Love on the Air

by Sierra Donovan

  Christie gulped. She'd never have a better chance to screw up.

  Rick pulled back the rolling chair for her to sit in front of the computer. This time, it was more like a silent order than a gentlemanly gesture. Christie sat. "You've heard the old expression `rip and read,' from the old teletype machines?" He reached over her shoulder to operate the computer mouse. "These days, it's `print and read.' "

  Rick leaned over her, his head just above hers as he explained where to find the news stories on the Internet, and how to turn them into radio copy. Christie stared at the computer screen and concentrated fiercely. For a moment, Rick rested his hand on her shoulder; the next moment, he lifted it away, never pausing as he spoke. It was as if it had never been there at all.

  Rick finished sketching out her instructions, then straightened. "Got it?" Christie nodded, trying not to look dazed. She must not have succeeded completely. He bent down again, bringing his eyes level with hers. "Listen, I know you're going into this cold. Just do what you can."

  In nineteen minutes, Christie added to herself as Rick left. She wasted a moment staring at the clock on the room's gray acoustic-carpeted wall, then shook herself. No time to worry about how little time she had. No time for sorting out the butterflies in her stomach. Certainly no time to get worked up over a little touch from the boss. She turned her attention to the computer screen and concentrated on the headlines with all her might.

  Christie did her first newscast in a near-trance, focusing studiously on the words on the paper in front of her. But a part of her couldn't forget the gray eyes she felt watching her from the other side of those pages. Despite her concentration, when it was over, she couldn't remember a thing she'd just said.

  She looked up at Rick; he was nodding in satisfaction. "Not bad," he said. Christie pursed her lips to silence the sigh of relief that whooshed out of her. Rick started putting away a stack of CDs, damage control for the clutter that had accumulated in the studio during the first hour of his shift. "I'll need you back in here at five-thirty. Do you have any problem staying through the six-thirty news?"

  'No."

  He glanced up from sorting and shelving. "Thanks." His smile was brief, but it was genuine. She must have done all right.

  An hour later, when she finished her six o'clock newscast, the heat was off. Just one more to go, and she had enough material to work with now. The studio seemed a little less frenetic at the moment, so she asked, "What happened to Jonathan?"

  "Family emergency. He got a call after I went on the air. His grandmother back east had a stroke. I sent him out so he could catch a flight." By his tone, she could tell it wouldn't have occurred to him to do otherwise. Christie wasn't sure her old employers would have been so accommodating.

  The phone light flashed, and Rick turned to answer it. While he did, Christie lingered a moment to take in the controlled chaos around her. She'd been working here almost a month now, but this was the first time she'd seen Rick in the studio.

  What she saw was a man in his element.

  Rick's studio was physically the same room she worked in night after night, but apart from that, it was a different world. The afternoon drive shift buzzed with activity. Phone lights flashed, bringing in traffic reports and listeners' requests. Newspapers, trade magazines and scratch paper with various notes covered every surface. And at the center of all this chaos was Rick-often intently focused, but never seeming rattled, even when he was doing five things at once. He always seemed to know which direction to turn to find the needed scrap of paper amid the layers that were strewn around. If she ran this show for even half an hour, Christie thought, she wouldn't remember her own name.

  As she watched, Rick recorded another phone call, cued a CD, and jotted an apparently unrelated note on another scrap of paper. She couldn't help admiring his seeming ease: quick, but never rushed; intent, but never stressed. No wasted motion. She didn't think he noticed when she slipped out.

  But he was waiting to greet her when she came in for her final newscast at six-thirty. "Last one," Rick said. "Stay on the air with me after you finish your stories this time."

  "What?" Just when she thought it was safe.

  "No big deal," he said, putting on his headphones. "Just stay loose, and we'll talk before I start the next song."

  Rick introduced the traffic, then the news; there was no time for her to think about it. Probably just the way he'd planned.

  She finished the newscast with her two biggest stumbles of the day. When it was over, Rick said, "Now, in case you've been wondering just who you've been hearing on the news this afternoon-" he met her eyes, giving her a nod across the console "- Christie Becker, our overnight personality, filling in for Jonathan Blair on very short notice." He fired off an applause sound effect.

  She felt a twinge of embarrassment and put it to use. "Please. You're making me blush."

  "They can't see you blush." He grinned. "Remember, this is radio."

  To her surprise, her nerves faded under his smile. "This is radio?" She smacked at her forehead. "That explains the microphone."

  "And the fact that neither of us have gotten paid in a month," Rick added.

  "And the fact that we're both dumb enough to keep doing it."

  Rick laughed. "Touche." He started the music, then straightened away from the microphone, pulling down his headphones. "Very nice."

  "Fun," Christie agreed, returning his grin. It may not have been hilarious, but it had been spontaneous. It had felt good. Best of all, she hadn't fallen on her face.

  They were both still smiling when Rick met her eyes, and Christie felt something.

  Click.

  Professional chemistry? Or something else?

  Christie stepped backward, and bumped into the wall behind her. "Am I done?"

  "Just a minute." He was still looking at her, but his expression had changed to one of thoughtful assessment. Probably for some purely professional reason. A brief frown passed over his brow, then faded. "How'd you like to do it for the rest of the week?"

  Just as she'd suspected. Purely professional. Christie leaned back, borrowing a little support from the wall. "News?"

  Rick nodded. "Jonathan won't be back in until next Monday, at least. I'll need someone to fill in." He nodded again, as though agreeing with himself. "This worked out fine. You did a nice job. There's a difference between reading news and commercials. You know the difference. And the last break-" He shrugged. "I think we play off each other pretty well."

  She folded her arms. "Always a method to your madness, isn't there?"

  "Usually." He didn't bother to hide a smile. "You'd have to do the morning news, too. And that two-hour air shift from two to four in the afternoon, between Yvonne's and mine. It's a weird schedule, but it all adds up to about eight hours, if you do it right. And your day starts at about 5:30 A.M., so I'll want you to do it right. Which means no volunteering for Yvonne while you're doing this. You get some rest between the morning news and your afternoon shift. Can you do that?" He seemed to realize she hadn't said yes yet. "And are you interested?"

  A week in the studio with Rick. It appealed to her for more than just professional reasons, and that was the problem. Christie thought for a moment, but there was really nothing to think about. Any new challenge was a vote of confidence, and she'd be a fool to turn it down. Especially a chance to be on the air in broad daylight.

  So she said what she should have said in the first place. "Sure."

  "You'll have to put up with McKeon on the morning shift. Let me know if he gives you too much trouble." The matter settled, Rick started shelving CDs again. "Of course, I hear that afternoon drive guy's even worse."

  Two days later, Rick drummed out a song intro on the black countertop. Christie entered the studio with her clipboard of news stories and took her place across the counter from him. As she checked over the papers in front of her, she started singing along with the music, without any apparent break in her concentration. That didn't surprise Ric
k at this point; she seemed to know the words to everything. The girl must breathe music.

  A few days ago, she never would have started singing in front of him so easily. Rick was tempted to tease her, but he didn't.

  Christie jotted a change on her news copy and glanced up, breaking off the song for the first time. "You get more upbeat songs on this shift."

  "It's called day-parting. Wouldn't want to keep your overnight audience awake."

  She fixed him with a mock glare, and he grinned at her. He was going to miss her when she went back to her regular schedule. He'd been putting Christie on the air with him for more and more of his breaks as the week wore on, rather than just when they were going into the news. It was fun, and it added to the show. He and Jonathan worked together smoothly, but it wasn't like this.

  "Rick?" He inclined his head, prompting her to go on. "Would you mind if I slipped out a little early tonight, after the last newscast?"

  That was as late as he officially needed her to stay, anyway. He could spare her for the last half hour. "Sure." Rick picked up the log to sign off on the previous hour. He kept his eyes on the page as he scrawled his initials. "Date?" he asked her. He made the single syllable as casual as he could.

  "A movie with Yvonne. It starts at seven." There was a pause. In an equally casual tone, she added, "You?"

  Rick looked up from the log sheet. Christie's eyes were back on her news stories, checking over what she'd already checked over. Her eyelashes were lowered in studied nonchalance, but she was biting her lower lip, an enticing little habit that she probably didn't know drove him crazy. Right there, on the lower left corner. As if she were nibbling an appetizer Rick would love to sample himself.

  "Oh," he said, "you mean, do I have plans tonight? Yes."

  She looked up, and Rick caught a flicker in her eyes. Gotcha.

  He squinted up at the ceiling. "Let's see, tonight it's ... Budget Gourmet. Frozen beef medallions with mushrooms."

  She smiled, and her posture relaxed ever so slightly. "I see. Does the veal parmigiana know about the beef medallions?"

  They both laughed.

  "Want to use that, next break?" Christie asked.

  "Sure." Rick had laid out two basic ground rules for their on-air banter. One, he was never referred to as the boss, he was just another hapless jock. Two, he was fair game. In fact, if the jokes were on him, so much the better. Rick pulled on his headphones and got back to work, watching Christie as she did the same.

  He knew he was playing with fire. But it served her right for biting her lip like that.

  The week flew by.

  Christie's mornings with Mark McKeon were every bit as bad as Rick had warned. He was arrogant and dismissive, never speaking to her on the air and rarely at any other time. He obviously considered her news an interruption of his show; Christie wondered if he was any more civil to Jonathan.

  The afternoons made up for it though. Being in the studio with Rick kept her on her toes in more ways than one, but she was learning. Their breaks together after the news kept getting better. No elaborate, scripted comedy bits, just simple, light banter. All things considered, Christie hated to see the week come to an end.

  She was passing through the lobby on Friday, just before her two P.M. air shift, when a woman walked in the front door with a small boy. The receptionist wasn't up front, which wasn't unusual. At first, Christie had thought the girl was lazy, but that was before she found out how many other tasks Karen was pulled away from her desk to do.

  Christie, in turn, had learned a thing or two about helping out at the front desk. "May I help you?"

  "Is Rick here?" the woman said without preamble, and those three words brought the woman and boy into sharp focus.

  She had never consciously tried to picture Rick's ex-wife, but somehow, this was just what Christie would have expected. She was tall, blonde and very pretty, with light blue eyes. At the moment she wore a preoccupied expression. The boy looked about six years old, with light brown hair. A dinosaur backpack hung loosely on his arm.

  "Rick? He's out on a live appearance." Christie's clerical smile never deserted her. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

  The blonde looked even more distracted. "When will he be back?"

  Christie glanced at her watch, and remembered she was well aware what time it was: ten minutes before she was due to go on the air. "The remote ends at two, and it's just a few blocks away. I imagine about fifteen minutes."

  "Oh." The woman put her hands on the little boy's shoulders. "I have to get back from my lunch break. Can I leave him with you?"

  As if he were a UPS package, she thought. Christie's gaze shifted down to the solemn little face. Blue eyes, but darker than his mother's. "Would that be all right with you, hon?" Christie asked.

  The boy shrugged. "Sure."

  "Thank you." The former Mrs. Fox squeezed his small shoulder with a well-manicured hand and was quickly out the door.

  Well, this was awkward. Christie glanced at her watch again, not surprised to find it was now eight minutes to two. She smiled at the boy. "Have a seat."

  He plunked down on the fat brown cushions of the lobby couch, his short legs sticking out straight in front of him. He clutched a small action figure in his hand. Christie glanced down the hallway, but there was no sign of Karen's imminent return. If she didn't show up in the next few minutes, Christie decided, she'd take him into the studio with her. He seemed like a quiet little boy, and he'd probably been there before.

  Rick had never even mentioned his son. What kind of a father was he?

  "What's your name, honey?"

  "Jason."

  "Do you get to see your dad very often?"

  The boy shrugged apathetically. "He's usually too busy."

  Christie's opinion of Rick plummeted. She sat down on the couch beside Jason and turned her attention to the figure in his hands, a familiar green-faced monster. "That's a cool-looking Frankenstein monster there."

  Jason turned his head toward her, noticeably more animated. "His name's not Frankenstein," he said authoritatively. "That's the doctor's name."

  Christie nodded, trying to match his seriousness. "Of course. Everyone knows that."

  The blue eyes got wider. "I've got a Wolfman, too," he said, reaching toward the floor for his backpack. "And a mummy ..."

  Within moments, Christie was admiring a collection of half a dozen miniature monsters. When she named each one correctly, Jason seemed impressed. "So," she said, "do you take these guys with you everywhere you go?"

  Jason nodded. "I keep them on my nightstand at home." He lowered his voice. "But I have to make them face the other way before I go to sleep."

  It was hard to keep a straight face, but Christie wouldn't make light of such a confession for the world. "I don't blame you. Monsters are cool, but I wouldn't want them staring at me at night, either."

  The shy grin he gave her in response was irresisti ble. Then the glass front door swung open, and Jason's head snapped up.

  "Uncle Rick!" The boy hurtled off the couch, and suddenly he was seven feet tall as Rick hoisted him up into his arms.

  "Hey, bud!" Rick's grin was the most unreserved she'd seen on him yet.

  And Christie felt like a heel. She stood up, watching the two a moment longer. She should head straight to the studio.

  "You got here early," Rick was saying. "What happened?"

  "Aunt Sylvia dropped me off on her lunch break. Mom wanted to take a nap at Aunt Sylvia's. She said it was a long drive, but I slept through most of it."

  Christie found herself mentally sketching possible versions of the Fox family tree. Aunt Sylvia could be Rick's brother's wife... Or his sister...

  Jason swung around in Rick's arms and pointed at Christie. "She knows all about monsters. She knows Frankenstein is the doctor's name!"

  "Pretty smart for a girl," Rick conceded. He looked over at Christie. "Thanks for watching him."

  "We're renting a monster movie tonight,"
Jason announced. The quiet, subdued little boy was gone, replaced by an armload of squirms. He twisted back to face Rick. "Can she come, too?"

  Out of the mouths of babes.

  Rick's eyes met hers, over Jason's shoulder, and they shared a moment of awkward hesitation. Through the silence that hung in the air, Christie could have sworn they were thinking the same thing.

  They had a six-year-old chaperone. What could be safer?

  Rick gave her a slight nod, and she smiled. "I'll bring the popcorn."

  Christie rang the bell of Rick's apartment and waited, her arm curled around a large bottle of cola. After working just a few feet across from him for a week, she shouldn't be nervous. It was no big deal. They were just friends. Increasingly good friends, over the past few days. But this was a new context, and one she wasn't sure she was ready for.

  She didn't have long to prepare, because the door swung open, and there he was.

  Not fair. He'd changed into jeans and a blue sweatshirt, the first time she'd seen him so casually dressed. His smile was relaxed, his thick brown hair slightly disheveled, and all traces of the boss were gone. It was that easy for men. Throw on some comfortable clothes, add an easy smile, and be transformed into serious hugging material.

  Friends weren't supposed to look this good.

  "Come on in," he said, stepping back. "The pizza's already here."

  "Hi," she said, holding out the bottle of soda between them.

  Rick took the bottle and closed the door. "Thanks." Wait a minute. He'd shaved. In the past week, Christie had gotten familiar with the light stubble that shadowed his face by the end of the day, and it was gone. That was little more effort than necessary, and the realization pleased her more than it should. She shouldn't want him to look nicer for her. She'd thought about driving home to change, but there wasn't really time, and a trip across the freeway would make it look like she was trying too hard.

  This would be complicated enough if they were just playing a straight round of the dating game. But that was exactly what they were trying not to do.

  Jason came to the rescue, popping his head over the back of the couch. "We got two pizzas!" he announced. "We usually just get one. Only one's got pineapples on it." He made a face.