Page 10 of First-Time Caller
“That’s a relief.”
I grin into the microphone and hit the appropriate buttons. “You ready?”
She sighs. “As ready as I can be, I guess.”
Maya gives a whoop in the background and I drag the volume control up, the button jumping like it always does.
“Hey, Baltimore, welcome back. We’re on the line with Maya and Lucie. Maya has called in for her mom, hoping for some relationship advice.” On the other side of the glass window to the booth, Jackson walks by on his way to the small closet he calls an office. I’m not convinced he needs to be here this late for weather updates, but he likes his routine and I occasionally like the company. I lift a hand in greeting and he waves back, stopping and doing a double take when he gets a look at my face.
“I wouldn’t say she called informe,” Lucie says, dragging my attention back. Her voice is the oddest combination of smoke and sweet. Like the bite of a good whiskey. “She calledin spite ofme.”
I laugh and Jackson goes bug-eyed on the other side of the glass. He presses his face up against it, nose squished to the window, hands cupped around his eyes to get a better look.
What?I mouth, as Maya and Lucie go back and forth about the true reason for the call.
Jackson forces a grin on his face and gestures to it. He looks like a demented clown. The mechanical ones outside the flea market on Broadway, defunct and broken-down, smiles stretched forever wide in chipped red paint. It’s terrifying.
Stop it, I mouth.
He backs slowly away from the window and keeps walking down the hallway, looking over his shoulder every few steps. He runs into the soda machine, corrects himself, then disappears with one last bewildered look.
I frown and adjust my headphones.
“My mom hasn’t had a boyfriend in a literal decade,” Maya says, voice rushed. It’s like she doesn’t know how much her mom is going to let her get away with, and she’s trying to get it out all at once. “She goes to work and comes home. Sometimes she goes across the street to drink wine with Patty. That’s her friend. Patty. Heronlyfriend. She never goesoutout, you know? She’s always here.”
“Apologies,” Lucie says, “for always being in my house. The one I own.”
“Mom.”
“What?” She laughs. “I thought you liked me here.”
“I do,” Maya says defensively. “I do like you here. But sometimes I feel bad when I go out with my friends and you’re alone.”
The laugh disappears from Lucie’s voice. “I like my alone time,” Lucie says quietly. “You know that.”
“Sure, but not, like,allof the time.”
I drag my palm along my jaw, fingers reaching toward the back of my neck. “And you think a boyfriend would solve that for your mom?”
“I don’t know,” Maya says. “I think it might make her happy.”
“Would it?” I ask Lucie. “Make you happy?”
“Absolutely not,” she says without a single ounce of hesitation.
A laugh bursts out of me. “Such passion.”
“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Valentine.”
“Aiden, please,” I murmur. I make sure to drop my voice low, the way I used to when I was in college and trying to do aradio voice.
She makes an amused sound. Something between a laugh and a cough. “All right,Aiden. Are you single?”
I stare at the wall of the booth, surprised. Lucie keeps pivoting left when I expect her to go right, and I’m jogging somewhere behind her, struggling to catch up. “I am.”
“And do you date?”
“Occasionally.”
