by Emma Mills
Will: Booooooo.
Conrad: Will, you were on Twitter too!
Will: Uh, yeah, reading through all the stories of first love from our listeners.
Conrad: Yeah, right.
Nikki: I can vouch for him. I can see his screen from here.
Conrad: You never vouch for me, Nik.
Nikki: You never give me anything to vouch for.
Tina: Tell us about your first love, Conrad.
Conrad: Nah, I don’t believe in all that.
All: Booooooo.
Nikki: How can you not believe in first love? It’s not like ghosts or something, I think it’s generally accepted as being a real thing. If you’ve been in love even one time, that’s your first love.
Conrad: I just don’t believe that it’s, like, this huge thing. Like, where do you even count it from? I thought I was in love with Jennifer Watts in first grade. I loved this girl Kelsey … Valenti? Valencia? Kelsey Valencia—that was it—from math class in seventh grade. I loved Alicia Silverstone in high school. Got nowhere with her, FYI.
Tina: Shocking.
Conrad: So which one’s the first one? What makes it first love?
Nikki: It’s the first one where they actually love you back.
Conrad: Well, then. Maybe I’m still waiting on it.
Tina: You’ve got three kids, Conrad!
Conrad: [sputters a laugh] That’s true. How about that, then? They’re the loves of my life. My little girls.
Will: Aren’t they in college?
Conrad: Excuse you. Only Rosie is in college. Nina is a senior, and Sid is in eighth grade.
Tina: Wow, you’re like really old.
Conrad: Yeah, you guys don’t remind me of that nearly enough.
Will: Gotta keep you grounded.
Conrad: Excuse me, who is the show named after?
Will: See, that’s exactly why.
Conrad: All right, all right. We’re going to get some folks on the line for our game, so give us a call now. In the meantime, here’s one from Megan whatsit—the country crossover one. What’s her name?
Tina: Megan Pleasant.
Nikki: You’d know that if you weren’t so old.
Conrad: 555-1002. Give us a call if you want to play. Or if you want to work for me. I’m currently hiring an entirely new team.
16.
THAT WEEKEND BROUGHT MY FIRST official night of training with Pipers at the Eastman. There was a wedding in the Mama Bear ballroom (the Crystal Room, if we’re being technical)—the midsized of the three reception spaces.
The wedding was pretty formal—along with the usual dress shirt and slacks, we had to wear vests and black ties. I had tied mine really poorly, even after watching a variety of YouTube videos on the subject, before Rose got home and tied it perfectly.
All of the other catering staff members were older than Jamie and me—a few college students, some actual adults. Jamie seemed to fit right in with everyone, though—talking animatedly with one of the guys as they filled water glasses, pausing at the bar stand to say something to the bartender that she responded to with a wide smile.
I shadowed a woman named Celeste, who showed me the staging areas where the food was kept (there were no event kitchens at the Eastman, apparently, so the food was prepared offsite and trucked in; I had never thought of it much except for the big signs at the back of the building that said DO NOT BLOCK PIPERS LOADING ZONE), and outlined the general tasks for the evening. We weren’t always responsible for setup (it was often done the day before, for the first wedding of the weekend), but were instrumental in cleanup both throughout and after the event. We would have to deliver food, fill drinks—general waitstaff-type stuff, I think, though I’d never done any of it before.
I followed Celeste around for the whole evening—plates of salads in each hand, clearing dishes as she dictated—and meanwhile, a wedding happened around us.
It was kind of an odd feeling, to witness an event like that but be so peripheral to it. I couldn’t help but glance toward the head table now and then throughout dinner, to where the flower girl—maybe five or six—sat with the bride and groom. She appeared to be the bride’s daughter, and wore a crown of flowers that matched the bride’s bouquet. The little girl kept turning excitedly to the groom to point things out to him over the course of the meal. When it came time to cut the cake later that evening—three figurines sitting atop it—the three of them held the cake cutter together. The little girl got the first bite, and beamed up at the couple. They beamed right back.
I kept catching glimpses of Jamie across the room over the course of the evening too, murmuring something to one of the other waiters, both of them laughing quietly. Running his hands through his untidy hair. Retrieving fallen napkins. Offering an arm to an elderly woman as she made her way out of her seat.
It wasn’t until the end of the night—the guests having cleared out, the wedding party having packed up the gifts and gone—that Jamie approached me. We were finally done cleaning up, and had been dismissed for the evening.
“What’d you think?” he said.
“Good,” I replied, pausing to wave to Celeste as she headed out. Jamie turned and waved too. “It was good.”
Truthfully, my feet ached. I had sweat through my shirt.
Still, I liked it.
“Should probably hit the road,” Jamie said. “Long commute home.”
He then made a face like he knew how cheesy that was, but I smiled.
As we waited for the elevator, he said, “So … Is your mom gonna have a wedding like this?”
I thought of the flower girl, the three figurines on top of the cake.
“Nah.” I watched the numbers above the doors track downward. “I think it’ll be pretty … informal.”
According to Mom, all she and Dan needed was an officiant; Rose, Sidney, and I would be the only guests. Their main stipulation was just to wait for warmer weather so they could have the ceremony out by the canal that ran through downtown. It was picturesque—sloping green lawns, arched bridges crossing at certain points. Mom had always wanted an outdoor ceremony.
“It’s fine, I’m not trying to be a bridesmaid or anything,” I added after a moment.
“You’d have to make a speech.”
The maid of honor tonight had stood up, un-crinkled her speech, and then promptly burst into tears.
“Rose would definitely be maid of honor,” I said. “She’s the favorite.”
“Parents don’t have favorites.”
We stepped into the elevator. “See, you can think that ’cause you’re an only child.”
It was a careless thing to say, and I felt instantly guilty about it. I actually didn’t know for sure that Jamie was an only child. Maybe he had siblings somewhere, or half-siblings. The truth was, I had no idea what the situation was with his parents. I didn’t even know if Gram and Papa were his maternal or paternal grandparents. He never talked about it, and Gram and Papa had never offered. He had lived with them at the Eastman for at least as long as we had been there.
I asked my mom once, when I was eight or so, and she’d said, “It’s not our business. Okay? That’s their business.”
“When does someone else’s business become your business?”
“It doesn’t,” she had replied. “Unless they choose to make it that way.”
But in this moment, Jamie just shrugged good-naturedly. “Fair. No one to compete with. But if there really are favorites, then that means I have to be the favorite and the least favorite.”
“There’s no least favorite,” I said. “It’s just favorite and then everyone else.”
“Ah.”
The elevator dinged, opening at the seventh floor, and with a good night, Jamie headed off. The doors closed, and I was alone. I leaned against the back wall of the elevator, exhausted.
17.
DURING MONDAY’S RADIO CLASS, WE split up into our groups and dispersed to “conceptualize” station IDs, which were just the short clips that played b
efore songs or in between commercials to remind people what station they were listening to. One that got played a lot on the station started with the sound of thunder, and then an echoey voice filtered in: Storms ahead? Keep it switched to 98.9 The Jam—hot student radio for nothing but blue skies.
“We can do better,” Joydeep stage-whispered after Mr. Tucker played us a few examples.
But now the four of us were in one of the editing bays at the station scrolling through sound effect options, and Joydeep didn’t seem to be paying any attention. He was hunched over his phone, an intent look on his face. Every so often he would huff a laugh to himself, tap back a few times, tap away, laugh again.
“What’ve you got?” I said eventually.
“Hm?” he said.
“For Cat Chat.”
Joydeep flashed me a grin. “I feel like this could be my best work yet.”
“Let’s hear it.”
He held up his phone and cleared his throat. “Dear Cat Chat colon Judgment-Free Advice for the Bobcat in Need.” He paused. “Can you even believe that’s real life, though? Can you believe that four people sat down and thought that was a good idea?”
“You thought Grab Your Joystick was a good idea.”
“Because it is. But Cat Chat? Cat Chat? Jesus Christ, it makes my ears nauseated.”
I snorted. “Go on, then.”
“Okay. Dear Cat Chat, etc. etc. I really need your help. It’s kind of a desperate situation. The thing is”—he paused for dramatic effect, and all of us, damn him, totally leaned into it—“my boyfriend thinks he’s a tree.”
“What?” Sasha said.
(What? Colby of Cat Chat would later say on-air.)
“Or at least, he wants to be a tree. He has taken to dressing almost exclusively in brown corduroys and green tops. That’s fine with me. That’s a fashion choice. But he is always referring to his legs as his ‘trunk’ and his arms as ‘branches.’ He has started referring to certain bodily fluids as ‘sap’ and others as ‘phloem.’”
“Joydeep, this is … you’re…”
(PHLOEM! Colby would burst out, letting out a choked sound. PH-PHL-PH-PH-PH—
Get it together, Colby, Sammy would hiss in response.)
“At first I thought maybe it was a coping mechanism. Or some kind of sex thing. But I’m worried that it goes deeper than that. I’m worried that my boyfriend really, truly thinks he’s a tree. What should I do? Should I humor him when he asks me to prune his leaves? Remember what I said about the phloem?”
(I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t. Colby would steadily increase in hysterics. This is too—too much—too—PHLOEM—
Colby!
FUCKING PHLOEM, Sam!)
“It’s all becoming a bit much. But I want to be a supportive girlfriend.” Joydeep looked up—“Gotta throw ’em off the scent”—and then back down at his phone. “Tell me, Cat Chat team … What should I do? Sincerely, Barking Up the Wrong Tree in Zionsville.”
“You’re not okay,” Sasha said, but she was struggling to keep a straight face.
18.
This is Maddie in the Morning here on 98.9 The Jam. Hey, did anyone else listen to that one show yesterday? Does anyone listen to the radio at all anymore? Believe me, that’s something I wonder sometimes. I know my Nona listens. She’s probably listening right now—good morning, Nona! I don’t really listen that much, to be honest, but my mom had it on in the car yesterday when she picked me up, and this weird talk show was on, did you guys hear it? Where the guy totally lost it talking about tree sap? [beginning to laugh] Honestly, that was amazing. It was … AMAZING. He totally like nuclear-level lost it right there on-air. And the other girl got so mad at him. Like, SO MAD. She was all, “Get it together, Cappy!” Was that his name? Cappy? Cadby. “Get it together, Cadby!” And he was just totally gone, just completely out in space. It was the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I loved it. [happy sigh] Anyway, here’s “Wonderwall.” [pause] I’m kidding. That was a joke. Like that thing, where people say … Can you imagine, though? If I was serious? [pause] Actually, you know what? Screw it. Here’s “Wonderwall.”
19.
“TELL ME YOU GUYS HEARD it, though,” Joydeep said with satisfaction. All of us were gathered in the studio on Thursday for 1993 night. We had already done the first link. “I got them. I broke Colby.”
“Congratulations?” I said, and he held his hand up for a high five. I sighed and high-fived him back.
“Now I just gotta get Sammy.”
“Can we maybe not focus on wrecking someone else’s show?” Jamie said.
“I’m not trying to wreck anything. I’m just proving a point.”
“Which is?”
Joydeep contemplated it for a moment and then shrugged. “How easy it is to mess with something that stupid.”
“Seriously?” Jamie didn’t look happy.
Joydeep frowned. “What’s your problem?”
Jamie’s face softened. “Sorry.” He shook his head. “I just…”
“What is it?”
“I just want our show to be good.”
“Fucking with their show and improving our show don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” Joydeep replied.
“Then I just … think it’s mean.”
“You gotta toughen up, Waldo. The world is mean.”
“We don’t have to be.”
Joydeep didn’t reply.
We were pretty deep into the show—a few breaks, a lot of songs from 1993, and some off-air conversation between us here and there—when Jamie circled back around to Joydeep.
“So … where did we end up on the no more prank questions to Cat Chat thing? We’re all in favor, right?”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Joydeep said.
“I listened to their last show, though,” Sasha said. “It was funny as hell.”
“Not on purpose.”
“So? Funny’s funny. They should hire Joydeep.”
Joydeep did a 360 in his rolling chair. “See? The people love my stuff.”
“Maybe you can bring some of that to our show,” I said.
“That’s not our format, though. Our format is nineties music and chill. That’s our wheelhouse. That’s where we live. We don’t want to move away from that.”
“Oh, so that’s why you host the way you do—it’s a conscious choice to not be funny and interesting,” I said. For some reason, I was weirdly annoyed on Jamie’s behalf.
“Okay.” Joydeep feigned surprise. “Is it ‘pick on Joydeep’ night again? Did I miss that notification?”
“I’m just saying,” I replied. “You can be funny and interesting in real life. Like, you have the capacity. But you become all weird and wooden whenever the light goes on.”
“Technically, it’s whenever the light goes off,” Sasha said.
“Sorry?”
“On the soundboard. When the light is off, it’s broadcasting. Remember Mr. Tucker said it’s like the opposite of what you’d think?”
Running the audio control board is not difficult, Mr. Tucker had told us. It looks like there’s a lot going on, but really there are only a couple of things you need to worry about. You’ve got sliders for volume—the music and the mics all have their own sliders—and the buttons underneath that broadcast them. The sliders? No big deal. Slide up to increase volume, slide down to decrease. The buttons, though, you’ve got to keep in mind. Look here all the way on the left of the board—this is the slider for the main mic. See how the button underneath is lit up right now? Press it down, and it’s not lit—this means your mic is on. When you’re done talking, slide the dial down, press the button again, it lights back up. It’s now off. You have to keep this in mind, okay, because it’s the opposite of the big old sign outside the studio that says ON-AIR. That sign’s lit? You’re broadcasting. This button is lit? You’re not broadcasting. The sign outside is not what puts your voice on-air, okay, that just indicates what’s going on inside the studio to people outsid
e the studio. It’s this button right here that tells the tale.
“That’s what I meant,” I said.
Sasha just looked at me, and then we both looked at the soundboard.
The button for Joydeep’s mic was not lit. Not even a little bit. Not that a partially lit button was even an option; it was very much a binary. Press it down, and it’s not lit—this means your mic is on.
The horror on Sasha’s face was probably reflected right back on mine.
“Uh-oh,” I said weakly.
* * *
I got them. I broke Colby.
We all stood staring at the monitor as our archive file played back.
Congratulations?
Now I just gotta get Sammy.
“Is that what I sound like on the radio?” Joydeep murmured.
“No,” Sasha murmured back. “You sound like a robot whose motherboard is slowly melting.”
“How did this happen?” Joydeep said.
“I got switched up,” I said, like that somehow justified it.
“You weren’t switched up before!”
“That’s what switched up means—I knew what it was before but I just got it backward this time! I wasn’t paying attention, okay?”
Jamie shook his head mournfully. “Tucker’s gonna flunk us when he hears this.”
“It’s not that bad,” Joydeep said.
“Every time we thought music was playing, it was just broadcasting us sitting here talking! And every time we thought we were broadcasting a link, it’s just silence!”
“We could say we were … experimenting with a new format,” Joydeep suggested.
“What about the part where you admitted to sending fake shit into Cat Chat?” Jamie replied.
“Ahh.” Joydeep looked chagrined. “In that case, I guess it is that bad.”
“Unless…” I said.
“What?”
Technically, it wasn’t a good thing to do. But that didn’t necessarily make it a bad idea. “We delete the file.”
The three of them blinked at me.
“We’ll get a zero for not archiving,” Sasha said.
“We could get kicked off the air if he actually listens.”