Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe

by Coriell, Shelley

  Duncan pointed to Clementine’s chair. “And I’ll sit there.” To my immense joy and relief, Duncan had agreed to run the control board for Chloe, Queen of the Universe. He knew all the tech stuff and was certified, which meant all I had to do was talk and reel in a sea of KDRS listeners. And there’d be no stinging jellyfish allowed in this corner of the ocean. After Brie publicly ridiculed Grams, I decided what she said and did and who she got on her side didn’t matter.

  My JISP mattered. My show mattered. Duncan and his soft, scraggly scarves mattered.

  Clementine hooked her thumb toward the glass room next door. “And I’ll be in the production studio making sure you don’t screw up. By the way, that voice-over you did yesterday is total garbage. You sound like you have socks in your mouth. You’ll need to do it again. And the sales kits you put together to give to potential underwriters are useless. You didn’t include my e-mail address or the radio station’s direct telephone number.”

  Even Clementine mattered.

  Duncan motioned to the other glass-fronted room. “Clementine will sit next door in the production studio and screen the calls, and I’ll patch them through. Have a seat, and I’ll show you how to use the mic.”

  A tingle ran through the tips of my fingers as I sat. I would use this mic to reach out and charm the masses. This morning I’d sweet-talked the vice principal into plugging my show during the morning announcements. The publicity team for student council agreed to post a blurb about my show on the school’s event blog. And on Friday after school I planned to stand in the parking lot in my tiara and hand out more flyers. With all the promo work, we’d have hundreds—no, thousands—of new listeners.

  Clementine let loose a low growl.

  “What did I do now?” I asked with an eye roll. Clem may matter, but that didn’t mean I had to like her.

  “Frack’s here.” Clem aimed her chin at the newsroom, where Frack was unloading his backpack on his desk. She turned to Duncan and shook her head. “Martinez axed Frack’s proposal for live coverage of next month’s Tardeada because it runs on a Saturday, and he doesn’t want to come in and supervise stuff here at the station. Not that I need any supervision.” Clementine gnawed the end of her pencil. “Frack put a lot of time and research into that proposal, lining up live interviews of musicians and speakers. He even had some cool ideas on how to cover chili and corn roasting demonstrations.” Clementine nudged Duncan. “How about you talk to him, Dunc? You’re good at fixing things.”

  Duncan held up his hand, palm side facing Clem. “I’ll leave the people stuff to you.”

  Clementine bit her pencil, and the wood split. She spit out the splinters, one of which landed on my right 1957 marabou glide.

  I flicked it off with a jaunty kick. “Try the sandwich method.”

  “The what?” Clem asked.

  “The sandwich method. It’s a way of telling someone crap-tastic news. You say something nice, slip in the bad, and slap on another slice of nice.” Clementine looked at me as if I were speaking Swahili. “So tell Frack the feature he did on the local Red Cross rocked. Then tell him it’s a no-go on the Tardeada. Finally, tell him you need another one of his marvelous public service announcements, this one on Save the Blue-Footed Booby Week.”

  Clementine threw her pencil on the desk. “Sandwiches are about as dumb as burritos.”

  “Just watch.” Before Clem could argue, I popped into the newsroom and took a seat on Frack’s desk. Within three minutes, he was smiling and surfing the web for blue-footed-booby news, and I was in the radio control room, bending in a deep bow. “And that, Clementine, is how to make a sandwich.”

  Clem turned a dial so hard, the knob snapped off. “No, that’s you sticking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you.”

  “Frack’s happy.”

  “Damn it, Chloe, I manage the staff here, not you.” She threw the knob on the desk and jerked out of her chair. “Watch the board for a few minutes, Dunc, while I go make sure Frack isn’t choking to death on his sandwich.” Clem stormed out of the control room.

  “Talk about someone with serious control issues,” I said. “I was trying to help. What’s wrong with that?”

  Duncan said nothing as he picked up the knob, bent something on the underside, and snapped it back in place. He pulled a clipboard from the top of one of the machines but didn’t look at it. “How do you know so much about dealing with people?” He pointed the clipboard at Frack, who was showing Clem a website with pictures of blue-footed boobies. “You’re not some kind of psychologist in training, are you?”

  Cue the laughter. “To my parents’ dismay, I am definitely not headed for a doctorate of any kind.” I took a seat in the chair behind the mic. “I guess when you’re around people all the time, you watch them, study them, kind of learn how they tick. Some people know about clocks and toasters. Some people know about . . . people.”

  Duncan seemed to consider my words long and hard, but in the end, he shook his head. “I’ll stick to toasters.” He ran a hand along the four-foot piece of electronic equipment with a hundred dials and levers. “Meet the control board. She’s the heart of the radio station.” Pointing to one of the knobs, Dunc started my lesson on Radio Tech 101.

  After he explained how he switches from the live mic to recorded programming, he pointed to a series of brightly lit bars. “When the bars disappear, you have dead air. It happens when equipment malfunctions, common here because everything is so ancient. We also have dead air when the DJ screws up or when lightning or wind messes with our antenna.”

  I thought about the past few weeks: my silent phone, my friendless OurWorld page, my lonely walks through the hallways and breezeways of the Del Rey School. “Silence is the evil of all evils,” I said softly.

  “Exactly.” Duncan looked like he wanted to give me a gold star. “Dead air will kill your show. It’ll make listeners push a button and move someplace else on the dial.”

  Like best friends moved out of your life when threads snapped.

  Duncan finished with the control board and reached for a headset. His hands were pale but strong, a callus on the side of his right index finger. They were hands that didn’t play enough, although he seemed relaxed now as he dangled the headset before me. “You’ll wear this for your entire show. I can dial it in so you can hear Clem in the production studio, the staff in the newsroom, or your callers on the landline.”

  He slipped the headset over my head, and his finger brushed my earlobe. A bolt of electricity, which had nothing to do with wires and knobs, fluttered and warmed my ear. My ear. I didn’t know there were happy nerves in an ear.

  “You want it tight,” Duncan went on as he adjusted the band that went over my head, “but not too tight.”

  I wanted Duncan to touch my other ear. I lowered my gaze and pretended to study the mic’s on-off switch. Last year I went out with one of the busboys at Dos Hermanas, who had a killer collection of Doc Martens. On our second date he kissed me. The kiss had been nice, warm, but nothing like the high-voltage jolt Duncan left on my ear.

  For his part, Duncan seemed oblivious. His eyes were bright, but that was most likely because we were surrounded by machines. Midway through Duncan’s tutorial on the Ghost, the computer that ran the automated programming, his watch beeped. His lips folded in a frown as he turned it off. “I need to go.”

  “You need to go?” I asked. Yes, I was stalling, keeping Duncan around as long as I could.

  He yanked on the ends of his scarf and wound it around his neck. “Yeah, I need to go. I have to take the quiz I missed in econ the other day.”

  I’d been raised with five brothers and a drama-queen grandmother. I had no problems speaking up. “But do you want to go?”

  Duncan’s cheeks warmed, and he concentrated on flicking a series of switches on the Ghost. When he looked at me, his gaze was steady. “No, Chloe, I don’t want to go.”

  The warm tingle at my ear shimmied over my entire body. Duncan Moore liked b
eing with me. The shimmy stopped. Or maybe he liked being with his radio equipment. I shook my head. It was probably a wonderful combination of the two. I hopped from my chair. “We’ll finish tomorrow?”

  “Yes, tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.” A half smile parted his lips as he walked out of Portable Five.

  Even when dragon Clem came back into the control room and huffed out fiery snorts during the rest of my lunchtime radio lesson, I couldn’t stop smiling. Duncan promised me tomorrow, and for a guy who worked two jobs and lived by the beeping of a watch, that was the equivalent of a ten-pound box of chocolates and two dozen red roses. My marabou glides barely touched the ground the rest of the day.

  After school, my very happy feet fluttered across campus as I posted more flyers for Chloe, Queen of the Universe, which would debut this Friday. When I reached the bulletin board near the student parking lot, I spotted Kim and Leila from drama. Together we’d starred in four productions since our freshman year. Kim was the president of the drama club and had nominated me for Mistletoe Queen.

  “Any news on the spring musical?” I asked. “Once the cast is selected, I’d love to have you on my radio show.” I reached into my bag and took out a flyer. Both girls just stared at it.

  “I heard rumors we’ll be doing Fiddler on the Roof,” I went on. “Fernando would make a great Tevye, don’t you think?”

  Kim’s bottom lip trembled before she blurted out, “Why don’t you throw yourself off the roof of a seventeen-story building?”

  My head snapped back as if she’d landed me an uppercut to the jaw. “Excuse me?”

  A tear trembled on Kim’s eyelashes. Leila put her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “She’s not worth it,” Leila said. “Let’s go.”

  Kim threw off the touch. “Not before I say it to her face.” A single tear fell, followed by another. “How could you, Chloe? How could you post all those pictures? They’ve gone viral, and now I’m the butt of hundreds of jokes. You’re horrible and ugly and . . . mean!”

  With a sob Kim ran to a small red hatchback, and I turned to Leila. “What’s she talking about?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know about the pictures, because you’re a lousy actor. And a lousy friend.”

  I shifted from one foot to the other, feeling uncharacteristically unsteady on my glides. “What pictures?”

  “The ones you posted this morning on your OurWorld page.”

  “What? I canceled my OurWorld account last week. I haven’t posted on OurWorld since winter break,” I said, but Leila didn’t hear me because she hurried after Kim. I ran after her, but she slammed the car door in my face.

  Sweat slicked my palms, and I almost dropped my cell phone as I called up OurWorld there in the middle of the parking lot. I canceled my account, so there was no way I could have shared hurtful pictures of Kim. No. Way. I tried to log in using my old access information. To my shock, Gabe accepted my user name. With trembling fingers, I punched in my password. DENIED!

  Have you forgotten your password, Chloe? Gabe asked.

  Cars whirred around me, but I didn’t move as I logged in to Merce’s OurWorld account. Of course I knew her log-in info, because that’s the kind of stuff best friends shared. On her Neighbors page, I clicked on the Chloe avatar and landed on “Chloe’s” home page. My stomach lurched as I stared at the photos I’d taken at the Del Rey School’s fall production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Someone had Photoshopped each image, and not to whiten teeth and airbrush zits. In a photo of Kim leaping across stage in a pair of tights as she played Puck, someone had enlarged her butt so it resembled two giant cantaloupes and added the caption, “Kim Ramon in Her Big A$$ Role”.

  Definitely mean.

  Someone had reactivated my OurWorld account and smeared Kim and the entire drama club. In my world, only two someones knew my original password and log-in ID.

  My fingers curled tighter around the phone. Like Dos Hermanas’ rotten tomatoes, the Mistletoe Ball had become old news, but Brie, for some twisted reason I still didn’t understand, continued full steam ahead on the bash Chloe train.

  Beeeeep.

  Good morning, Chloe, it’s Ms. A. Lungren. I wanted to wish you the best of luck on your radio program this evening. I’m thoroughly impressed with the amount of work you’ve put in this week preparing your show’s content and learning the technical aspects of radio. I’m confident that you are fully prepared and capable of excelling in this exciting new endeavor. Believe in yourself, Chloe. Believe!

  Beeeeep.

  End of messages.

  I SAT AT MY WHITEBOARD DESK FRIDAY NIGHT STARING AT MY I. Miller blue satin platform lifts with rhinestone buckles, circa 1950. Tonight I needed the extra bling. Unfortunately, the bling wasn’t shiny enough to distract me from my serious case of nerves.

  I was about to reach for the supersize bag of Twizzlers I tucked in my purse when a piece of paper soared across my desk. It was intricately folded and had spectacular hang time. The Sparrow, but not my version. This one had a longer tail and flaps on the back stabilizer. It floated onto my lap, where I noticed writing on the wing.

  Stop worrying. It’ll be FUN.

  When I glanced into the control room, I met Duncan’s calm, steady gray eyes. Yes, fun was everywhere, in empty office buildings with garbage and in graveyard portables—with struggling radio stations with a bunch of misfits. Duncan was right. I needed to stop worrying about those horrible OurWorld photos and Brie’s continued vendetta against me. I had to focus on the debut of Chloe, Queen of the Universe, which was going to rock the radio world.

  “Get your butt in the control room, JISP Girl!” Clementine’s fiery voice roared through Portable Five, and I jumped, dropping the paper airplane. Singed hair and flaring nostrils hovered over me as Clementine dragged me to the control room and pointed to the chair next to Duncan. “Sit.”

  “You know, people would be much more apt to follow your direction if you were a little less . . . oh, I don’t know . . . fascist.” I sat and winked at Duncan. He hid a smile in his scarf. Tonight’s nubby neckwear was soft blue and green, like the ocean on a misty morning. The missed stitches and ragged tails of yarn looked like bits of seaweed. And of course it had the crooked red heart stitched on one end.

  Having Duncan at my side for my first show felt good. Sparring with Clementine felt good. Knowing the entire staff was in the newsroom felt good.

  “Breathe between units of thought, not randomly.” Clementine picked up my headset.

  “Been working on it for sixteen years.”

  She slipped the headset over my head and adjusted the band. “If you read, hold your copy in front of you so you don’t look down. Keeps the airway open.”

  “Of course, closed airwaves would kill my show.”

  To her credit, Clementine ignored my stupid chatter. “Elbows on the table make for a more conversational style,” she continued in a steady, calming voice.

  “Elbows positioned.”

  She rested her hand on my knee, stopping the clackity-clack of my shoe. “And if you feel like you’re going to hurl, do not blow chunks on my equipment, got it?” She looked at the ceiling. “Seriously, if you get nervous, close your eyes and pretend you’re talking to a friend. Okay?”

  “I’ll picture you.”

  Dragon sigh.

  Clementine knew her stuff. All of this was designed to create a more natural radio presence that would appeal to listeners.

  I adjusted the cord on the mic. If we had any listeners tonight. Had my week-long promotional efforts drummed up any? Had Brie with her continued smear campaign, which now included a gallery full of less-than-complimentary drama-club photos, turned them away? My throat tightened. Or worse, would Brie try anything on air?

  “Tell me again about the Great Silencer,” I asked Clementine. “The one I can use on VSPs.”

  “We went over it five minutes ago.” Clementine yanked at my headset, repositioning it. “Weren’t you listening?”

  Of c
ourse I was listening. And worrying. I looked at the clock. Two minutes. “Tell me again.”

  Clementine wagged her crinkly hair and hissed. “Okay, we run live shows on a seven-second delay. It’s an intentional delay that allows us to deal with any technical problems, which occasionally happen, given our ancient equipment, but we can also use it to cut off objectionable material, like profanity, before it goes out onto the airwaves.”

  I wasn’t worried about profanity. I was worried about Brie Sonderby.

  Clementine leaned toward me, the heat of her stare like red-hot coals. “You’re not going to wig out on us, are you?”

  “No, of course not.” I was ready for this. Duncan was at my side. It would be fun. “Sound the trumpets. The queen has arrived.”

  Clementine grumbled and hurried next door into the production studio. She slipped on her own headset, and her voice echoed through mine. “On the beam.”

  I positioned myself in front of the microphone.

  “Four, three, two, cue music . . .”

  Duncan punched a button, and my rumbling theme music filled the air. Taysom had unearthed a 1940s retro piece, upbeat and classy, not too brassy. It was perfect. It was me.

  I stared at the microphone and pictured invisible airwaves connecting me to hundreds, thousands of listeners. Maybe even Brie. Mean, mean Brie.

  As the music tapered off, Duncan pointed to me, but when I opened my mouth, my throat constricted.

  Words.

  Where were the words?

  Why couldn’t I talk?

  I always talked.

  Something warm and firm settled on my knee. Duncan’s hand. I focused on that hand, the one that made a tricked-out Sparrow with the words Stop worrying. It’ll be FUN. The one that now created little fiery sparks on my knee. My knee? Why did Duncan have such an effect on my odd body parts? And why was I thinking about Duncan when there was dead air everywhere?