by Sara Whitney
“So, you scoped out my replacements yet?”
“I’m leaving that to il Duce over there.” Dave jabbed his thumb to where Brandon was laughing with two pneumatically gifted women.
“He’s certainly some kind of Duce,” Mabel grumbled.
“Damn straight,” Dave said.
“Hi!”
All three of them jumped at the chipper voice behind them. It was Thea. Of course. Because this night wasn’t spiraling down the toilet quickly enough.
“Hi, Jakey!” She stretched up to give him a quick hug, which Jake accepted with all the pliability of a two-by-four.
Sliding his eyes to Mabel, he gestured toward the brunette pixie in the barely-there black dress. “Guys, this is Thea. My neighbor.”
“Hi, everyone!” She waved, then clapped her hands together and twisted them nervously. Three seconds later, she looked down, seemed to notice the movement, and forced her palms down against her thighs.
Mabel stepped forward. “Hi, Thea. I’m Mae Bell.” Her dangerously syrupy words poured from an insincerely smiling mouth. “Since you know Jakey already, can I introduce you to my former cohost Dave?”
Thea gave an excited shriek and tossed up her arms. “You’re Dave! You’re as cute as I pictured! I soooooo hope Brandon gives me an on-air tryout with you!”
She beamed up at him, and Dave, who apparently had never gotten the hang of the insincere radio personality smile, gave her a weak approximation that made him look like a man contemplating extensive dental surgery. But he recovered his composure and dodged Thea’s outstretched arms before they could wrap him in a hug too.
“Brandon’s the man with the plan, so you’ll have to chat with him about that,” he boomed in his most obnoxious Big Time Radio Host voice, pointing her in the direction of the booth. “Nice to meet you! Bye now!”
“Oooh, thanks!” Thea called, scanning the bar like a Terminator before heading off to seek new prey.
Once she was gone, Dave turned to Mabel in desperation. “We have got to get you back on the morning show.”
Aiden rejoined the group in time to hear Mabel say, “Yeah, all that exposed flesh so early in the morning will be really distracting.”
“Doesn’t matter. Mabel’s the hottest woman here,” Aiden announced.
Mabel rolled her eyes and smacked his arm while Jake drained his bottle. If he didn’t exit this situation immediately, his jealousy might just bubble over until his fists made Aiden’s face a lot less pretty.
“I’m going to circulate,” he announced. “Dave, Mabel, good luck getting through the rest of the auditions.”
When he cut his eyes to Aiden, his hands curled into fists, and he turned and stalked away, plunging into the crowd to track down Milo and Robbie. He was willing to interrupt any amount of licking if it meant he no longer had to be part of the couple he’d just left behind.
He found his buddies standing near the station booth, Brick Babe contestants circling like june bugs. Milo hooked an elbow around Jake’s neck. “Best night ever! I think I’d like living here!”
Jake half-heartedly clinked his empty bottle against Milo’s, but before he could respond, a woman wiggled between them, shoving Milo aside so she could wrap her lean, tan arm around Jake’s waist.
“Hey, handsome! Are you with the station?” She pursed her glossy peach lips and leaned into him.
“Ah, no—” he started to say, but Robbie jumped in and hollered, “Hell yes, he is!”
“Great!” She fluttered her lashes like she was trying to kick-start a tidal wave. “I’m Wendy, and I’d be a great Brick Babe. Wanna know why?”
“No,” Jake said flatly, looking over her head at Milo. An undercurrent passed between them, one forged in the fires of countless crowded Chicago bars at which Jake had perfected the art of tactfully directing any woman approaching him with a gleam in her eye to his eternally receptive friend. But tonight Milo seemed to be the only one with any tact.
“Tell me instead, beautiful,” Milo said, smoothly leading the blonde toward the opposite end of the station table where Brandon was, in fact, making notes on a clipboard in the middle of a dozen or so number-sporting women. Jake’s old roommate sent him a sloppy smile and an even sloppier salute, and Jake grimaced in return. He turned to look for Robbie, but as he did, he spotted a different blonde. Mabel, frozen in place across the room.
Their gazes locked, and all the sound in the bar dropped away as he stared into her wide eyes. His old friend panic came roaring back as he considered how this must look. He was standing in the middle of the hot-girl applicant pool, and Mabel undoubtedly thought he was an enthusiastic participant. He hadn’t taken the chance to explain himself to her, hadn’t tried to make her understand why an event like this didn’t have the power to move him at all while one single word from her lips could make him tremble.
His first instinct was to cross the room and lay it all out for her: how rare his attraction to her was, how devastating it had been to lose her before they’d even begun, how much he still wanted to be with her. But he forced his feet to stay planted on the sticky floor. She wanted to keep things polite and professional? She wanted to hit the bar with some new guy? Then she could goddamn well deal with him trying to pick up his life and move forward too.
When the crowd around him shifted, it broke the spell, and Mabel blinked and turned her head sharply to laugh at something her date said.
Her fucking date.
Screw politeness. This was a hot, crowded nightmare, and nothing about his night would be improved by sticking around. “I’m going,” he called to Robbie and Milo over the bass thumping from the speakers six feet away.
“You sure?” Robbie swiped his sleeve across his sweaty forehead and gestured around them. “Lots of ladies here. Lots more fish in the sea.”
“Nah, not for Jake. He’s picky,” Milo said lightly, and a slight bit of tension in Jake’s chest eased at having a friend in town who got him without the need for a long conversation. Then Milo followed Jake’s gaze across the bar to where Mabel was whispering with Aiden.
“Is that her?” Milo moved to stand next to him. When Jake nodded, Milo looked back at her and her date. “Christ. No wonder you haven’t wanted to talk about it.” Then he turned to Robbie. “Hey, man, we’re gonna call it a night. Maybe grab some burgers on the way home. You good here?”
“Oh yeah,” Robbie said, casting his eyes toward Bettie Page, who smiled back shyly from a few feet away. “I’m good. You guys go ahead.”
Without bothering to say any additional goodbyes, Jake and Milo weaved through the press of sweaty bodies to reach the cool evening air. Once they were buckled into his Jeep, Jake rubbed his ears, which still throbbed from the blaring dance music.
“So do you want to talk about it now?” Milo asked as Jake put the car in drive and left the parking lot.
“I chose work when it mattered.” He kept his eyes on the twin circles of yellow his headlights splashed on the road. “I wasn’t wrong to do it, but at the same time she wasn’t wrong to be hurt by it.” He clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. “I guess in the end, she was my person but I wasn’t hers.”
Milo exhaled but said nothing, and Jake was grateful. They drove through the dark streets of Beaucoeur in silence.
As Milo snored on his couch that night, Jake tossed his phone from hand to hand, then tapped out a message and hit Send before his better instincts could wave him off.
So that was awkward.
The whoosh sounded, and he dropped the phone on the mattress as if it had burned him. So much for keeping his distance. But it was the only way he could think to say, “I didn’t like the way tonight went down and also please don’t still be with that guy.”
Just when he was starting to worry that she’d blocked his number, the phone buzzed, and he snatched it up.
Mabel: Nah. Seeing you surrounded by women just reminded me of a joke.
Jake: A joke?
Yeah, ton
ight had been a joke, and not a very funny one. But that’s not what she meant.
Mabel: What do you call an accountant who’s spotted talking to someone else?
Jake: What?
Mabel: Popular.
Triumph burned through his veins. If she was texting him, that likely meant she wasn’t still with Murdoch. And he could play this game. He could play this game all night.
Jake: Okay, Bowen. How many deejays does it take to change a light bulb?
Mabel: How many??
Jake: None. Nobody wants to turn on a light and see their faces anyway.
Mabel: Gasp! How do you drive an accountant insane?
Jake: Text him bad jokes?
Mabel: No! Tie him to a chair, stand in front of him, and fold up a map the wrong way.
He groaned. He actually groaned out loud in his bedroom, not from the corniness of the joke but from the thought of Mabel and ropes and a chair. Instead of begging her to do just that, he returned fire.
Jake: You asked for it: Knock, knock.
Twenty minutes later, he couldn’t stop smiling because Mabel wasn’t spending the night with her date. She was spending it texting with him.
Not very professional. But he didn’t care.
Twenty-Five
Mabel was stretched out on the greenroom couch on a Monday in early November when Dave slouched in wearing a rumpled shirt and a weary expression.
“What’s up?” She put down the magazine she was reading. “You look like hell.”
Dave batted at her legs until she lifted them enough for him to slide underneath. “Just tired.”
She craned her neck to look at him more closely. The skin under his eyes was dark, and lines bracketed his mouth.
“It’s more than that.” She nudged his side with her ankle. “What’s up?”
Dave’s hands tensed around her shins, and he dropped his head against the couch and closed his eyes. “This Brick Babe cohost situation has been such a time suck. Each Babe who’s interested gets a one-week tryout, but I’m spending at least a couple of days beforehand showing them around the studio, explaining the equipment, running down how you and I always prepped. And then they get in front of the microphone and malfunction like faulty droids.”
She waved her arms like C-3PO and intoned, “Danger. Dave. Robinson” in her best robot voice.
But the topic wrapped its arms around her and refused to let go. Brandon had selected fifteen women to be Brick Babes last month, and they’d all been quickly outfitted with a variety of tiny WNCB T-shirts and slapped across the station’s social media sites. Of the fifteen chosen, only six were interested in an on-air tryout once they learned about the wake-up call for a morning show. The tryouts had been disasters so far, and each one had Mabel feeling worse than the last, so she changed the subject. “Did Thing Two ever shake his cough?”
Dave scrubbed his hands through his hair. “No. He’s still hacking all night, and now Thing One’s caught it. I can’t remember the last time Ana and I got more than three consecutive hours of sleep.”
Mabel made a sympathetic face at him, then got distracted when her phone vibrated. She fished it from her pocket and smiled at the Barbarian Time Brigands meme Jake had texted her. Over the past few weeks, they’d fallen into a texting relationship—light, funny stuff and jokes about their favorite TV show, none of it serious—and somehow the buzzing of her phone had turned into the highlight of her day.
She turned her screen to show the image to Dave, who was also a huge BTB fan, but he only offered a thin smile.
“Seriously, what’s your deal?” she asked, setting her phone down.
“Nothing. It’s just… life is so short, you know? I want to spend it being happy.”
The huge sigh he gave might as well have come from the soles of his feet, and Mabel swung her legs around so she could sit up and face him. “I know. We’ll get me back on the morning show somehow.”
Dave squeezed her shoulder, then deftly maneuvered behind her to swipe her place on the couch.
“Mmmm. Warm spot.” He crossed his ankles and assumed his favorite napping position, nudging her to the edge of the cushion.
She rolled her eyes. Apparently sharing and caring time was over.
That afternoon she stepped into the studio to devise the latest plan for her upcoming shift. She’d been doing her best over the past month to do such a subtly shitty job that Brandon wouldn’t be happy with her performance but he wouldn’t be able to complain about anything specific. She was actually pretty proud of herself. It took skill to bring the wrong type of energy to an afternoon show by keeping her voice just perky enough and her delivery a shade below frenetic. She knew damn well people should be winding down at the end of the day, not ramping up with a manic pixie radio girl, but Brandon didn’t know she knew it.
And then there was her second wave of attack: playing the worst music in the universe. Last week she’d worked through the unknown B-sides and deep cuts of every one-hit wonder of the past three decades, which absolutely nobody was clamoring for. She didn’t have a good idea yet for this week, so she browsed through the music list, hoping inspiration would strike.
In the end, she was stuck with a plan she came up with that wasn’t her best sabotage attempt to date, but hey, you couldn’t win ’em all. She just needed to keep her ratings low so Brandon would acknowledge that he’d made a mistake and put her back with Dave. Any little bit would help.
At the top of the hour, she fired up the microphone and modulated her voice for extra chirpiness.
“Hey, hey, hey, Beaucoeur! It’s Mae Bell here, and can you believe I’m starting my second month flying solo in the afternoons? Cuh-razy! So as you’ve noticed, you’re hearing a little less from me and a little more music. Now that I’m free of Dave’s morning-show music monopoly, you’re definitely hearing some different tunes. So let’s kick things off with Filter’s cover of ‘One’ from The X-Files movie soundtrack followed by the Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy.” Then we’ll see where the afternoon takes us.”
She hit the button to start the song and sagged back into her chair. Five minutes down; two hundred and thirty-five to go.
At the start of her third hour on air, she received a visitor as she pondered which version of “Space Oddity” to play.
“Mabel.” Brandon, impeccably turned out as always, lurked in the doorway. “Just coming to check on my programming brainstorm, make sure you’re properly motivated to succeed in this time slot.”
“Look at me, motivated as heck.” Mabel beamed. “Hey, which lost-in-space-all-alone song do you like better, ‘Space Oddity’ by Bowie or ‘Major Tom’ by Peter Schilling?”
He smiled thinly. “‘With or Without You,’ ‘Alone’ by Heart. I see what you’re doing.”
“Don’t forget Whitesnake’s ‘Here I Go Again (on my own)’!” she singsonged.
“Stop being cute.”
Mabel’s eyes glittered. “Stop trying to dictate my playlist. I have two more hours’ worth of music scheduled and your word that we’re free to choose our music.”
Brandon started to speak, but Mabel brandished a silencing finger and held his gaze as she flipped on the mic. “Thanks for tuning in tonight, my besties! I’m keeping the music going for your drive home, and right now here’s Har Mar Superstar with ‘Alone Again (Naturally).’”
She turned the mic off. “I’m sorry, you were saying something about going back on your promise to let us program our own shows?”
All traces of patience fell from Brandon’s expression, and he moved to face her over the soundboard. “I get it. The shitty music, the chipper-bimbo delivery. You don’t want the show to work. But the thing is, I do.” He sighed. “You can be great in this slot. I want that for you. But if you truly don’t want it, I’ll replace you with somebody who does. Please don’t make me do that.”
Her throat grew tighter and tighter as he spoke. He saw straight through her. Of course he did; he’d grown up around his family’s radio
stations, he knew the business inside and out, and he had the money and influence to crush her like a bug if that’s what he decided to do. She didn’t want this shift, but she sure as hell didn’t want to be out of a job either.
But to admit a single fault to this man who’d blown up her life was unfathomable, so she responded the only way she knew how: by lifting her chin and blustering through it. “You don’t like my on-air style? I’m wounded.”
Brandon drummed his fingers on the countertop and stared at her until she squirmed. “I honestly don’t know if you really can’t see all the potential you’re squandering here or if you’re just too stubborn to admit it. Whatever the case, this is your last chance to do your job.”
“Hey, I—” Mabel was about to argue that she had been doing her job, but that was a lie. She’d abandoned her professionalism the moment she’d started broadcasting solo.
Brandon was right. She was wrong. Shit.
“Okay.” She sucked in a deep breath and forced out an apology. “I’m sorry. I’ll play it straight from now on.”
“Glad to hear it.” Brandon leaned down so their heads were level. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll be dynamite on your own.”
Then he smiled, a real smile, and the expression was so shockingly open that she was startled into offering him a real smile of her own.
“Thanks,” she said, then narrowed her eyes. “But I’ll be playing Beck’s ‘Go It Alone’ next.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Fine. But it’s your last free pass, and I’m only allowing it because damn, do I love that crazy Scientologist. Oh, and you’ve given away too many free tickets to the I Love the 90s music fest next month. Any more and they’re coming out of your paycheck.”
With that, he turned and left the booth, shaking his hips a little in time with the music as Mabel stared after him in confusion. A reprimand, a pep talk, and another reprimand in a six-minute span? Her head spun. Still, she kept her word, playing it straight for the rest of her shift and refraining from awarding any more free tickets. She relaxed her delivery style, letting a little languor creep into her voice. She took listener requests and picked music she actually enjoyed listening to. And throughout the show, all she could hear were Dave’s words from earlier that day: Life is so short, you know? I want to spend it being happy.
