Page 27 of First-Time Caller
I drop my head back and stare at the cloudless blue sky. Hearing my mom call me virile was not on the bingo card for today. “It’s called viral, Mom.”
“Whatever it is, we’re proud of you.” She pauses, and I know what she’s going to say before she says it. “Acadia is next week. Do you think—would you like to join us?”
I make myself pause for three seconds before I answer, hoping I sound convincing when I give her my prepackaged refusal. It’s easier for me if I spend time with my family in doses. All I do when I’m with them is worry anyway. I’d bring the mood down.
“I can’t make it. There’s a ton of stuff going on with the show, and the last time I took a vacation, someone played a wiener commercial for twenty-seven minutes straight.”
“Oh,” she says. She does her best not to sound hurt and I do my best not to notice. “That’s all right. I figured I would ask.”
“Maybe next time,” I offer.
“Of course, honey. You know I’d love to see you whenever you have the time.”
It’s as close as my mom will ever get to calling me out for how little time I’ve seemed to have for family adventures over the past couple of years, but it’s enough to have guilt tugging at me all the same.
“When you guys get back from this trip, I’ll come over,” I tell her, desperate to put a Band-Aid on the cracks I hear in her voice. “We’ll do the whole slideshow projector thing with pictures. I’ll bring popcorn.”
My mom laughs. The same way she did when I was a kid with my chin on her shoulder, my arms wrapped loosely around her neck. She always smelled like soap and the pages of a book. Paper and well-loved leather. Stories in the middle of the night.
“You might regret that by the seventeenth leaf picture,” she says. “Your dad is in botany heaven.”
“When you get back,” I promise.
Someone knocks on the window of the studio behind me. I turn and squint. Maggie is pointing at her watch and then at the door, a silent and aggressive command for me to get to the booth. I frown. “I’ve got to go, Mom. Give me a ring if there’s anything you need, yeah?”
“Of course, honey. Have a good show.”
I’d love to have a good show. I’d even settle for a mediocre show, but Maggie has been demanding fireworks. She was right about the rise in interest after the interview with Lucie went viral. Our caller numbers have more than tripled, and none of them have been truck drivers declaring their love for processed gas station snacks and ranking them in order of finger residue consistency. Hosting has been significantly easier. Fun. Enjoyable. Three words I haven’t associated with this job in a very long time.
I pull open the front door and unzip my jacket, stomping the salt off my boots on the faded rug. There’s a woman waiting by the elevators, studying the directory, which still has information for the dentist office that was here previously.
She frowns and leans closer to the glass case, lips moving soundlessly as she reads.
“Need some dental work?”
She jumps and turns, chestnut-colored hair swinging around her shoulders. It’s long, halfway down her back, with bangs that fall into her face. Sometimes people wander in here looking for the news station, confused by the shared parking lot, but she doesn’t look like she’s gearing up for a television appearance. She’s wearing worn jeans and a pair of scuffed black boots. An over-sized mechanic’s coat zipped to the base of her throat.
“Not quite.” She winces, turning halfway to look at the sign again. “I think I might be in the wrong place.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Not a root canal,” she murmurs. She sighs and her shoulders curl inward. “Though that might be preferable.”
I shove my hands in my pockets and wander closer. She’s tall. Probably just an inch or two shorter than I am. Her hands clasp loosely together in front of her, nervously toying with a key ring shaped like a crab. Maggie will kill me for shooting the shit in the lobby while she’s banging on glass windows in the back, but this woman looks like she’s facing a life-or-death decision while reading outdated dentist information.
“Can I—” I clear my throat. “Can I help you?”
The words sound clumsy as they trip out of my mouth, but she doesn’t seem to notice, still staring at the sign.
“With a root canal?” she asks, distracted.
I laugh. “I don’t think you want me in your mouth.”
That statement earns her full attention. She turns to look at me slowly, arching one dark eyebrow. Her eyes are a pale green beneath her bangs.
“I mean—I don’t—I don’t have any dental qualifications. To be in your mouth.”
Christ.How did it get worse? I’ve somehow managed to . . . make it worse. I rock back on my heels and stare at her while she stares back, an amused smile curling at the corners of her mouth.
