Seattle Girl (8 page)

“I’m only twenty-one for God’s sake!” I said in my defense, but all I could think was that if my caller was right about women being, as he so cleverly put it,
fucked-in-the-head-nut jobs
, it could hardly be our faults when our own mothers played such a wonderful role in nurturing the nuttiness.

I wanted to say something to my mother just then, something intelligent and serious and accurate like, “Why do you always have to put me down just because I don’t have a boyfriend? What is it about having a man that will suddenly make me a better, more worthwhile person?”

But, of course, I would never say any of this to her because she would just look at me as if I were speaking French and then tell me to get something done with my hair so that it didn’t look like a rat’s nest all the time.

God, how I wished I could skip all of this family togetherness time. Why hadn’t I gone to school on the East Coast, if for no other reason than to get away from the rain...and my family?

Stupid, stupid me.

And then my dad walked in the room and his face lit up when he saw me. “Georgia! My favorite daughter!” He hugged me and kissed the top of my head and suddenly it didn’t feel so bad to be home.

* * *

For several weeks after The Incident at the exotic erotic party, I took an extra long time getting dressed in the morning, even going so far as to borrow some of Diane’s clothes to up my sexiness quotient. I could hear my mom’s voice in the back of my head telling me to “put my hair back with a clip” and to “always paint your toenails if you’re going to wear open toed shoes.”

If you can believe it, I actually did paint my toenails red. I told myself I was doing it to make Kyle regret kicking me out of his room if he ever saw me on campus. Like I thought he’d take one look at my bright and shiny toes and fall head over heels in love with me.

I was being a complete and utter idiot.

More than anything I wanted to rock his world. Here was a guy I knew less than nothing about, and I was putting all of my energy into impressing him.

Hell, I probably would have even started drinking diet soda’s if that’s what it took.

Pretty stupid, huh?

I probably don’t have to tell you this, but none of my brilliant little tactics made a whit of difference. Go figure.

Kyle and I ran into each other at Café Café one day, but it was as if he didn’t even recognize me. What scum, huh?
 

Every time I thought about how naïve and stupid I had been in his bedroom that night at the party, I wanted to scream. Trust me, Diane and Seth were even madder about it than I was. I even overheard them discussing castration-tactics late one night when they thought I was asleep on the couch.

I had to face facts. When it came to men, I clearly had no idea how to operate.

Fortunately, I was countering all of my bad relationship energy with good radio karma.

* * *

Bill asked me to meet him for coffee and I was really looking forward to it. Even though Bill didn’t count as a
guy
, it was nice to have made another friend. Particularly one who understood my ever-growing passion for talk radio. I wasn’t mad at Diane and Seth for getting all glossy eyed when I talked too much about my show, but their disinterest was frustrating nonetheless.

I had been so focused on Mr. Fire-Eyes and then doing my show, with the odd bit of class work thrown in, that I hadn’t seen Bill for several weeks. He was already waiting for me at a table on the sidewalk when I got there and my first impression was that he had gotten a haircut since I’d last seen him. My second impression was that it looked really good.

Weird.

He stood up and said, “Hi Georgia,” with a goofy grin.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else about him was different. And he seemed a little on the nervous side. Maybe he’d already pounded a couple of espressos, or something.

Also, I could tell that he didn’t know if he should hug me or shake my hand or do nothing. It was really geeky of him, but also kind of endearing.

“Hey Bill,” I said, quickly hugging him before sitting down.

“I, uh, got you that,” he said, pointing to the to-go cup in front of me. “You said you liked mocha’s, right?”

I grinned, somewhat taken aback by both his chivalry and his memory for a little detail that I couldn’t even remember having told him about. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you.”

Now I was feeling uncomfortable too, so I took a sip of coffee and wondered what to say next. Thankfully, Bill beat me to it, asking, “So, how’s the show going?”

Well, if that wasn’t the perfect icebreaker, I don’t know what was. “Great!” I said, feeling a full-on gush on its way. “Really amazing, actually!”

Bill nodded, his smile as cute as ever. “I’ve listened a few times.” He stopped and flushed a little. “Okay, I’ve listened to most of your shows and-”

“Wait a minute,” I said, holding up my drink midway to my lips. “You actually wake up early to listen to my show?”

Sheepishly, he nodded.

“I swear to god, Bill, I love you right now,” I said, utterly pleased, inside and out, that someone actually made it a point to listen to me on a daily basis.

The flush spread down his neck into the collar of his t-shirt and I realized I had just thoroughly embarrassed him.

He swallowed hard. “I was just going to say that I think people are really responding to you. On the air, I mean.”

I quirked my head slightly at his odd “on the air” addendum. “I was really nervous at first about the show,” I admitted.

“You were?”

“Oh my god, yes. I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say for like three weeks!”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Right from your first show you seemed really in control.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling my head get bigger and bigger, but not wanting it to ever stop growing. “I finally feel like I’m starting to get a handle on the whole talk radio thing. I’ve even figured out some important stuff already.”

Bill slipped off his sunglasses and stared intently at me. “Like what?” he said, and I could tell he was really interested.

I jumped onto my soap-box. “Well, if I’m really wound up about something, like how unreasonable my parents are-”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that this week.”

“—or how men and women just can’t seem to relate, at all-”

“War of the sexes. Another excellent topic.”

“-or how I was almost killed crossing the street by a psycho bicyclist—“

“Righteous indignation always gets people going.”

“-I can usually get my listeners wound up about it too.” Bill nodded in agreement and I continued. “But if I’m trying to discuss a topic because I think it’s something I should be talking about, like world peace-”

“So boring.”

“-or politics-”

This time Bill finished my sentence for me. “You’d bomb every time, right?”

I grinned, incredibly pleased that Bill so perfectly got what I was saying. “Exactly.”

“But you know what the very best thing is?” I said.

“Tell me.”

“Every morning when I lean into the microphone to lay down another diatribe on the world as I see it, more and more daring people are lighting up the phones. It’s awesome.”

“And it doesn’t matter if they agree with you, does it?”

“Not at all. Even if they’re calling to tell me that I’m a moron, at least I know that they cared enough to call and talk to me.”

“The best feeling in the world,” Bill echoed.

For a moment we both sat back in our chairs, sipping our drinks, finally comfortable in our silence together. Feeling like I could share anything with Bill, I confessed, “To be honest, I feel more solidarity with other people on these mornings in the studio than I ever have at any other point in my life. Even when callers say I’m a know-nothing bitch, I still feel good. And I finally have proof that there are a big bunch of cantankerous, opinionated folks out there. Just like me. That maybe I’m not such an oddball after all.”

“You’re not an oddball,” Bill said.

“You know what I mean.”

He nodded, looking incredibly serious, more serious than I’d seen him look before. “I know what you mean. Georgia.”

And the nicest part of all was that I felt like he really did.

* * *

My enthusiasm for my show was genuine, but that’s not to say it was easy in the beginning. My guess is I was talking to approximately four people, max, each of whom had accidentally turned to KUW by accidentally bumping into their stereo tuner. And you know what?
 
I worked my ass off to get those four people coming back, every day. This meant that I got to know my regular callers incredibly well.

Too well in some cases.

Right off the bat, a guy named Jerry took an obsessive liking to me. The first time he called into my show, we were having a discussion about parking tickets on campus, which I’ll admit was turning out to be sort of lack-luster. As soon as I put him on the air he said, “My sweet pumpkin, Jerry had to call to tell you something extremely important.”

My ears picked up right away, of course. I mean, who calls someone they’ve never met sweet pumpkin?
 
Who even calls someone they
do
know sweet pumpkin? Plus, he referred to himself by his own name, and it definitely took someone with a whole lot of nerve to pull that off.

“Hey Jerry. Thanks for calling the Georgia Fulton show. What have you got to tell me?”

I was still thinking it was sort of cute that he obviously liked me so much he had given me a pet name, until he said, “My little grape-leaf, all women are whores.”

He definitely got my attention with that. It was the most random statement anyone had ever made to me, on or off the radio. Besides, hadn’t I been a sweet pumpkin just a second ago? Evidently I had already transmogrified into a grape-leaf.

“You know, Jerry, we’re talking about parking tickets, so I can’t help but wonder what the heck you’re talking about!”

“Georgia.” He drawled out my name in his pervert-o voice. “You, of all people should know about whores.”

I was momentarily shocked. Not because I had any whoring in my past, of course, apart from that one weird little lap dance with Kyle, which I was sure no one but Diane and Seth could possible know about.

No, I was shocked because it sounded like I might actually have my first stalker.

I know this may sound strange, but I was thrilled. It was so exciting to think that I, Georgia Fulton, new radiostress extraordinaire had a potential stalker.

I mean, someone who sucked at talk radio couldn’t have a stalker could she? Stalkers were always reserved for stars.

Even so, I was torn. I wondered if I should I egg him on for the pleasure of my listeners or if I should be an Intelligent Young Woman (say it three times fast in my mother’s voice and you’ll get my exact drift) and shut him down before he got too scary.

After the barest amount of deliberation, in the name of good radio, I chose to encourage him. What else could I do?

“How can you say such a thing Jerry?” I injected my voice with just the right amount of playfulness. “We’ve never even met.”

He laughed sadistically. “Sugar-apple, I can tell by the way you smack your lips together. Everyone can tell that you are a whore.”

I played along. “And here I thought it was my little secret.”

He ignored my humor. “Whores have no secrets, do they, peach-press?”

I was dying there in the studio, trying so hard not to laugh at all of the weird names he was calling me. I didn’t want him to hang up yet–after all, this was the stuff that hit talk shows were made of-and I thought he might if I didn’t act like I was taking him seriously. Plus, I was immensely curious to see how many more fruit-inspired names he could come up with.

As I had expected, some of my listener’s ears had perked up during our freaky banter. All of the previously blank call-lights went red.

“Jerry, can you hold on the line here? I think we have some people who want to talk you.” I pressed line two and conferenced the second caller in.

“Hi. You’re on the air with Georgia Fulton. I take it you’ve got something to say to Jerry?”

“I sure do!” spit out a very angry female. “That guy who called in is one sick bastard!” she exclaimed fervently.

“Thank you.” Jerry sounded quite pleased.

I could just about hear the female caller fuming through the phone lines. “I just want to tell Jerry that if me and my girlfriends are ever out somewhere and I hear your disgusting voice, I am going to have them hold you down so that I can personally castrate you.”

“See,” Jerry said. “All you can think about is my penis.”

Now, I still hadn’t forgotten about my FCC classes. Swearing on the radio was a big no-no. And while Howard Stern seemed to get away with it, or at least was willing to pay the fines, I wasn’t so sure that I would fare quite so well. I hated to cut my callers off when they were just getting going, but I had no other options, since I could never seem to get to the bleep-out button on time.

“Thanks for the calls, you two,” I said, hanging up on both callers. Before picking up another line, I added, “I know there are lots of you out there who have something to say about Jerry’s statement, but you have to promise me you’re going to keep it clean, okay?” I laughed at my pun. “Of course, don’t you dare leave out any of the nasty details, just the nasty words.”

“Now,” I said, getting down to business, “let me make it perfectly clear that I completely disagree with Jerry.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Frankly, I’m not even sure I understand the concept of being a whore. Someone needs to tell me what the word even means. If a woman enjoys sex, is she a whore? Or is she just in touch with her sexuality?
 
So, let’s change gears. Who cares about parking tickets anyway?
 
If you’ve got something to say about female sexuality, let’s hear it.”

For the next two hours, I heard a gamut of opinions.

From the Bible thumpers: “Anyone who goes against God’s will is a whore.”
 

Wow, thanks for that piece of news.