Page 24 of The Apparent Trap

“Yup.”

“I have to watch it.”

“I’m sure it’s embedded in the depths of some streamer’s search function. Are you a big true crime junkie?”

“I love documentaries about anything,” I admit.

“So movie buff and documentary lover?” he asks.

“Yes.” This is getting personal, and I don’t like it. “So I did call in part to say that I’m sorry you’re named after a murderer,” I continue, changing the subject. “But mostly I called to tell you my plan was a total bust.”

“I’m shocked,” he says, not at all shocked.

I shouldn’t be shocked, either, but maybe this was me being too optimistic. I’m so unbelievably people pleasing that doing even this small, pathetic plan felt like going out on a major limb. So I wanted to believe it had some potential. But in reality, it was barely even an attempt. It was nothing more than ordering two people a fairly benign salad.

I’d wandered into Carmen’s office an hour after they would’ve eaten. I didn’t need to fake a pretense—now that Carmen’s finally, slowly, allowing me to help her, there’s usually something for us to go over.

“Oh hey, Dad,” I said casually, as though it was completely normal for my coworker to have informed me that my father, her boyfriend, was going to be sitting in her office between meetings that he had that day. I tried to not think about when they’d probably come up with this plan; probably late at night. Nope, don’t need that imagery in my head.

“Ezzie!” He bounces up to give me a hug. “I was hoping you’d swing by. Carmen told me she mentioned to you that I’d be here for a couple of hours. How nice is this?”

I try to have an honest smile, I really do, because he seems so delighted by the whole situation. But there’s annoyance and guilt fighting their way into it, so much more complex than what I normally feel when I look at my dad.

And that reminder adds resentment into the mix too. Yes, I still think Carmen acted inappropriately, asking out her producer’s dad. Yet I’ve been avoiding placing some of the blame on him too. I know he’s pretty emotionally oblivious, but I hate that he doesn’t seem to have even considered how this might affect me. Why couldn’t he make his first dip in the dating pond with anyone besides my coworker?

But that sentiment just pumps up the guilt even more. If I’m justifying plotting behind his back because I want to save him from being hurt, shouldn’t I be thinking less about how it’s affecting me?

I shake the thought away like an unwanted mosquito buzzing in my ear.

“Very nice,” I say succinctly, and then turn to Carmen. “We’ve got you sitting down with the head of the FAA later today. She’s up from DC, so they want to do it in person. I’ve drafted questions for you and emailed them over, but let me know if you want to go through it all.”

“Definitely,” Carmen says, sitting down and opening her laptop to get a look.

I notice the bowls from the salad in the trash can. Before I can let anything buzz in my ear again, I blurt out, “Oh, you both got that salad today?”

“Ooh, yeah,” my dad says, oblivious. “Carmen accidentally got an extra one, and my lunch meeting isn’t for a few hours, so I thought I’d try it.”

“There’s um . . .” I take a deep breath. “There’s a lot of beans in that salad, Dad. Aren’t you worried about your stomach?” I turn to Carmen. “He’s gotten a much more sensitive system over the last few years. So many things just affect him more than they used to.”

I thought maybe that would, at least, give her pause. What I was not expecting was for Carmen to light up at this sentiment. “Oh my goodness, I know! Maybe TMI, but I also get gassy from beans. But I love that salad, so I always take a Gas-X before. I gave one to Mark too.”

“TMI?” my dad says, bewildered. But Carmen just laughs and leans over to give him a peck on the cheek.

“Too much information,” she replies.

“Ah,” he says and mimes taking a note in a fake notebook. She giggles, and I look around the room like I’m Jim in The Office who needs to make eyes at the camera to ask if anyone else is seeing what I’m seeing. What is this version of Carmen? It’s like two unselfconscious dorks found each other and don’t need to pay attention to reality. That is not the sharp Carmen I see every day. It’s unsettling.

And now I have to consider that fact along with my admittedly way-too-small scheme’s abject failure.

“Now do you believe me that simply assuming shallowness wasn’t a well-laid plan?” Lee says after I’ve recounted the story.

“I mean, I didn’t expect this to break them up today—”

“You didn’t think the beans were strong enough?” He’s trying and failing to conceal a laugh.

I sigh. “I get it. I’m terrible at scheming. I’m like . . . trying to be Machiavelli while actually being descended from the Three Stooges. Is this entire plan stupid?”

“No,” he replies quickly. But then he doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Look, we’re trying to help them, in the long run. So the overall plan itself isn’t stupid. But we’ve just got to come up with maybe slightly more effective tactics.”