“Thanks,” I say. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”
A water glass shatters, and my mother offers up a sheepish grin. “Sorry,” she says as a waiter rushes over to clean it up.
“Are you all right, Leanna?” Phil asks.
She presses her ruby lips together and nods. “All right. Yes. I’m great.” Her hand is at her throat again. “Phil, I—there’s something I want to say.”
Oh no. She wouldn’t be breaking up with him like this, would she? Not in front of a whole group, not in public. My mother is too classy to do something like that.
Ameena looks as puzzled as I do. All of us set down our forks, watching as my mother pushes out her chair and gets to her feet, visibly shaking. Oh god—is she sick? Maybe that’s why she wanted to have this dinner, so she could tell all of us at once.
My stomach clenches, and I suddenly feel like I might throw up. My mother is all I have. I can’t lose her, too.
But then she grins, and my shoulders sag with relief as she starts talking. “Phil,” she says in this tone I don’t think I’ve heard before. She places her hand on his arm. “I know it’s only been eleven months, but they’ve been the best months I’ve had in a long, long time.”
“For me, too,” he says. A smile settles into the fine lines in his dark skin. As though maybe he knows what’s coming, and now I think I might, too. She’ll ask him to move in, I’m sure of it. Odd to do it in public, but my mother has always had a certain way of doing things. That’s just Leanna, my dad would say with a shrug when she made soup in a blender before zapping it in the microwave or insisted on carving jack-o’-lanterns in early September.
“After Dan passed away, I didn’t think I’d get a second chance. I thought I’d found my person, and he was gone, and I was done. But you were always right there, weren’t you? Sitting next to me, playing the violin. I fell in love with your music, and then I fell in love with you. You know as well as I do that the grief never goes away, but you have made me realize love can live alongside grief. I don’t want to spend any more time not being married to you. So . . .” Here she trails off, takes a breath. “Philip Adeleke, will you marry me?”
The room goes dead silent, everyone’s eyes trained on our table, watching this proposal. My heart is pounding heavier than it does before a show, and in the corner of my vision, TJ clasps a hand over Ameena’s.
Phil leaps out of his chair so quickly he knocks over his own glass of water, and maybe they really are meant for each other. “Yes, Leanna, yes,” he says. “I love you so much. Yes, yes, yes.”
When they kiss, the restaurant bursts into applause. A waiter brings out glasses of champagne. Ameena dabs at her eyes, asking if I knew this was going to happen, if I knew my mother was planning this, and no. No, I did not.
I force myself out of my seat to congratulate them, my mother and my—stepfather? Too many emotions swirl through me, and I can only name a few of them. I’m happy for them, of course I am. I want my mother to be happy. She deserves it.
I’ve just spent so many years convinced no one could replace my father that I never imagined anyone would.
Ameena peppers them with questions about the wedding. Turns out, Phil had been planning to propose this weekend, but my mother managed to beat him to it. They want it to happen soon, they say. Naturally, a quartet from the symphony will play the reception.
Eventually, Phil whisks my mother out of the restaurant to “celebrate”—like we don’t all know exactly what that means—leaving Ameena and TJ and me to polish off the champagne.
“Leanna Goldstein is my hero,” Ameena says. “I can’t believe we got to be part of that.”
I want to be able to say that too, that Leanna Goldstein is my hero—and she is, for so many reasons. For how she let me process Dad’s death on my own time, with my own therapist, before the two of us went to family counseling together. For convincing me that we could still be a family even if it was just the two of us. Small but mighty, she’d say. She always knew I’d work in radio, though sometimes she jokes that I could have at least compromised and found a job at a classical music station.
“You okay?” TJ asks as we pack up. He tucks his blond hair into a knit beanie. “It’s weird, I know. My parents are both remarried, and it definitely takes some getting used to.”
“I guess I never thought I’d go to my mom’s wedding before my own.” In my head, it sounds like a joke. When I say it, it does not.
Ameena squeezes my hand. “This is a lot. Take the time you need to process it, okay?”
I nod. “Good luck on the interview,” I tell her, digging into my bag for my keys as we step into the chilly Seattle night. My house is going to be so quiet when I get home. It always is. “Are you sure you don’t want to come over and watch bad TV or something?”
“Shay. I love you, but you need to learn to be alone in your own house. Do I need to check for monsters under your bed again?
“Maybe.”
Ameena shakes her head. “Get a dog.”
* * *
—
The moment I get home, I flip on every single light and cue up the latest episode of my favorite comedy podcast. It’s almost nine o’clock, and I’ve been away from my email for too long, despite the few times I checked it in the bathroom. (Enough that my mother asked me if I was okay, which is only slightly embarrassing as an adult, to think your mom is concerned about your bowels.)
I make some tea and settle onto the couch with my work laptop. I really am content helping others tell stories as opposed to telling them myself. Paloma does it better than I ever could, even if sometimes we’re not telling the kinds of stories I love, sweeping epics about the human experience you can only hear on stations with a bigger budget. Sometimes I wonder if content is really just a synonym for complacent.
I try not to think about that, though.
After my dad died, I sought comfort anywhere I could. I smoked pot with Ameena, hooked up with the cute guy across the hall freshman year, had one bad experience with alcohol that taught me how much alcohol my body could handle. It wasn’t anything outrageously unhealthy; I didn’t want to go off the rails, but I wanted to get close enough to see what was on the other side of them.
The only thing that made me feel like myself again was my internship at PPR. That was when I realized the solution wasn’t impulse—it was consistency. And of course it was; radio had always made me feel closer to my dad. I’d get the stable job, the house in a walkable neighborhood, and the devoted boyfriend, one day husband. Ameena remained my best friend; my mother remained single. With the exception of my dating life, everything’s gone pretty much according to plan.
Phil becoming my stepfather, though—that’s going to change things.
And historically, I have not been great at change.
A house was always part of my plan, and it should have felt like this tremendous accomplishment. I’ve had it six months, but I’m forever in the middle of making it mine. I’ll spend hours scouring antique shops for the right kind of artwork before buying some mass-produced abstract blobs at Target, or try a dozen paint samples for the living room before realizing none of them feel quite right and never getting the energy to paint over them. In our early twenties, Ameena and I dreamed of hosting dinner parties when we had the space, but now we’re always exhausted. Most of the time, I end up cooking something with prepackaged ingredients that show up on my doorstep twice a week.
Every time I imagined adulthood, it looked different from this reality. All the important people in my life have their person. I have an empty house and my supposed dream job that doesn’t always love me back.
Against my better judgment, I listen to today’s show. I did this all the time when I started out, eager for ways to improve, but I haven’t done it in a while. Over and over, I rewind Dominic’s answers, trying to pinpoint what, exactly, listeners found
so appealing. It takes him a few minutes to find his footing; the cadence of his voice changes, and his words become smooth, buttercream frosting over red velvet cake. He’s not a robot, the way I might have assumed before I heard him on the air. It’s almost like he didn’t want someone to find out he was doing something illegal, he says in such a mock-surprised tone that it makes me crack a smile. He responds to listener questions as though he genuinely cares about their concerns, and even when he doesn’t know the answer, he does his best to convince them he’s going to find out.
As much as I hate to admit it, Dominic Yun on Puget Sounds was good radio.
Even my dad would have agreed.
3
“Emergency meeting,” Kent O’Grady announces the next morning, before I’ve even unzipped my coat. “Conference room. Five minutes. Senior staff only.”
I’ve never been senior enough to go to a PPR emergency meeting. My promotion, in title and slight salary increase, happened a few months ago. The way Kent’s M. C. Escher–patterned tie lies crooked, as though he was so frazzled this morning that he didn’t notice, is troubling, but it still feels kind of great to be included.
I hang my coat on the hook next to my desk and remove the laptop, phone, and notepad from my messenger bag. My phone lights up with a notification from one of the dating apps I haven’t gotten around to deleting.
We miss you! 27 matches are waiting
I swipe it away and drag the app to the trash. That’s the only action I’ve had lately: Tinder and Bumble desperately trying to win me back.
Our newsroom has an open floor plan, offices reserved for the most senior of senior staff. My space is littered with empty coffee cups I’ll definitely put in the dishwasher later today. The staff rotates kitchen duty, and for my first two years at PPR, I somehow got stuck cleaning it every Friday. I assumed I was just paying my dues as a newbie, but I’ve never seen Griffin, our Puget Sounds intern, on the schedule, which is drafted weekly by our office manager. It’s never seemed important enough to bring up with HR.
Then there’s my intricate filing system for past rundowns, and pinned next to my computer, a PodCon poster signed by the hosts of my favorite movie podcast. PodCon is an annual radio and podcasting festival, and if it sounds nerdy, that’s because it is, and it’s also the best. I went a couple of years ago when it was held in Seattle, and while it would be a dream to go as a presenter, obviously a local newsmagazine doesn’t have national appeal.
At the desk across from mine, Paloma is adding flax and chia seeds to a cup of Icelandic yogurt. She’s here at eight sharp every morning and out the door at four, right after we finish our afternoon show debrief.
“Emergency meeting?” I ask her. We’re on a hiring freeze right now; Dominic was the last person brought on before it went into effect. I wonder if this meeting has to do with the station’s finances.
She stirs her yogurt. “It’s just Kent being dramatic. You know he loves a good show. We’re probably pushing up a pledge drive or something.” Paloma’s been here for more than two decades, so if she isn’t worried, maybe I shouldn’t be. “You don’t happen to have any extra chia seeds lying around, do you? Just ran out.”
And although I have never eaten a chia seed in my life, I reach into the drawer beneath my desk and pull out a bag filled with them.
This is what a good producer does. I’ve trained myself to know what Paloma wants before even she does, to anticipate her every need. If your host isn’t happy, your show can’t be great. Paloma is the reason people love Puget Sounds, and I am the reason Paloma is able to put on a great show.
“You’re a peach,” she says, and gestures to her yogurt. “Literally. What would I do without you?”
“Eat subpar yogurt, obviously.”
I used to be terrified of her. I’d grown up listening to her anchor the morning news, and when I met her the first day of my internship, I choked on my words, unable to believe she was real. Puget Sounds was her idea, and even today, there aren’t a lot of female public radio hosts, and fewer queer women.
Paloma’s in her late forties and doesn’t have kids, and she and her art history professor wife spend two weeks every summer in a remote location I’ve never heard of, coming back with stories about how they got lost or ran out of food or narrowly escaped a wild animal. And yet while she’s here, she operates on such a specific schedule that if I ever left, it would take weeks to train someone new on all her idiosyncrasies alone.
Paloma readjusts her shawl, a deep blue and green knit, and takes her yogurt down the hall to the conference room, where it becomes immediately clear that this is Very Serious Business. Everyone looks grim, and no one’s on their phones. Even the early morning people, who are usually too peppy for their own good, are slightly less pepped than usual.
Paloma might not be worried, but I linger in the doorway, suddenly overcome by the where do I sit? feeling I knew so well in high school when Ameena and I didn’t have the same lunch period. A senior staff meeting still feels a little like a club I tricked someone into letting me into.
A tall figure in a sky-blue-striped button-down approaches from the other side of the hall, and I tighten my grip on my notepad. Dominic’s in jeans today, a rarity for him. They’re perfectly pressed, not a wrinkle in sight. This is another reason his height is so frustrating: If he weren’t a giant, I’d be able to more comfortably look him in the eye instead of cataloging his choice of legwear.
“Senior staff only,” I tell him, plastering on a false-sympathetic smile. A place where I fit in and he does not. “Sorry.”
“Dom! Come on in,” Kent says from the head of the table, waving him inside.
And just like that, he brushes past me with his thermos of coffee, already inducted into this club it took me years to join. I hope the coffee burns his tongue.
“Stellar reporting,” says senior editor Paul Wagner. “And the mayor resigned?” He lets out a low whistle.
“Thanks, Paul,” Dominic says, running his free hand through his hair, which is looking a little flatter than usual. “It makes it worth getting here at five a.m., that’s for sure.” Ah. That explains it.
Paul gives a hearty laugh at this. “The news never sleeps.”
I usually listen to PPR on my drive to work, but this morning I was finishing up a podcast. Dominic’s investigation got the mayor to resign. No wonder he’s been given a golden ticket to this meeting. It won’t stop me from silently fuming about it, though.
I find a seat next to Paloma and flip to a fresh page in my notebook. Emergency Meeting, I write at the top of the page, feeling a bit less important now that Dominic is here.
“Good morning,” Kent bellows when all eleven of us are seated. “Always a pleasure to see everyone’s smiling faces bright and early.” His M. C. Escher tie is hypnotic, and sometimes I forget how commanding he can be in front of a group. He’s like Rob Lowe’s character on Parks and Rec: positive to a fault. “Shay, do you mind taking notes? You’re so great with details.”
“Oh—sure,” I say, scratching out Emergency Meeting and flipping to the next page to rewrite it more legibly. I wasn’t expecting to be put to work at my first senior staff meeting, but I guess I am good with details. And I’m not about to argue with a compliment from Kent.
“First up,” Kent continues, “I’d like to congratulate Dominic on his reporting yesterday, both live on Puget Sounds and into the evening as he tracked the story.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes, and make an executive decision not to record this particular tidbit. Dominic seems to make an attempt at looking humble, his cheeks even turning pink before he lifts a hand as though to remind all of us who he is.
“Cut to the chase, Kent,” says Isabel Fernandez, our morning show producer. We’ve always been friendly acquaintances more than actual friends, but suddenly I adore her. “Are we moving up a pledge drive to bring in more money, or
what?”
“Didn’t we just finish a pledge drive?” Marlene Harrison-Yates asks.
“We’re always either just finishing or just starting a pledge drive,” Paloma mutters next to me, and I stifle a laugh because she’s not wrong.
“No, no, nothing like that. Well.” Kent clears his throat, straightens a stack of papers. “We’re going to be rearranging our programming.”
Now that’s a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one.
“Please don’t put me on mornings again,” Paloma says.
“Well, I don’t want afternoons,” says our a.m. drive host, Mike Russo.
“Let him talk,” I say, and Kent offers me a grateful smile that soothes, just a little, the churning in my stomach.
“The board and I were thinking . . . something along the lines of a new show.”
The room erupts into chaos again. Across the table, Dominic catches my eye, one of his dark eyebrows lifting in a way I can’t quite interpret. I don’t know why we keep making eye contact like this when I spend so much of my day hoping we won’t have to cross paths. I flick my gaze back to my notes.
“We have our morning show, our midday show, and our evening show,” Kent says. “And the feedback we’ve been getting from listeners is that they’re too similar.” He presses a button, and a number of colorful pie charts appear on the projector screen. “They don’t connect with hosts the way they used to, not like they do at the national level or for some of the really popular podcasts.”
“Excuse me,” Paloma says in a haughty voice, “Puget Sounds is nothing like At the Moment.”
“And we can’t exactly bring in a comedian to host the morning news,” Isabel says.
But Kent’s not wrong. As an NPR member station, we’re in charge of our programming, and we’re able to broadcast any of the national shows. Naturally, those are listened to more than our local shows. They have more name recognition, and as I’m always telling Dominic, it’s an uphill battle getting people interested in local news.
The Ex Talk Page 3