Lucky Caller

by Emma Mills

  It was quiet, all of us standing at the open door to the loading dock watching the car retreat, the night sky clear and dazzling over the athletic fields beyond.

  “We did it,” Joydeep said eventually, hushed. Stunned. “We actually fucking pulled it off.”

  A beat, and then he looked toward Mr. Tucker, sheepish. “Sorry.”

  Mr. Tucker grinned. “You can have that one.”

  63.

  LUCAS POSTED A PICTURE OF him and Dan the next day.

  this dude is siccccccck! Nicest guy and great time with @soundsofthe90s!

  We got several thousand followers within hours. Lucas also linked to The Artful Heart, and Mr. Paint got even more.

  As it turns out, having a pop star randomly show up at your school event makes you into a bit of a viral thing, so viral we went in the days that followed. We were featured on the local news—Mr. Tucker went on to do the interviews—and even got mentioned by some national outlets. We did phone and email interviews with a number of different places—entertainment news sites and the like. An array of headlines followed, accompanied by shaky videos taken by audience members:

  BOY-BANDER LUCAS KIRK SURPRISES HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

  POP STAR DROP-IN SHOCKS STUDENTS AT SCHOOL RADIO EVENT

  THIS IS OUR NOW MEMBER CAUSES FANGIRL FRENZY AT MIDWEST HIGH SCHOOL

  Joydeep linked that one in particular in our group chat:

  I mean I wouldn’t call it a FRENZY

  Kind of reductive

  * * *

  While all of this was underway, there was another major event—the middle school play. After months of preparation, Sidney’s moment was finally here.

  We got seats in the auditorium that were close but not too close to the stage—I don’t want to be able to see you, but I want to know you’re there, Sidney had told my mom.

  So … where would that put us? Like center middle? Mom had replied.

  Center middle it was. We had just settled in—Dan had a big bouquet of roses that he managed to tuck under his seat—when there was a tap on my shoulder.

  I looked back. Jamie was taking a seat directly behind us, Sasha and Joydeep settling in on either side of him.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  “I don’t know about the others, but I’m a big supporter of the theatrical arts,” Joydeep said.

  Jamie smiled. “We thought we’d add to the cheer section for Sidney.”

  All at once, I was flooded with the same feeling as when I opened the door back in eighth grade at the start of our Kingdom revival and saw Jamie in the hallway dressed in full Hapless garb. Like my heart couldn’t fit in my chest. “Thank you.”

  He nodded.

  Sidney was amazing. Star power is how Dan described it afterward. Sidney, still done up in her stage makeup, clutched her bouquet and beamed.

  64.

  MY DAD CALLED ON SUNDAY night, as always.

  He talked to Sidney first, and then to Rose, very briefly. “You guys are all over the internet!” he said, when it was my turn on the phone. “All these people are sending me links to articles and stuff!”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.”

  “Tell me everything.”

  I told Dad what happened. He exclaimed at all the right moments, asked all the right questions, like a good interviewer should.

  “Incredible,” he said when I was done. “Seriously. I’m so happy for you guys.” It was quiet for a moment. “And … I know it sounds like it turned out a million times better than it would have if just plain old me had shown up. But still … sorry I couldn’t get there for you, kid.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No. I said I would, and then…”

  “It’s fine.” A beat. “What are you doing right now?” He was never just on the phone—phone conversations were more of an add-on to something else.

  “Just stopped for gas. These prices, Christ. Maybe I’ll become one of those pricks who go around on racing bikes like they’re in the Tour de France. Get one of those head-to-toe spandex outfits. Neon green.”

  I gave a breath of laughter, and then it was quiet.

  “Hey, Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  I could see him in my mind, standing at a gas pump while his car filled up. Probably afterward he’d go inside and pick up a pack of spearmint gum and some cigarettes. He tried quitting every couple of years—it never stuck for long.

  “Do you remember those bears you got us, with the yellow dresses?”

  “You mean Honey Bear? Of course I do.”

  Irrational tears pricked my eyes. “I can’t find mine.”

  “Yeah, ’cause it’s here.”

  That was it. I remembered. Of course it was.

  “Remember you left it when I moved out here? To keep me company? Well, and keep you company too I guess, when you visit, but I will admit I co-opted it. I actually keep it on my desk in my office. Reminds me of my girls.”

  I swallowed. “I forgot about that.”

  “Well, that’s where it’s at. Why do you ask?”

  I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “Just wondering.”

  65.

  MOM WAS SITTING AT THE dining room table a little later that night, laptop open, a thick book titled GRE PREP PLUS open next to it. Sidney and Rose were both in our room, working on homework.

  I was on the couch, flipping through TV channels. I had homework too, but it was very hard to find the motivation. Instead I went back and forth between a reality show about a pet salon and a sitcom rerun.

  We had been to the usual Sunday night dinner at Dan’s earlier in the evening, before Dad had called. I had tried to give Dan an envelope containing the Camera Repair Fund. He had long since fixed it, but I figured it was better late than never.

  “This is really kind of you,” he had said, “but it’s not necessary.”

  “I know that. But … I broke it, so it’s my responsibility.”

  Dan had considered this for a moment, and then nodded, taking the envelope. “Thank you, Nina. I really appreciate that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  A moment later, a smile teased his lips. “By the way, did I mention I had an early graduation present for you?” he had said, and then handed the envelope back.

  I looked over at my mom now. She had her glasses on—green plastic with gold accents. She only used them for reading. Right now she was peering at her computer screen, brows furrowed slightly, eyes searching.

  “I found a tape,” I said.

  “Hm?”

  “I found a tape. When I was looking in the storage room.”

  Mom looked over. The readers magnified her eyes.

  “Oh?”

  “Conrad and Mickey: The Supercut. It was from when you and Dad met, on the radio.”

  “Ah.” A pause. “His producer made that for us, for our wedding. Tracked down a recording of the call.”

  “Producer Shoebox?”

  “The very one. He was your father’s best man.”

  “How was his speech?”

  “As terrible as you’d expect.”

  “Sound effects?”

  “Without the soundboard, he resorted to doing them himself.”

  “Yikes.”

  Mom took off her glasses, hooked them on the collar of her shirt. “Is that what you’ve been listening to with that Walkman?”

  “Yeah.” I flipped channels again, and the sitcom laugh track burst to life. “I liked hearing it. Even if you weren’t the lucky caller.”

  “I was, though.”

  I looked over. “But you didn’t win. That was the whole point, right?”

  “No,” she said, considering. “I never got tickets. I always called and missed out, that’s true. But I got him to pick up the phone. And because of that, and because of that stupid conversation—” She smiled a little, like she was remembering. I can’t give tickets away to every girl whose voice I like. “Well, we met. And we went out, and everything
that happened after … everything, all of it, even the bad parts, it led us to you. And that was lucky, Nina. The luckiest thing that ever happened to me.”

  I thought of what Sasha had said: It doesn’t devalue what you had with them, the stuff you experienced, the time you spent together. That’s still valid, even if it wasn’t built to last. It’s not any less significant.

  I swallowed, and for a second the coffee shop scene on TV went blurry.

  “I’m glad you called,” I said.

  “Me too.”

  The sitcom guy spilled a cup of coffee on himself, and the audience exploded into hysterics again.

  “And I’m glad Dan showed up on your online dating algorithm thing,” I continued. “Because he’s nice. And I like him.”

  Mom smiled. “I like him too.”

  It was quiet for a little while after that.

  “What show were you trying to see?” I said eventually.

  “Sorry?”

  “The tickets. On the radio, when you called Dad. What concert was it?”

  “Oh.” Mom paused. “Well, I called in a lot, to be honest, but I think that time…”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I was young, keep that in mind.”

  “What was it?”

  “I was, uh, twenty-two at the time?”

  “Mom.”

  “It was tickets to see *NSYNC. The No Strings Attached tour. I was gonna take your aunt with me and we were going to get Joey Fatone to fall in love with one of us.”

  “Wow.” I bit back a smile. “I’m sorry we deprived you of that.”

  “I can find it in my heart to forgive you,” she said with a grin.

  66.

  Joydeep: You’re listening to 98.9 The Jam, the voice of the Meridian North Bobcats, and this is Sounds of the Nineties.

  Sasha: Hello to all the new listeners out there. There are … definitely a lot of you, which is very cool.

  Joydeep: Very very cool. And guess who’s definitely not stuck paying for everyone’s prom tickets?

  Sasha: Who would that be?

  Joydeep: This guy. For the benefit of the listeners out there, I’m pointing to myself.

  Sasha: Thanks for clearing that up.

  Joydeep: You see, I had this bet going with my friends—

  Sasha: Should we really be getting into that right now?

  Joydeep: No, probably not. But anyway, thanks very much, listeners!

  Sasha: So tonight we’re going to be playing a recording from our recent live event, with special guests Dr. Dan Hubler and Lucas Kirk from This Is Our Now.

  Joydeep: Yeah, so if you missed it, you can hear how it went. I think it went pretty well, personally.

  Sasha: I think so too.

  Joydeep: You did a great job interviewing.

  Sasha: As did you.

  Joydeep: You know, this is nice. This is a nice feeling in the studio right now.

  Sasha: [laughing] Okay.

  Joydeep: I like this for us.

  Sasha: Let’s just play the recording.

  67.

  JOYDEEP REFERRED TO THAT EVENING’S show as our “victory lap.” We filled the remainder of the time with Existential Dead songs, in tribute. It seemed only right.

  When we were packing up, I noticed a text from Rose:

  Running late at work! Be there soon!

  So I took my time gathering my stuff. Sasha bid us all goodbye and headed out, but Joydeep lingered, shouldering his backpack and looking between Jamie and me. “Hey, did you guys happen to listen to Cat Chat this week?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh. It was a pretty good episode. I mean, not good good, since it’s Cat Chat and all, but … There was one interesting question. I downloaded it, and uh, you guys should listen to it before you go. I got it all queued up, just have to—” He reached over, tapped a key on the keyboard, and Colby’s voice filtered into the room.

  “—so I guess I’d say, it’s not the best idea ever, but it’s probably worth a try?”

  “See you guys,” Joydeep said with an enigmatic smile, and then he headed out.

  “We’ve got another question here,” Sammy was saying, “from someone who calls themselves a longtime listener, longtime question asker. Dear Cat Chat. I have two friends—”

  “Wow, good for you.”

  “Colby!”

  “Sorry.” His voice came close, like his lips were right on the mic as he whispered, “Not sorry.”

  “I have two friends,” Sammy began again, louder, “who are obviously into each other.”

  Something in my stomach swooped. I locked my eyes on the soundboard.

  “Something happened between them when they were younger—I don’t know what. All I know is that one of them is always looking at the other when they think they’re not looking. They both think no one else has noticed, but literally everyone around them notices. They get along really well. They both have the same weird sense of humor. Or at least, maybe different weird senses of humor that are compatible with each other.

  “These days, they look at each other with extra sad eyes, and it’s really annoying. I’ve encouraged each person to talk to the other, but they don’t. They talk to me instead, and even though I’m undeniably brilliant—” She snorted. “There’s only so much I can do. How do I get these two people to admit to each other that they want to—” Sammy cut off, made a strange noise.

  “You have to say it,” Colby said.

  “I don’t think I can say that on-air.”

  “‘Bone down,’” Colby said, enunciating very clearly. “It says ‘bone down.’”

  “Colby!”

  “It says it!”

  A heavy sigh. “Signed, Sick of the Lovesick. P.S. Thank you, Cat Chat, for providing advice to students and the community at large. Your show is, if I had to say it”—Sammy’s voice flattened—“not that terrible, or whatever.” A pause. “Gee, thanks.” Another pause. “So what do you think?”

  Jamie moved abruptly, crossed over to the computer—

  “Well, I think that—”

  He shut off the audio.

  “Don’t you want to hear the advice?” I said.

  “It’s … No, I mean, it’s not…” He looked over at me. “Do you want to hear the advice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to hear what they should do. Like … what they think the people should do.”

  “They shouldn’t do anything.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked away. “Because it’s not…” A beat. “Because … maybe one of them feels that way, but they know that it’s … one-sided. That the other person just wants to be friends. And that’s—” He swallowed. “That’s totally fine.”

  I blinked.

  I was the person who said, I’ll always be your friend, and Jamie was the person who said, Yeah.

  “That’s not what they meant,” I said. “They didn’t meant it like just friends, they were saying … that’s not what they were saying.”

  One corner of Jamie’s mouth lifted. “You seem to know a lot about this random person’s intentions.”

  I let out a breath, almost a laugh but not quite. I looked at him for a moment.

  “I have to say something,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  I didn’t speak.

  “Definitely … feel free.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t just…”

  “You said you had to say something!”

  “I do, I can, I just…” I flapped my hands. “Can you just, like. Not look at me or something?”

  Jamie’s look of confusion softened slightly, and he turned his gaze to the ceiling.

  “Don’t look back till I say, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And don’t say anything. Until I finish saying it. The thing I have to say.”

  He nodded, face still turned up. I could see the underside of his chin, and something about it was weirdly vulnerable.
<
br />   “You promise?”

  He nodded again.

  “I missed you,” I said. “So much.”

  He didn’t speak. But that was okay, I had told him not to. I took a breath and went on:

  “I … didn’t realize how much. And it’s not that it went away, like I ever stopped missing you, it’s that I got used to it, and once we started … all this … it was like I remembered how much you … like what a big part of everything you were. Are. I don’t want it to be weird between us if I say the thing I’m going to say, but you can mean it lots of ways, you know, so just know that when I say it, I mean it all the ways.”

  Jamie’s throat bobbed on a swallow, but his gaze never wavered from the ceiling.

  “When I say I love you, Jamie, I mean it as my friend, and I mean it as a Sounds of the Nineties team member, and as a neighbor, and as a bagel maker—” He laughed. “And as a coworker, and as a good person, a kind person, as Prince Hapless, as you. When we were little kids, before I even knew what it was, and now. Now I love you how … how you love someone that you’re in love with. Also. There’s also that.

  “So when I said that I’d always be your friend, I meant that … I always want to be there for you, no matter what. No matter which way. And if you don’t feel the same way, that’s okay. I understand. I’ll just … keep on loving you. All those other ways.”

  He didn’t speak, didn’t move. Just blinked up at the ceiling. He was the same Prince Hapless who stayed unconscious just because my sister told him to, who didn’t break during our final game, even when I was probably the last person in the world he wanted to be around.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s … that’s it. That’s what I wanted to say. So … you can. Talk now. If you want.”

  He looked at me. I couldn’t parse the expression on his face.

  “Are you going to say something?”

  “Yeah, I mean.” He nodded. “Same.”

  I blinked. “That’s it? Same?” I shook my head. “You don’t—I mean, if you don’t feel the same way that’s totally okay, but what do you mean by same, what is that, why would you—”

  “Because I feel the same,” he said, stepping closer, a grin spreading across his face. Radiant, a Lucas Kirk kind of pop-star smile—one that could pin you to the floor from a thousand feet away. “And I thought it would be funny.”