Page 8 of First-Time Caller
She makes a pained sound somewhere on the other end of the line. “This is a live conversation?”
I nod. “Mm-hmm.”
“Right now?”
“That’s what this little blinking red light tells me.”
“Oh, good.” Lucie sounds winded. “I was worried this would be embarrassing.”
I grin at my control board. “What do you have to be embarrassed about?”
“You’re right. What could possibly be embarrassing about my daughter calling in to a radio station to discuss my love life?”
“Lack of a love life,” Maya amends.
There’s a pause, a muffled thud of a pillow being tossed across the room, and then bright, bubbling laughter.
A pang of homesickness tugs right under my ribs. I think of my mom with that bag of gummy worms clutched against her chest. The same kind she put in my lunch every day when I was a kid, a handwritten note scribbled on the outside of a brown paper bag.
“Your daughter loves you very much,” I try, aware that there’s probably a silent but intense conversation happening on the other end of the phone. I want to keep Lucie on the line. I want something different. I’m tired of complaints about casserole. For the first time in a long time, I want to see what happens next.
“And is this what love looks like, Mr. Expert? My daughter covertly calling in to a radio hotline and exposing my secrets?” Lucie asks, a laugh in her voice. Her voice is smooth. Honey in a mug of hot tea. The window cracked open halfway, fresh air rolling in. “Because this feels a lot like public humiliation.”
“How about we call it seventy percent love and twenty percent teenage rebellion?”
Lucie laughs and my hand twitches around my coffee mug. “And the other ten percent?”
“Concern,” I answer. “Maya told me she’s worried you might be lonely. She was hoping I could help.”
Lucie goes quiet again. It’s heavier this time.
“You think I’m lonely?” she asks, her voice soft at the edges. There’s a rustle of fabric, a whispered “Yeah, Mom,” and Lucie blows out a breath.
The silence holds.
“How about this?” I glance up at the clock above the door. “We roll to a commercial break and you use the time to decide if you’d like to stay on and talk with me. I’ll answer any questions you have and we’ll go from there, yeah?”
She hesitates for a beat. “On a scale from one to ten, how embarrassing is this going to be?”
“It depends. Where are you currently?”
“A seven, maybe? Hovering closer to an eight?”
“Inconclusive. You’ll have to keep talking to me to find out.” I push backward in my chair, swiveling in my seat to mess with the programming software I’m still terrible with, despite having had this job for the better part of six years. “All right, Baltimore. Stick with me. We’ll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.”
“We willpossiblybe back after these messages from his sponsors,” Lucie tacks on, sounding grumpy but resigned.
“One of us will absolutely be back after these messages from our sponsors.” I tap a few buttons and roll to the prerecorded ad spots. “Hi,” I say, my headphones still connected with Lucie and Maya while an ad for a tree farm spins in the background. “Apologies for the ambush.”
“You sound real apologetic,” Lucie mutters. A sigh passes from one ear to the other, amplified by my headset. Fortitude and endurance in stereo. “I’m not sure you should be the one apologizing.”
“All the same.” I smack around blindly behind me, looking for the coffeepot. I find it and top off my mug, sipping noisily at it while I can. “What do you think?”
“About what? Spilling my secrets to a stranger while other strangers listen? It’s not looking good, Aiden Valentine.”
“What secrets?” Maya quips in the background. There’s another thump, lighter this time, and a tired puff of laughter. “Seriously, Mom. It’s not a big deal.”
“‘Not a big deal,’ she says, the girl who called in to a radio station to air my dirty laundry.”
