Hidden Depths

THE Meeting

Her house was quite comfortable on the inside. It had very modern furniture and some upper class pieces on the mantle of her fireplace. She wasted no time in pulling up a chair for me to sit in. I followed her gesture and she sat down as well. 
"Alright, now we have to brainstorm some questions that we think might be fitting to ask an elderly woman who just lost her husband."

"Alright, do you have anything in mind?" I asked her.

She looked from me, down to her fingernails, twiddling her thumbs all the while. She thought for a bit before she spoke, "well, I was thinking that maybe we could instead of go head first into the conversation, kind of ease our way into it? Meaning that the first things we should ask shouldn't be directly associated with the house, they should be more along the lines of, you know, growing up, how the town was and what differences there are now than to when she was a kid. You know, start in small, go in deeper as time goes on."

I nodded. "I see where you're thinking, and I like it. I think we should ask her though, how she feels about the tabloids, and what they say about her and the house and everything, after we've eased into those questions of course." She nodded, "I like that."

I nodded back, smiling. She returned it. Silence filled the house, but it was comfortable.

"Do you think you like the town so far? And be honest. Because I've had people tell me they love it, and I've had people tell me that they hate it. It's never a middle ground with people."

I thought generously, thinking of the best response while sticking true to my feelings. "You know, honestly, I do love it here. Regardless of the houses, and the pier, even if there was none of that, I would still love it, because it's not your average town you know? It's absolutely beautiful here. In every sense of the word. I mean truly it is. And you step outside to get some fresh air, and you hear excited conversations going on down the street, of people meeting up with friends and being so excited to go out on the town, or you hear the sizzle of food places by you."

"It's all so nice here. It's just an added bonus that we get to live here too, in the same community as these houses are in."

She smiled at my response and nodded, "you and I think the same then."

Another comfortable silence returned.

"Well, I had an idea, and you can say no if you're not comfortable. But, I was thinking, maybe you'd want to stay over here tonight? I know it's soon, but there's a store with a Redbox in it about two minutes away from here, we could rent one for cheap, get some nice take out, and just have a girls night. You feel me?"

Without hesitation I nodded and smiled, "I'd love that."

She smiled back. "Great."

For the rest of that night we practiced different questions that we could ask the woman tomorrow. We took turns pretending we were news anchors who were on an important mission to get some high profile information and that we were undercover.

We shared a lot of laughs, but most importantly, we got a very good set up for questions to ask. They all sounded very professional, and acceptable to ask.

We crashed around 12:30 AM. I slept on her couch and she slept in her bed. We woke up at 8 in the morning to her alarm clock, and ended up snoozing it until about 1.