Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe (23 page)

Can you say,
Wrong?

“It’s not as bad as it looks, especially with this.” Duncan reached under his workbench and pulled out a sleeping bag with the Boy Scout logo.

“You were a Boy Scout?” Duncan had a be-prepared air about him, and I could see him earning badges and shiny things to put on a shirt that told the world he was good and nice and hardworking.

“No, Frack was a Boy Scout,” Duncan said. “Pillow’s from Frick.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve stayed here?”

“No.” He missiled the pillow at the cot. “Probably won’t be the last.”

Duncan had strong shoulders, offering support to everyone on the staff. He fixed the lights, made Haley shelves for her DVDs, and ran the boards for me. He was a pillar of strength, but tonight in the dusty, crowded storeroom, I saw a crack.

“There are places that can help people like your mom,” I said. “I can talk to my parents and get some referrals.”

“Did you see her arm?” His jaw trembled, and I remembered the angry, oozing hole in his mother’s forearm. “She had an abscess in her vein, and she had surgery to remove it, but get this. She had so many staph infections the doctors couldn’t stitch the incision. Do you understand that, Chloe? The doctors couldn’t fix a stupid hole in her arm.” He slumped onto the cot, the metal legs creaking. “No one can fix her. I’ve been trying for years. Stupid, huh?”

“You worry about people you love,” I reminded him. “And you never give up hope. You can’t, because you love her.”

“Because I love her.” The words were whisper soft, but they were there. “Why are you always right?”

I tossed my hand in a royal wave. “Because I am the queen.”

“Yes. The queen of the universe. The queen of hearts. The queen of . . .”

Your heart, Duncan?
But I didn’t say the words. Words were important, but as I was learning, so was silence.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I asked. “Can I get you anything before I leave? Something to eat or drink?”

He pointed to a box near a small microwave on the workbench. “Clem’s got it covered.”

I spotted cans of soup and listened to the silence between his words. “But?”

“It’s hard.” He shrugged. “Being alone.”

Puzzlement wrinkled my forehead. “Alone? You’re not alone. You have Frick’s pillow, Frack’s cot, and comfort food from Clem. If you need entertainment, you have Taysom’s music mixes or Haley’s DVDs. Your family’s here. They care.”

Duncan looked confused. And exhausted.

I gave him a quick hug. “Sleep on it, Dunc. Maybe it’ll make more sense in the morning.”

As I drove home from the station I couldn’t stop thinking about how the radio staff had turned a storeroom into a safe, loving place for one of their own. Only one thing was missing. Nowhere in that storeroom was a piece of my heart, something to show Duncan I cared.

“Loved the new show, Chloe. I’ve got this great idea for . . .”

“Hey, Chloe, nice shoes! Maybe you can show me where you go thrifting someday.”

As I hurried to Portable Five the next morning, I heard the words but didn’t listen. I was too worried about Duncan. The
security guard or custodians may have discovered him. He may need toothpaste or breakfast. I clutched a steaming brown-paper bag in my hand. A breakfast burrito from Dos Hermanas, the Mexican equivalent of eggs and cheese on toast.

When I walked into Portable Five, Duncan stood on a ladder in the middle of the newsroom changing the batteries in the smoke alarm. Just looking at him, no one could have guessed he’d been slugged by his meth-addict mother; had a close encounter of the ugly kind with her scumbag, drug-dealing boyfriend; and slept the night on a Boy Scout cot in a dirty storeroom. Only the damp bottom layers of Duncan’s hair and faint smell of the pink soap used in the gym locker room hinted at anything out of the ordinary.

Not surprisingly, Duncan didn’t mention last night, nor did any of the staff as they trickled in. It was business as usual as Clem prepared the morning news, Taysom and Haley recorded something in the production studio, and Frick and Frack sat at a computer going through KDRS e-mail, which, after my
Heartbeats
show, had quadrupled.

Despite Brie and her dead-guinea-pig story,
Heartbeats
was a hit.

Throughout the week, dozens of people stopped me in the hallway or in class to tell me they loved the new show. A local television station called for an interview. My celebrity status reached all-new heavenly heights. Yet I didn’t hear the chorus of angels or feel light-headed from being on top of the world. I was too busy worrying about people I cared about.

All week Duncan continued to sleep in the storeroom at the radio station. To their credit, Duncan and the KDRS staffers were discreet. At night Duncan kept off all lights, and whenever he needed food or clean laundry, the staffers carried things in their backpacks.

As for Grams, she was back in the Tuna Can and acting as if the fire and flood had never happened. Mom was gathering medical records and talking to an attorney in hush-hush tones about things like “self-determination,” “incompetence,” and “conservatorship.”

And then there was Merce. On Wednesday morning, I walked through the school parking lot when my former best friend, her arms loaded with books, cornered me. “Have you seen Brie?” Merce asked with a tremor in her voice.

“Uh, no. In case you forgot, we’re not exactly besties these days.”

“She isn’t returning my calls, and this morning when I went to her house, she wouldn’t answer the door even though her car was still in the driveway. Do you know what’s going on with her?”

“Merce, seriously, the last discussion Brie and I had was about a dead guinea pig.”

“But she’s been gone all week. All week.” The top two books fell from the stack in Merce’s trembling arms.

I stooped to pick them up but didn’t place them on the load in her arms. As a rule, Merce was no drama queen, but she was clearly upset. Unfortunately for her, Brie and I no longer
breathed air from the same planet. “And you want me to do what? Put out an all-points bulletin on the radio?”

Merce shifted her books to her other arm, and her mouth quirked as she must have realized the ridiculousness of asking me to help track down Brie. “I . . . I’m sorry, Chloe. I shouldn’t be coming to you with this. But these days when it comes to Brie, I’m lost. She’s not making sense.”

And Merce, with her logical, analytical mind, struggled with things that didn’t make sense. Of course, I owed Merce nothing. She’d sided with Brie, bailed on me, and never once tried to stop the lies or mean gossip. But old habits, and maybe old friendships, died hard. “You okay?” I asked.

A deep sigh rocked her chest and she shook her head. “But I’ll get through it.” She grabbed her books from me, two fat SAT guides, and walked away.

Without consciously deciding to, I looked for Brie all day. I found myself searching through the bodies near the ficus tree, in the hallway outside Brie’s locker, and at lunch table fourteen.

At the end of lunch period I spotted a blond-haired girl sitting on a bench at the far end of the drop-off/pick-up loop, but I figured it couldn’t be Brie. Like me, Brie didn’t do “alone.” But as I drew closer, I got a better look at the solitary figure.

She wore no makeup, no signature diamond earrings, but it was Brie. Oddly enough, even without her frosty pink lips and chunks of ice in her ears, she looked ice-cold as she glared at me.

I hurried away, shivering.

Program Name:
Chloe, Queen of the Universe

On Air: Chloe

Boards: Duncan

Friday

HOUR ONE

00 Underwriter Spot

01 Legal ID, Sweep, Banter with Clem, Parkinson’s Disease Intro 05 PD fast facts

10 Event Cal, Weather

15 Sweep, PD calls

20 PD calls

25 PD calls

30 News

35 Sweep, Substance Abuse/Addiction opening

40 PSA

42 SA/A fast facts

50 SA/A counselor interview

55 SA/A calls (flow into hour two)

59 Underwriter Spot

“ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO!” CLEMENTINE DROPPED THE
notebook with my format clock on my desk with a loud splat.

I shoved my notes at her. “It’s
my
show. I get to do what
I
want.” Even to my own ears, I sounded bratty, but I didn’t care.

She waved at the sheets of paper as if she were fanning the stink off old garbage. “But this kind of show isn’t you.”

“How do you know who I am?” I grabbed the last Twizzler in the bag on my desk and tried to find a peaceful, happy place, because tomorrow I had another live Queen Chloe show and the kingdom was in chaos.

Clementine let out a dragon sigh. “I know who Queen Chloe is. She’s funny, at times irreverent, and more than mildly entertaining.” She pointed at my format clock, which detailed in five-minute increments what I’d cover on my upcoming show. “Parkinson’s disease isn’t entertaining, and topic number two isn’t much better. Substance abuse
and addiction? My gawwwwwd, Chloe, what the hell are you thinking?”

Exactly. I
was
thinking. I rubbed at the thoughts hammering my skull. I was thinking about Parkinson’s and meth and upended worlds.

Clem dragged a chair to my desk and sat in front of me. “What’s going on?” She stared at me with a gaze that didn’t waver. She was observant and not afraid to dig deep for the truth, which would make her a great journalist. “You are not going on the air until you talk.” Her dragon snout barely twitched.

I rubbed at my head, then finally said, “I’m worried. I’m worried about the giant shoe that’s about to stomp Grams and the Tuna Can, and I’m worried that the guy I’m starting to care for is up against a monster.” I motioned to my format clock. “I’ve been researching meth. It’s a huge, loud, destructive beast. When it’s in a room, there’s no space for anything else, no people or feelings or words. No wonder Duncan’s so disconnected. And he’s getting worse. Have you noticed he hasn’t laughed all week? Not once.”

“We can’t laugh all the time,” Clem said. “We have to experience sad times, too. They make us appreciate the good times. And Duncan’s strong. He’ll get through this.”

“You sound like a Hallmark card.”

Clementine grabbed both sides of her hair. “Shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

I aimed my Twizzler at her and made a gunshot sound that would have done Haley proud.

“Seriously,” Clem went on, “do you want to spend an hour talking about Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s? Do you think that kind of stuff will be of genuine interest to the audience you’ve built? And do you
really
want your callers phoning in to talk about substance abuse and addiction?” Clem shuddered. “Duncan, for one, doesn’t need to hear that.”

I stuffed the entire Twizzler into my mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “You’re right.”

“What?” Clem thwacked her ear, vaudeville style. “What did you say?”

I let out a sound that was part groan, part laugh. “Clementine Radmore is one hundred percent, unequivocally right. Do you want me to get on the air and issue a royal proclamation?”

“Can you?”

I ignored the grin on her face. I was a talk show host, and tomorrow I was expected to talk. “Ideas, please.”

Clementine leaned back in a chair and crossed her ankles. “You mentioned your JISP a few times on air. Have you ever thought about a show on the whole JISP thing? It’s timely. I finished my literacy program at the school for kids of migrant workers, and Haley’s almost done with her diaper drive. Beyond the human interest stuff, there are some classically hilarious JISP stories out there, like Lizzy Delgado, who organized that Girl Scout lock-in last year and accidentally booked a male stripper as entertainment. Plus, JISPs give us plenty of options for sidebar discussions. We can talk about the causes people work for and are passionate about. We can put together a list of local nonprofits
and their most pressing needs. You could even interview Ms. Lungren.”

“I’d never get her to shut up. JISPs are her life.”

“Honestly, she’d be good.”

On Friday, I learned Clem was right. Again.

For
Chloe, Queen of the Universe
, I interviewed A. Lungren live. My counselor was an articulate and enthusiastic speaker about the subject of community service, and she even managed to ditch her annoying kitty purr. After the interview, Duncan broke to the news and Ms. Lungren took off her headphones.