After a few minutes, we level out. LD releases my hand and breathes out a sigh.
“Checked that one off the bucket list,” she jokes.
I look out the window, but Omaha is no longer there. We are rushing above a sea of clouds. “I wish I could tell Dark about this. This is crazy.”
“What do you think he’d say?”
“He’d probably tell me that it was about damn time.” I grin, but then it drops as I realize something. “If I get this internship, I’ll never talk to him again.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah . . .”
But secretly, we both know. Without my radio show, I’ll never talk with Dark again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The flight lands three hours later, getting dangerously close to the water. If the plane was going down, I'd have to use my boobs as floatation devices. They’d be fabulous flotation devices though. I’m wearing my best bra.
LD leads the way out of the plane and out to the line of taxis. They stretch all the way down the arrivals line, as far as the eye can see. I let out a very nervous breath as we get in the taxi queue, and I look at my watch.
Four thirty-seven p.m.
My interview's at 5:30 p.m.. It was the last slot available, the assistant said. I actually think that they ran out of slots, and just pushed me in last. I hope they haven't already found someone else for the internship—or maybe I'm wishing they have? I don't know.
We get into the taxi and tell it the address to the radio station. The car smells like amazing curry and my stomach grumbles, reminding me that I haven't eaten since breakfast, and even then I just ate a granola bar because I was too nervous to eat anything else.
The taxi driver plugs in the address and turns out of the arrivals line, heading for the highway. We stop about ten minutes out of the airport, stalled on the highway in traffic. We sit for ten more minutes like that as I watch the clock on the dashboard slowly shift toward five.
I bump my knees nervously. “Um—um excuse me?” I hesitantly call up to the driver. He looks back with dark eyes. "Is there another route?"
“When do you need to be there?” he asks in a clipped foreign accent. It dips and flows in a cadence.
“Um, five thirty—preferably before? It’s—it's really important. For a job—”
“Her dream job,” LD adds when the taxi driver doesn't look fazed by the fact that I'll be late.
“It's more of an internship,” I correct.
“That could turn into a dream job,” she argues, but the taxi driver keeps looking at us with the same bored expression. LD breathes out through her nose. “We'll tip you fifty percent if you get us there before five thirty.”
The taxi driver blinks, then readjusts his rearview mirror. Then he backs up, puts on his blinker, and tears out in front of a slow-moving moped. Horns blare. LD grabs onto me for support.
The next thirty minutes are the absolute worst of my life. I want to kill LD. I thought riding on the back of Billie's motorbike was bad—no, Billie has nothing on this taxi driver. He cuts between a van and a huge SUV, and LD lets out a squawk in surprise.
She folds her arm into mine. “I want to make a confession,” she whispers, “if we die.”
“We're not going to—bless!” I fumble for the oh-shit handle on the cab's roof as the driver cuts across two lanes of traffic. “This is all your fault!”
“I cut off Micah’s rattail.”
“You just had to—you what?”
“I cut off his rattail,” she replies. “I hated that thing. I hated it so much!”
“But—but Heather—”
“Covered for me. She knew I’d get kicked off the bus otherwise. But that’s why she hates me!”
I stare at her as though seeing her for the first time—really for the first time. Have I had Heather pegged wrong all along? Holding on to a defining moment that she didn't even define? “You cut off his rattail,” I say levelly, making sure I heard right.
“I’m not sorry for it,” she replies indignantly. “But I am sorry you and Micah and everyone thought it was Heather.”
The taxi veers off onto an off-ramp, into a neighborhood. Far away, across the Hudson, Manhattan comes into view. I squeeze her hand tighter. “If we live through this, I'll forgive you.”
“And if we don’t?”
“We won't be alive to know the difference.”
The taxi driver flips on the radio and Roman Holiday comes through the speakers, loud and clear. Tonight's their big concert with Jason Dallas at Madison Square Garden. Maybe I can stand outside the venue and listen to the residual thump of “Shotgun Heartache.”
Then again, maybe I'll be dead.
We're silent for the next twenty minutes as the taxi flies across the bridge into Manhattan, and we're lost in a jungle of steel skyscrapers and shiny glass windows. WZTQ, the radio station, is in a crisp tall building with potted ferns out front to make up for the lack of foliage. A few blocks down is a park—Bryant Park, LD says, after she tipped the driver fifty percent as promised. We're a good ten minutes early, too.
I sling my duffel bag over my shoulder, looking up, up, up at the towering building. It's hard to imagine that WZTQ could be in such an unassuming place. It's not flashy, it doesn't show and tell. Sweetey's has more heart than this place—and that’s saying something about the mouth of hell.
I check the address to make sure we're in the right place.
"Shall we?" LD says, patting back her curls, and clips toward the revolving doors.
I follow her hesitantly, studying how she maneuvers through it. Just like water through the mill wheel at the reservoir. Except I'm a little less fluid than water. My bag gets caught between the revolving doors, and I shimmy around, yanking it free on the other side. LD chews on her bottom lip so she won't laugh.
“Oh, shut up!” I snap, pulling my duffel bag back up onto my shoulder.
The receptionist at the lobby desk has my name on the list. She tells LD to wait in the lobby, but when LD leans against the desk and gives her one of those sweet smiles, saying how we have flown all this way just to be torn apart by a silly list, the receptionist buzzes us through security. The golden elevators are woven with intricate lacework of roses and screaming faces. Not ominous at all. I press the button for the forty-fourth floor, and we ride it all the way up.
LD jostles my shoulder. “Hey,” she whispers as the elevator dings softly as we pass every floor, “knock ’em dead, Niteowl.”
I smile. I can't help it. I'm raring to go.
Except once we get to the forty-fourth floor, the secretary at the desk tells us to wait in a small waiting area with these terribly uncomfortable white chairs that creak when we sit down. Three other teens are already waiting, two guys and a girl, dressed far better than I am in my cat taco sweater and black slacks.
The girl gives me one of Heather’s best look-downs in the history of judgmental mean girls. She’s tall and reed thin, with curly ginger hair and thick Woody Allen glasses. She gives me a once-over before saying, “You're here for the interview?”
“Fresh off the plane,” I joke, but her bow lips are set in a frown. I shift uncomfortably, the chair groans. “Um, how about you?”
“Sure, if DJ Sims decides to show up. This is such a waste of time. I'm going to miss my flight back to LA, and Renee Prosperity is going to be so pissed—I’m her PA, by the way. Have been since the beginning. I do her personal matters—”
“She fetches the coffee,” interjects the boy with the dyed-bronze hair. He has a nice beard and a vintage hipster scarf and a wonderfully deep baritone fit for radio. When the girl’s face pinches in rage, he adds, “Isn't that what all personal assistants do?”
The girl doesn’t correct him. “And what do you do?”
“I curate music for Bob FM . . . and I make a few Let's Play videos for horror games on the side. I'm sure you've heard my voice.”
LD gasps, uncrossing her legs. “You're Quitenzi! Oh my G
od. Your YouTube videos get, like, a million views.”
“On good days,” he replies with a smile. “How about you? What do you do?”
“I run a radio show,” I reply, “in Nebraska.”
“In Nebraska! Ah. Well,” the girl strains a smile, “that sounds thrilling.”
But in a way that equates thrilling to watching paint dry. They don’t ask what I do or what I've done. I guess they think that in Nebraska, you really don’t do anything.
“So,” she adds, “did you hear who he’ll be interviewing today on the show? Jason Dallas. We’re supposed to take notes and listen. I’m sure there’s going to be a verbal quiz afterward. Take lots of notes.”
LD and I exchange a look. She asks, “Wait—Jason Dallas?”
The hipster guy nods. “Hell yeah, which is why running so late to this show is the worst career move he could’ve made.”
My eyebrows crinkle. “Wait, but why?”
“Really you don’t know? It’s been all over the news this morning—all last night, too. Nebraska must really be under a rock.”
With an eye roll, because LD doesn’t deal with pompous people and their bull, she takes out her phone from her purse and logs on to Twitter. She scrolls through for a minute, her manicured nails glittering in the florescent light of the office, before her eyebrows quirk up in surprise. “Oh.”
“Oh what?” I look at her screen. My face goes slack. “Oh.”
All across her newsfeed, there are gifs, images, links to Roman Montgomery from Roman Holiday punching the ever-loving snot out of Jason Dallas—on Nick Lively’s live television show.
“Right?” The hipster laughs. “Everyone wants this interview, and DJ Sims got it.”
“Or maybe it was already booked,” says the third guy. He’s not dressed like any of us, in tight black jeans and an oversized hoodie. He’s wearing a black beanie and sunglasses, his arms crossed tightly over his middle as though he’s uncomfortable with other people.
Almost on cue, the phone rings and the secretary picks it up before it even reaches the second ring. “Hello?” she asks, and her hands begin to shake. She pales. “Oh. Oh no . . .” She might look terrified, but I think she’s got so much Botox in her cheeks she can’t frown. “Oh, yes—yes I understand. I don’t . . . no, we can’t send a helicopter. I think he’s already here . . . Right, good-bye.” She purses her lips and hangs up the phone.
I elbow LD and she looks up from a gif of Roman Montgomery nailing Jason in the face, and then to the secretary.
The woman notices us staring and pulls a strained smile over her teeth. Then she stands quaintly and disappears down the hallway to the offices, going into the door at the end of the hall. The five of us seated in the lobby lean just enough to look down the long expanse of carpeted hallway, waiting expectantly.
Then there’s a heavy thump, like something breaking, and a male voice shouts, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S STUCK IN TRAFFIC?”
We all jerk back up into our chairs as the door flies open and someone who could only be the station manager himself storms down the hallway. He’s a squatty, gray-haired man in a polo shirt and crinkled jeans. He storms out into the lobby, his face is so red he might just have a heart attack. Even before the secretary says his name, my heart leaps into my throat. I know this man. I know his voice. And even in his unlaced scuffed sneakers he’s everything I thought he could be.
His secretary follows him, flustered. “Rooney! I can, um, try and call someone—a replacement? A fill-in?”
“Where’s he stranded?”
“There’s apparently a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge . . .”
“So no helicopter . . . ,” he murmurs, and curses. “We don’t have time to find another DJ, Maria. We got an exclusive before one of the biggest concerts of the year and our DJ's MIA. Perfect. The boss is going to love this.” He massages the bridge of his nose, trying to find a piece of calm, before he notices the five of us looking dumbfounded in the lobby. “Who the hell are you people?”
“Sir,” the bearded guy begins, standing, “it’s such an honor to meet you. I’ve been fan of your show for forever.”
“Sure, thanks—you all here for the internship, aren’t you? Maria! I thought I told you to send them home.”
My blood turns cold.
The girl pushes her glasses back up again. “But sir—”
“Do you see Sims here? Do you see anyone? No! Because he’s stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge twiddling his thumbs!” he cries, jabbing a finger toward the wall—and probably in the direction of the bridge. “I don’t have time to interview some over-privileged children. Go. Home.”
Then Rooney Quills—the first voice of WZTQ and a long-time partner of Muse Records (and anyone who wants to challenge me on my Rooney Quills trivia can suck it)—turns back to his assistant and asks, “How about Xana? Can she get here?”
“She has a gig in London tomorrow . . .”
“Marco? DJ Bob? I’ll take a wedding singer if I can get him!”
She hesitates. “I don’t . . . I don’t know any wedding singers, sir.”
He throws his hands into the air and starts back toward his office.
LD’s hand squeezes mine. I can see a door closing in my head, slamming shut, locking, and suddenly I know how I feel about this opportunity, about this interview.
I want it—I want it so bad it hurts.
As the girl with the glasses and the bearded guy gather up their things to leave, I stand, letting go of LD's hand. “Excuse me, sir—sir, just a minute. Please!”
But my idol keeps walking, growing farther and farther away, my chance narrowing until it balances on a pinprick. For a moment, I’m in Steadfast again. I’m the girl who isn’t heard, the one who has her life plotted out, who never had a say.
I don’t want to be that girl anymore.
Steeling my courage, I shout, “I’m not leaving until you give me a chance!”
The young man in all black cocks his head. He hasn't moved this entire time, but now seems genuinely interested in the turn of events. The producer stops in his footsteps as though I’ve shot him through the heart and turns back on his heels to me. There is impatience in his dark eyes. Impatience and kindling anger. I can't waste his time.
I take a deep breath and go on, “Let me run the show.”
The girl in the glasses and her bearded compatriot scoff—like I can run anything, some girl from no-name Nebraska.
Yeah, I am some girl from no-name Nebraska.
Deal with it.
“You,” Rooney Quills voices what the girl and her hipster guy are thinking. “You want to run the show? This isn’t some kindergarten special. Go home.”
“I am home.” My voice comes out louder than I anticipate, and it startles Rooney Quill into listening. I swallow the knot in my throat. “I’m home wherever a receiver is. Wherever a mic is. Give me a few minutes of radio waves, and I’ll show you what it means to be home. You need a DJ, and I’m the best one you’ve got.”
He asks his secretary, “Who is this girl?”
“Ingrid North,” his secretary replies, looking down at my application, “but she has a radio show and goes by—”
“The voice of KOTN,” I interject.
The girl in the glasses gives me a curious look. “Niteowl? You’re Niteowl?”
“One and only,” I reply.
She stares at me in astonishment. The bearded guy asks who Niteowl is, and I want to hear her answer, what she thinks of me. Who is Niteowl? A girl from no-name Nebraska? A fake guru who got all her advice from her grandmother? Or a fool that fell in love over the airwaves?
I might never hear Dark again if I follow my dreams. I may never get to see him, find out who he is, what his passions are but . . .
He told me to listen to my own advice—to follow my North Star.
Drilling up all the courage I have buried deep in myself, I look my idol—who is burning duller and duller the longer we’re in the same room together—in the eye
and tell him, “You go on in ten minutes, right? If DJ Sims gets here by six, then he’ll do the show, but I don’t see that happening and you need a backup for what might be the most interesting—if not influential—interview of the season. And this is the biggest concert Jason Dallas has ever done, and it’s with his arch enemy. You need someone to work the angle. You need someone who knows what questions to ask.”
“Do you even know how to run a show?” he asks.
“Like a well-oiled machine.”
“And you’re good at interviews?”
“My show was a call-in, I’ve had everything from the occasional asshole to telemarketers selling dildos.”
“Hmm.” He snaps his fingers and the secretary hands him my application. He gives it a brief look before handing it back to her and checks his watch again. “Fine. We have pre-scripted questions, and Dallas has already been briefed on what he’ll be asked. It’s easy. No going off book, no weird fangirl questions. And if you screw this up, you’ll never work in this business again.”
“I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“No—you have everything to lose. That’s why you’re here.”
The girl in the glasses throws her arms up. “That’s not fair! She can’t just do that!”
“I didn’t see you volunteer,” the station manager replies.
Beside her, the bearded guy angrily slings his pack over his shoulder. “Whatever. I don’t see Jason Dallas here, anyway, so you might not have a show. He’s a cokehead anyway. I quit.” Then he storms out of the lobby and into the hallway, and the girl with the glasses quickly follows.
LD gives a sigh and pulls out her purse, rummaging through it for her lipstick. “Well, they sure were darling, weren’t they? And blind. Don’t you agree, Jason?” she asks the black-clad young man coyly, as she smears a blood-red color over her lips.
Ice creeps into my blood as the young man grins, taking off his beanie and sunglasses, showing a brutal black eye. Black hair, shaved on one side of his head, falls to his shoulders in a swoop.
We Own the Night Page 17