The Ex Talk

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  “Tomorrow,” he says, squeezing my hand.

  “It’s only a day away, as they say. Are you nervous?”

  “A bit of stage fright,” he admits. “But as long as I know what I’m doing, and we’ve been planning this for weeks, then I’ll be fine. And I know the show. I feel good about it. You’re not having second thoughts, are you? About telling everyone?”

  I shake my head. “No. This, between us . . . it’s right.”

  His eyes crinkle at the edges, and he says, “I was so mad about hosting this with you at first. Not just because we weren’t being completely truthful, but because you are so fucking cute, and I knew I’d be flustered around you.”

  “Stop,” I say, pounding at his chest. “You did not!”

  “I swear!” He crosses his heart. “You were the cute Puget Sounds producer, and I was this obnoxious reporter who only cared about the news, and you hated me.”

  “Reporter with a master’s degree,” I correct. Then I admit, “Fine, fine, I thought you were cute, too. But definitely still obnoxious, which made it annoying that you also happened to be cute. As soon as you rolled up the sleeves of your shirt, I was done. Toast.” I run my hands along his arms. “Forearms are like . . . unspeakably sexy to me.”

  “Ah,” he says. “If only I’d known sooner. I would have worn short-sleeved shirts to every Ex Talk taping to woo you.”

  “Psh,” I scoff. “I’m not that easy.”

  “No,” he agrees, “but so worth it.”

  We finish the movie and the two slices of red velvet cake room service delivers before shucking off our robes and slipping back into bed.

  “We should go on vacation together somewhere.” Dominic’s fingers play through my hair, lingering on my neck, tracing my spine. “Not for work. Just for us.”

  It suddenly sounds so, so nice, and hearing him suggest it tugs at my heart. “We should,” I say wistfully. “Where would you want to go?”

  “Greece,” he says without hesitation. “Maybe it’s cliché, but I’ve been obsessed with the mythology since elementary school. I went as Hermes three Halloweens in a row.”

  “I’d be down for Greece. Or Spain. Or Australia.”

  “A whole world tour.” He presses his lips to the top of my head. “It’ll be perfect. No email, no internet . . . just you and me, exploring ancient ruins and eating excellent food.”

  “Perfect.”

  The weight of that desire feels heavy, especially with what we have to do tomorrow. I want to stay in this dreamworld as long as we can, this place where we can talk fearlessly about the future and know we fit into each other’s visions of it. This is real. I have to keep reminding myself because otherwise I’m not sure I’d believe it.

  He drifts off to sleep first, his fingers going still in my hair. I lie there quietly for a while, burrowing closer, listening to his breaths. I’m still half unsure how we got here but mesmerized by it nonetheless.

  That love I thought I felt earlier—I’m certain of it now.

  31

  It doesn’t take long for me to fall in love with PodCon, too. Our live taping is in one of the smaller auditoriums, since our fan base doesn’t come close to matching some of the bigger podcasts’. Still, I’ve never seen anything quite like it, even the year it was in Seattle. Dominic and I wandered the exhibition area with Ruthie earlier this morning, playing with audio gear and other swag the festival sponsors had on display. We met producers and hosts of podcasts I’ve been listening to for years, and all of it was wildly surreal. It’s one thing to scroll through our mentions on Twitter. It’s another to see real live people waiting in line for us.

  All of these people connected by something most of us do completely alone, with headphones on, blocking out the rest of the world—it’s kind of magical.

  “They’re just about ready for us,” Ruthie says, joining us backstage in the greenroom.

  Dominic’s doing some breathing exercises in a corner, and I’m on the couch, reviewing our show notes. Last night, I googled tips to combat stage fright and insisted he eat a banana before coming here, since they can soothe nausea. I also made sure we arrived an hour early. Of course I want the show to go well, but more than that, I want him to be comfortable up there. “I can’t imagine not feeling comfortable with you onstage with me,” he said this morning, and it made me want to tug him back into bed.

  When he spots Ruthie, he heads over to the couch. And he really does look more relaxed.

  “How’s the stage fright?” I ask him.

  He gives me a cheesy thumbs-up. “I should be able to make it through without vomiting.”

  “You both are going to be great,” Ruthie says. “I was going to wait to show you until afterward, but I’m too excited. We have buttons! And T-shirts!” At that, she pulls a stack of buttons and a neon-blue shirt from her bag with a flourish. The shirt boasts the name of the show, plus a line drawing of a man and a woman’s face, a microphone between them. The woman even has my swoopy bangs and glasses. The button has the same image, along with #publicradioturnsmeon, which Ruthie came up with a few weeks ago. “We’re gonna sell them after the show.”

  Dominic points to illustrated Shay. “You look so cute,” he says with a grin, which slips off his face the moment he glances up at Ruthie.

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “She knows.” It’s not the whole truth, but these days, what is? It’s close enough, though I should have told him earlier.

  “Oh.” A wrinkle of his brows. “Well . . . good. That’s a relief.”

  “I support this a hundred and ten percent,” Ruthie says.

  “In that case,” I say, gaining more confidence. “We’re planning to tell the audience today. That we got back together.” If Ruthie’s on board, it has to be the right decision.

  Ruthie’s hand flies to her mouth. Her nails are the same neon blue as the T-shirt. “I love it. Oh my god. This is going to be incredible. Where’s Kent? Does he know?”

  “We, uh, haven’t told him,” Dominic says, a little sheepish.

  “It’s our decision,” I say. “Not his.”

  “Okay,” Ruthie says with a firm nod. “I’m with you, then.”

  Dominic squeezes my shoulder, and I can’t help remembering last night. How we were open with each other in a way I’ve never been. How we fell asleep together and woke up together, and how suddenly the idea of waking up without him is too grim to imagine.

  I’m in love with you, I think.

  I might even be ready to tell him after the show.

  The live show is going to revolve around storytelling. We scheduled a few local guests, and then we’re going to encourage audience members to come up to the mic and share their own dating and breakup stories. We’ll cut it up with ad breaks for the podcast later.

  I’m not nervous—or at least, the nerves making my stomach sway are poised on the edge of relief. Once we let everyone know we’re “back together,” we can finally breathe. Finally have a normal relationship.

  One of the festival volunteers knocks on the door. “Everyone ready?”

  Kent’s still not here, though he told me he’d meet us in the greenroom. He must be somewhere in the audience, playing spectator.

  “We are,” I say as Dominic smooths the collar of his shirt.

  An Austin public radio host introduces us, and we wave as we walk out together. The audience isn’t as loud as they were for earlier podcast tapings, but I’m sure my perception up here is distorted. Though the lights are bright, and at first I have to squint, I can tell nearly every seat is filled.

  The stage has two orange chairs in the middle, two microphones angled toward them. The PodCon logo is splashed on a banner behind us.

  We sit down, and I adjust the mic so it’s at mouth level. “Hello, Austin!” I call out. I’ve waited so long for this, and I want to soak up every moment.


  When the audience yells back, I’m convinced they’re not just quieter than other audiences but tentative, too. At least one person in every row is on their phone.

  I flash Dominic a worried glance, but he gives me a small shrug in return. In the wings, Ruthie is staring at us with an odd expression on her face, one that makes my stomach tighten with dread. Ruthie, who is always calm and always levelheaded, who always knows exactly how to reassure us.

  And I immediately know something’s wrong.

  * * *

  —

  The show only gets weirder from there. Onstage, everything goes smoothly—Dominic seems at ease, maybe a sliver less confident than he is in the studio, and our guests, including a food critic who fell for a chef after writing a scathing review of her restaurant, are perfectly charming. But some audience members leave in the middle—just get right up and walk out, though I think this is some of our best material. Others continue scrolling through their phones, like it’s not the rudest thing you can do at a live event like this.

  Earlier, Dominic and I decided we’ll announce our relationship at the very end. We’ll say we spent all these long days together working on the show, it reminded us what we liked about each other. And that we appreciate our listeners’ support but we want to try as best we can to keep our current relationship status separate from the show. Now I have no idea how the audience will respond.

  By the time we invite the audience up to the mic to share stories and ask questions, the knot of dread has climbed up my throat, and Dominic’s hands are visibly shaking.

  One woman springs up from her seat in the third row, stalking toward the mic like she’s on a mission.

  “Yeah, I have a question,” she says. “Did you think it was funny to deceive your listeners like this?”

  A wave of murmurs rolls through the crowd. The woman is unfamiliar, a thirtysomething in a Welcome to Night Vale T-shirt. Dominic looks about as lost as I feel.

  “Sorry, what?” I ask, my voice quaking. I hope she doesn’t hear it. I hope none of them do.

  She holds up her phone, gives it a wave, though of course I can’t see the screen from here. “It’s all over social media. Your little trick. You two were never actually dating—you were just coworkers who teamed up for a cheap gimmick.”

  It’s a mad dash as the audience members not already on their phones dive for their bags and dig through pockets, hundreds of people now furiously swiping.

  Never actually dating.

  Just coworkers.

  A cheap gimmick.

  I grip the arms of the chair. If I don’t, I’m worried I might bolt. I have to anchor myself, have to tell her it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not—

  “We—uh—” Dominic tries, but he can’t get out a full sentence. All the breathing exercises in the world couldn’t have prepared us for this.

  How the hell did this happen?

  I look to the wings, to Ruthie. Our steadfast producer. I wait for her signal. I wait for her to tell us what to do, the way I signaled Paloma Powers so many times when we were hit with a hostile caller or a boring guest. But she looks stricken as she stares down at her phone, and I realize that whatever’s out there, whatever’s just exposed us—she’s finding it out for the first time, too.

  The audience is in chaos now, others storming toward the mic. The first woman, clearly pleased after her public takedown, returns to her seat.

  A guy who appears to be in his late twenties steps up to the mic next. “I have a question, too,” he says, and I relax a little, some ridiculous part of me preparing for a legitimate question, like maybe there’s still a way to salvage this. “I’m curious, was it for money? Or was it some kind of messed-up social experiment?”

  The audience goes wild again.

  Kent.

  It had to be him. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what he did, but the only other person who knows is Ameena and, by extension, TJ. Even if we’re not currently on speaking terms, she would never do this. And as far as I know, Dominic still hasn’t told anyone.

  “If we could just, um, get the questioning on track,” I say, but no one’s listening to me. They’re talking at us, but they’re not expecting answers. They want the controversy, the outrage—but not the explanation. It’s scary, watching them turn on us.

  “And we fell for your lie,” the next person says, “about being private on social media. And about how you were both so scared about starting a new relationship.”

  “That’s true!” I say, wondering if this means I’m admitting the rest wasn’t.

  “So what if they bent the truth?” the next girl at the mic is saying. “It was good radio, right? It kept us entertained for an hour a week, helped us forget for a while that the world is on fire.”

  Yes, random person, thank you.

  “We bought into the show because of them and their relationship,” someone else says. “Can you imagine finding out that Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark weren’t really friends?”

  I can’t take this. I can’t have them control the narrative.

  I wrench my mic off its stand and charge to the center of the stage. “Okay,” I say. “Okay. You’re right. Before we started working on this show, we hadn’t actually dated.”

  When I turn to Dominic, his face is ashen. He’s pinned to his chair, unable to make eye contact. Help me, I plead, but it doesn’t reach him, and I can’t help thinking not just about his stage fright but about his journalistic morals, the ones that the past few months have steamrolled and pulverized. This has to be his worst nightmare.

  I take a slow, shaky breath. If I really am meant to tell stories, maybe there’s still some way to spin this.

  No—I’m done spinning it.

  “At the beginning, we were just two coworkers who didn’t really like each other, and it seemed like a great premise for a show. Two exes giving out relationship advice.” I break off to half laugh for a moment, remembering the meeting where I first pitched it. “We weren’t thrilled about the lying component. But what we saw was an opportunity to do something different on public radio, and to help save our station.”

  Maybe, maybe, I’m getting them back. Some of the people who were halfway to the door have paused, returned to their seats.

  “And then, as we started working together, well . . .” I’m sweating in about a hundred different places, but I’m buoyed by a few whoops and whistles in the crowd. “We realized we liked each other. It was a difficult situation, but after a couple months of tiptoeing around it, we’re together now. Officially.”

  Now there’s more applause. It’s scattered, but it’s there. A few people on our side—that feels like enough.

  Dominic was so sure our listeners would be happy for us. I’m not ready for the alternative: that this is over.

  “Is that true, Dominic?” someone asks at the mic, and it’s at this point I realize he still hasn’t said anything. I wanted to fix this for us, but I can’t do it alone. The story doesn’t work if I’m the only one telling it.

  I gesture for him to join me where I’m standing downstage. “Dominic?” I say, forcing more warmth into my voice than I feel. Anxiety is brutal, but I’m suffering up here, too. We are supposed to be a team. He has to realize how important this is. After all, he was the one who suggested going public because he couldn’t bear keeping it a secret any longer.

  Say something, I beg.

  “She’s—we—” he tries. He shakes his head, as though trying to calm himself. “I—” An attempt at a deep breath, a hand pressed to his chest. “The show—”

  The crowd erupts into more shouting, more accusations. We’ve lost them.

  Finally, Dominic gets to his feet. Without a microphone, he utters two words to me, so quietly that only I can hear him: “I’m sorry.”

  And then he rushes offstage.

&nb
sp; 32

  In public radio, thirty seconds is a lifetime. Thirty seconds is long enough for someone to get bored, change the station, switch over to a different podcast. To unsubscribe. Thirty seconds can end a career.

  It took less than thirty seconds for The Ex Talk to collapse.

  Ruthie is the one who finds Kent up in his hotel room. To our shock, he welcomes us in.

  Welcomes us.

  I’m not entirely sure how I made it off the stage. I think Ruthie helped me into a Lyft. I think she directed it to the hotel. Despite knowing that we sucked her into this, Ruthie is still here.

  Dominic is not.

  I shouldn’t be on social media, but I can’t help it. I needed to see how all of this started. It took less than thirty seconds to pull up The Ex Talk’s Twitter feed and find the thread posted before we went live.

  IMPORTANT LISTENER ANNOUNCEMENT

  We’re very sorry to say this, but now that the show has taken off, we feel compelled to tell the truth.

  Shay Goldstein and Dominic Yun were never a real couple. They were coworkers who always had a bit of a friendly rivalry, and we thought it would be easy to pass them off as exes to enhance the premise of this new show. Everything about their past relationship was a complete fabrication.

  Once again, our apologies, and we hope to still see you at our live #PodCon taping.

  Months ago, I convinced myself lying was okay. It was storytelling, wasn’t it? And now the truth’s caught up with us. I’m not sure what’s worse: that everyone knows we’re frauds or that it’s wrecked Dominic so much that he couldn’t even be part of the conversation.

  He and I had a plan. We were cohosts, partners, allies.

  Onstage, we weren’t.

  I’m sitting on one of the hotel room’s queen beds while Kent leans against the desk in the corner, Twitter frantically updating on the computer screen behind him.

  “Look,” Kent says, finally closing the lid of his laptop. “I just need a moment to explain.”