Love on the Air (7 page)

The idea was simple enough. Maybe he'd thought
of it before. Maybe that was why he showed almost
no expression until she finished.

"Christie-" he said when she was done. He fingered the handle of the omnipresent black coffee cup,
and sighed. "Time for a lesson in Ugly Radio Reality."

She had the feeling he'd be able to mop her up like
so much spilled coffee by the time this was over.

Rick tried not to notice the vulnerable look on her
face, or the way her light green sweater brought out
the burnished shades of her hair. He cleared his throat.

"Radio stations," he said, "are programmed a certain
way. We actually have more freedom here than they
do in Los Angeles. There, it's all done by consultants.
The program director gets the play list-boom. Done.
That's why those L.A. stations have that uniform
sound."

"With the same few songs. It drives me nuts."

"But it works. The ugly truth is, people want to hear
the familiar. They'll say they want more variety, but
if they hear something they don't know, their first urge
is to change the station. Which is exactly what we
don't want them to do."

"You're saying new songs scare people away?" The
idea visibly incensed her.

Rick nodded. "I don't like it any better than you do.
But it's true."

"So that's why most of what we play is at least ten
years old."

"You got it."

Christie moved forward slightly in her chair, her
hair just brushing the shoulders of the soft-looking
sweater. "But we do add new songs eventually."

"And ever so carefully."

"So what's wrong with me prescreening a couple?
Wouldn't that help give you an idea which songs the
listeners are more receptive to?"

Her eyes were full of purpose, and hope. Yvonne
was right. Christie was sharp. But it was her determination that would take her far. Unfortunately, all
that ambition had to be tempered with reality. And he
had the dirty job of dishing it out.

"We have the trade magazines for that. And-"

"And?"

With another deep sigh, he leaned back in his chair,
reluctantly meeting her eyes as he prepared to give her
another dose of disillusionment. "Ugly Radio Truth
Number Two. Have you noticed what kind of listeners
call on your shift?"

Rick watched her wince, and knew he'd hit home.
The overnight audience consisted largely of drunks,
depressed people with no lives, and a lot more who
were just plain-strange. "Overnight listeners are a
different breed. They're not really... representative of
our main audience."

"So what are overnights for?" She didn't quite hide
the frustration in her voice, but it was a good try.

He looked at the pretty redhead perched on the chair
in front of him. No wonder he'd avoided her. She was
a fascinating mix of determination and vulnerability.
He admired the determination, but the vulnerability
killed him.

That wouldn't do. He collected his thoughts and
dealt the final blow.

"Overnights? They're life support for the station,"
he answered flatly. "Radio is a twenty-four hour business, so we need a live body on the premises twentyfour hours a day. It's also a place where advertisers
can buy commercial time at inexpensive rates. And,
of course, if there's ever a fire or flood, we're the local
Emergency Alert station."

"So I'm here in case of a disaster." Christie maintained eye contact, but her glassy look struck right at
the center of Rick's conscience. He'd been way too
blunt. There was a difference between being realistic
and being sadistic.

Rick contemplated her steadily, and his voice softened. "No. It's also a place where talented newcomers
can sharpen their craft. Make all those beginner's mistakes in front of a smaller audience. It's a starting
point."

Christie thought she was beginning to read his expression, and it looked suspiciously like compassion.
Just what she didn't want. She scraped up her remaining dignity and stood.

"Okay," she said. "Fair enough." She faked a smile.
"It doesn't hurt to ask, right?"

Rick stood, too. Another display of gentlemanly
manners. "No, it doesn't hurt to ask." He looked as if
he were going to say something more. For no good
reason, Christie flashed back to the way he'd steadied
her after their crash in the break room. Yet for the
most part, it seemed his mission in life was to cut her
off at the knees.

He was talking again, something about not needing
to set the world on fire her first month. She didn't want
to hear it. All she wanted was to get out of there.

She didn't need anyone to feel sorry for her. She
could do it herself, thank you very much. She hurried
out to find a place where she could do just that, in
private.

Rick returned to the production room to record the
commercial he'd been too tongue-tied to finish after
his collision with Christie. This time he did it in one
take, but his mind was elsewhere.

He'd given his troublesome rookie her first disappointment. Well, at least she hadn't taken it out on
him, although he could tell she'd been tempted. She'd
put a good face on, the way professionals were supposed to do. And he'd given her the right answer, the
same answer he would have given any other jock. He
wasn't any harder on Christie than he was on anyone
else.

Was he?

Hard to say. No one else had approached him about
anything similar. Rob had his requests and dedications. Yvonne did a noon feature on Fridays, one hour
that he let her have free rein with. Of course, Yvonne
had more experience.

Okay, so Christie's idea, kept within limits,
wouldn't have hurt anything. Major-market stations
weren't as flexible as this one. He'd given her a realistic idea of what she could expect somewhere else.

He loaded the commercial into the computer and
went back to his office for his jacket. Picking it up from the back of his chair, he looked up to see Christie
framed in the doorway. If it was possible, she looked
more crestfallen than she had a few minutes ago.

She said, "Do you have jumper cables?"

Rick almost laughed. He understood the look on
Christie's face perfectly. It was such a clear-cut case
of adding insult to injury.

"I tried Rob first," she added.

I'm sure you did, he thought. "Wouldn't have
worked anyway. I don't think we have a song long
enough for him to get clear over to the parking structure and jump a car." Rick picked up his keys. "It's
okay, I've got cables. Let's go."

Christie led him out, and Rick noticed again how
straight her posture was when her pride was wounded.
"Thanks," the back of her head said to him. "I thought
it was starting a little funny, but..." she trailed off.

"I've been there. Everyone has."

That did it for conversation until Rick drove them
to Christie's car. Her Toyota had to be fifteen years
old if it was a day. It was a bright shade of blue rarely
seen on the road these days. A typical car for a disc jockey, but not for a loan processor. Rick suddenly
felt something akin to embarrassment over his car, a
three-year-old sedan he'd bought just last year. Up until he'd financially recovered from the divorce, he'd
driven a car much like Christie's. But she didn't know
that.

He'd barely stopped before she scrambled out of his
car. Rick caught up with her as she was starting to
open the hood of her old Toyota. "I can get it," he
said.

"The latch is tricky," she said, groping underneath
the hood. When she pulled it up, he was surprised at
what he saw. He didn't know much about cars, but
the parts inside lacked the look of age and grime he'd
expected. "How old is this car?"

"It's an '85. I bought it used when I was seventeen."

"Looks like you've taken pretty good care of it."

"It didn't look like this when I bought it. I paid for
the car, but my dad did all the work."

There was something final-sounding about her use
of the past tense. Rick looked at Christie, but her eyes
were on the engine. The car would never be a classic,
but it clearly meant something to her. He wanted to
ask, but something stopped him. Instead, he got the
cables and hooked up the cars. By the time the Toyota
roared to life, the obvious had occurred to him.

Without disconnecting the jumper cables, he went
to Christie's window on the driver's side. "We have a
problem here," he said. "Where do you go now?"

"Why?" There was a hint of challenge in her tone.
Rick could imagine what she was thinking: as far
away from you as possible.

He rested his hand on the door. "We don't know if
your battery's even charging. You could lose your
headlights, maybe lose power altogether. There's no
telling if you'd make it home or not." He sighed. Letting Christie out on the road, no matter how badly she
wanted to go, just wasn't an option. And she was supposed to be on the air in a few hours. This was getting
complicated. "You shouldn't be driving this car at all.
Not until you get it checked."

He was glad the two cars were still attached by the
cables. If Christie could have pulled away, he was sure
she would have. It was a good thing she was reasonable enough not to drive off, cables and all. His exwife might have.

Christie's voice sounded carefully neutral. "What do
you suggest?"

"I know a good repair shop in town. We can leave
your car there, drop a key through the slot in the door
and have them working on it tomorrow morning." Silence. He reiterated, "You can't drive this car over the
hill. It's not safe."

Her hands were clenched on the wheel. "So how do
I-',

Here was where it got tricky. "Well," he said, "I,
for one, think better on a full stomach. Why don't we
get a bite to eat?"

Silence. Except for the two cars idling in the background.

"Look," he said. "I know this is awkward. But I'm
starved, and it'll give us a chance to sort this out."

Christie looked at him directly for the first time
since this debacle started. Those pretty hazel eyes were still full of frustration, but at least not all of it seemed
to be directed at him. "Rick, you don't have to do
this."

He couldn't always read women very well, but at
the moment, Christie was coming in loud and clear.
She was stranded, a damsel in distress. And it galled
the heck out of her.

He respected that need for independence, but somehow, it made him want to take care of her, too. A little
warning bell sounded in the back of Rick's mind. He
ignored it for the moment. The situation was getting
touchy, but there were certain things he just wouldn't
do. Leaving Christie stuck in an untrustworthy car was
one of them.

"Look at it this way," he told her. "I was about to
go home to microwave dinner-in-a-box. You're rescuing me.

"But. . ." She was running out of arguments.

"Besides," he said, "I've never known a woman yet
who could resist Chinese food." He knew of a place
nearby. It was brightly lit, and platonic.

At last, Christie relented. "Okay."

The restaurant was just a few blocks from the station and looked as if it had been there for at least
twenty years. Most of the tables were empty, not surprisingly; it was a quarter to nine. By Christie's calculations, she had a little over two hours to fill before
she could reasonably escape back to the station to do
her commercials, and then her air shift.

She was still smarting from the meeting in Rick's
office. Now she was also squirming over the new sit uation she found herself in. The drive to the restaurant,
at least, had been fairly painless. It seemed as if the
farther Rick got from the station, the less-well, managerial-he became. But Christie couldn't afford to
forget he was the boss. This night had already taken
enough twists as it was.

"I imagine they'll have your car ready by early afternoon," Rick said as the waitress brought their food. "I'll give Sid a call in the morning."

"You know them there?"

He grinned. "Intimately." He spooned rice onto his
plate. "You should have seen what I was driving a
year ago. I was over there almost every other week. I
practically had my own parking space."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. But the car I drove when I first started
in radio was worse." He shook his head, pleasant crinkles showing at the corners of his eyes. "The ugliest
green rust bucket you ever saw."

Christie looked up from her cashew chicken, intrigued. It was hard to imagine this was the same man
who'd trashed her idea so soundly a little while ago.
His whole demeanor had warmed up about ten degrees
sometime in the last hour. She had the feeling of some
door being opened a little crack, and decided to try
for a peek inside. "How did you get started in radio?"

"You could say I stumbled in." Rick gave the contents of his plate a light dousing of soy sauce. "I was
in college. A music major. But for one of my electives,
I signed up for the school paper. One of my first assignments was a story on the campus radio station. I
wound up quitting the paper and joining the station. A year later, I got a full-time gig in Fresno and quit
school." His smile glinted across the table, and he nodded at her. "Overnights."