Listen to Your Heart

by Kasie West

  “Cora, come here.” I scooped her up and took her to the bathroom across the hall. “Did Aunt Maggie give you pudding or did you get this yourself?” I held her up to the sink, turned on the faucet, and used my hand to scrub her face.

  “No, I got it myself cuz I’m four.”

  “That’s what I thought. You need to stay at the table when you’re eating, Cora.”

  “I did! But then I finished.”

  She had me there. I dried her face with a towel. “Well, good thing you’re so sweet.” I plopped her back on her feet and she took off like a windup toy.

  I sighed and went back to my room. I really wanted to take a WaveRunner out. But I knew there was something I’d been putting off for too long. I needed to listen to more past episodes of the school podcast. Wednesday was coming faster than I wanted it to, and I didn’t feel ready.

  Listening to old podcasts only served to let me know how horrible I was going to be at hosting. The past hosts were so outgoing and clever and quick on their feet. I was not any of those things.

  On Wednesday, Ms. Lyon stood in front of the production crew in our school’s recording studio. She was giving us a summary of how the day would go. I kept eyeing the big glass window to my right. Soon, I would be sitting behind it.

  “This is the school’s podcast,” Ms. Lyon was saying. “So even though we encourage callers and listeners from the whole community, we are expected to promote school activities. Sequoia High’s big fall fund-raiser is coming up in about a month. The Fall Festival. After your opening, talk that up a bit. Okay?” She looked at me and Victoria.

  “Sounds good!” Victoria said, hopping to her feet. “Can we start now?”

  I had hoped Ms. Lyon would want to prep us some more. Unfortunately, she nodded and gestured toward the door to the sound booth. Victoria bounced through the door and took her place on one of the stools waiting for us.

  Alana, who’d been sitting next to me, whispered, “You should probably follow her.”

  “Should I?”

  She gave me a playful shove.

  I stood up and walked through the door. The recording studio was mostly used for the music classes, and I looked around at the guitars, a keyboard, and a set of electric drums. The only thing Victoria and I needed were the microphones that stretched from the floor to above our heads and then angled back down again. A pair of big headphones rested on the stool. I picked them up and slid them on as I sat down.

  The remaining class members stared at me through the glass. On their side was a big soundboard, a couch, phones, and a few computers. Mallory and a guy named Jed were manning the phone lines. Two other students sat behind computers, ready to fact-check or do research when called upon. Alana sat on a rolling chair with a laptop and Frank sat on the far side of the couch, scrolling through his phone. I was glad Alana’s first assignment was on the production crew. I wasn’t looking forward to when she’d switch jobs and have a different lab day than me.

  “This is so exciting,” Victoria said from beside me.

  I turned toward her and my headphones slipped off the back of my head. They were too big. I adjusted them. Victoria’s headphones seemed to fit perfectly. She wore bright pink lipstick, as if the listeners would actually see her. She had dressed up as well. She was in a bold cotton sundress and had straightened her normally curly dark hair. I was just wearing my standard wardrobe of shorts and a T-shirt.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat that was surely going to make me sound like a frog for this recording. Maybe they could fix it in the editing process the next day.

  Alana pushed a button on the long board in front of her, and her voice sounded in my headphones. “I sent out the tweet for phone calls. The lines will be ringing off the hook soon.”

  “Yes, they will,” Ms. Lyon said. “You ready, ladies?”

  “Definitely,” Victoria said.

  Apparently they could all hear us without us needing to push any buttons because Ms. Lyon said, “Good.”

  I hadn’t answered, but that didn’t seem to matter.

  Alana held up her notepad to face me. On it, she had written Want to switch?

  I knew she still wished that she was the one with the headphones and the microphone and I was the one with the podcast’s Twitter account. I would’ve switched places with her in a heartbeat if I could’ve. I nodded at her and she smiled and lowered her notepad.

  Ms. Lyon pointed at me. “And we’re recording.” She let go of the button and pushed another.

  My stomach lurched. Victoria leaned into her mic a little and said, “Hello, Oak Court! Welcome to our first podcast of the year.”

  Ms. Lyon pushed the button again. “You don’t need to scream into the mic, Victoria. It will pick you up just fine. Enthusiasm yes, screaming no. Our editing team can edit a lot out, but let’s not make them edit for volume.” Ms. Lyon pushed the recording button again and pointed our way.

  Victoria tried again, her enthusiasm undiminished.

  “Hello, podcast listeners. We’re your hosts, Victoria and Kat. Welcome to Not My Problem. Have you heard that phrase before? Have you tried to share your angst and woes with friends and they responded with their version of ‘it’s not my problem’? Well, people, for the next thirty minutes, we are going to make your problems our problems. We are here as your listening ears, your sympathetic shoulders to cry on. Figuratively, of course.”

  It was now my job to read the disclaimer. I leaned forward and my mouth hit the mic with a thump. “Oops.”

  “It’s okay, we’ll fix it later,” Ms. Lyon said. “Keep going.”

  I backed off the mic slightly. “Actually, my name is Kate.” That needed to be clear from the start. “And as a side note, we are not professionals.” My hands were trembling as I read off the notecard we’d prepared with Ms. Lyon. “Whatever views we express today are our own opinions. If you do feel like you have an immediate problem that needs professional help, please call 911 or any of the other emergency numbers we have posted on our website.”

  Yep, the lump in my throat absolutely made me sound like a frog.

  “And just some additional Sequoia High info,” Victoria said. “The Fall Festival is coming up. Most of you know what that means, but for you freshmen, who may not, the festival is a week of fun school activities, followed by a football game and an amazing carnival that takes place Friday night in the school parking lot. There are games and snacks and rides. You have five weeks to ask a date and get your tickets!”

  Victoria was a natural.

  Now was the time in the show when our first phone call was supposed to be waiting for us. Both Victoria and I looked at the board on the other side of the glass. It was ominously free of blinking lights. Mallory, at the phones, shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

  “We’ll edit out the silence,” Ms. Lyon said into our headphones. This was one of the benefits of a podcast, she’d told us in class last week—editing. This couldn’t be done on live shows.

  I glanced over at Alana, who mouthed, I posted on every site.

  I nodded, grateful she was trying.

  “Before we’d ask any of you to share your problems with us, however,” Victoria said smoothly, “what kind of hosts would we be if we didn’t participate? Right, Kat?”

  “Kate.”

  “Kate. Okay. Lay it on our audience. What is the biggest thing you’re struggling with right now?”

  I swallowed hard. “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Um … having to host a podcast when I don’t like people very much.”

  Alana covered her mouth with a laugh I couldn’t hear. Victoria’s laugh was not silent, on the other hand. It was a big, happy laugh that would probably sound perfect on the air. “You are too funny. Well, here we go, first bit of official advice on our baby podcast. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Relax your shoulders. And remember, only the entire student body and the greater Oak Court city area will be listening.” She was born to host a show. “I be
t even Lakesprings is listening. Kat is from Lakesprings, everyone.”

  “Not helpful,” I said. I tried to relax my shoulders.

  Victoria smiled. “No, but really, you’ll do great. And they, whoever they are, say that the more you practice something that scares you, the easier it gets. So after twenty-four more shows, you’ll be a pro just in time for our podcast to be over.”

  “Thanks, Victoria.” There were still no lights on the board. “Your turn. What is your biggest problem right now?” I asked.

  “Aside from having a cohost who doesn’t like people?” she said with perfect comedic timing. Were we on a sitcom, the laugh track would’ve sounded.

  “Yes,” I said drily. “Aside from that.”

  “My biggest problem in life right now is being a size sixteen in a world that values size twos.”

  And this was just proof that I was going to be horrible at advice. I had no idea what to say to that. I was surprised she was already being so open with our listeners. Impressed, but surprised.

  “I guess we need to work on changing what the world values,” I ventured.

  “I agree,” she said. “Oh, looks like we have a phone call.”

  My heart skipped a beat. I zeroed in on that red blinking light through the glass. Mallory gave us a thumbs-up.

  “Hello, you’re our very first caller on Not My Problem. Tell us your name and your problem,” Victoria said.

  “I’m Doug,” a guy said. “And my problem is with the local pizza place. I ordered a pizza there the other day and they were very skimpy with their toppings. I called them back to complain and they said, not my problem. But it is their problem. It’s their pizza place. Are you one of those programs who will show up at businesses and demand answers from them?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Doug, is it?” Victoria asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We feel your plight.”

  Plight? I mouthed to Alana, and she bit back a smile.

  “Next time you go into the pizza place,” Victoria continued, “maybe ask for a manager and see if they will give you a discount due to your bad experience. And tell them about your penchant for lots of toppings. I think telling someone before the pizza is made instead of once it’s already in your living room is the best way to go.”

  Were we really giving advice on pizza toppings? I couldn’t believe this. I could feel the eyes of the entire production group on us. This podcast would go down as the worst in the history of this class. Ms. Lyon would use us as examples of what not to do for future classes. I wondered if we’d have to change topics after this first podcast. Maybe just changing the title would work. The title was my stupid idea, too.

  I tried to focus. Was Victoria still talking to this pizza guy? No, she was wrapping it up now. “Thanks for calling in. Good luck on your next food quest.” The phone line was disconnected and she looked at me. “When I’m hungry, I’m always the most irritable. I could totally understand how he was feeling.”

  “Yes, the plight of the undertopped pizza,” I said.

  “I could go for a pizza right now, undertopped or not,” Victoria said. “Yum.”

  I smiled. Ms. Lyon pointed at the microphone as if to say a smile could not be heard. I tried a small chuckle. It did not go well.

  The phones were eerily silent again. I knew Ms. Lyon said we could edit out all this dead air but if there weren’t any other calls, there would be nothing to fill the dead air with. I looked to Alana again for reassurance but she was no longer at her post. I searched the small room and my headphones slipped off the back of my head again. I readjusted them. A red light blinked; a new call was coming through.

  “Hello,” Victoria said, when the call was patched through to our headsets. “You’re on Not My Problem.”

  “I have a problem,” a girl said. The voice seemed vaguely familiar but affected in some way. Like she was trying to disguise it.

  “What’s your name, caller?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Okay,” Victoria said. “A mystery. I like it. Do you like mysteries, Kat?”

  If she called me Kat one more time, there would be no mystery as to what my fist would do to her face. Okay, fine, there would be because I’d never punched anyone in my life. My thoughts talked a big game. “I do like mysteries,” I replied. “And it’s Kate.”

  “So what’s your problem, caller?” Victoria asked.

  “It’s about my friend.”

  I gasped. The caller was Alana. I almost blurted her name into the mic, but I managed to hold my tongue.

  Victoria gave me a sideways glance but said, “Okay. Tell us.”

  “I have a friend, my best friend in the whole world, and I fear she’s not over her ex. He moved away and hasn’t kept in touch with her at all, despite her efforts, and she still can’t move on.”

  I could both kill and hug Alana at the same time. She’d seen our podcast crashing and burning and she was helping me out. But on the other hand, she was choosing her helpful moment to shed light on the problem she knew I had. Clever girl.

  “That’s a hard one,” Victoria said.

  “Not hard at all,” I jumped in. “Give your friend some time. She obviously really liked her boyfriend and now just wants to take a break from love for a while. What’s wrong with that?”

  Victoria widened her eyes at me, obviously surprised at my forceful response when I’d been so quiet up until that point.

  “Maybe you can set your friend up on a date,” Victoria offered. “Show her that there are other fish in the sea.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. “Your friend is probably perfectly capable of finding her own fish when she’s ready to eat fish again.”

  “Nobody said anything about eating fish, Kat,” Alana said.

  Even though she wasn’t in front of me, I could practically see the teasing glint in her eye as she used the name I hated. I’d forgive her for all of this, because she was totally saving me right now. She was saving me, even though she would’ve loved to have been sitting where I was sitting. She really was the best friend ever.

  “You’re right, dating them is worse,” I said.

  “Well,” Victoria said, “you know what they say. The best way to get over someone is to start loving someone else.”

  “Who says that?” I asked.

  “We’ll be quoting ‘they’ a lot around here, so get used to it.” Victoria winked at me.

  “I personally like the saying: ‘time heals all wounds,’ ” I said. “Just be her friend.”

  “I’ll always be her friend,” Alana said.

  “I’m sure that’s all she wants,” I said.

  “You’re right. Thanks for the advice!” Alana said.

  “You’re welcome,” Victoria said. “Thank you for calling in.”

  A few moments later, Alana slipped back in the room and took her seat. First, I narrowed my eyes at her, but then I mouthed thank you and she smiled.

  The red light blinked again and I jumped a little. Some static came over my headset, which I was learning meant the call had been put through to us.

  “You’re on Not My Problem,” Victoria said. “What can we help you with today?”

  “This is like an advice podcast?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Victoria replied.

  “Advice from high school students?”

  “Yes,” Victoria said. I wasn’t sure how she could keep a smile on her face when the cynicism in the caller’s voice was so obvious.

  “What qualifies you to give advice?” the woman asked.

  “Absolutely nothing,” I said.

  Victoria gave her practiced laugh. I wondered if it really was practiced. Had she rehearsed a routine in the bathroom mirror the night before like I had? “We don’t claim to be experts,” she said after her laugh. “Just hoping to offer objective opinions and open up discussion.”

  “Good luck with that,” the woman said, and hun
g up.

  And that was it. No more calls came in. We waited out the hour of allotted time for lab and Ms. Lyon powered down the equipment. I left the recording booth feeling weak with relief that it was over. For now.

  “Okay,” Ms. Lyon said when Victoria and I joined the rest of the group on the other side of the glass. “In tomorrow’s lab, the editing team will get this cleaned up. We’re going to list this podcast as an intro instead of an episode. I don’t think we’ll be able to get more than fifteen minutes out of it. Then in class, we’ll brainstorm some ways to get more people calling in. Hopefully, once people hear the first podcast, they’ll get the idea.” And as if I didn’t already suspect the whole thing had been a train wreck, she confirmed my fear by adding, “It’s fine. It wasn’t that bad.”

  Frank, who had somehow ended up standing closer than I wanted, said just loud enough for only me to hear, “No, it was worse.”

  I put my hand to my forehead and groaned. Maybe the best thing to come of this would be that I’d get fired.

  “I don’t want to hear how you thought it was fine,” I said to Alana as soon as we were out of the room and walking down the wide hall.

  “I wasn’t going to say that at all. That was awful. You kind of sucked.”

  “Hey!”

  “It was more that nobody real called in. You sucking was secondary.”

  I pushed open the door at the end of the hall. The heat of the day mixed with the scent of pine hit me at once. I stopped for a moment to breathe it in. It smelled a little like the lake and that helped release my tension.

  “Thank you for saving us at least a little bit,” I said, glancing gratefully at Alana. “You’re the best.”

  “Of course.” She paused. “And you know, I really do worry about you, Kate. And the stuff with Hunter.”

  I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “I love you but I don’t want to talk about Hunter.”

  “I know.”

  “No, really.”

  “Okay, I promise I’ll stop after this one question—I was right, wasn’t I? You really are still hung up on him. I suspected, because you haven’t looked at another guy in months. But I thought maybe I was wrong.”