“But that’s why I have you.” Charlee placed her hand on Vanessa’s shoulder. “The whole point of being a production editor is to edit.”
“Yes, as in add cheerful background and smooth transitions to elevate Cheery Charlee’s cheerfulness. Not filter out half the show in our twenty-four hour window before broadcast.”
“I love you.” Charlee stretched her grin as far as it could go and spread her arms out for a hug.
Vanessa obliged. “You’d better stop before I melt. Or you do.”
Charlee let go and unraveled her layers, taking off the sweater jacket and turtleneck and hanging them over her swivel chair.
“Is all that really necessary?” Vanessa said.
“You try sitting in here for hours. It’s freezing.”
Vanessa shook her head with a smile. “No thanks.”
Located in midtown Atlanta near Ansley Park, the studio was a major upgrade from where they had started out. It didn’t take much to be better than the sixth floor of a college dormitory lacking central air. Now Cheery Charlee Productions was at home in an old studio between two larger modern buildings. The original brickwork formed the two shared walls, and tinted windows in the front kept sunlight to a minimum. It made for a cool workspace, in stark contrast to the literal sweat they had poured into starting up the podcast.
Charlee placed her hands on her hips. “Lunch?”
“Charlee,” Vanessa said. “Your production editor has to edit. Sometimes I think it would be easier to be behind the microphone.”
“You hate speaking in public, even when it’s behind the mic in a private office.”
“And heavily edited, if the editor had a chance to do so.”
Charlee scoffed, brushing off the friendly jab. It took some level of guts to have her voice out in the world, even if the mistakes and ramblings were flawlessly omitted, thanks to Vanessa. “I didn’t go over too much, did I?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“Nope. But you have to eat at some point. My treat.”
“Okay, now you’re talking.”
They left the recording room and grabbed their purses. The bright Atlanta midday sun shocked Charlee’s eyes. She walked with Vanessa along the sidewalk of Peachtree Avenue, its broad road busy with lunch traffic. Although Atlanta served as Charlee’s home base, she spent most of the year traveling the country for on-location broadcasts. The city was loud, hot and crowded, and was only getting worse over time with traffic, all of which made it even more tempting to pack up and head off to somewhere new. When she was in town, she spent most of her time in the same square mile corner of Midtown.
“Usual food court?” Charlee said.
“Sounds good to me.”
The food court was fast but also the best way for them to agree on anything. Vanessa was not just Charlee’s editor but her best friend too, and they couldn’t be more opposite. Their differences weren’t just superficial. They disagreed on food, music, clothes, men. But they had shared Barbies as neighbors and never looked back. Nobody knew Charlee like Vanessa.
“So.” Vanessa set down her tray of stir-fry. “How does it feel to be so close to one million subscribers? You realize you’re going to hit that mark before your twenty-fifth birthday, right?”
Charlee smiled with her mouth full of pasta. She wiped her face and took a drink. “It is crazy. Can you believe it? Over two years of shows. One hundred podcasts.”
“One hundred and nine, if you’re including the one you just finished,” said Vanessa.
“This year’s contest should put me over the top.”
“Which, by the way, you need to decide on ASAP.”
“I know, I know.” She took a bite of meatball.
“What’s the matter? You love the contest.”
“I just haven’t been...inspired yet by any of the entries. Nothing is giving me that spark of energy and creativity.” It was beyond worrisome now. Not only was the deadline drawing near, but she hadn’t hit a block like this before. With so many podcasts under her belt, she was bound to reach a stagnant point. But that wasn’t supposed to happen until the ten or fifteen year mark. She hadn’t even reached five years. The anxiety gnawed at her, deep in her stomach.
“You put a lot of pressure on yourself,” Vanessa said. “It’s okay to sit this one out if you want. I can edit a ‘best of’ podcast to highlight the past year’s most inspirational and positive moments. Then you wouldn’t have to worry and you could finally spend Christmas with my family.”
“Thank you, really.”
“You know they love you, all five feet three inches. You’re part of the family, Charlee. Or close to it.” Her up-to-something smile grew across her face. “My brother is going to be there.”
“Vanessa.” Charlee shook her head.
“He tries, God bless him. Every time I talk to him he asks about you, and I confirm you’re single. Unless you’re not telling me something.” She pointed her fork at Charlee.
“What? No. You know I tell you everything. You’re the only person I do tell things to.”
“Okay, okay. Well, if not for a possible romance with my brother, then do it for yourself. When’s the last time you spent the holidays with family and friends?”
“The last time I had a family.” Charlee set her fork down on her plate. “The year my mom died.”
“That was five years ago,” Vanessa said. “I don’t mean to rush you, but come on, Charlee. You stayed cooped up on campus at Christmas in graduate school, and the last two years you went across the country for the contest. Maybe this year you should actually celebrate it, with your people.”
“My people?”
“Yes. Believe it or not, you have people. Like me and my family. I’ll invite the Cheery Charlee assistants over too. It’ll be a big get-together.”
“Our assistants don’t even want to leave their homes to work in the office.”
“That’s because you said they could work virtually.”
“True.”
“That’s not the point. Just because we’re not blood doesn’t mean we’re not your people.”
Charlee sighed. Vanessa’s efforts were charming but didn’t overcome the pressures of sustaining and growing a business. “I can’t do that to my listeners. Not now. They’re expecting bigger and better. And reaching a million subscribers would be great news for the both of us. I don’t want to let you down, and I can’t let our audience down.”
“Your audience. I’m just in it for the food.”
Charlee’s resolve broke and she laughed. They finished their meals as the noon lunch crowd grew. The food court would be depleted of empty tables and oxygen for talking, with the noise level rising to intolerable. Time to return to work. They walked the busy sidewalks toward the studio. The heat brought Charlee to a near sweat, but the studio quickly chilled her back to her usual popsicle body temperature.
Vanessa clapped her hands. “Now how about we check up on the latest submissions? Several came in while you were recording.”
Charlee let Vanessa’s eager optimism propel her along, but by twenty seconds in, she knew her answer.
“So please, please, please, Cheery Charlee, pick me—I mean, my boyfriend, Nathan.” A twenty-something flipped her hair one last time over her shoulder, her neon yellow tank top strap accentuating her spray tan. “Surprising him with a visit on Christmas morning would make his holiday!”
Judging from the background, Charlee guessed the video had been shot in front of a closet devoted to a designer shoe collection.
Charlee switched her gaze from the computer to Vanessa, who hovered over the desk chair. “Well?”
Charlee closed her eyes for the length of ten blinks before opening them again. “Well... Maybe I should take her gum away. I’m sure her boyfriend, Nick, or whatever his name is, would appreciate not
having to listen to her chomp on it for another second.”
“Okay, okay,” Vanessa said. “So it’s not exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Not exactly? Not even broadly.” Charlee slumped and stared at the monitor. It was a good thing they had finished recording tomorrow’s podcast material. It looked like deciding on the contest winner was going to take the rest of the day. Or year.
Vanessa rolled her dark eyes and mimicked the hair flip, although her smoothed-back onyx hair barely reached her nape. “Don’t worry. There has to be at least a single worthy entry in all of these.”
“I looked over the ones you gave me yesterday,” Charlee said. “If those were the ones that passed your initial judgment, I’d hate to see the ones that didn’t.”
Vanessa shook her head, eyes closed. “I wish I could unsee some of those.”
“We have to top last year’s.” Charlee stood and folded her arms, leaning on the desk.
“How are you going to top rebuilding an old lady’s destroyed-by-a-hurricane house? Build two houses? I don’t know if our budget can handle that.”
Charlee had teamed up with Vanessa for her editing skills but also for her business savvy. Her strict adherence to their budget, as well as schedules and talking points for each episode, could occasionally suck some of the joy out of the job. On the other hand, it was impossible to imagine achieving their accomplishments without her. But none of that would matter if Charlee couldn’t find inspiration soon.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we find the right one.”
Don’t miss Christmas Catch by Mary Shotwell, available now wherever Carina Press books are sold.
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Copyright © 2018 by Mary Shotwell
ISBN-13: 9781488051180
A Wedding One Christmas
Copyright © 2018 by Therese Beharrie
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