Do or Di (16 page)

“What you are you trying to say?”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean more that there are three people in your relationship, which makes it a bit crowded.”

“Isn’t that what Diana said about her marriage in that TV interview?”

“Yes. I loved that line. It was honest and classy at the same time. I would like to think she thought of it on the spot, but to tell you the truth I suspect she planned it. That’s another piece of advice. Think before speaking.” She gave me a look. “Do you think you should be writing any of this down?”

“No, I got it. Think, then speak,” I said.

“Okay good. We’re making headway.”

“You realize I’m not your charity project right?”

“I didn’t use the word charity, you did. Diana thinks you have a lot of potential.”

“I’m relieved,” I said in a flat tone, trying to ignore that I felt slightly proud of the idea that Diana thought I had a fighting chance.

“You know what would be good for you? Take on a project.”

“I have plenty to keep me busy lately without taking on anything else.” I looked at her pointedly.

“You make it sound like a chore. I’m not thinking large, like you have to take on a particular disease society or anything. It’s best to start small, something more manageable.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open, maybe if disease is too much I could take on something like the plight of hangnails.”

“Another piece of advice: sarcasm isn’t attractive.”

“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

“I keep telling you—it’s not me. It’s Diana. I’m just her voice.” She placed her hand on her chest.

“I’m certain she’s thrilled to have you.”

“She likes Colin.”

“Colin?”

“She thinks he’s charming.” She shrugged. “I like him better than Jonathon. Colin’s a man of character.”

“Character? You have to be joking. I mean Colin
is
a character, but I’m not sure I would say he has any.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing. It was bad enough the kid I was mentoring knew I was dating a married man, she didn’t need to know about my one-night stand.

“You should make sure you don’t have good judge of character down as one of your strengths.”

“Diana picked a guy named Dodi,” I pointed out to her.

“His dad owned Harrods. Trust me, you’ve picked worse.” She picked a piece of imaginary lint off her slacks. “You still are, by the way.”

“I didn’t ask you your opinion.”

“No, but you really should.”

“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to give me advice.”

“That was before I knew how badly you were in need of it.” She held up a hand stopping me from saying anything further. “I didn’t come here to fight. I came to say thanks for helping me out with Rooster.”

“I checked with the vet, and he’s doing better.”

“Yeah.” She sat on the edge of the sofa, her know-it-all demeanor gone. Once again she looked small. She looked down at her fingernails.

“Do you want to go down and visit him?”

Her head shot up and a smile spread across her face. “Do you?”

“Might as well. All I was doing was eating ice cream and as you pointed out that wasn’t doing me any good. Besides, doing something nice for you is like a project, right?”

“It is! See? Helping me is helping you. You were just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.”

I stopped and turned.

“What makes you say that?” I was annoyed, not just because she guessed, but because she was right.

“You were, weren’t you? Come on, let’s go. We can stop on the way and buy him some dog treats. Or maybe a squeaky toy. He loves those things, although he eventually always chews the squeaker out.” She practically skipped toward the door. I watched her leave. It was most likely just a lucky guess.

“Avita told me to let you know the consultant is here,” the receptionist said, poking her head in my cubicle. I gave a small jump. I looked down at my watch. The morning had gone by quickly. I collected my things and followed her toward the conference room. I could hear voices inside. I paused outside the door. Colin would be in there. I had managed to avoid him all morning. Or maybe he was avoiding me. I had half suspected he would grace the cubicle farm with his presence and make some stupid double entendre that would have everyone yakking. It wasn’t that I was disappointed, I was relieved. It seemed like he was going to stick to his word. We were going to go back in time and erase the event. Not that I could remember it anyway.
Nothing happened, nothing happened
, I chanted to myself. Deep breath.

Wayne, along with the rest of the station management, was taking no chances on our syndication option. Instead of going for someone local, they had hired a consultant from Chicago. We had two weeks before the syndication group gave us an answer and the station was going to do whatever it took to move the show
He Said/She Said
He Said, She Said
to the top of its slot.

“There you are!” The woman at the front of the table yelled out and clapped her hands together as I entered the room. She looked overjoyed to see me as if we were lovers separated during the war. Colin and Avita looked pinned to their seats. Their eyes were open wide. They were watching the consultant with a degree of fear in their eyes.

“I’m Pam from Clear Communication Consultants. We put the person into personality.” I had the sense she wanted me to applaud. “Now, I know you’re busy, but from now on let’s try to remember, late isn’t great, early is burly.”

“Burly?” I asked.

“It rhymes with early. Now sit yourself down, we’ve got a lot to go over. Okay, I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours going over your tapes. You’ve got a good show, but good isn’t good
enough
. I can make this show better. Not just better—amazing! What I need to know is if you’re committed to doing what it takes?” She looked at us expectantly.

“We’re committed,” Avita said. The consultant gave a sigh.

“I asked, are you committed?” It was like being trapped in a conference room with a deranged middle-aged cheerleader in an Ann Taylor suit.

“We’re committed,” the three of us mumbled. Caroline, the receptionist, was staying silent on the topic. In fairness it might be asking a bit much to have the receptionist join in our consultant cult.

“I can’t hear you. Are you committed?!” Pam bellowed like an evangelist.

“We’re committed,” we yelled back. At this rate we were going to be committed.

“Now that’s what I want to hear. Okay, today is going to be a full day. I want us to draft a mission statement, review our targets so we can implement a quality control measurement, and then, and only then, we will look at program changes. After all, how do you know where you’re going, if you don’t know where you have been?” She looked at us and I wasn’t sure if this was a question we were supposed to answer or stitch up into a sampler for the wall. She turned and started taping blank sheets of paper on the wall. They all had headings:
We Want
,
We Are
,
We Will Be
. Colin tapped the table, drawing my attention to the agenda that she must have passed out before I arrived. Every other line appeared to be an inspirational quote. She was a walking fortune cookie. At the bottom of the agenda was written
Bathroom Breaks Available Upon Request
. I looked at him and raised one eyebrow.

“I’m willing to bet she sells Scientology with Tom Cruise in her free time,” he whispered. I started to giggle.

“Is there something you two want to share?” Pam asked. I felt myself slouch down in my chair. If only she knew.

“I was just saying Good is Fine, Best is Mine,” Colin said. Pam’s face melted into a warm smile. I gave him a look.
Ass
-
kisser.

“Now that’s the spirit!” she said.

When Pam turned her back, Avita looked at Colin and stuck her finger down her throat. I thought of asking for a coffee run, but then remembered the moratorium on bathroom breaks and thought better of it. Colin’s leg pressed against the side of mine for a moment and I sat straight up.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and then shifted his chair away. I risked a glance around the table. Avita didn’t seem to notice anything. Not that there was anything to notice because there was nothing between us. I found myself sliding my leg over to his. When it made contact I shot it back over, cracking my knee on the tabletop, tearing a hole in my tights.

“Sorry,” I said.

By late afternoon I was no longer interested in Colin’s leg. I was doodling various torture devices I would have liked to use on Pam. No one should be this plucky. She made Anthony Robbins look suicidal. There had been no break from the Clear Communication indoctrination. Pam had us chanting along with her perky feel-good mantras. We had spent three hours in the morning drafting our mission statement. Each word had to be examined for all possible connotations. Pam wanted something snappy, short, and inspirational. I was coming to understand what Pam wanted, Pam got. Less work went into drafting the constitution than went into our mission statement. It wasn’t good enough to have an entertaining radio show; it was now approaching a level where it appeared that our show had the possibility of brokering world peace.

“All right, now that we have our direction, let’s talk about format,” Pam said.

“We built the show on a typical format, we tend to start with a current event lead and then the two of them sort of spar it out from their different viewpoints. We take calls. The calls are typically split between commentary and people calling in with questions,” Avita said.

“It’s not a bad format, but as you said, it is rather traditional, isn’t it? Now, what I have in mind is to take that format and put a new twist on it.”

“What kind of twist?” Colin asked.

“The real hook of the show is you two and your inability to see eye to eye, isn’t it? It’s a three hour block of the war of the sexes. It’s a brilliant crossover, at least one of you at any given time is appealing to a different demographic. What I’ve come up with is a way to turn that on its end. We’re going to do a show live from some alternate locations.”

“We’re not going to end up hosting the show in a car lot or something, are we?” I asked. I had this image I was going to be stuck doing some stupid stunt like hog racing in a clown outfit.

“No. What we’re going to do is a role reversal.” She beamed at us, waiting for lavish praise. I hazarded a look around. It didn’t look like anyone else knew what she was talking about either. Pam gave a sigh. I had the feeling we were not her favorite consulting project. “We’re going to turn stereotypes upside down. Colin, you’ve mentioned that you love climbing and hiking, right?” Colin nodded. “And Erin, you like baking?” We nodded. “Perfect. We’re going to send Erin on a hike up one of the local mountains and Colin to a cake-baking contest and run live audio from those events. It’s a great fish-out-of-water angle.”

“It could be interesting,” Avita said, tapping her pencil on the pad of paper in front of her. Apparently the lack of fresh air was affecting her brain waves. Some best friend she was turning out to be. I shot a look over to Colin and he was nodding along too. Maybe he had finally come up with a way to get me off his show: he was going to have me killed.