. She was almost sure of it. “That’s an easy explanation, isn’t it? Blame me instead of the reality that some people and situations are not a good fit.”
That stung. Meredith took a bracing breath and put her palms down on the cool tabletop. “Let’s get back on the subject before we start getting personal, shall we?” Shall we? Did she really say that? Suddenly she was a Victorian spinster.
