Miracle (29 page)

“Do I have to say that on the air?”

“No, you have to say that on the
phone
. They need a receptionist.”

“Will I get paid?”

“Are you kidding? The place is a suckhole. Only a handful of people get paid to work there, and even they’re selling their blood on the side to make ends meet. Students don’t get paid. They get valuable work experience.”

“As a receptionist?”

“You gotta start somewhere, sugar. You hate business school. You love TV. That means you’ll at least
like
radio. What have you got to lose? Look, forget about the French doctor, okay? You’re not trying to impress him anymore. Just make yourself happy.”

Amy sat up wearily and stared at the floor. “I’ll always try to impress him,” she murmured. “Even if I never see him again.”

“Great. Fine. Impress anybody you want to. Just
do
something impressive.”

Amy rubbed her forehead. “
Good
afternoon,” she muttered. “The Bulldogs bark for WDIG FM, rock’n’roll classics, all day, every day.”

Mary Beth did her debutante’s tea-party applause, tips of fingers primly patting the heel of the opposite hand. “Quite nice, dear. We’ll be the only station in town with Olive Oyl for a receptionist.”

“I won’t ever have to talk on the radio, will I?”

“Nah. There’s lots of work behind the scenes. Maybe that’s what you could do. You just might enjoy yourself.”

“Mary Beth?”

“Hmmm?”

Amy touched Mary Beth’s arm. “Thank you for putting up with me. And for caring. For a heartless slut, you’re a wonderful friend.”

Mary Beth’s large hazel eyes filled with tears. “You’ve got bad taste. I like that in a person.”

Amy found, to her shock, that she loved working at WDIG. It was a shoestring operation set up in a tiny old house a few blocks from campus. Parker Poodit, owner, manager, advertising rep, and midmorning disc jockey, lived upstairs. He looked like a leftover from a long day at Woodstock. He was going bald, had a graying blond beard that hung to his collarbones, and favored tie-dyed T-shirts, leather sandals, and turquoise jewelry. There was always a faint smell of incense and Aqua Velva around him.

Parker was a mellow man; unfettered by union rules and barely within the bounds of FCC regulations, he viewed his one-station broadcasting empire as a center for grassroots rebellion. Rock and roll brought in the ordinary listeners; Parker’s weird commentaries brought in the fringe. He had been the only sports announcer in the history of Bulldog football to come out in favor of gender-identification tests.

Mary Beth was the afternoon D.J. She became a different person when she sat at the mike talking in her husky, dulcet-toned drawl. Amy saw the tough-talking good-old-girl evaporate; in her place was a serious young woman who knew how to make the news sound solemn and dramatic. Her work behind a microphone was probably the only thing in her life that Mary Beth took seriously.

Amy progressed quickly from receptionist to general gopher, fetching tapes and albums from the library—a big closet off of Parker’s kitchen—to the studio, typing copy, and eventually learning how to set up program schedules. She even dabbled in the technical end of the work and learned how to edit tape.

She finally decided to switch her major to communications, with an emphasis on radio-TV-film production, over a pizza at a hangout in town. Mary Beth put a candle in the center of a glob of mozzarella. After she lit it she proclaimed solemnly, “Here’s to the future famous producer. May she be happy and find a new man. Hell, may she find an old man. Any man. She’s spending a lot of time staring at cucumbers these days.”

Amy shook her head in benign disgust but laughed as if she were having a good time. She’d gone out on a few dates, nothing serious, each one ending with her halfheartedly kissing the guy. She blew out Mary Beth’s candle and wondered,
Oh, Doc, how long is going to hurt like this
?

Parker Poodit ran into the station office—a converted living room with much-abused desks and chairs—and screamed, “We’ve got Elliot Thornton! I’m going to interview him on the morning show next week!”

People jumped up and began asking questions. Amy dropped the program log she’d been filling out and gave Mary Beth an excited look. She had a ticket to one of Thornton’s sold-out shows at the Peach Pit, a big club in town.

“How’d you do it?” someone asked Parker.

He slapped his beard happily. “I called his booking agent and told him that we were the only station in town that ever
ran an uncensored interview with Hunter S. Thompson. Get this place cleaned up! Somebody get a mop! Take down that poster of Elton John!”

Mary Beth reared back in a lawn chair, stroked her blond hair thoughtfully, and announced that Elliot Thornton had all the comic subtlety of a geek with a hormone problem.

Amy threw a pencil at her. “He’s great at visual humor! He can stand on stage and just peel a banana, and people laugh! I’ve seen every appearance he’s ever made on Johnny Carson. He won
Showtime’s Big Laugh-Off
hands down. And I just read in
TV Guide
that he’s only twenty-seven.”

“What are you, the head of his fan club? Geeks for Thornton?”

“You obnoxious blond terrorist. Elliot Thornton is very all-American, a real guy-next-door type. That’s why he’s so popular. Everybody feels comfortable with him.”

“Yeah,” Parker Poodit interjected. “He looks like he takes a bath every day.”

“He’s also sexy,” one of the female staffers noted. “I think he’s adorable.”

Outnumbered, Mary Beth shot everyone a bird. “Suck some saccharin.”

Amy laughed. “Well, I want to see him up close.”

“He’ll eat you alive.”

“He sounded nice in
TV Guide.
”

Mary Beth groaned. “Sugar, his publicist makes sure he sounds nice. Ten bucks says you’re too shy to squeak one word to him. And that if you do, he turns out to be a jerk.”

“You’re on.” Mary Beth had known that she’d rise to the bait. It dawned on Amy, with a measure of relief, that it was good to feel so much anticipation again. She grasped at the new attitude, nurtured it, and buoyed her courage. She was going to be someone who wasn’t afraid to speak up, even to Elliot Thornton, just to prove she could do it.

She had no morning classes the day of the interview, so she went to the station around dawn and sat in the booth,
playing Beach Boys’ music for the early bird listeners. The engineer, a burly man who wore his hair in dread locks, made lecherous faces at her from the control room, and she mimed absurd reactions of shock. It was a game they’d played before, and it pleased her that she could make him laugh so hard that his hair jiggled.

An hour later she went to the kitchen, one of the few parts of Parker’s house that had remained in its original form, and brewed a big pot of coffee. From upstairs came the sounds of running water; Parker must be awake and washing his beard for the big occasion.

Outside the open front door birds sang in the oak trees and cars whispered by on the narrow old street, their tires making a muted
whoosh
as if the dew had dampened noise. From somewhere came the rude rumble of a different motor; as she poured a cup of coffee she vaguely categorized the noise as a motorcycle.

It grew louder. Sipping her coffee, Amy wandered to the front door and leaned against the frame. As the motorcycle roared around a curve her hand rose to clutch the front of her white pullover. She watched in horror as the rider braked and the big Harley slid sideways into a curve. It bounced onto the sidewalk and careened across the lawn, while the helmeted rider let out a howl of amusement or terror, Amy wasn’t sure which.

When the Harley plowed into a towering hedge of red-tipped photinias, the rider sailed into the foliage, and Amy ran, tossing her coffee cup onto the ground. By the time she reached the man he had turned over. She looked down anxiously. His arms, inside a faded Michigan State football jersey, were spread wide as if he were lounging on a couch of burnished red leaves. His gold watch, encrusted with stones that might be diamonds, was caught on a branch. He was moaning and chuckling at the same time.

She peered at the handsome, jaunty face inside the helmet. Blood-shot blue eyes met her gaze, then roamed over her, necessitating a comical craning motion of the head that owned them. They weren’t as jaunty as the face; in fact, they looked a little embarrassed.

“Baby,” he said solemnly, “I came early to save you from boredom. But I’m afraid I’ve been … am-bushed.”

Amy was so intrigued that she didn’t have time to feel shy. “Bushwhacked,” she corrected.

He laughed, the sound charming but sheepish. Shy? Was he shy? Amy wondered.

He cleared his throat, eyed her sternly, then flipped the chin strap on his helmet. “Get back. I’ve taken the safety off. My head could explode at any minute. Until two hours ago, I was indulging myself at a wild party in Atlanta.” He flung his arms about, warding off invisible people.

“Better stop flapping. Turkey-hunting season starts early around here.”

His arms froze in midair. He sputtered in amazement and stared at her closely. “Are you for real?”

“Real enough. I work here at the station.”

“Over eighteen?”

“By three years.”

“Born with that crazy voice?”

“Yep. Your eyes look terrible.”

“You ought to see ’em from my side.”

“Lee Marvin said that line in
Cat Ballou.
”

“What are you—the joke patrol?”

“Nope. Actually. I’m a big fan of yours.”

“I think I love you.”

She rolled her eyes in mock disgust but couldn’t help smiling as she helped Elliot Thornton out of the photinias.

The Peach Pit was crammed with little tables, and the little tables were crammed with well-dressed students. These were people eager for a future of condominiums and BMWs. Amy studied what she could see of them from her vantage point in the wings of the Peach Pit’s intimate stage.

“Come to me, baby boomers,” Elliot Thornton muttered beside her, as he checked his blue blazer in a mirror. “I’m your next king, baby boomers, your next king. Come to me. Be mine. Come to me.”