Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe

by Coriell, Shelley

  Clementine slammed her forehead on the table.

  I ignored her and explained that last year Dos Hermanas won Best Refritos awards from a dozen web dining guides. Prior to getting the award, Ana and Josie spent months talking to customers about what type of refried beans they wanted. Black beans or pintos? With or without onions? Light spice or high kick? “People will keep returning to a restaurant if they like the refritos, and they’ll keep tuning in to our station if they like our programming.”

  “And how do we find out what kind of . . . refritos they like?” Taysom asked.

  “Burrito costumes.”

  Clementine’s head popped up, fire flying from her ears. “You want us to dress up as freakin’ burritos!”

  No, what I wanted was to sic my evil kitty counselor on dragon Clementine and see which one came out on top. “Not necessarily, but we need to draw attention to ourselves. Costumes, posters, flyers. When we get their attention, we have them fill out a survey about what kind of radio programs they want, and after they fill out the survey, they get entered in a drawing to win free stuff.”

  Cricket. Cricket.

  “Come on, people,” I said. This was all about my JISP, and thanks to A. Lungren and AWOL BFs, my JISP was my life. “We can hold the survey and prize drawing in the lunchroom. Frick and Frack, you can take first lunch. Taysom, you and Haley take second.” I gave Clementine my most winsome grin. “You know you want to.”

  Laugh. Please, please, somebody laugh.

  Without a word, Clementine stalked to one of the glass rooms and slammed the door. The glass rattled, and I ducked, half expecting little shards of window to fly across the newsroom and straight at my chest.

  With a final deep breath, I faced the rest of the staff and Mr. Martinez. “Okay, that’s a no.” Sure, I was a lover with a big heart, but I could fight when I had to, when things I cared about were on the line. Like a passing JISP. Like trying to forget images of best friends with barbed-wire arms. “What about the rest of you? Are you with me?”

  WIN A $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO DOS HERMANAS MEXICAN CANTINA!

  Stop by Cafeteria Table Fourteen and fill out the first-ever KDRS 88.8 The Edge Radio Listener Survey!

  THE NEXT DAY I SAT AT TABLE FOURTEEN WITH ONLY A PLATE OF tamales de dulce to keep me company.

  Sitting alone in a school cafeteria was akin to screaming, Look at me, world! I have no friends! All around me different clans talked and laughed and shared oatcakes and haggis. When Kim and Leila from the drama club walked by, I shot out my hand. “Hey, guys. Come check out our radio survey. We have some cool swag.”

  They looked at each other, shuddered, and hurried away.

  I waved at Liam across the aisle. He’d been the king to my Mistletoe Queen and had sworn his love and fealty at the ball. Today he refused to look me in the eye.

  I wanted to stand and scream, What’s going on? Why’s everyone treating me like a pariah? But I stayed seated because the almighty JISP demanded I stay seated.

  Thanks to my persuasive presentation yesterday, everyone at the KDRS staff meeting but Clementine agreed to help with the survey and Great Eight Giveaway.

  During the first two lunch periods, Frick, Frack, Taysom, and Haley manned table fourteen, the undisputed hub of the cafeteria, and managed to gather more than four hundred completed surveys. I’d hoped to have Duncan at my side for the final lunch bunch, but he hadn’t shown to first-period econ. Had he slept in? Was he finishing a last-minute paper for some other class? Or like everyone else, did he not want to be seen with me?

  “This is stoo-pid.”

  My shock gave way to twisted delight as Clementine sat on the bench next to me. “You want to help with the survey?”

  “I want to make sure you don’t do anything to lead to the ruin of my radio station.” She hauled out a copy of Time magazine and stuck her nose in it. The pope’s face was on the cover. He looked peaceful, holy, and hilarious with Clementine’s crinkly bush of hair.

  I swallowed a nervous giggle and glanced at the cafeteria doors. Still no Brie. I fidgeted with the plate of tamales at my elbow. Brie was the other reason I suggested we set up the survey at table fourteen. I needed to get her attention. She and her whispering legions may have declared war on me, but I had enough battles at home. I needed peace. I’d given her a few days to cool off. Now it was time to talk, stop the whispers, and share tamales.

  It’s funny. Grams is the only person with whom I share DNA who doesn’t have a bunch of letters after her name, but when it comes to people and relationships, she can give plenty of lessons to the PhDs and MDs in my family. Last night when she noticed my less-than-sunny disposition and I told her about my BF woes, she proclaimed, “This calls for tamales.”

  The first time Brie came to my house in the seventh grade to hang out with Merce and me, she didn’t laugh at my jokes, nor did she quite know what to say when Merce, trying to impress her, straightened one of those retro Rubik’s Cubes in less than thirty seconds. In the awkward silence, Grams suggested we make tamales de dulce. For two hours we worked side by side as we simmered corn husks, mixed the raisin-walnut filling, and steamed the tamales. By the time we ate the sweets, we had sugar in our hair, masa on the ceiling, and laughter riding the waves of steam throughout the kitchen.

  Since then, Brie, Merce, and I have made tamales de dulce at least once a year. Sometimes we used raisins and walnuts, other times blackberries or figs or chopped apples. For Brie’s sixteenth birthday Merce and I made her a complicated but delicious batch with toasted coconut and candied pineapple.

  “You and Brie have had some sweet times together,” Grams had said. “She needs to be reminded of that.”

  So last night Grams helped me make a dozen tamales de dulce.

  The lunch bell rang, and students started pouring into the caf, including Brie. When she reached table fourteen, her beautiful face twisted in an ugly scowl. She looked at Clementine and wrinkled her nose. I could see the thought bubble over her head. Outsider.

  “This is my table.” Brie’s lips barely moved.

  My hands grew sweaty, which was crazy. This was Brie, one of my BFs. She knew my fears and dreams. I knew hers. We steamed tamales together. “We need to talk,” I said.

  “This is my table.” Her lipstick, Iced Cotton Candy, was frosty pink, cold. Behind her a crowd gathered, probably the other A-listers who claimed a spot at table fourteen, but I saw only my best friend’s face.

  I wasn’t a mean person; the idea that I hurt my BF made me sick. “Listen, Brie, I’m sorry about the Mistletoe Ball. I’m sorry I was AWOL during winter break. I had issues with Grams and Mom—huge, universe-altering issues—but that doesn’t excuse me not being there for you.”

  Brie’s face remained as hard as the diamond studs glistening like glaciers in her ears.

  “I made a mistake,” I went on. “I know you felt like I abandoned you when you needed me, but I’m here now.” I slid the tamales toward her, relief washing over me. It was like handing her my heart, and as Duncan had said, it was a big one.

  Brie picked up a tamale and studied it with unblinking eyes.

  I licked my lips. “I have no idea what you said to everyone to make them whisper about me, but honestly, I don’t care. I want what we had, and I’ll do anything to get that. Anything. What do you want me to do, Brie? What do you need from me?”

  Brie blinked, and with a flick of her hand, she flung the tamale across the room, where it smacked into the side of a garbage can. “You’re such a loser, Chloe. The only thing I need is for you to get away from my lunch table and out of my life.”

  The cafeteria silenced. Trays clanked, mouths moved, but I heard nothing except Brie’s words. They sliced through me with razor sharpness. At some point someone with crinkly black hair ushered me to table twenty-one, where I sat and tried to stanch the flow of blood from the middle of my chest.

  When the lunch bell rang, I gathered surveys with Clementine. Or was it the pope? After school I went
to Portable Five and helped the radio staffers log survey results into computers, but the numbers were a mishmash of squiggly lines. When I got home, I saw Grams and Mom in the throes of battle, but I didn’t hear any explosions. I was in a daze, numb but for the ache in my chest.

  That night tears rushed down my cheeks and soaked my pillow, which according to Grams should have been a good thing. During my hormonal junior high years when I came home from school sobbing at least once a week, Grams explained tears were good. She claimed they washed away the bad and nourished the soul. Mom explained that tears helped our bodies release toxins that build up during stressful situations. They contain beta-endorphins, natural pain relievers.

  Both were dead wrong.

  Sleep and the morning sun burned off some of the haze, and an odd, hollow feeling settled in my bones. Brie, one of my two best friends, had slammed me publicly and decisively. She booted me from the clan, stripped me of my plaid.

  I was cold and naked.

  As I arrived at school the next morning, my bruised and bloody heart convinced me it was time to give Brie and Merce the space they needed. For now. Despite the tamale incident, I wasn’t ready to give up on my two best friends, but I needed a little space, too.

  All that week I worked on my Junior Independent Study Project, with the emphasis on independent. No one waved at me in the school parking lot when I arrived every morning. No one invited me to eat lunch in the cafeteria. I spent my lunch hours in the safety of the library studying the school’s large but dated collection of broadcasting books, because it was clear I knew something about promo, but nothing about radio. After school I went to Portable Five, where I silently hammered away on my promotions plan as the rest of the radio staff broadcast live programs and ignored me.

  My weekend was equally painful and silent. I received no messages on my OurWorld account, no phone calls inviting me to the basketball game. No one texted me to get the latest econ assignment or asked to borrow a kickin’ pair of boots.

  By Sunday afternoon I wanted to pull every orange curl from my head. I was officially the most unpopular student in the history of every high school on every planet in every universe.

  When I got to school on Monday, I almost broke out in song and dance when I found Duncan waiting for me at the door to our first-period econ class.

  “We need to get to the station,” he said. “Emergency.”

  “Did Clementine snort too hard and melt Haley’s DVDs?”

  A half smile curved Dunc’s mouth. It was the most wonderful sight I’d seen in days. “Clem got called into a meeting with school admin this morning, and she said she needed to talk to all of us, including you.”

  When we arrived at Portable Five, the entire staff gathered in a tight knot around Clementine. She wiped dampness from the red shiny tip of her nose. “Three weeks. We have three freakin’ weeks until admin yanks us off the air.”

  “W-w-what?” Frack

  “No way!” Frick.

  “They can’t do that,” Taysom said. “We’re funded through the end of the semester.”

  “We may be funded, but we aren’t wanted.” Clementine shoved a stapled bunch of papers at me. They were results from last week’s lunchroom survey.

  I scanned the numbers and cringed.

  “Admin was not impressed that of the seven hundred seventy-two students who answered the survey, only four had tuned in to 88.8 The Edge during the past month,” Clementine said. “Given our dismal audience, admin decided the radio station should be dismantled and Portable Five used for storage. This way they can get rid of two of the mobile storage units they’re currently renting.”

  “Wait a minute.” Duncan took the papers from me. “How did admin get the results? You haven’t even given this to Mr. Martinez, and raw data only went to staffers.”

  Clementine turned her dragon glare at me.

  “No way.” I placed my fingertips on my chest. “You can’t blame this one on me.” Clem sent out an e-mail with the report last week, but I’d been too busy nursing my bleeding heart to do much with it. “Until today, I hadn’t seen the data.”

  “Apparently Ms. Lungren has.”

  “My JISP adviser? How did she get hold of the sur—” The words ground to a halt in my throat as I pictured my weekly progress report, the one that included half a ream of paper with my action plan, notes from my promo discussions with Dos Hermanas, and printouts of staff e-mails. “Okay. She got it from me, but she’s hardly the type to rat us out to admin. She’s all about rescuing me from JISP failure and saving the station. Heck, she wants to save the entire teenage population from unsightly facial blemishes.”

  “Your counselor may have good intentions, but she also has a big mouth and no idea how cash-strapped the school is this year. She asked the vice principal of activities for additional funding to help promote poor, dismal KDRS and showed him the survey to prove how much freakin’ help we needed.” Clementine positioned her index finger and thumb in the shape of a gun, aimed at me, and pulled the trigger.

  I lowered my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think she’d—”

  “Exactly, Chloe. You didn’t think.” Clementine swiped another hand at her red nose. “You come in here with your big mouth and lame ideas and screw up everything.”

  Frick and Frack were oddly still. Taysom wouldn’t look at me. Haley, the human sound-effects machine, had switched to off. Only Duncan made noise as he turned report pages.

  “This is your fault. Your fault!” Clementine said.

  No. Clementine was wrong. This JISP was wrong. Space between me and my BFs was wrong. Everything in my life was wrong. I lunged for the door, needing to escape the cave.

  “Wait!” Duncan tapped his index finger on the report. “Have you all looked at question ten? The one where we ask what kind of programming listeners want? More than music or news or sports, listeners want interactive programming. They want their voices heard. They want a talk show.”

  “What does a talk show have to do with keeping us on the air?” Taysom asked.

  Duncan waved the papers at me. “Don’t you remember Chloe talking about refritos? We find out what kind of refried beans our target market wants, and we give it to them. If we give them what they want, they’ll tune in, and if enough of them stay tuned in, we’re sure to pull in underwriters, and if we have an abundance of underwriters, the station will have so much extra cash we can pay the school for the extra storage space.”

  Clementine shook her crinkly mane of hair. “Talk shows are beasts. Controversial topics alienate listeners. Stuff could happen that would get us yanked off the air in a heartbeat. We don’t do talk shows. Never have. Never will.”

  “Maybe we should,” Duncan said. “Ninety-eight percent of respondents want one.”

  Taysom scanned the report. “Dunc’s right.”

  “Anyone willing to handle callers in a talk-show format?” Duncan went on.

  Taysom shuddered. Haley made a splat sound. Clementine said, “Hell no!” Everyone looked at Frick and Frack as they shook their heads.

  “Seriously, Chloe’s funny and articulate, and she never shuts up,” Dunc said. I’d never seen his gray eyes so bright. “She’d be a great talk-show host.”

  “She knows squat about radio,” Clementine said, her voice screechy.

  “She can learn the technical stuff,” Duncan argued. “The important thing is she has an engaging personality. We need her.”

  “My gawwwwwd, people. No one’s going to want to talk to Chloe. She fracked Mr. Hersbacher, the head of the Mistletoe Ball committee, to win a stupid crown. Brie Sonderby saw everything.”

  The hit was straight on, Clementine’s right fist to my already-bleeding heart. This was the big secret behind the whispers. This was the heart of the rumors Brie spread to turn the entire school against me. Surprisingly, Clementine’s words didn’t storm through my head. Nor did Brie’s lies, because they were so ludicrous, so ridiculous, I would have laughed if I wasn’t thinking about Dun
can’s wonderful words.

  We need her.

  When you’ve been out in an ocean, stung by jellyfish, battered by waves, and circled by sharks in frosty pink lipstick, you grab at the first life preserver tossed your way. I wrapped my arms and mind around those words.

  We need her.

  I faced every member of the KDRS radio staff. I wasn’t naked. I wasn’t alone. And according to Duncan, I was needed.

  “You’re wrong, Clementine. Brie Sonderby lied. I did nothing inappropriate with my old guidance counselor to win the Mistletoe Crown, and I could spend time and energy fighting Brie, but I have something more important to do. Duncan’s right. You need me here at the station, and I can prove it . . .” I inserted a dramatic pause worthy of a Daytime Emmy—winning soap queen. “. . . with rotten salsa.”

  “Oh my gawwwwd!”

  “TAKE OFF THAT STUPID TIARA.”

  “And happy Tuesday to you, too, darling Clementine.” I slipped off my tiara and positioned it in the middle of my desk, which was a dented whiteboard supported on either end by storage boxes and shoved against the north wall of Portable Five. Welcome to the glamorous home of Chloe, Queen of the Universe, KDRS’s exciting new radio talk show, debuting this Friday.

  Clementine had kicked and screamed, fighting the idea of me hosting a talk show. While I wasn’t a fighter by nature, I was needed, and I needed someone to need me. So I fought back with Dos Hermanas’ salsa. I explained to the KDRS staff that last year nine customers got sick after eating salsa at Dos Hermanas. FDA investigators eventually discovered salmonella-tainted tomatoes distributed by a local commercial grower and ordered a massive tomato recall. Dos Hermanas was not at fault, but they got tons of bad publicity. The weird thing? Two months after the salsa fiasco, sales at Dos Hermanas skyrocketed.

  “In the end, people forgot about rotten salsa but remembered Dos Hermanas,” I’d told the staff. “Publicity, even bad publicity, can be a good thing. The fact that Brie Sonderby is spreading juicy lies about me can help boost our number of listeners. People know about me. They’re curious about me. They’ll tune in to hear me. Duncan’s right. You need me.”