Love on the Air

by Sierra Donovan

  "That is an ugly story."

  "It's a little tawdry." He shrugged, then smiled again, looking as though he'd just brushed himself off. "If it eases your mind any, I don't think they come much worse than that." He took the last speaker stand from her and loaded it into the back of the van.

  "What happened after that? You couldn't find an opening in Los Angeles?"

  "Well, at first I didn't try. I sold furniture for a few months, if you can picture that. When I look back, I think I was actually trying to make myself as miserable as I could." They were done loading, but to Christie's surprise, Rick took a seat on the open back of the van, resting his arms on one raised knee. She considered joining him, but decided it was better not to get that close.

  "When I did look," he said, "I got two offers. One was for seven to midnight again, at another L.A. station. The other one was afternoon drive here. They promoted me to program director about a year after that. I made the right choice." He looked at her as if he expected her to argue the point. "The thing is, Los Angeles is a very competitive market. I don't mind competition, but some of the forms it takes-" He shook his head. "You've got people from major cities all over the country climbing over each other to get there. And once you do, you're always looking over your shoulder, wondering if someone else is after your job. Your coworkers aren't friends, they're competitors. All these years later, I'm still in touch with people from Fresno, Antelope Valley, San Bernardino ... but not one person from Los Angeles. A friendship like you and Yvonne-it wouldn't happen. Instead of being glad for the help, she'd be afraid you were after her job."

  Christie's eyes widened. "I never even thought-"

  "Of course you didn't. And neither did she. That's what's nice about a market this size. If you can find something that pays enough. I admit that's not easy." He shook his head again. "I'm rambling. I guess all I'm saying is, Christie ... it's not always a nice place out there. Make sure you know what you want." His eyes were fixed on hers, and Christie had the feeling this was the first honest conversation he'd had with her since Christmas. No longer the affable chameleon, he was speaking directly to her. And she still wasn't sure what he meant.

  He was looking at her so seriously. What was he trying to tell her?

  Rick stood. "Just something to think about, when you move on." He turned to close the back of the van. She couldn't see his face.

  Christie felt a surge of guilt over the tapes she'd sent out. He couldn't know about that. Could he? "Trying to get rid of me?" she asked lightly.

  "Of course not." Rick slammed the door shut. "Just another ugly radio truth." He took the keys from the lock and held them up, his professional smile back in place. "Mind if I drive on the way back? Sorry. It's a man thing."

  What was the difference between working three hours together on a remote, and driving ten minutes together back to the station? The silences began to grow. She watched Rick with his hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead.

  Two blocks from the station, he broke one of the silences. "By the way, I won the bet."

  "What bet?"

  "Ninety days today. And it doesn't look like you've snapped."

  "Oh." That was today? "Hey, wait. I didn't bet against myself."

  "Then I guess we both win." He spared her a glance for the briefest of smiles.

  Christie found a smile to match it. "So what's my prize?"

  "I don't know. Let's see. . ." Rick's eyes went back to the road. "Station T-shirt? Oh, wait, you're already wearing one. Your first remote? No, you just did one. And passed with flying colors, by the way."

  Christie's throat ached. That was the boss talking. "Thanks."

  "By the way, you left your headphones in the studio again over the weekend. That's a really good way to get them thrashed, or stolen. I put them in the file drawer in my office." His tone was stern and matterof-fact. "If you're going to leave them at the station, keep them there. I told you that before."

  Christie only vaguely remembered the conversation. "Yes, sir."

  By the time they pulled up to the station, her natural high had dissipated.

  That night, Christie started to get her headphones from the shelf in the studio before she remembered. Okay, so sue me. It's a habit. Sighing, she got her keys and headed for Rick's office.

  When she opened the drawer of the wide, horizontal filing cabinet, a barrage of color hit her in the face. Balloons.

  Christie shrieked and laughed at the same time, stepping back as red, green, blue and yellow balloons flew up around her, stopping short of the ceiling. They were tied together and anchored by her headphones. She searched the drawer in vain for a card or note of any kind.

  Rob appeared in the doorway, apparently brought by her shriek. He squinted at the balloons, still bobbing around her. "So what is it between you and Rick, anyway?"

  "Nothing," Christie said immediately. She felt like a three-year-old caught with stolen cake all over her face. And just as transparent.

  "Right," Rob said, still surveying the balloons. "And I'm Cleopatra. If I ever laid a hand on you, I think he'd cream me." The thought of Rick "creaming" anyone on her behalf was laughable. But Christie realized that lately, Rob's flirting had tapered way down.

  He poked at a green balloon, then turned and headed back for the studio. "Last song's on."

  Christie stared, dumbfounded, at Rick's little multicolored salute. She had to squash her feeling of delight over the gesture. Feelings like that only spelled her death sentence here at the station. She thought about the kiss, the turtle, their long talk today, and the genial mask he'd been wearing all this time. She still wasn't sure who the real Rick Fox was, but she was sure about one thing.

  She had to get out of there fast.

  Rick got the call before he'd gotten his coffee. It was from a station in Tucson, asking about Christie.

  He knew this was going to happen, and he'd already made up his mind what he would say. It would have been easy enough to damn her with faint praise. Just a few carefully chosen qualifiers about how well she was doing ...for a beginner. It would keep her here longer. Instead, Rick told the truth, his fist clenched around the receiver. He had no right to do anything else.

  He hung up and pushed back from his desk. He hadn't been socked in the stomach since he was twelve, but he recognized the way it felt. What he had a harder time remembering, strangely, was how it had felt only five years ago when Sylvia left. He was pretty sure it hadn't been like this.

  Rick didn't know how many other applicants the people in Tucson were looking at, but the fact that they'd telephoned the program director at Christie's station was not a good sign. Not for him, anyway.

  Time was running out.

  Tucson. At least seven or eight hours away. If she got the gig, she'd have to move, and he wouldn't be surprised if he ended up volunteering to help load the truck. All in the name of-what? Friendship?

  He rested his head on the back of his chair and shut his eyes. It didn't help much, but it did shut out the sight of his desk, with its ever-changing stacks of clutter. He'd spent many a night there, digging into those stacks, when his apartment seemed too empty to go to. At times it had been a solace, a home away from home, but lately he'd begun to despise it. Three months ago, he and Christie had sat for the first time with that desk between them. In a way, it had stood between them ever since.

  Lately, after hours, he'd packaged up a lot of resumes from this spot. Now it looked like Christie might beat him to the punch.

  "Rick?" Yvonne's voice came from several feet away.

  "Mm-hmm?" He didn't move.

  "Are you okay?"

  Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. She'd stopped in the doorway, headphones in hand, on her way down the hall to start her air shift. Now she was staring at him with a mixture of concern and curiosity. "What's wrong?"

  He smiled weakly. "Nothing. Just that Reyes Curse of yours."

  He shouldn't have said it. He wouldn't have, if the shock hadn't been so fresh.


  "Christie?"

  "Yeah. That." He straightened, pinching the bridge of his nose. Pulling the chair back up to his desk, he started to reach for his coffee mug, and remembered it was sitting next to the machine in the break room, waiting for the next pot to finish brewing. Bad news before coffee. Not fair.

  "Did she quit?" Yvonne's voice was hushed.

  "No." Not yet. He shook his head. "Forget it. I shouldn't have said anything."

  "Sure you don't want to talk about it?"

  "Men don't talk. Men have ulcers. It's why you outlive us."

  She wasn't taking the hint. She still stood there, watching him. He didn't know how much she knew, but he knew it was way too much. Men didn't talk, but women did. "Rick, you're not going to let her go without a fight, are you?"

  He raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't you have an air shift to do?"

  Yvonne arched her eyebrows in return, then left without another word.

  Rick sighed, pulled himself up and trudged to the coffee machine.

  Christie plugged in her headphones with a heavy heart. These night shifts were getting longer and longer, and more and more sad ballads seemed to be cropping up on the play list. She knew it was her imagination, but it didn't help.

  It was Thursday night-no, Friday morning, she corrected herself-and she had an interview in Tucson first thing Monday. Rick had asked very few questions when she'd asked to take the Monday shift off. Instead, he'd waved her away, saying she had that much comp time coming to her for all the extra work she put in. For a moment she'd stood there in front of his desk, tempted to say more, but he seemed more preoccupied than usual. Probably just as well.

  She had an interview to work the midday shift in Tucson, for a lot more money, and she was miserable.

  Christie started the next song. Paul McCartney's voice filled the studio, singing warmly and sweetly about no more lonely nights. It was one of her favorites, but it wasn't on the play list. She'd cued the wrong track on the CD player. And tonight, it was the last thing she needed to hear. A lot of the songs that were getting to her these days were pretty sappy. But this one, with its mixture of longing and hope, felt intimate and real. Christie reached for the knob to change to the right track, then stopped. Perversely, she bit her lip and let it play.

  "No more lonely nights. . ." Paul sang.

  It was too much. She dropped her forehead to her arms on the counter and waited for the phone to ring, for Rick to tell her the thing wasn't on the stupid play list. Half of her hoped he would.

  But he didn't.

  The first hour of the night dragged by. Then the song on CD-1 started to skip, and Christie reached for the butter knife before she realized this wasn't the problem CD player. The glass walls around her started to vibrate. Then, invisible hands seemed to be shaking the whole studio from the outside as the tremor grew.

  An old hand at California earthquakes, Christie ducked underneath the counter. She knew a lot of people who didn't even bother to do that. There wasn't much room, but she managed to find some cover alongside the sound equipment and dusty wires. Around her, the room continued to rock, and she eyed the rattling windows with some apprehension. At least there were blinds in front of the glass.

  Most earthquakes were over in a few seconds. This one was still picking up steam. Christie was willing to bet most people would be diving for cover by this time. CDs fell-no, flew-from the shelf above her, sailing by and clattering to the floor.

  Finally, slowly, it subsided.

  Christie straightened, not sure if what she felt was some remaining swaying or her own reaction to the movement. The quake must have gone on for the better part of a minute. Now, it was barely over, and already her phones were lighting up. It was a foreign sight this time of night.

  Priorities, she reminded herself. Christie went on the air, confirmed that there had been an earthquake, and details would be available soon. She checked the Internet, found the initial assessment of the quake, and started answering phone calls. It had been a big one, originating about twenty miles away...

  Then the EAS tone sounded, and all bets were off.

  The Emergency Alert System was tested on a regular basis, but Christie had never heard of it being needed for an actual emergency. She scrambled for the station's EAS manual, which miraculously hadn't fallen off the shelf with the CDs. Following the instructions, she received a message from the emergency crew: a natural gas line had broken in a suburban neighborhood, and the surrounding blocks were being evacuated.

  Christie aired the report. The phones were going insane. Answer the phones? Keep the music going? She wasn't sure. Wildly, she remembered what she'd once said to Rick: So I'm here in case of an emergency?

  Rick. It was after one in the morning, but she had a feeling he'd better know about this. She was picking up the phone, trying to get a line clear to call him, when he hurried into the studio, pulling off his jacket and joining her behind the counter. Obviously the quake had gotten him out of bed; his hair was rumpled, and so was his shirt, as if he'd thrown it on in a hurry. He looked more unshaven than she'd ever seen him. And Christie had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

  "I missed the last couple of minutes," he said. "What have we got?"

  "EAS alert. I just aired a report from the emergency crew. There's a gas main..."

  And suddenly the chaos was manageable. It was a frenzy, but with Rick's help, it was a controlled frenzy. He handled the phone calls and helped her run the control board; Christie took the updates from the emergency crew and aired the reports. Even at this hour, the evacuation had created a traffic backup in the mountain pass leading out of the neighborhood near the gas line. Most of the calls were superfluous, asking about the reason for the backup, or what the magnitude of the earthquake had been. All of which the callers would have known if they'd turned on their radios for five minutes. Rick waded through them and passed the few valid tidbits of information on to Christie.

  It made the afternoon drive shift look like a cake walk, but they were getting through it.

  After the first hour, the panic began to level off. Evacuees were leaving their homes; people routed out of their beds by the earthquake were going back to sleep. After one more update, this one from the California Highway Patrol, Christie was able to actually talk to Rick for the first time. "How many EAS alerts have you had?"

  "First one. But then, I never had an evacuation before either."

  "How'd you get here so fast?"

  "Fast? It took me fifteen minutes." It had felt more like five. "I didn't know how bad it was until I got here. But after that quake, I knew the phones alone would have you buried."

  "Thanks for coming," she said. He couldn't have slept more than a few hours. But his eyes were alert, and she knew he was riding the same adrenaline rush she was. "The phones, I could have handled. But all this-"

  Just when she was starting to catch her breath, another tremor hummed through the studio. Aftershocks could be stronger than the original earthquake, but this time Christie refrained from diving to the floor. Instead, she held on to the sides of the counter with both hands. Rick put one hand on her shoulder, as if to steady her. For the first time it occurred to her just what a small space they were in together-about four feet wide, enclosed by the counter on three sides. Even without his hand on her shoulder, he was close enough for her to feel some of the warmth from his body.

  The aftershock passed in a few seconds, barely a rumble.

  "Small potatoes," Christie said, nervously taking a step back. Rick let her go, and she cringed as the phones lit up anew.

  The crisis ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The evacuation was completed; word went out that the gas main would be repaired during the day. No fatalities, no injuries reported. Roadblocks were diverting traffic away from the area. The morning commute was going to be a zoo, but that was hours away. At last, the calls tapered off again.

  Christie's adrenaline rush ebbed away, as if someone had pulled a drain p
lug inside her. Two hours working side-by-side with Rick. They'd functioned smoothly as a team, as if that was the way it was meant to be. She couldn't have done it without him. And now it was ending.

  She studied Rick as he handled a stray phone callhis tousled brown hair, the studied concentration in his eyes, just a slight weariness creeping in around their corners. It was a face she'd grown all too fond of, and if things worked out right, soon she wouldn't be seeing it any more. He'd been here for her at a moment's notice. But then, that was his job.

  Rick hung up. Christie turned away and went on the air with the news that the immediate emergency was over. "We'll have information as it becomes available. Right now, back to more of your favorite music, here on KYOR." She fired off a song, signaling the return of normalcy.

  She closed the microphone, and Rick took one more phone call. Like a well-oiled machine, she thought. For another minute or two.

  He hung up and turned to her, grinning. "Think we should air a report on a fallen lamp?"

  Their eyes met, and Rick's smile faded as they stood there, barely more than a foot apart. Suddenly, a natural disaster was nothing. Being alone in this tiny studio with Rick, at this hour-that was cataclysmic. In spite of the music, a prevailing feeling of quiet settled over the studio. The phone lines stayed dark.

  Rick tried another smile, but this one seemed forced. "You've really had a baptism by fire, haven't you?" he said. His conversational tone was jarring. "Barely out of your probationary period, an EAS alert..."

  The boss makes a pass at you and acts like it never happened...

  Christie turned away and grabbed for the EAS binder. The alert had to be logged. As she searched for the right place to write it in, her hands started to shake. "You can go now." She took a deep breath and tried to make her voice steadier than her hands. "Get some sleep. I really appreciate-"