Love on the Air (8 page)

"You left college to do overnights in Fresno?" It
didn't fit her impression of him. He was too straightlaced, too well-ordered. The only male at the station,
outside of sales or upper management, who wore shirts
that buttoned down the front.

He nodded. "I told you, it's an addiction. There was
no reasoning with me. For actors, they say it's the
smell of greasepaint. For me, I guess it was the music
and the microphone."

"So how long did it take before you were doing
nights in L.A.?"

Rick's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. His eyes
shifted away, as if he'd been caught at something. "How did you know that?"

"I heard you. I went to UCLA."

"And you remembered?" He looked flattered, she
thought, and a little self-conscious. Then a new expression crossed his face-one of mock horror. "And
you were still in college?" He clutched at his chest.
"Oh, the pain."

"What's the big deal? That was only-" she hesitated-"five or six years ago."

Rick narrowed his eyes at her. "You're not making
it any better."

"Oh, come on! How old would you have been
then?"

"Watch it," he warned.

"I'd say right now you're about-"

"Careful," he said. "No buttering up the boss."

Uh-oh. Now she didn't dare guess too low. She took
a guess and added a year for credibility. "Thirty-four?"

"Thirty-three," he shot back, then grinned. "Anyway, I don't think it's legal for you to ask me that."

Christie did the math. He was seven years older than
she was. Or, six years and change. Not that it mattered.
"So, when you were in L.A., you were about twentyeight. Two years older than me." She poked at her
food. "I've got some catching up to do."

"Watch out for that brass ring," he said. "When
you're aiming for that, it's easy to fall."

She met his eyes. He didn't seem to be joking.
She'd wandered very close to something here, and she
wasn't sure how hard to press. Curiosity won out.
"What happened? You disappeared somewhere during
my junior year."

His glance drifted away. Long, slim fingers ran up
and down the side of his water glass. "I disappeared,
all right."

She'd stepped on shaky ground. "Oh. Was that
when ..."

"When the marriage blew up," he said matter-offactly. "I dropped off the radar for about a year after
that." He ran a hand through his hair and straightened
in his chair. Christie sensed that door closing. "Then
I came here. Happy ending." He slapped his hand on
the tabletop, as if to adjourn the subject. "Now, you,
I'm still trying to figure out."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing, you finished college, unlike
me. And you seem sane enough. What made you want
to go into radio?"

Back to that again. This time it wasn't a job interview question, but Christie still found she had to watch
her answer. He didn't need to know what a mouse
she'd been, or how invisible she'd felt. Six-foot-two
males never needed to worry about disappearing. She
bit her lip. "Well, if you stumbled in, I guess I groped
my way in. I told you before, the loan business bored
me to tears. I wanted something I could care about,
and I've always loved music."

"I noticed. You're always singing up and down the
hall like the happy sailors in one of those old MGM
movies."

She felt herself blush. "I try to keep it down."

"I know. That makes it worse." Rick's eyes
gleamed. "You walk past my door, I miss a line, and
for the rest of the day I've got a song in my head I
can't figure out. You know that's torture." She laughed
at his mock exasperation. She'd known he had a sense
of humor, but usually it was dry and acerbic. He'd
lightened somehow tonight, and Christie found it dangerously appealing. "I never know what I'm going to
hear out of you," he said. "What in the world do you
listen to at home?"

"Oh, rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues, country, Frank
Sinatra, a little classical. Stuff like that."

"Stuff like that," he echoed.

"And current music, too. But that, I can get in my
car."

He was contemplating her with one of those hardto-read looks. "Wherever you go, make sure they
know you like a broad base of music. It could keep you alive if there's a format change. That, and your
production skills."

Christie flinched inwardly. She didn't like to hear
him talk about her going anywhere.

The high-pitched ring of a cellular phone interrupted
them, and Rick fished in the pocket of his jacket.
Christie hadn't realized he carried a cell phone. She
listened with growing suspicion as he took the call.
Most of his answers were monosyllabic, but she was
getting the gist of it.

"Okay, thanks anyway," he said. "I'll try you next
time."

Rick flipped his cell phone shut, took one look at
Christie's face, and got ready for the coming argument. He knew he'd postponed it as long as he could.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"One of our part-timers," he said casually, pocketing the phone. "I did some calling around after we
ordered, trying to get hold of someone to fill your shift
tonight."

Here it came. Part two of the debate that had started
in the parking structure. "Rick, you don't have to do
that. I'm already here."

"No, think about it." Rick tried once more to make
her see reason. "I can drop you off at the station. But
who's going to run you home at 6 A.M.? I can take
you after we're done with dinner, and you can get a
ride back during the day tomorrow, after your car's
ready."

He'd expected her to argue. He hadn't expected her
to look as if he'd offered to give her a root canal using
his own personal power tools. "No," she said. "I can work tonight. I'll get a ride in the morning." Christie
frowned. "Where did you make the calls, anyway?
From the men's room?"

"No, I stepped outside."

"Why?"

"For some reason, I thought you might argue with
me about it."

"You were right."

"I see that. But seriously. What are you going to
do?"

She bit her lip. "I've got a neighbor across the hall.
I'll call in the morning, around seven, and ask her to
pick me up. She's always around town on sales calls.
She'll be able to work me in."

"That still leaves you stuck for at least two hours."
He wasn't comfortable with it, but he was also aware
that his phone wasn't ringing. Without a substitute for
her shift tonight, the whole discussion would be irrelevant anyway.

"It's okay," she said. "Really. You've been too nice
already."

"Too nice?" He gave up and shook his head. "You
must have me confused with someone else."

None of the part-timers materialized to fill in for
Christie at the last minute, so Rick resigned himself
to that lost battle. Instead, they moved on to Starbuck's for coffee when the Chinese restaurant closed
at ten. Another hour went by rapidly, filled with talk
that moved on from music to life in general. In spite
of its awkward beginning, he couldn't remember en joying an evening so much in a long time. Before he
knew it, it was time to take Christie to the station.

There was no need to bother with the parking structure this time. Rick pulled up to the curb across from
the entrance to the studio. He shut off the engine,
ready to walk her to the door, but she stopped him.
"You don't have to get out. It's right over there."

He supposed she was right. It wasn't like this was
a date, after all. At least it shouldn't be.

But she wasn't getting out yet, and it was getting
harder to remember just where this relationship was
supposed to leave off. Did she feel it too? If she did,
they were both in trouble. Christie smiled, her hand
resting on the door. A safety latch? "Rick-this was
nice of you. Really. Thanks."

"No problem." It would have been the most natural
thing in the world to reach over, put his arm around
her, even just squeeze her hand. But company policy
frowned on doing what came naturally, at least with
employees. It was a policy Rick had always agreed
with. So he kept both hands on the steering wheel.

"See you tomorrow." Christie pulled the handle on
the door, on her way to spend several hours alone in
an empty building.

Before she could get out, he said, "Christie?"

She turned back, and their eyes met under the car's
interior dome light. Rick silently sucked in his breath.
"About overnights. Don't worry about what I said. No
one does them for too long."

"You said there wasn't much turnover here," she
reminded him.

"Which means one of these days you'll bail out on me." He said it lightly, but he didn't like the taste of
the words. "Or, after you've been here long enough,
Rob could get hit by a bus."

She laughed, then added hastily, "Don't say that. I
don't want to wish anything bad on anybody." Christie
glanced at the window of the studio, where Rob was.
"Maybe his rich uncle could die and leave him a fortune."

"Oh? Pretty tough on the uncle."

She tilted her head, as though considering. "His
rich, evil uncle."

He laughed, and then she was out of the car.

Christie couldn't shake a pleasant, lighthearted feeling as she walked into the studio. At the sight of Rob,
she had a hard time keeping a straight face. She should
tell him to watch out for buses. In spite of her efforts,
a smile cracked through.

Rob saw it. "Okay. What's so funny?"

"Nothing." Christie moved past him as they traded
sides of the counter.

"Uh-oh." Rob bent down to peer at her face. "If you
say `nothing,' it must be me. What is it? Spaghetti on
my shirt? Toilet paper on my shoe?"

She shook her head and waved him away.

"Laughing at me," he muttered in feigned paranoia. "I knew it all along. If you weren't so pretty-"

"You'd what?" she challenged him. In the past few
weeks, getting hit on by Rob had become as much a
part of her night as plugging in her headphones. But
he was too good-natured to be offensive, and there was
no pressure behind it. "Tell me the truth, Rob. If I ever came after you, I'll bet you'd run away screaming."

He propped his hands on the counter and leaned
over the control board. "Try me."

Maybe in high school. Not now. "Dream on." A
light bulb of inspiration flashed in Christie's mind. A
way of answering a question she didn't dare ask outright. "It's probably against company policy, anyway."

"Only if I was your supervisor. Or the other way
around." He opened the door to leave. "So watch out."

After Rob left, Christie stared at the window blinds.
In her mind, she saw past the window, to the curb
where Rick's car had pulled away a few minutes ago.

That answered that question.

4 1 just don't know what I'm doing wrong," Christie
said to Yvonne. "I try so hard to catch his eye, but he
just doesn't seem to notice me any more."

"I know how you feel," Yvonne said. "I had the
same problem with my boyfriend a few months ago.
Our romance was going nowhere! Then I went to the
beauty experts at Sensational Salon, and they gave me
a total makeover." A smug giggle. "He's been all over
me ever since."

"Shensational-oh, rats, I did it again." Christie
dropped the commercial script to her side with an
exasperated sigh. "Sorry, I keep tripping over the
name. Who wrote this schlock, anyway?"

Standing in front of the production room's other
microphone, Yvonne rolled her eyes in agreement.
"Sales rep, probably. Or worse, the owner of the business."

"Sensational Salon." Christie forced her mouth around it, one syllable at a time. "I hope no one I know
ever hears this."

"It could be worse. I did a commercial one time for
some PMS remedy." Yvonne turned back to the
microphone and said brightly: "Hi! My name is
Yvonne Reyes, and I used to kill people on a monthly
basis."

Christie laughed. "Hi!" she chirped into her own
microphone. "My name is Christie Becker, and I used
to be a hag."

Both of them broke down laughing, and the production room door opened. Rick leaned halfway in,
his hand still on the doorknob. "Yvonne," he said, not
waiting for their laughter to subside. Yvonne pulled
her headphones down around her neck. "You've still
got music logs to do, right?"

"Right."

Rick turned to Christie. "I'm shorthanded on news.
Can I see you in the studio as soon as you're done
recording this spot?"

Christie's eyes widened in alarm. She gave the only
answer she could under the circumstances: "Sure."

Rick was gone, and the door closed behind him,
before she could say anything else.

Yvonne stared at the door. "I wonder what happened to Jonathan."

Jonathan Blair did the morning and late afternoon
newscasts, as well as a two-hour air shift to fill the
gap between Yvonne and Rick. "It must have been
fast," Christie said. "He was on the air an hour ago."
She held a hand to her suddenly-clenched stomach.
"Oh, boy."