On the Line

by Donna Hill

“I’m cool. I’m straight.”

  “Do you have a woman? A ladylove?”

  I didn’t answer that. Instead I drank some of my booze.

  “Who did you lose your virginity to?” she asked with a smirk on her lips.

  “I should ask that question of you,” I replied. “You’re the pawn.”

  “I’ll answer. I lost my girlhood to my uncle. He bought my silence for a Sno-Kone. I don’t mind answering questions. What about you?”

  I grinned sheepishly. “My mother’s best friend. She really pinned my ears back.”

  “Where did she do the deed?” she quizzed me.

  “In her car. It was good but scary, very scary. I could imagine how she would be as a lover, very demanding, very precise, very selfish. But she did all the right things.”

  She gulped her drink and swallowed it. “How many serious relationships have you had? Counting the one you’re in. How many?”

  “How do you know I’m in a relationship?” I watched the men leaning over to look at her breasts. They were not discreet.

  “How many?” she asked. She knew the secret to a man’s intimacy: just ask him about himself.

  “About five,” I answered.

  “How many sexual partners?”

  “I should ask you that. As a pawn, you must have plowed your way through the studs. I know you’re not the shy and retiring type. Three more questions and then it’s my turn.”

  “How many?” she repeated.

  “I lost count,” I laughed, knowing that the number of pleasure partners had evaporated in my memory.

  “What’s your favorite position?”

  “Cowgirl…and maybe reverse cowgirl.”

  “What’s your ultimate fantasy?” She sniggered and leaned across the bar, letting me view her ample breasts. It was almost if she were putting them on display.

  “A willing blonde who knew the score and didn’t blab.”

  She looked over her glass at me, making her mouth a very inviting place. “Have you ever cheated on your partner?”

  “I’d probably do the nasty with you,” I confessed. “I like your style.”

  “Have you ever been caught?” she asked me.

  I squinted at her and allowed my voice to rise. “No fair. You’ve asked your quota of questions. No more.”

  She winked and smiled ear to ear. “Would you want to fuck me?”

  The blonde’s question was so overt, up-front, that I could see through the smoke screen right to the trap. I had read an article about these women who were called “decoys,” who were paid to tempt the wayward boyfriends and husbands. The women, always lookers, would throw themselves at the victim in lust, ask him a lot of questions about himself and his tastes, and then shuffle him off to the bed and the trap.

  “Don’t you like pink nipples?” She giggled.

  “You know I do.” I laughed and she laughed, too.

  “I have a room near here,” she said, teeth whiter than ever. “I can drop us off.”

  “Did my wife hire you?” I asked her straight out.

  Things became so quiet between us that you could hear the ice being tormented by the barkeep. I knew the answer already. I knew how much my lady cared. She didn’t want me to cheat, didn’t want me to lie, didn’t want me to betray her. And it really didn’t matter if the woman was black or Asian or white. She didn’t want me to put myself inside another woman’s body. That made sense.

  “Yes, she did,” the blonde replied.

  “How far did she tell you to go before you yelled foul?”

  “Until the point of entry, either a finger, a tongue or the other thing.” She smiled widely.

  Without fanfare, I stood and waved a ten at the barkeep. Leong walked over to me and plucked it out of my hand, nodded. Leaning over to the blonde, I planted a wet kiss on her pink cheek, smiled and left the bar. It had stopped raining and the stars, bright and crisp, were coming out, peeping through the dark clouds.

  Signed,

  Everything to Gain

  “Wow.” I fold up the letter and put it aside. “Makes you think about what’s important, ya know.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I want to use this one, too.” As I sit here chewing on my burger, the haunting quality of the letter sticks with me. If I really thought about it, it could have been my story. How many beds have I jumped in and out of without caring, without looking back? Maybe with Randy I can gain something, too, a part of myself that had been excised so many years ago.

  “Don’t go there,” Macy says, cutting into my thoughts. “I know that look. It was a long time ago.”

  I sniff. “I know. Sometimes it just feels like a minute.”

  Macy covers my hand with hers and squeezes it tight.

  No words are needed between friends.

  CHAPTER 21

  It’s been a little over a month since I was canned. I check the station periodically to see what’s happening in my slot—elevator music. Word on the street is that ratings for my former time slot are in the toilet. But I really don’t have too much time to dwell on that minor victory. Randy fills my days with pulling my manuscript together and my nights with loving.

  Quiet as it’s kept, I’ve never been in a real relationship before, but Randy is real patient. And I’m slowly beginning to believe that I deserve some happiness and a man who cares about me. Some nights we don’t make love—we just talk, laugh and cuddle. I kinda like it.

  Anyway, I’ve been sitting by the phone all morning waiting for the call from Randy. Today he’s making the presentation of The Best of On the Line to the editors. I’m a nervous wreck. I check the phone one more time to make sure it’s working and it rings in my hand.

  “Hello?”

  “You ready to be rich and extremely famous?”

  My heart takes off on a wild ride. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. They love it and want to go to contract immediately.”

  “What! Oh my God.” I start spinning around in a circle.

  “I’ll have the contract ready by the end of the week. There’s going to be a full court media press, book tour, advertisements, talk shows, the whole gamut.”

  “This is incredible. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “My pleasure. Look, I have a ton of stuff to get together. I’ll see you tonight and we can celebrate.”

  “Okay.” In a dream state I hang up the phone. Wow, I’m going to be an author. The prospect is suddenly terrifying. For years I’d only been a voice, a personality. According to Randy I was going to be pushed out into the spotlight for the world to see and scrutinize. I’m filled with mixed emotions. It was one thing to sit in a soundproof room and rag people, it was another to be put front and center for your own issues to be looked at. True, the book was only a combination of stories from previous shows and letters that have been in my to-be-read file for ages, but I was still going to have to be the front woman answering the questions. I’m not really sure what I’m worried about—the book ain’t about me!

  I gotta call my girl Macy, who, by the way, is now a producer on WHOT’s major competitor station. Ha, how ironic is that? I knew she wouldn’t be down for long. The girl has skilz.

  She picks up on the third ring and, before she can get a word out, I tell her the news.

  “I knew it! Told you. Girl, you are in there. Just make sure you take me on tour with you.”

  “You know I got you, sis.”

  “So when are you going to sign the contract?”

  “Randy said it would be ready by the end of the week.”

  “I guess the real question is, when are you going to get your fat check?”

  “Not really sure how long that takes. I’ll ask Randy.”

  “Well, I have to get ready for work. Keep me posted.”

  “I will.”

  “See you on the New York Times list.”

  “For real.”

  The rest of my day pretty much flies by. Randy told me that I needed about three or fo
ur more stories, so I spend my time looking for some really good ones. Before I know it, it’s time to get ready for my celebratory date with my man. Wow, my man. I’ve never said that before. Never had one before. Most of the men who’ve been in my life have been in and out. It was better that way, at least it had been. But from the moment Randy stepped into my life, he decided he wanted more than a one-night stand. Right up to this moment, I’m not sure why I let him have his way, but I’m beginning to like it—a lot.

  When the doorbell rings, I’m just about ready.

  “Hey, baby.” He walks up to me and kisses me nice and slow, just the way I like it, and I start feeling all squishy inside.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  I take his hand and we walk into the living room. “I just have to get my purse. Did you decide on a place for dinner?”

  “I thought we could go down to Tribeca, get something to eat and then check out the film festival. How’s that sound?”

  “Perfect. I’ve never been to the film festival.”

  “Me either. It will be a first for both of us.”

  Randy was wonderful about stuff like that. There were so many things that we did together for the first time, like canoeing in Central Park, or the time we went to Brooklyn to roller-skate before they closed the Empire Roller Dome, or the Saturday visit to the Botanical Gardens. He opened a new world to me and I loved every minute of it. I’d lived in New York all my life and there was so much of it that I’d never seen before.

  As always our evening is wonderful. We laugh and talk and hold hands just like a real couple. Randy tells me all about how he got started in the publishing world and some of the crazy clients he’s had over the years, and I swear on a stack of Bibles that I see Robert DeNiro at the festival, but Randy insists that it wasn’t him.

  “You feel like some company for the rest of the night?” he asks me once we get back to my place.

  “Did you have someone in mind,” I tease him.

  He puts his arms around my waist and pulls me close. “Why don’t you tell me.”

  “Well, there’s this guy that I really like and I’d been thinking about asking him for a sleepover.”

  “Really? Anyone I know?”

  “I think you do.” I push the door closed and pull him inside.

  Today is the big day. I sign my contract and, according to Randy, they will hand me a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and I’ll receive the other half when I turn in the finished product. A half a million bucks for splashing the foils and phobias of other folks’ angst. Can’t beat it with a stick. Let’s just say I’ll be heading straight to the bank. There’s already been buzz on the airwaves and several media blogs that I’m poised to sign a mega book deal. But the last thing I expect when I walk out of the editorial offices is to be assaulted by the press, who demand a statement. You would think that I’d just been set free on a murder rap with the number of cameras and news hogs waiting for me.

  “Ms. Newhouse, Ms. Newhouse, can you confirm that you just signed a half-million-dollar book deal?”

  “Ms. Newhouse, is it true that the book is based on the stories from your callers?”

  “Will any of the people that you use in your book get any of the proceeds?”

  “Do you feel any sense of conscience in using your listeners’ stories to benefit yourself?”

  “When will the book be released? What does your old station have to say?”

  The questions are flying at me so fast that my head starts spinning. I’m usually the one asking the questions and demanding answers.

  Miraculously, Randy appears at my side. “A press release has been prepared that will answer all of your questions,” he announces, silencing the melee. “The book is scheduled to be released this summer and we’ll be sure that each of you gets an advanced copy.” He grabs my arm and hustles me back inside the building and out the back way.

  “What the hell was that all about?”

  “I guess I should have warned you. The publicity department intentionally leaked your meeting today. It’s all part of the publicity campaign to start building buzz about the book.” He stops and turns to me. “It’s going to get crazy.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m still in shock, and I’m rarely at a loss for words.

  “It’ll be fine,” he says.

  “I just want to go home. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  We get to the back exit, walk around the block and Randy hails me a cab. “Look, some interviews are being set up for you. We really want to get moving on this book. It’s already on the fast track to publication. We know it’s going to be hot. The public loves tell-all books and yours is totally original. We want to capitalize on it before some other radio jock decides to do the same thing.”

  I nod numbly. This is much more than I expected.

  “They’re going to try to get all in your business and in your head, so be prepared.” He opens the cab door and I get in.

  “Someone from our PR staff will be contacting you to get some information for the press release. Once that’s done, all the questions and your schedule will be handled through our publicity office.” He leans down and looks me in the eye. “I didn’t want to tell you this before but we’ve already gotten inquires about film rights.”

  My heart slams in my chest. He kisses the top of my head. “See you later.”

  The cab pulls off into the mess of midtown Manhattan traffic and, for the first time since this odyssey began, I’m starting to feel very uneasy.

  As promised, a chick named Tanya Steele, my assigned publicist, calls later in the day and does an impromptu interview via phone and wants to know my whole history: where I was born, my parents, where I went to school, how I got started in the business and what prompted me to write the book. We talk for more than an hour. By the time we’re done, I’m pretty burned-out. It took a lot to skirt around my real life, the real Joy. For the listening public I was simply Joy Newhouse, the bigmouthed DJ who took provocative to the next level. No one knows the real me or why I turned out the way I did. I want to keep it that way, but I have an eerie feeling that my past is soon going to become my present.

  CHAPTER 22

  The book is almost out of production and will be on shelves in a matter of weeks. Tanya has set up a whirlwind of interviews for me. So far they have been going really well. The early reviews have been good and Randy says he’s sure that with the early orders from bookstores, The Best of On the Line is destined to debut on the New York Times list. Maybe I’ve dodged the bullet after all.

  Just as I’m about to take my first sip of coffee for the day, my phone rings. Probably Macy.

  “Hello?”

  “We have a problem,” Randy says, instead of hello.

  Slowly, I sit down. “What is it?”

  “The PR department has received several letters and calls over the past week demanding that a halt be put on the release of the book.”

  “What? From who?”

  “Apparently from some of your callers. They don’t want their stories in the book without being compensated.”

  “What?”

  “You’re scheduled for your television interview today with Dallas Winters.”

  Dallas Winters has one of the highest rated television talk shows in the country. To land a spot on her show is major. It would guarantee that sales of the book would shoot through the roof.

  “They’ve threatened to stage a protest during the show.”

  My insides turn over. I don’t believe it. “What are we going to do?”

  “This is as much my fault as any. We really should have determined if we were within our rights to publish the stories. I’m going into a meeting with our legal team in about an hour to see what our options are. As soon as we’re done, I’ll get back to you.”

  I can’t even respond.

  “Try not to worry. We’ll work it out. I’m pretty sure that there really isn’t anything they can do to you. There were no real n
ames used, and once they aired their laundry on your show, it became public knowledge. This is just about greed at this point. I’ll call you later.”

  I hang up the phone and, for a while, all I can do is sit there and stare into space. Finally, I pull myself together and get up. My thoughts are spinning in a million directions at once. One thing I’ve learned over the years in the media biz is damage control. No way am I getting on national television to get busted. But what to do is the question. I have about four hours to figure it out.

  My publishing company has a car pick me up and take me to the station. My girl Macy is right next to me holding my hand. Once I decided what I was going to do, I ran it past her. Not so much for her approval but simply because she is my best friend.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  “I have to. It’s about time.”

  “Did you tell Randy?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure after he hears it, he won’t want to deal with me anymore anyway. I may as well hold on to the illusion as long as possible.”

  Macy pats my hand. “If he really cares, it won’t matter.”

  “Yeah,” I say. But I’m not too sure.

  When we arrive at the studio, Randy is there with Tanya.

  “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you back. It’s been crazy,” he says. “As far as legalities are concerned we have nothing to worry about. You’re in the clear. Tanya has already spoken with Dallas regarding the questions she’s planning to ask. You’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  Randy grins. “Break a leg,” he says as I hear my introduction.

  I walk out onto the stage, which is so much smaller in real life than on television. The audience is on their feet cheering. Dallas greets me with her renowned big smile and open arms. Finally the crowd calms down and resumes their seats.

  “Thank you so much for being on the show. Everywhere I look these days there’s something about you and this awesome book of yours. Tell us what made you decide to write it.”

  I give her the down and dirty about the change in management and my unceremonious dismissal, which has the audience in stitches.