by Mimi Strong
Aaron had quite the effect on her. Nora hadn't felt nervous like that since her very first shift on air, when her mouth had gotten so dry that even water wouldn't stay.
She thought about him all the way home, and when she got to her destination, couldn't remember a moment of driving there. She hoped she hadn't run any red lights, thinking about that too-hot-for-Nora man.
Inside the house, Nora's mom was annoyed that the bread was the wrong type. “This bread's all full of figs. Figs! Honestly, Nora, what won't they put in bread nowadays?”
“Come on, you liked the olive bread,” Nora said, popping a slice of unbuttered fresh fig and anise bread in her mouth. “Mmm, it's like raisin bread, but from some upscale parallel universe.”
Nora's mother raised her eyebrows. “That sounds like one of those sassy one-liners you'd say on your radio show.”
“It's not my radio show. It's the show, and I'm just on it.”
“One day you'll run the whole place, when you take over for your uncle.” Nora's mother tucked her pretty gray curls behind her ear. She was the parent who'd given Nora her curls, and the boxy nose tip. Nora's father had almost no hair these days, and his nose extended grandly from his face, coming down from a high bump on the bridge. On him, it was handsome, like the nose of a king. At the moment, he was quietly reading The Economist, seated at a stool near the counter, while the women prepared dinner. Nora's parents were in their early sixties, and she was their only child, a bit of an accident who came just after her mother had resigned herself to a life without kids.
“You're in the will,” Nora's father said over the magazine. “You'll inherit the studio, and the whole empire will be yours.” His tone was a little sarcastic.
To her parents, Nora's life seemed so simple. She'd work on the afternoon show, year after year, enjoying stability, until finally, she died of terminal boredom.
Worse, everyone she worked with would know the whole thing had been handed to her on a platter, never mind how hard it was to keep transmitting a consistent level of cheer and optimism every afternoon, rain or shine, good days and bad. It was hard work. Nora had to keep her opinions light and inoffensive when she was on the air, or risk the hellfire of the public turning on her, phoning in or emailing to call her every kind of awful name a woman can be called.
Nora had not told her parents about her interview at the ad agency, because there was no point in shaking the beehive before she needed the honey. The nose job, however, was a different story, and she would tell them over dinner.
As they passed around the spinach, feta cheese, and boiled egg salad, she told her parents about her plans for a very safe, very minor surgery to “smooth out” her nose a bit.
She'd expected some concerns from them, some reservations, and perhaps a number of questions. What she did not expect was for her father to be deeply offended that she'd consider risking death for such a frivolous thing. She pointed out that the surgery was no more risky than having wisdom teeth removed, which she had survived.
Nora's mother barely said anything. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a napkin, uncharacteristically quiet.
Because the situation had become so intense, so quickly, Nora decided to cut to the chase and use her leg card.
She said, “It's bad enough I'm missing part of a leg. I have to deal with prejudice about that all the time. On top of everything, I don't want to be ugly anymore.”
Both of her parents fell silent. Nora's mother stood from her chair, circled around the table, and hugged her daughter from behind, kissing her on the top of her head. “You're not ugly, you're my beautiful girl, my one and only.”
Nora's father's face was red and angry. “You wouldn't have lost that foot if you hadn't gone on that motorcycle with that boy. You were lucky you didn't die that day.”
Nora's voice rose in anger. “Lucky! Oh, thanks Dad. Yes, I sure feel lucky every day when I strap on my silicone foot! I'd like to see you walk a mile in my shoes.”
Nora's father spoke to Nora's mother, “She doesn't know how good she has it. Kids! You try to give them everything and they don't appreciate what they have.”
Her voice level, Nora said, “I'm not one of your students. I'm an adult. While I respect your opinions, you do not have authority over what I do with my body.”
“And what were you doing on Friday night?” he said.
“I'll be in my room,” Nora said, pushing her mother away and leaving the table. She got to her room and slammed her door, feeling like the past ten or fifteen years had been the blink of an eye, and she was still their moody, teenaged daughter. As long as she lived under their roof, though, she would be. The savings on rent didn't seem like enough anymore.
Monday morning, Nora arrived for work at eight o'clock, waved hello to the morning guys in the studio, got her second coffee of the day from the break room, and went to her desk in the office area of the station.
They all called their workplace the station, but really it was five radio stations: easy listening, country, oldies, pop, and the fifth one, where Nora's show lived, which was more of an eclectic mix of mainstream and indie bands from the '70s to today. Our music is your music was the station's current motto.
Nora had been to speak at some local high schools for career day, and the kids made the same comments as most adults: “You must really love music,” and “It must be nice working only four hours a day,” and Nora's least favorite, which was “My nephew/friend/cousin has a band and here's the CD so you can play it on air.”
Nora did not pick the music for her show, though she did have some options on a smaller scale. Selector, an ancient program that was still doing its job too well to be replaced, picked the music based on parameters the Music Director programmed in. All the songs came from the server, though the studio had an assortment of older technology to play the occasional song off, for example, a vinyl '45, from “the vault,” which was a former supply closet.
They didn't play the vinyl often, which kept it novel when they did. A well-timed, scratch-infused Johnny Cash single could fill the email inboxes with listener responses faster than the new single from a current artist.
Nora did not, as most people assumed, work only four hours. She was on air from 1pm to 5pm, but her work day started much earlier, with paperwork, recording voiceover for various promos—something she had been speaking to Bobby about regularly the last few months—and catching up on all the blogs. Nora's job was to be the world's best one-sided casual conversationalist, up to date on subjects as diverse as breaking news in science research to whatever was trending on YouTube as of the moment.
Sadly for Nora, and all radio listeners, adorable kitten videos did not translate well to the audio-only medium. She tried to keep her kitten video research to a minimum, but it was difficult, because tipsters kept emailing and tweeting them to her, and each one truly was cuter than the last. She had a soft spot for puppies, too, especially dachshunds, with their short little legs.
When people thrust their sweaty CDs or USB drives into her hands at parties, Nora accepted politely and promised she'd do everything she could. And she did. She piled them up on the stack behind the Music Director's chair, with the others. Each had an equal shot at being discovered. Who was Nora to crush someone else's dream? The world would do that job for her.
At her desk, Nora clicked through a series of videos of baby otters. She really ought to be reading the celebrity blogs about who was going into rehab for sex addiction and who snorted what off of whom, but… otters!
A notification popped up for a new email in her private, non-work account. With dread, she opened the email from Sue Harding at the ad agency. She had to read it three times before it made sense. They were offering her the job. If she wanted to, she could start in three weeks. Nora could work at the glamorous, sexy ad agency, selling ad campaigns to clients instead of doing the voiceover, and she'd be working next to… Bobby.
Nora closed the email and rolled her chair back, hands in
the air, as though the computer had tried to give her schoolyard cooties. The reality of working in sales had just sunk in.
The people who worked sales at the station were either smarmy and insincere, or kind-hearted, but unsuited to the job and constantly threatening to quit. Whenever she'd stop by Jamie's desk to ask how tricks were, he'd grab his tie—he always wore a novelty tie with cartoon characters, even with t-shirts—and pretend to hang himself.
Shit. Nora didn't want to work in sales. She approached the computer cautiously, as though sneaking up on a sleeping gazelle, and fired off a very short, polite email declining the job offer.
A minute later, her phone rang, and Nora dumped most of a cup of coffee on herself.
“Go for Nora,” she said into the receiver.
“I put in a good word for you because I think you'd be good for the team,” came Bobby's English voice. Separated from his actual face and red hair, he sounded old again, and familiar. She missed phone-Bobby.
“I can't really talk about this right now.”
“Was it something I did? I offended you, didn't I. Damnit, I should have lied about googling you. But doesn't lying make everything worse?”
She held the phone close to her lips and spoke softly. “It's not that. I decided I don't like the idea of doing sales after all. You have to call people up and ask them for things.”
“That's generally how it works. You do remember something from college, I'm glad to hear. All that talk about celebrity gossip hasn't turned your brain completely to oatmeal.”
Nora guiltily closed the browser window on her computer. It had boasted the headline, New record for depravity on a reality TV show. You won't believe it!
“Bobby, if you'd like to discuss that upcoming jewelry store campaign, I've got some time later today.”
“I get the picture,” he said.
“I really do like you,” she said, not wanting to hang up on his friendly voice.
Curtly, he said, “We'll be in touch.” The line went dead.
Nora could hear Kylie, a few cubicles over, running through a list of safety requirements for a small concert the country station was promoting. She sounded busy.
Nora checked around to make sure nobody was observing what was on her computer screen, and she did a search for plastic surgeons in the city. Several of them had forms for booking appointments online for an in-office consultation. There was a small fee, but that would be refunded if she booked a procedure. She pulled out her credit card and set up an appointment with two: one with a fancy website and one with a plain one.
CHAPTER 4
On Tuesday morning, Nora went to her first plastic surgery consultation, early, before work. Her parents hadn't mentioned anything since the fight at dinner. Her father raised one eyebrow when she rushed out of the house early without eating breakfast, but she didn't offer any explanation. Her mother ran out behind her and pressed a fresh loaf of chocolate chip banana loaf into her hands to share with the office.
Soon, both of Nora's parents would be off from their teaching jobs for the summer, and her mother's fresh baking would be a daily occurrence. Her father would be in the garage every day, restoring his Camaro.
Nora kissed her mother on her soft, smooth cheek—Nora could only hope her skin would age as well as her mother's—and climbed into her little car.
She was in the plastic surgeon's waiting room before she even considered getting nervous. This was the office with the plain website, and so far, it met her expectations. The place could have been her gynecologist's, except for the beauty-focused magazines and somewhat better lighting. The blinds on the windows were closed—for privacy, probably—but the room was brightly lit by recessed lights in the ceilings, a smattering of eye-level sconces, and table lamps. The plants seemed cared for, potted in simple, earth-toned pots.
After checking in at the reception desk, Nora sat with a magazine and crossed her legs. So far, so good, she thought. She had a strange feeling, a sense of accomplishment. All she'd done was book a consultation for a surgery, and yet she had the same smug sense of self-satisfaction she got from finishing her week's paperwork early and having her desk tidier than Kylie's. She could only imagine how good she'd feel once the surgery was done.
A young woman called her name and led her back.
The doctor, a man, was much older than his photo, but his age gave Nora confidence in his level of experience. He pretended to not know she was there about her nose, and feigned surprise when she told him what she wanted help with.
Nora concluded with, “I am fond of my nose, and grateful for its trouble-free function, but I would like to see less of it.”
The doctor nodded the entire time, stopping his head from bobbing only when he spoke. “I am confident we can make an improvement,” he said. He did not compliment her eyes or her hair or ask about her job. Nora imagined that she was a walking, talking nose, and he was consulting with a nose, and the rest of her was simply attached to the nose the doctor was interested in improving.
She had experienced this before, with the doctors she had seen after the accident, about her foot. She had been a mangled foot with a person attached, then a residual limb and the attached muscles that needed specific stretching exercises to stay limber.
Near the end of the appointment, he called her Noreen, and she didn't correct him. He brought out a book of the same before and after photos she'd already seen on the website. These photos of strangers didn't have black digital sashes across their eyes, but white stickers. The stickers, by the look of some of their rounded corners, were envelope labels. If she wanted to, Nora could have pushed the stickers off easily with a thumbnail, revealing the subjects' identities.
All of the people depicted had undergone radical transformations, though, and it was unlikely anyone who knew them had any doubts about plastic surgery. They weren't like the photos on celebrity gossip blogs, where they'd show an actress in bad lighting and then a glamorous, awards show photo in full makeup, with the caption, Well-rested or well-Botoxed? Did she or didn't she?
Nora felt guilty over all the times on her afternoon show she'd indulged in such gossip. Most people felt celebrities were fair game, as they chose to be in the public eye. Was Nora a celebrity? People in the city knew her name and voice. The idea of her own photos running in a C-list column, below the A-list and B-list news gave her a lump in her throat.
“You have the brochures, but do you have any further questions?” the doctor asked. He seemed nice enough, and she had no doubt he was good at his job, but Nora wanted to leave. She thanked him and went to shake his hand, but he hesitated.
He said, “I apologize, but I don't touch people with my hands, except during surgery.”
“That must be disappointing for your wife,” Nora quipped.
He laughed and gave her a real look, as though seeing her suddenly as a whole. “Afternoons with Nora,” he said. “You know, you make my whole day better.”
Nora felt that squeezing in her heart she got when someone recognized her work. “Thank you for listening,” she said.
She left the office feeling more confused than ever.
If she was going to afford cosmetic surgery and be able to move out of her parents' house before she turned thirty, Nora needed more cash.
During that afternoon's show, she pushed aside her planned theme topic of gardening, and asked instead for listeners to email in their stories about earning extra income from part-time ventures.
Tianne, bless her heart, immediately responded with an email about her part-time yoga practice and her mommy blog. Promoting your friends for free was generally a no-no on the air, but Nora had a feeling it was between her and her beloved listeners that afternoon, and management wasn't listening, so she plugged her best friend's website three times.
One of the morning guys, Stevey, was still around, and came into the studio to be a guest during one of Nora's live updates. He told the story of his friend, who had donated sperm for cash while in medical
school.
Nora didn't usually play gimmicky sound effect noises during her show, but she was swept up by Stevey's animated facial expressions and story, and inspired to play some appropriate clips of music that sounded like the soundtrack of porno movies. She was definitely pushing the limits of taste for her time slot and audience, but she didn't care. Talking about sex and all things sex-related was fun. That one wild night with Bobby had woken her up below the waist.
“Stevey, didn't you go to medical school briefly?” she asked, poking holes in his friend defense.
“Come on, Nora, I'm a morning radio DJ,” he said. “You know I'm not smart enough to get into medical school.” He winked at her and twisted his lips into a sexy smile.
She figured the story was all an act. For every imaginable, embarrassing thing a man could do, Stevey always had a friend who'd done it. The truth may have been sprinkled into his on-air persona, but it was buried under many layers of comedy.
After the microphones cut off and the next song began to play, Nora thanked him for bringing a little of his morning magic to her afternoon. Like the vinyl '45s, people got a thrill out of hearing their regular DJs out of time, on each other's programs, but you didn't want to do it too often and muddy the brand.
“Any time, short stuff,” Stevey said. He didn't get up from his seat though, but looked up at the ceiling and chair-danced along with the song.
Stevey was single, as far as she knew, and he was the least disgusting—humor-wise—of the two morning guys. Actually, there was nothing objectionable about his appearance either. His biceps were a lot bigger than Nora remembered, and she daydreamed for a moment about those arms picking her up, perhaps pressing her against a wall while things got passionate.
“What?” Stevey said.
“Nothing, I didn't say anything.”
He gave her a knowing look. “You're up to something, aren't you? Did you have your review yet?”