by Becky Melby
❧
The magic was gone. The rest of the ride alternated between awkward silence and Seth ripping on the antiquated policies and woeful incompetence at KXPB, and what he was going to do to change things around there as soon as he had the chance. When he parked behind her apartment, April thanked him for the evening. After a quick good-bye, she got out before he could say anything. Locking the downstairs door behind her, she kicked off her shoes, sending one bouncing up to the third step, and trudged up the stairs. As she straightened up after picking up the wayward shoe, she shrieked.
Yvonne stood at the top of the stairs, wearing jeans and sandals and a turquoise blouse. Her hair was styled and her face made up. The overhead light glinted off her teeth as she grinned. “So?” she squealed. “Is he everything I said he was?”
April’s eyes narrowed. “He’s way too much of what I said he was.” She opened her door and threw in her shoes. “Why aren’t you in bed?” She took a long look at the bouncy curls and pearly pink lip gloss, the perky smile now phasing into confusion. “Why don’t you look sick?”
“Because I’m. . .not. Didn’t Seth tell you?”
“Tell me what? That my best friend’s a liar?” She chucked her purse through the open door.
“He asked me to set up a date with you, and this just seemed perfect.” Yvonne’s disappointment pinched her features. “I was so sure you two would hit it off and you’d be so grateful that it wouldn’t matter that I faked being sick. What happened?”
“You should be an actress. All that retching and gagging and. . .” April’s breath came in short, tight gulps. One more word would unleash the torrent brewing inside her. With a final glare at Yvonne, she walked into her apartment and closed the door behind her.
The tears began as she unzipped her dress, clawing at the zipper as if it were the polka dots’ fault she couldn’t breathe. The dress fell at her feet, and she kicked it toward the closet. Jerking open a drawer, she pulled out a floor-length nightgown, pulling it over her head and hugging it close to her belly, seeking comfort in the softness. But the feel of flannel against her skin roused a sadness that had nothing to do with Seth Bachelor.
Arms wrapped around Snow Bear, she curled on the couch and gave in to tears. . .the sobs of an nine-year-old girl whose father had just said he was never coming back.
The tiniest details were branded in her memory, etched there by her father’s rage: lightning flashing through the slats of Caitlyn’s crib, striping the faded pink-flowered wallpaper. . .icy rain slapping the window. . .the wind howling, sometimes louder than her father’s cursing, sometimes not. . . April had stood beside the crib in her long flannel nightgown, gripping the rungs, singing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”. . .louder and louder to cover the sound of the storm and the screaming in the kitchen. Caitlyn giggled, and April wondered why. Why wasn’t she scared?
Looking back now, she knew the answer. Her little sister had never known anything else. She hadn’t known a mother who smiled or a daddy who played games. To her, the fighting was normal.
April remembered the smoothness of the painted spindles, the fabric softener smell of Caitlyn’s stuffed purple elephant, the hum of the vaporizer in the corner. And as hard as she’d tried to forget, she remembered her father’s words, shot at her mother like the machine guns in the movies Daddy liked to watch. The connecting words had eroded over the years, but the bulletlike imprecations remained, shooting to the surface with unpredictable triggers. . .flannel—or a man’s fight with his boss.
She hadn’t seen or heard from her father since Caitlyn’s funeral. There were times she could pray for him. Tonight wasn’t one of those times.
Finally, when her tears were spent, April tried to back step into objectivity. Had she overreacted with Seth? Was she being unfair to let Seth’s bout of anger overshadow the sensitivity she’d seen earlier in the evening? Maybe. She pulled a fleece throw off the back of the couch. Using the bear as a pillow, she lay down. Maybe she hadn’t been fair, but she couldn’t risk being around him long enough to find out. She couldn’t risk falling for a man whose anger might burn out of control. A man who might leave her.
❧
“I know you had good intentions.” April stared past Yvonne, counting the travel mugs on the coffee shop shelf, not quite ready for the honesty of eye contact.
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
In the fog of her exhaustion, even resentment felt like work. “I forgive you.” The truth was, she felt betrayed, but she had to respond to Yvonne’s motives, not the disappointing outcome.
“Then tell me every detail. . .everything before he got the phone call.”
April shook her head. “If I do, you’ll tell me I’m being irrational.”
“And truth is something you no longer believe in?”
There were thirteen mugs on the top shelf, six stainless steel and seven plastic. “It’s just. . .I don’t know. . .he’s not what I’m looking for.”
Yvonne’s just-waxed brows tapped her flat-ironed bangs. “Because you’re looking for perfect.”
“You’re vicious this morning.”
“Faithful are the words of a friend. Tell me about the rest of the night.”
April stared over the rim of her Polar Cap, a frozen cappuccino concoction flavored with mint. “If I could blot out the last hour. . .he was amazing. I was determined not to like him, but I did. He asks questions and makes you feel like he really wants answers. He’s interesting. He reads, he travels: There wasn’t a second of awkward silence. I was on the edge of my seat as he was describing hot and cold air masses crashing together.” She rested the back of her head against the wall. “But my dad was a really nice guy a lot of the time.”
“April. . .don’t do that. Seth lost his temper—”
“Twice.”
“Every guy gets frustrated with his boss. Don’t generalize; don’t make him into your father.”
In the strained silence, Yvonne’s phone rang. April counted bags of organic coffee while she eavesdropped.
“We’re. . .I’m at Perk Place. . .yeah. . .sure. . .bye.”
April opened a packet of sugar, sprinkling it on top of the half-gone Polar Cap. “That was short and sweet.”
“Yeah. Just one of the girls in my study. Now, where were we? Oh yeah. We were talking about you generalizing.”
“Let’s talk about something other than my neuroses. What are you and Kirk doing tonight?”
“Dinner at his folks’.”
“Name the kids again.”
Yvonne laughed. An only child, she would soon be marrying a man with nine siblings, all with names starting with K.
Ten minutes later, April drained her cup and picked up her purse. “I have to get to the station. I was going to do my show on my experience at Riverdance.” She sighed and crumpled her napkin, stuffing it into the paper cup. “Maybe I’ll do it on changing weather patterns instead.”
Yvonne didn’t appear to have heard her last remark. Her eyes were focused somewhere over April’s head, in the direction of the front door. Seconds later, a woman stood by their table, holding out a vase of tulips. The vase was surrounded by tissue paper. . .and sitting in an empty Twinkie box.
“April? This is for you.”
Eight
“I want to do a call-in show today.” April stood in front of Jill’s desk, hands on hips.
Her boss sighed. “We’ve talked about this.”
“How come Orlando gets to do a call-in?” She played the whiny-toddler act to the hilt. “I’ve been here almost as long as he has.”
“Orlando takes questions on hermeneutics. Your listeners are. . .diverse. . .‘unpigeonholeable.’ Like I said, we’ve talked about this.”
“I know. I’m going to wear you down.”
Jill threw a Mounds bar at her, hitting her in the shoulder. “It’s not me you have to convince.”
“But you think I could do it?”
“Of course. You know how frustrated I am that
we’re not utilizing your full potential. It’s a liability thing with the board.”
April bent to retrieve the candy from under a chair. “I happen to know they’re meeting this morning. Do you want to get your name on the agenda, or should I?”
With a barely stifled laugh, Jill held both hands in the air. “I’ll do it.”
“Yes! Tell them it’s just a trial run. And tell them my reaction time is like lightning. The slightest hint of anything unseemly and I’ll hang up or hit the obscenity button.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to them. Get out of here and go work on Plan B, just in case my persuasive powers fail.”
“Have I told you lately how awesome you are to work for?”
Another Mounds bar sailed her way. “Go. Pray. Don’t waste your silver tongue on me.”
Licking chocolate off her fingers, April traipsed into her office and began typing her opening script. The idea had germinated, along with a headache, in the aftermath of her tears. Comments from her water tower show were still trickling in. Out of a listening audience that only numbered in the hundreds, April had heard so many stories of loss and hope. They needed to be told.
Several minutes into writing her opener, she stopped. A nagging thought, like a puppy scratching at the door, had pestered her since leaving Perk Place. Riverdance. She fingered a tulip petal, wondering half-consciously why she hadn’t left them in the car. She’d told her listeners what she’d be doing on Friday night. She couldn’t ignore it like it never happened. That, of course, was only a fraction of the thought. The rest, the part that concerned Seth Bachelor, she didn’t have time to act on now. The flowers, and the note accompanying them, demanded a response. At the moment, she had no idea what it would be.
Redirecting her train of thought wasn’t hard with the possibility of finally hosting the kind of show she felt God had designed her for. Or close to it, anyway. The real desire of her heart, the one she’d shared with only the people she trusted—the one her mother had thrown in her face after the water tower show—was a dream she’d probably never get close to.
Living in Pine Bluff, her chance of ever seeing her hopes materialize was beyond slim. All through school, she’d dreamed of becoming a television talk show host. Jill’s comment fluttered around her as she worked. . .we’re not utilizing your full potential.
There weren’t many options open to her when she’d moved back home. One cable television station, and the nonprofit AM Christian radio station where she’d worked as jack-of-all-trades for eight months now. During the week, she was the afternoon disc jockey; in the mornings, she prepared for her Saturday show or played gofer for Jill. It wasn’t a bad job, but it wasn’t what she’d hoped for.
There’d been an opening for an anchor at KXPB-TV. With her experience, she’d been sure they’d hire her, but that turned out to be the reason she hadn’t gotten the job. When they signed a girl just out of broadcasting school, April had been miffed. But maybe the “man upstairs” was right. There really wasn’t any reason for her to stay in Pine Bluff now. Caitlyn was gone. Her mom was in Minneapolis. Maybe it was time to move back to the Cities where at least she had a chance of realizing her “full potential.”
More than an hour later, she was engrossed in outlining her show when a hand jutted around the door frame. A slim-fingered hand with long red nails. It closed slowly into a fist, and the thumb popped up.
April squealed. “For real?”
Jill’s slim silhouette slid into the doorway. “For real. I’ve convinced them you’re the Christian radio version of Rush Limbaugh.”
Two hours later, laptop under one arm, April was ready to head into the studio. As she switched off her desk lamp, a single tulip petal floated onto her desk. She picked it up. Red, with lines of yellow rising like sunbeams. She reached in her back pocket and pulled out the crumpled note that had been handed to her by Seth’s delivery girl, the “girl from my study” who had called Yvonne at the coffee shop. She read the words that she assumed were handwritten by Seth. “April—I had a wonderful time last night. I’m so sorry you had to witness that tiff. My invitation for dinner still stands. If you want to join me, just call W-E-A-T-H-E-R-G-U-Y.”
Lord, I will deal with this. I’ll thank him. I’ll forgive him. She tossed the note at the wastebasket and missed. But I can’t have dinner with him.
❧
“This is April Douglas, and you’re listening to Slice of Life on KPOG, praising our God in Pine Bluff. If you tuned in two weeks ago, you heard me talk about my sister, Caitlyn, and her dream list—forty-two things that she and I hoped to do together before the end of our lives. My sister didn’t live long enough to experience even one of them.” April took a sip from her Nalgene bottle. “Caitlyn Renee Douglas died of leukemia on November 12, but she made me promise to at least try to accomplish everything on her list.
“Keeping that promise is going to be possible because of the encouragement and help I’m getting from many of you. I’ve had offers of backpacking equipment, sailing lessons. . . .” April stood her gel pen on end and smiled. “A year’s supply of Bridgeman’s Wolf Tracks ice cream, and. . .” The words that came to mind weren’t the ones she’d planned to say. “I even received an invitation to join a group of storm chasers tracking a tornado. And in return, I want to share my adventures with you.”
She segued easily into Riverdance. She described the pounding cadence of the Irish jigs and reels, the sweet sadness of the violins, the refurbished opulence of the Orpheum Theater. Several times she used “we” but didn’t mention who she’d shared the evening with.
“When the music ended, my first thought was how much my sister would have loved it. But. . .and this is the heart of why I don’t want to keep these experiences to myself. . .my thoughts were bittersweet, not morose. I find myself remembering the good times and looking forward to what-ever God has in store for me. Caitlyn’s short life was a celebration. Even when she began to lose hope, she never lost her gratitude. I want my life to be a testimony to the wonder of God.”
Her fingertip traced the edge of the keyboard. Though she’d done a call-in show in college, this was different. “I’ve been blessed this past week to hear some amazing stories, some tender, some heart wrenching. Today, I’d like to give you an opportunity to talk. Grief is something we’ll all experience at some time. We’re called to ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’ Let’s do that. Has the Lord led you through the valley and brought you out on the other side? What did He teach you there that might bring encouragement to someone who’s still on that dark path? If you have a story to share that may offer hope, or if you’re in need of some encouragement, the lines are open. . . .”
The first caller was a high school guidance counselor. “As most of your listeners know, April, Dave Martin, one of our students, was killed last week. He had a lot of friends, and it’s been a horrendous loss for them. But these kids are doing some really constructive things with their grief. They’re putting together a scrapbook of memories to give to the Martin family, and they’ve started a memorial fund; the money they collect will be donated to Habitat for Humanity.”
An elderly woman called with a story of forgiveness. A year after her husband’s death, God had finally given her the courage to face the woman whose decision to drive after too many drinks had cost her husband’s life. The two women now met once a week for coffee.
A steady list of names filled her monitor through most of the first hour. The calls tapered off near the halfway point. April leaned in closer to the microphone. “On the other side of this break, I’d like to transition to a new topic. King Solomon gave us some wise words: ‘There is. . .a time to be born and a time to die. . .a time to mourn and a time to dance.’ My question to you is. . .are you dancing? Are you celebrating the gift of life? If not, why not? What’s holding you back from rejoicing in the moment and embracing whatever God brings your way? I want to hear from you after this break.”
April looked up
to see Jill standing in the control room, once again giving the thumbs-up sign. April smiled her thanks and scanned the screen on her laptop, reviewing the cues that could keep her talking for the rest of the show if no one called in.
Three minutes later, she realized she wasn’t going to need any of the cues. She welcomed the first caller. “Hi, Mary Jane. What do you have to share with us?”
“This may sound silly, but one of the ways I celebrate life is by completely ignoring all the rules of fashion.”
April laughed. “I hope my best friend isn’t listening. You sound like a free spirit, Mary Jane.”
The laugh was returned. “Free in Christ. I’m in my sixties, and I’m a watercolor artist. I sell my greeting cards at craft fairs. So of course I love color, and I express that in everything I do, including what I wear. My neon paisleys and purple polka dots are a constant source of humiliation to my daughters, but you know what? I don’t care! My grandkids love me just the way I am, and that’s good enough for me.”
“Mary Jane, you just keep on splashing color all around you, and maybe you’ll give some of the rest of us the courage to do the same. Thank you so much for calling.”
The hour went too fast. “We’ve got five minutes left—time for two more calls.” She looked at the board. There were three names on the monitor. Frank, Carol. . .and Seth.
She had a choice. She pushed a button. “Hi, Frank. Welcome to Slice of Life.”
“Thanks. I’m. . .glad I got through.” The man sounded out of breath. “I’ve been listening to you on the last leg of a fifty- mile bike ride. I’m in my late thirties, and about a year ago, I took a long, hard look at my life. I was an overweight armchair quarterback, living vicariously through the flat-screen idiot box in my living room. So I did something that almost got me committed to a nuthouse.”