"That last one. I don't know. The first one!"
"Let's just get one thing straight. William Jameson is not gross," she emphasized.
"I know." Tristan sighed gustily into the receiver. Poppy winced and pulled the phone away from her ear. "If I'm being honest, every guy I know in this city has a man-crush on one Jameson brother or another. Rich, handsome, successful…I hate them as much as I want to adopt a baby with one of them."
"What am I going to do?" Poppy asked mournfully. "He's my nemesis, Tristan!"
"It's a fine line between love and hate," he quoted. The reminder was needless at this point. "Do you think you can keep work and…the rest of it…separate?"
"No," Poppy moaned. "I don't know. Help me, Tristan Hanniford. You're my only hope."
"I'm going to try, sis. But I'm afraid if he was quoting Rhett Butler at you, things might be too far-gone already. I know better than anyone how much you loved that movie growing up." She could hear Tristan pulling a face at the memory. "You subjected me to it practically every day."
"What am I supposed to do now that the real-life Rhett Butler has shown up to sweep me off my feet?"
"Are you sure this guy is Rhett in this metaphor?" Tristan asked. "Because you always struck me as the 'Rhett' in any given relationship, Pops. You're the charming and supportive one, who somehow still manages to get shit done in the process…you have to admit Rhett is a better fit for you."
"I always thought I was Scarlett," Poppy muttered as she drove. Tristan couldn’t be right. He couldn't be. Scarlett O'Hara was her girlhood hero: a strong female character who didn't need a man like Rhett, despite how perfectly suited he was for her. Wasn't that the moral of the story? If what Tristan said was true, then everything she had ever thought about herself seemed suddenly turned on its head.
"I think William might be the Scarlett in this case," Tristan said. He sounded sympathetic. "He's headstrong, take-charge."
"I can be those things too!" Poppy exclaimed.
"I think you're wonderful exactly the way you are, Pops. Sure, you could stand to promote your own agenda occasionally…okay, more than occasionally. But the great thing about you is the way you use your strength to support other people and raise everyone up together. I just don't want to see you get swept up in William Jameson's agenda at your own expense," Tristan said.
Poppy pulled into the parking garage below the agency and got out. She mentally chewed over everything her brother had said as she clicked up the concrete stairs to her office. Reception was poor in the garage, which afforded her some time to think about what her next protest to her brother's claims would be… but what wound up coming out of her mouth wasn't a protest at all.
"Okay. So I'm Rhett," she admitted as she let herself into the lobby. "I guess it's good to know the role I'm playing in all this. But it's more than William I have to worry about, Tristan. You remember that intern I was having trouble placing?"
"Emo Kid?" Tristan supplied. "I've been wondering about him! Did you fire him yet?"
"No. And I think that's becoming more of a problem than I've been willing to admit to myself." Poppy sighed heavily. She unlocked the door to the Wildflower Agency office and walked in. She immediately gravitated over toward Emo Kid's desk… and was unsurprised to find it in complete disarray. A cursory glance told her that the unfiled, water-stained papers on top of the heap were from at least three different projects, and two of those projects she had taken him from already.
"Sounds like you're doing an okay job of admitting it now," Tristan pointed out. "Maybe you just need to figure out what steps you need to take to pull the trigger."
Poppy grimaced. "I'm not taking him out back to put him out of his misery, Tristan."
"Yeah, that was kind of tactless. My bad. Still, you need to start framing this as a problem requiring a permanent solution rather than a temporary one, Pops. I know!" His excitement caused her to hold the phone away from her ear again. "You said yourself that this situation requires Scarlett tactics… and let's just admit to ourselves those are skills you might not have necessarily acquired yet. Why don't you go to William with your problem and see what he says?"
"William?" Poppy repeated uncertainly. Just hearing the name conjured an image of what he would do if he was in a similar situation…and Tristan was right. William would approach the problem with Emo Kid differently. He would have no problem calling him out on his bad haircuts and unprofessional workplace fashion; hell, William wouldn't have even let it get to this point. He would have sent the kid on his way with a curt farewell—and maybe a fairly-worded letter of recommendation—after the first colossal screw-up. "…I don't know," she muttered. "It doesn't feel fair to Emo Ki
d. He's my employee."
"First of all, listen to yourself. Does this intern even have a name? You've been dehumanizing and distancing yourself from him from the beginning."
"I have not!"
Tristan chuckled. "You're right, that was unfair of me. I'm just saying you do have Scarlett instincts, Poppy, it's just not in your nature to act on them. Don't think of this as a blot on your character. You know what needs to be done, and if William is available to help you do it, why not take advantage of the resource?"
Poppy chewed her lower lip between her teeth as she pondered Tristan's words. "I don't want to delegate this," she reiterated. "But maybe you're right. Maybe I should ask for William's advice."
"And you need an excuse to see him again," Tristan provided helpfully. "One that isn't personal."
She sighed. "I hate it when you're right all the time."
"It's a tough racket being the smarter older brother," he lamented.
"Goodbye smartass. I'm hanging up now."