Page 20 of First-Time Caller
“Passionate, overzealous.” I take a long pull from my coffee mug. “Boldly displaying the vocal capacity of a white bellbird.”
Jackson looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “What’s a white bellbird?”
“It has the loudest birdcall ever recorded.” I duck into the break room halfway down the hall and refill my mug, grabbing a cookie from the middle of the table. One of the maintenance guys has a kid who works for the Berger cookie company, and he leaves boxes in the break room whenever he swings by to fix the toilet that is perpetually leaking in the men’s bathroom.
“It sounds like a human scream,” I say around a mouthful of thick chocolate icing. “The birdcall. Not unlike Margaret on the phone at nine in the morning.”
“Hmm. That feels about right,” he says. I grab another cookie and dunk it into my coffee, shoveling the whole thing right into my mouth. Fuck, I love Berger cookies. The chocolate. The shortbread. It’s hard to be pissed about anything when I have a Berger cookie in my hand.
Jackson tries to grab one and I tug the box closer to me.
“Hey.” He reaches for it with a frown. “Share the cookies.”
I twist myself around, giving him my back. “No. I need them more than you.”
“Why do you need them more than me?” Jackson makes a frustrated sound, still trying to reach around me for the box. “Did you not just watch as I was forced to slither my way out of my car?”
“No one forced you to slither.” I shovel another cookie into my mouth. These cookies are the only thing going right for me and I’m not giving them up. I’m not. “You could have parked in any other spot,” I say, a mouthful of crumbs exploding down the front of my shirt.
“But I always park in that spot.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to break out of your habits every now and again, Jackie.”
“I’d like to break a habit right now and have a cookie.” He punches me once in the side and grabs the box while I double over, spilling coffee down the front of my shirt. I pull the scalding-hot wet material away from my chest as he scarfs down the rest of the box like a goddamned barbarian.
I raise both of my eyebrows, watching in disbelief. “Was that necessary?”
“You did this to yourself.” His cheeks are bulging with cookie. “You wouldn’t share.”
“Because you’re an assh—”
“Children,” a voice snaps from the doorway. Maggie, our station manager and the woman in charge of our paychecks, leans in from the hallway, one perfectly manicured hand bracing herself on the frame of the door. Her hazel eyes slide from Jackson finishing off the box of cookies to me, trying to prevent third-degree burns on my chest. Her eyes narrow. “If you’re done with your little spat, I’d like to see you both in my office.”
She disappears without another word, confident that we’ll trail after her. I yank some paper towels out of the ancient dispenser next to the sink and dab at my chest.
“Maybe she’ll put me out of my misery and cancel the show,” I mutter. My clothing has consumed more caffeine than I have this morning.
Jackson chucks the empty cookie box into the trash. “Or maybe she’s sending you to one of those fancy performer retreats so you learn how to turn that frown upside down. You know. Icebreakers. Team building. All your favorite things.”
I freeze. “She wouldn’t.”
Jackson shrugs. “She might. And you’d deserve it too. I swear to god, you’ve regressed to the emotional aptitude of a high schooler.”
“I’d give high schoolers a little more credit,” I grumble.
Maggie is waiting for us in her cramped but neat office, her hands folded on top of her desk and an expectant look on her face. Our audio engineer, Eileen, is already tucked into one of the corners, face buried in a tablet, headphones slung around her neck. Her braids are dyed different shades of blue, pulled back in a bun on the top of her head.
“Is Hughie coming?” Jackson asks, making himself comfortable on a chair in the corner opposite Eileen, hugging a red heart-shaped pillow to his chest. Smug bastard is riding the high of chocolate fudge icing.
“He should be along shortly,” Maggie replies, watching me like a hawk.
I forgot about Hughie. I’m always forgetting about Hughie. I sometimes forget about Hughie in the middle of a show and then he appears on the other side of the window with a sandwich. I have no idea how long he’s been an intern here, or if that’s still his official capacity. I’m certainly not going to ask Maggie. Not while she’s looking at me like that.
“Sit,” Maggie says to me, gesturing to the chair directly in front of her. It’s within strangling distance, which makes me nervous.
“Why?” I ask, immediately suspicious. I don’t want to be sent to professional development. Icebreakers are my personal form of hell.
She smiles like she can smell my fear. “Because everyone else in this room is sitting, Aiden. Don’t be ridiculous.”
