by Lulu Wright
As I make my way through the gauntlet, I see that Chris is outside the station’s door sucking on a cigarette like he’s getting oxygen from it. He’s shuffling from foot to foot and I notice his face looks more weathered than usual. Something’s wrong.
“Chris.”
He puffs out a huge billow of smoke. “I would have called you,” he says, avoiding my eye. “But I figure you already know, so.”
“What’s up?” Mark says. I feel his hand on the small of my back.
Chris just huffs and drops his cigarette on the ground. That’s a no-no and he catches my eye to make sure I see him do it. He stomps it out with the heel of his biker boot and then opens the door for us.
Mark and I exchange confused looks before we enter the station.
The first thing I notice is Blowsy sitting behind the desk in the lobby. Still wearing my old bridesmaid dress, but she’s got a new accessory that makes my stomach roll in waves.
“Why is Blowsy wearing a cowboy hat?” Mark asks.
I can’t find words to complete my thoughts. I just shake my head, dread pooling in my stomach.
Night Vixen stands next to Chris with her arms crossed and her toe tapping. “We have gone country?”
Chris looks to the ground. “It’s fucking over.”
I gape at them.
“You knew about this.” Night Vixen jabs at my chest.
“I didn’t know anything, I swear I…”
“Oh, sure.” Becks walks in from her office, and grimaces. “Like you didn’t know Doc Bing sold us to Halcyon.”
“What? No!” I feel Mark’s hand on my back and it’s the only thing keeping me from falling over. “That can’t be true.”
Becks walks up to me. “Everyone is out of a job.”
“Except for you, Rose,” Night Vixen says. “I guess you’ve been scheming, huh?”
“Yeah, looks like you’re going to come out smelling like a Rose,” Chris says.
My entire body goes limp and I’m surprised I can still stand. “Listen, guys,” I say, but Becks just walks away.
I look at Chris for comfort, but he glares at me, every inch furious. “Well, I guess you need to hit that meeting now, don’t you.”
The meeting is a blur. I do pick up a couple things. Robert E. Lee has a new collar. Doc is bursting with happiness at the millions he made selling out. And next week Sporty Talk will go national on Halcyon’s vast network across the country. While W-ALT, poor little W-ALT, goes literal country.
DJs, program directors, they are a thing of the past. Except for Sporty Talk, everything will be handled out of Portland. Everything will be computer generated and generic. My salary has been increased 5x over my current base, and the new benefits are ridiculous. I could pay off my student loans within the year.
But I feel no joy. None at all.
Mark says nothing, but gives me sympathetic looks during the meeting and once in a while he squeezes my hand under the table. At least I am not alone in this.
Before we leave the meeting, Doc Bing clears his throat and reminds me I signed a binding contract with him. I could quit, but I’d still have to do this show for the next six months. That, or owe him a fuck ton of back pay salary which I’ve already spent.
Halcyon owns my ass now and there is nothing I can do about it.
As Mark and I walk down the long hallway to the studio, I turn and stop him in place. “Did you know anything about this?” I sound like I’m accusing him of war crimes.
He shakes his head, eyes huge. “No. I promise.” He bites his lip. “I bet Stanley would have found out and told me, if he was around working, but….”
I cover my face with my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
He pulls me to him and plants a kiss on my cheek. “I’m sorry. I know how much you loved W-ALT.”
Mark and I enter the studio and hear that Night Vixen is playing The Queen is Dead. She won’t look at me. She won’t even turn her face to me. Fuckballs.
As she storms out of the studio for the last time, she keeps her head down. But I hear her mutter “Traitor,” as she slips out the studio door.
I wish I could ragequit, but I know I can’t unless I want Halcyon to sue me into debtor’s prison.
“Come on,” Mark whispers. “Let’s just get through today, OK?”
I enter the production booth and put on my headphones. However I feel now, I have a show to do.
The first song cued is Carrie Underwood and my eyes immediately tear up.
After the show, new Halcyon personnel move in as the old move out. Becks tells me to go fuck myself as she shuffles out of the lobby with a box of sales books in her arms and kicks the front door closed behind her.
Chris has a stack of records in a box as he walks by me. I call his name and he slowly turns to face me. The look on his face makes me want to cry.
“I’m sorry.” I wish I could say something more profound.
“You know,” he says, shuffling the weight of the box. “I kinda thought I would be in this gig until I was too old to work. I didn’t want to retire. But nobody is going to hire an old classic rock geezer like me.” He shakes his head. “Later, Rose,” he says as he slips out the door.
I feel Mark’s big hand on my shoulder and I know, I know, I know. It’s unprofessional. It’s childish. It’s stupid. But I put my head on his shoulder and cry.
As we leave the station we race through the gauntlet and leap into Mark’s truck. I can see handymen taking down the flapping station banner I never got a chance to fix.
Mark follows my eyes and reaches for my hand, giving it a tight squeeze. “Let’s just go home.”
22
Mark
“OK,” I say, and slide the piece of paper to Rose. “I think I found a couple of more rocking country songs here we can use as beds. Maybe we can get Halcyon…”
She’s just staring out the window like she doesn’t hear me. Cold rain falls outside and it matches her mood. She’s really upset, like doesn’t want to fuck or let me go down on her or even just give her a massage upset. I am at a loss as to what to do.
What would Ryan Gosling do? I’m trying to remember every chick flick I’ve been forced to watch by my many exes, but nothing seems to fit. There’s not exactly a “Here’s how to cheer up your girl when the station she spent her whole life building and banked her career on gets sold out from under her” guide book.
Then I ask myself what would I want. Suddenly I know what to do. I will fix everything.
After I throw another log on the fire, I drop down next to her on the couch. “Did I ever tell you about the day the Yankees signed me?” No response, but I continue. “It was both the happiest day and saddest day of my life.”
“Why,” she drones. Her eyes are still looking at the raindrops hitting the window, but at least I’m starting to gain her attention.
“I was happy because my dreams were coming true and suddenly I was a multimillionaire.”
Silence.
“But I was also devastated.”
She turns her face to me, finally. “Why?”
“I was leaving my minor team. I loved those guys. I loved the coach, the fans, everything. I loved Texas.”
She looks back out the window.
“Have you thought that you getting this boost to your career could be a good thing for the rest of your team in the end?” I ask gently.
“How?” She’s biting back tears now.
I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Now you’re in position to really help them out, job wise.”
She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. I am failing at the Ryan Gosling thing. Then Todd pops up in my head. Use your words. Express emotion. A light bulb goes off in my brain.
“Rose,” I whisper. “Tell me everything. Tell me about the station. Tell me how you feel.”
Her eyes flood with tears, but she moves closer to me and puts her head on my shoulder as the flood gates open. She tells me how much it hurts to hear her cow
orkers blaming her. How mad she is that she didn’t see this coming, at herself, at Doc Bing, at Halcyon. She talks about feeling like a sell-out, worse than some of the very bands she’s ragged on for buying into the corporation. I listen, and keep my arms around her, and when she’s finally all talked out, she just lies there in my arms, cuddling. But the tears have finally stopped flowing.
Maybe I do have the Ryan Gosling thing down.
23
Rose
All I’ve done the last few days is play Country Sam FM and, well, Mark.
Somehow I make it through the week. Honestly though, I can’t imagine how I could have done it without Mark. He’s been super supportive through the endless meetings. I’ve been at Country Sam FM for twelve hour days, recording new promos and lining up songs and running the front desk and completing all sorts of busy work. Launching a national show is no small thing and neither is working with corporate drones who speak in buzzwords and follow some mysterious internal script I am not privy to.
“Demos want this guy,” Chad says, taping a picture of a hockey player who miraculously has all his teeth. “His Q rating is phenomenal.” Chad is my new co-producer and he is armed with marketing analysis, focus group feedback and the sort of things that earned him a Mass Comm degree from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard.
Every second of the new show is planned with zero room for spontaneity. Even the music we use as beds between sets has been vetted by our target focus group: dudes between 18 and 34. If any of these guys turned their nose up at a single song, we ain’t gonna play it.
I just nod at everything Chad says because I feel out of my league. I have a Mass Comm degree too, but it’s from a local college, and I haven’t used the stat part of my degree since I passed the exam. As least the station’s coffee is better. I sip it as he mansplains everything to me like I’m five.
I hate him and his spray tan and his perfectly coiffed hair. Everything out of his mouth sounds patronizing. It’s worse than mansplaining, it’s douchebabbling. To be fair, though, I’m sure he’s this condescending to everyone regardless of their gender.
Just when Chad is about to lecture me about the finer points of demographics in the Midwest, the new traffic manager, Kristy, pokes her head in the door. “You guys almost finished? The guys want to start painting in here.”
“Yes, of course,” Chris says, closing his laptop. “We can go over this later.”
The W-ALT I used to know is disappearing before my eyes, morphing into Country Sam FM. After all the “superfluous” non-Halcyon personnel were sent packing—i.e. everyone except me—Blowsy got stabbed in the chest with a pen knife by Kristy, deflated and stuffed into a garbage bag. I didn’t even get to take a goodbye selfie.
All the worn out carpet has been ripped up, and the beer-stained couch—Night Vixen’s daytime coffin—has been replaced with what looks like something from a high end dental office. All the rock posters are gone from the walls, and generic black and white cityscapes have replaced them.
My head spins like Regan in the Exorcist, but less fun.
We will be doing the show from Miami during Yankees spring training and we are widening the format to appeal to a wider demographic across the nation. Not a focus on just the Yankees, but teams across the country. And not just baseball either. Mark will still be an important part of the show going forward, but due to his busy schedule, since, you know, he’ll have to actually be a baseball player, he will pre-record some sets and we will have guests fill in for him the rest of the time.
Truth is, Mark really doesn’t need this gig anymore. I think he only signed the contract to do me a favor. I have never had anyone do something like that for me before and it’s tough to get my head around it. When I try to bring it up, he just does that shoulder shrug of his. “It’s nothing.”
But I know he’s downplaying it. I know this is my dream, not his, and he’s bending over backwards to help me reach it. I just hope in the end, after all the country and the selling out, that it’s worth it.
By the time I get home Friday night, I have just about had it with spreadsheets and demographics and focus groups and corporate speak. I collapse on Mark’s couch and toe off my boots with such laziness that one remains half on my foot. I can’t even muster the energy to kick it off.
Mark slides it off with a smile. “I got some pasta from that Italian place delivered. And I remembered you don’t like peas in the carbonara.” He sits down next to me and pulls my body to his, rubbing my shoulders. Wow, his hands are amazing. Tension and stress melt off me and I start to relax and unwind…
“Too tired to do a fashion show for me?”
Turning to face him, I smile. “What’s going on?”
He squeezes me hard and then slides off the couch to pick up several bags from the dining room table and bring them to me.
I peek inside one. “What is this?”
He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “A bikini. Several, actually.”
I laugh. “And you want me to model them for you?”
“Yes, please.”
I take a bikini out of the bag. It’s pink and conservatively cut. Damn near matronly. Seriously?
But his eyes light up. “That one first.”
“OK.” I rise from the couch with the bikini in my hand. He slaps my bottom.
“Get to it.”
Wow. This thing is something my grandma would’ve worn in the fifties. I admire myself in the mirror anyway. My nips—totally hard already, just at the thought of what Mark might have planned for later—are camouflaged by the thick material. My ass and bikini line are completely covered. If nuns wore a bikini, this would be the one.
Maybe he’s super into quaint, conservatively sexy librarian wear or something?
Nah. The man appreciates a short skirt and hobbling heels. I guess he’s one of those guys who doesn’t want his girlfriend showing off her goods on the beach. I dig that. Besides, with my higher profile now, I’m not sure I want my hot stuff out on the internet either.
I pull the ponytail out of my hair and give my head a shake. From the shoulders down I can be virginal, but at least I can still have sexy hair.
I step out of the bathroom.
“Wow. Nice.” His eyes practically devour me. And he isn’t lying. The bulge in his jeans is huge.
“You like this? Really?’
He gives me an enthusiastic nod. “Let’s try it out.”
“Try it out?”
“With water.”
“You want me to wear this in the shower…”
He shakes his head. “Nope. The hot tub.”
“Hot tub?”
I have never been on Mark’s patio, and didn’t even know he had one. It’s February after all. Not exactly BBQ weather. The country view is spectacular, with light snow falling, but icy wind whips all around me and my skin screams in ice burns and prickles in gooseflesh.
“Hop in before you catch your death,” he laughs.
Once I’m safely warm in the bubbly water and rising steam, I see he has champagne chilling on ice next to the tub. He pours a glass. “Don’t worry. It’s a fancy plastic flute so we don’t die from a million cuts if it shatters in the tub.”
“Hmm. Chilled champagne and a warm hot tub. Something tells me you planned this.”
“Yep.” Mark drops trou and shows he has on blue trunks. Quite the Boy Scout, this one. He climbs in and grabs a glass of champagne. “Here’s to Miami,” he says as we clink. “Here’s to the future.”
After I take a sip, he wiggles his eyebrows. “So, let’s see how that bikini looks wet.”
“Are you kidding? It’s freezing out of the water.”
Pouting, he blinks his eyes at me in a silly imitation of a puppy dog. “Aw, pretty please with sugar on top?”
“How can I resist such poetry…” Slowly, I rise out if the water, a Venus emerging from foam. His eyes fall on every part of my shivering body and he moans.
“Fuck yes.”
“This gr
andma bikini does it for you, huh?”
He wiggles his eyebrows again. “Best. Bikini. Ever.”
“But…” I look down. Exposure to water has made this bikini 100% see-through. Oh. Covering myself on instinct, I crouch back down in the water as Mark laughs harder than I have ever seen anyone laugh. My eyes dart around the trees to see if there is some pervert with binoculars trained on us.
Mark moves closer to me in the hot tub and grabs me around the waist. “Hey, sexy,” he whispers in my ear. “This one is just for private.”
He pulls me onto his lap and I relax my body onto his. His cock is hard against my thigh, his hands rubbing my legs as he kisses my throat. “Ever done it in a hot tub before?”
I take my hand out of the water and wave it around, pointing out the trees. “Someone could be watching. And it’s freezing.”
“No one is watching out here. Besides, we’ll stay in the water.”
One of his hands leaves my thighs and he fumbles behind me to slide his cock out of his trunks. Feeling how hard it is, I get excited. Damn. He is hard to resist, especially when it’s clear how bad he wants me. I lean back into him, and reach around to grab his cock for myself. Wow, he is harder than ever. “Mm, maybe I could try it…”
“Shh. You’re gonna take me all the way in.” His fingers tug at the crotch of my see-through bikini and he lifts my hips, urging me to rise. His thumb circles my clit, his index finger testing my slit, finding my pussy hot from the tub and wet from my own excitement. He slowly slides his cock into me, super gentle, until I am connected with his lap. I can feel every inch of him, and I clench hard around him, grinning as his cock twitches inside me. Thank god for kegels.
If there is a pervert looking at us, they would just see a woman sitting on her man’s lap in a hot tub, strictly PG-13 stuff. Still. We do both have stalker fans now. I bite my lip. “If you start thrusting,” I say. “Anyone looking at us will know…”
“No thrusting. Bad idea in water anyway. Trust me.”
Without moving his hips, he pulls his dick inside me.