Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe

by Coriell, Shelley

  Rotten tomatoes won out. Clementine was the lone “no” vote. The other KDRS staffers hadn’t been totally enthusiastic, but I think with the radio station scheduled to shut down, they were willing to try anything. Kind of a let’s-throw-her-against-the-wall-and-see-if-she-sticks attitude.

  Mr. Martinez, the radio club adviser, who teaches English and pops in and out of the station throughout the week to make sure the KDRS clan isn’t doing anything illegal or offensive, also approved my proposal. But he wasn’t optimistic. “The school is financially strapped, and nonacademic programs are the first to go, especially programs that appeal to so few students,” Mr. Martinez said. “I’m afraid, Chloe, you’ve hitched your wagon to a dead horse.”

  Only Duncan seemed to think the idea of a talk show featuring me could save the station. Once again, he was the lone body standing in my corner. Maybe he liked girls with good taste in shoes, or maybe he was simply a nice guy.

  I looked around the newsroom and didn’t see him or his tool belt. He’d been absent again in econ this morning. I was surprised at how often I checked that empty seat behind me and how cold class was without him and one of his nubby scarves.

  “Anyone seen Duncan?” I asked.

  Next to me Clementine stiffened. Taysom, who’d been scribbling on a notepad, looked up, as did Frick and Frack. Haley, who was watching The Wizard of Oz, hit the Pause button, stopping Dorothy and Toto in mid-skip on the yellow brick road. Their collective gaze settled on Clementine, who pressed her lips together. “Duncan won’t be in today.”

  “Everything okay?” Frick asked.

  Clementine nodded.

  Taysom pulled out his earbuds. “Does he need a ride?”

  The GM shook her head. “He said he has it covered.”

  “What about homework?” Frick asked.

  “I got it for him.” Clementine.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Is Duncan in some kind of trouble?”

  Around me long gazes locked over my head. Bodies shifted. It all meant something to everyone but me. At last Clementine turned to me and aimed a pointed finger at my tiara. “Are you going to sit there all day and admire your idiotic crown, or are you going to get to work on saving the universe?”

  I picked up my crown and watched the flickering light glint off the stones. “This, Clementine, is not an idiotic crown but a masterful marketing tool. Do you know how many people asked me about it?” No one in the newsroom looked at me. “Twenty-eight, and I told them all about my show this Friday. Not bad, huh?”

  Okay, some of it had been bad, like the message someone left in frosty pink lipstick on my locker after lunch.

  Chloe, Queen of the Losers!

  I squeezed my hand tight and rubbed away those words until the slick writing was an oily smear of pink. Forget all that crap about sticks and stones. Words, especially those written in your best friend’s curly handwriting with her favorite shade of lipstick, hurt.

  But Brie’s lies and taunts would soon be old news, like rotten tomatoes. And eventually the demons possessing my best friends and the rest of the school would be exorcised, and my universe would be in perfect alignment.

  I plopped the tiara on my head and opened my JISP notebook, where I’d been jotting pages and pages of notes for my queenly radio debut.

  Thwack. A dusty, five-inch-thick binder slammed onto my desk. “For you,” Clementine said. The spine read KDRS Operations Guide. Everything for the care and feeding of a high school radio station.

  I fanned away the dust. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Become one with it.”

  “You want me to read the whole thing by Friday?”

  “No, just the pages ending in two and seven.” Dragon rumble. “KDRS is not some after-school playground for people who like to hear themselves talk. We’re licensed by the FCC, and we follow FCC regs and school policy for all broadcast activities. Our goal is to provide our listeners with quality, professional programming. Anyone who doesn’t work to that end will get dragged through and roasted over the fires of hell.” A sunny glint sparked in Clementine’s eyes as she leaned closer. “After you get your music selected, get your teasers done. I also want to see your format clock with all stop sets noted, and I’ll need to approve any drops, stagers, and other production elements you plan on using. Since you’re not certified, you won’t be running the boards or keeping the log, but you will study the op notes on how the board works and how to screen live calls. Got that?”

  I got that she wasn’t quite speaking English.

  “I want you in here during your lunch period for the next five days with your mouth shut and eyes open,” Clementine continued. “The best way to learn this stuff is to watch. Radio isn’t rocket science, but it’s not as simple as sitting your butt in a chair and yakking away. And one more thing—I expect you to know step-by-step how to deal with VSPs. One mishandle of a VSP, and you’re gone.”

  “VSP?”

  Clementine’s gaze stayed on me so long my feet started to squirm. “Very Stupid Person,” she said. “They can kill a show, literally get us kicked off the air. Now get your music prepped. You need to record dry track today so Taysom can mix your teasers and sweepers.”

  “Huh?”

  Clementine leaned against the wall, her arms crossed. “Your format music, the standard theme music we’ll play as openers and closers and with your promos.”

  Taysom must have seen the huge question mark over my head. “You haven’t selected theme music?” he asked.

  “Uh, no. Do I need theme music?”

  Taysom looked as if I’d asked him if I needed a left ventricle. “Music belongs everywhere. It’s essential to all radio programming, even news and talk shows. Music is an expression of your radio personality, something that announces your unique presence.”

  Unique. I liked that. Unique things stood out, they made a statement, like vintage shoes. I considered my show title, Chloe, Queen of the Universe. I’d kicked around a dozen names, including Chloe Nation and Life According to Chloe. At one point I reached for the phone to call Mercedes to get her analytical input, but fortunately, my synapses fired before I opened that can of stupid. Turning to BFs for issues big and small was simply a habit. In the end, Grams weighed in.

  “Chloe, Queen of the Universe is a little over the top and totally fun,” Grams had said. “It’s catchy, but more importantly, it’s you.”

  Thanks to Grams, I had a name, but no music. “I guess we could go with queenly music, kind of royal sounding.”

  “Oh my gawwwwwd,” Clementine said. “She’ll sound like the Plumber King.” The Plumber King was a local contractor with cheesy commercials featuring a plumber wearing a gold crown and sitting on a royal toilet throne.

  From the corner, Haley made a flushing noise.

  I looked at my show title scrawled across the whiteboard desk. “We could also play on the universe theme and use something celestial. Harps and lutes, kind of angelic.”

  Clementine made a gagging noise, and I envisioned a volume knob on her forehead and me turning it down. No, I wasn’t exactly an angel, but I was trying to help her station stay on the air.

  “A successful Chloe, Queen of the Universe show means more listeners,” I said. “More listeners mean we have a better chance of luring underwriting funds, and those funds mean we could keep KDRS from crashing and burning. You realize we’re on the same team, don’t you?”

  Clementine smacked her forehead. “Oops, I forgot my Go-Chloe-Go T-shirt and freakin’ pompoms.” She stormed into one of the little glass rooms at the back of the portable.

  I rubbed my temples. Why did Clementine dislike me so much? Surely it couldn’t be Brie’s attempt to turn me into a pariah. Clementine, like the rest of the radio staff, was an outsider. She didn’t seem like the type to give a rat’s heinie about the Brie Sonderbys of this world.

  “How do you envision interacting with your audience?” Tay-som asked.

  My show. My JISP. It
was a ball and chain around my ankle. I flattened my hands on the two-ton binder. No, it was an anchor, keeping me steady. After getting kicked out of my clan, I floated alone with nothing to hang on to. I needed KDRS.

  “I don’t want to come across as arrogant,” I told Taysom. “I want to be more like the queen next door, everyone’s friend.”

  Because on the night of the Mistletoe Ball, I hadn’t been a friend to Brie when she needed me. Ever since my talk with Merce on the day Grams cut her hand, the thought had been sneaking up on me and echoing through my head.

  “That’s a start,” Taysom continued. “Now, what type of stuff are you going to talk about? Newsy current events? Softer human-interest topics? This type of stuff drives your format music.”

  With zero social obligations I had plenty of time to brainstorm content, and when I was thinking about talk show topics, I turned to the Question Bag.

  Grams made the Question Bag for my seventh-grade birthday party. She’d taken a small brown-paper lunch sack and drew question marks all over it. Fat ones. Skinny ones. Curly ones. Blockish ones. Inside she put more than one hundred slips of paper with questions. We used the Question Bag at my party, a huge blowout with every seventh-grade girl at school in attendance. Throughout the party, we’d draw questions and people would shout out answers. It was a good way to get to know one another. To connect.

  Grams, being Grams, hadn’t included expected questions like, What’s your favorite TV show? or Who’s your favorite singer? Grams’s bag of questions forced us into deeper waters.

  You won a million dollars, but you can’t spend it on yourself. What would you do with it?

  You have a chance to have dinner with one famous person, living or dead. Who?

  I proclaimed to my birthday guests I’d have dinner with Charlie Chaplin. Merce announced she’d dine with Copernicus. Brie had surprised me. She was new to the school and model gorgeous, so I expected her to say something completely superficial, like some Hollywood hunk or supermodel.

  “I’d have dinner with God,” Brie said. When I gave her a curious look, she shrugged. “I have big questions.”

  The next week we made tamales de dulce and officially became a trio. Since then Brie, Merce, and I would haul out the Question Bag during sleepovers, on lazy summer afternoons at the beach, even during finals when our brains were about to burst. Over the years we added our own questions, from the silly to the serious.

  Would you go without bathing for one year if you got paid $50,000?

  If your best friend planned on getting an abortion and needed money to pay for it, would you loan it to her?

  I turned to the KDRS staff. Grams always said I poured my heart into everything I did, and my radio show would be no different. “I want to talk about stuff people care about, stuff that makes them think . . . and feel. We’ll talk about what pushes our buttons, what soothes our souls. We’ll talk about our dreams and fears. We’ll go deep, to heart-level stuff.”

  A hush fell over the newsroom. Everyone focused on me. A nice fluttery feeling expanded my chest, but my smile faded when I saw Clementine staring at me from one of the glass rooms, her glare like Brie’s: so icy, it burned.

  As I pulled into my driveway that night, my house stared at me with dark, lifeless eyes. I fiddled with my keys but didn’t turn off the ignition. I’d forgotten Dad was at the university teaching a late class, Mom had a full day of surgery, and Grams had some kind of appointment. On nights like this I usually called Brie and Mercedes, and we went to Dos Hermanas for dinner.

  I tried to picture Clementine and me sharing chips and salsa. Oh my gawwwwwd. No, the GM and I weren’t destined to swap friendship bracelets, especially after the latest frosty look. However, I wouldn’t mind getting to know Duncan better. Again, I wondered where he’d been all day. KDRS was a much warmer place with him around.

  Just the way my home was a warmer place with people in it. My youngest brother, Zach, had left for med school in August, leaving me the sole inhabitant of the second floor. The black hole loomed before me, ready to suck me in.

  I jammed my car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

  By now, Mom should be out of surgery and finishing her notes. Like me, she probably felt tired but accomplished. Today my surgeon mother mended a few hearts while I worked on creating the best talk-radio show on planet earth.

  I drove to the hospital and found Mom in the CICU. She stood in front of a large window that framed a gray-haired, gray-faced man hooked to beeping and buzzing machines. Mom’s forehead rested on the window.

  “Looks like you could use a red chili chimi,” I said.

  Mom opened her eyes and offered me a tired smile. “Sounds good, but not tonight.” She jutted her chin toward the man. “I can’t leave Mr. Dominguez for another hour or so.”

  I frowned. If I didn’t hate hospitals so much, I’d wait with her.

  “Why don’t you stop by the Tuna Can?” Mom suggested. “Grams could use a pick-me-up. She spent the afternoon visiting senior assisted-living facilities.”

  I lunged for Mom and frantically patted her arms and back.

  Mom’s weary face wrinkled. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for bullet holes.”

  My mother rumpled my hair. “A woman who specializes in helping people like your grandmother transition into assisted-living facilities took her out today.”

  “And they both survived?”

  “Last I heard.” Mom rested her forehead on the window. “But your grandmother isn’t happy. She was in such a state this afternoon that she lost her keys and couldn’t get in the Tuna Can, so she broke a window and tried to crawl in. Noreen next door found her stuck in the bathroom window.”

  I sunk onto the chair outside Mr. Dominguez’s CICU room. I refused to look at the man whose heart my mother touched today, but not because of my fear of blood and general dislike of hospitals. In his pasty skin and bandaged chest I saw Grams, whose heart was breaking at the idea of giving up the Tuna Can, her teeny tiny corner of the universe.

  This had been the root cause of World War III. Six months ago Grams’s doctors told her that because of her progressing Parkinson’s disease, she needed to think about new living arraignments, something where she wasn’t alone all the time. Grams, being Grams, had refused to consider it. But the night of the Mistletoe Ball everything changed. That evening Grams took a walk on the beach, became disoriented, and couldn’t find her way back. When her neighbor Noreen noticed that Grams had not returned home, she called my mom, who called the police. The beach patrol found Grams after three in the morning, shivering under a lifeguard tower with a near case of hypothermia.

  “She’s a danger to herself,” Grams’s doctor told my parents. “And it’s not going to get better.”

  The day after the Mistletoe Ball, Mom and Dad invited Grams over for a giant spread of twice-baked potatoes. To her credit, Mom tried to put a positive spin on moving out of the Tuna Can, calling it a new and exciting episode, and she put many options on the table: a live-in aide, a roommate of Grams’s choice, an assisted-living facility.

  Grams lobbed her potato in the garbage.

  War ensued.

  At one point during winter break, it got so bad that Grams and Mom refused to be in the same room. They sent messages to each other through me. My mom has a medical degree and Grams has eighty years of life lessons, but I swear I was back in junior high. This was the type of stuff that kept me snowed under during winter break.

  Since that time, I’d been stewing over an idea, but I figured Mom would shoot it down. But if I could tackle a radio show, I could take on anything, right?

  “Grams could live with us,” I said to my shoes. I held my breath, half expecting my mom to explode.

  Instead, Mom’s shoulders bounced in a silent chuckle. “I suggested that long before the incident at the beach. I told her with your brothers gone, we’d move you downstairs to the den, and she could have the entire second floor.”

 
; This would restore life to the black hole. I jumped up. “Perfect.”

  “She told me to shove all eight rooms up my heinie.” Mom sighed and reached for a clipboard on the door to the CICU room. “Now, why don’t you stop by and see how she’s doing? You’re the only one who can make her smile these days.”

  Grams smile? After a day of looking at assisted-living facilities? I’d have better luck getting Clementine to braid my hair. Again I thought of that nasty, very Brie-like look on Clementine’s face and shivered. But Mom was right; Grams needed a dose of Chloe cheer.

  As I pulled out of the hospital parking lot, plotting witty and highly entertaining ways to pull Grams out of her funk, I spotted a metallic green bike on the side of the road. A lone figure hunched over the duct tape—dotted frame, a wrench in one hand, an oily bike chain in the other.

  I punched the gas and pulled up next to him. “You look like you could use a little help from a girl with a big heart.”

  Duncan sat on his heels and stared at the night sky. In the moonlight I could see the circles under his eyes had darkened. Grease streaked his jeans and blood seeped from a knuckle on one of his hands. He threw the chain to the ground. “I could use a new bike.”

  “Can’t help you there, but how about a ride?”

  Duncan’s forehead lined, as if he didn’t understand my offer. Or didn’t want it. I recalled the KDRS staffers saying he didn’t need any help. Duncan was a person used to going it alone. Even at the radio station he held himself distant. Apart. An outsider among outsiders.

  He stared at the bike, then at the hospital, rubbing his hand across the bridge of his nose and leaving a grease spot. “Yeah. I’m late.”

  “PLEASE TELL ME THAT’S NOT A DECOMPOSING RAT.” I HELD Duncan’s scarf over my nose and mouth and tried not to breathe the air in the executive break room of Schnepf and Stromberg Accounting. It stunk so bad Duncan’s ruddy, wind-kissed cheeks were tinged green.