Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe (6 page)

When I stopped to take a breath, he slid the cover onto one of the clocks, secured it with duct tape, and looked at me, that line creasing his forehead. “I thought you picked a different JISP.”

“It’s Clementine. She’s my crack.” I waggled my eyebrows. “I crave daily insults.”

Duncan’s gaze softened. “Great voice. Perfect delivery.” Turning the knob on the bottom of the clock, he set the time. The second hand started to
thudda-click
as it chased itself around the clock face. “You’d be good on air.”

“Over my dead body,” Clementine said as she jerked to a halt in the supply room doorway.

I made evil finger—twitching motions and cackled. “I’m sure we can arrange that.”

Her glare said,
Bite me
, but the expression fell away as she turned to Duncan. “Meeting starts in two minutes. You sticking around?”

He held up the clock. “Need to go.”

“Anything to add to the agenda?” Clementine asked.

“No, I’m good,” Duncan said. Yes, Duncan was good. He fixed broken lights and old clocks. He cared about the station enough to bring in someone to help keep a sinking ship afloat.

Clem gave me another fiery dragon glare and stormed off, her wild hair whipping me in the face.

“She’s not usually this bad,” Duncan said. “The idea of the station closing in May kills her. Radio’s a hobby for most of us, but it’s Clem’s life. She wants to own her own station one day.”

I ran the toe of my shoe along a crack in the linoleum. How nice to have your future planned, like my brothers. As for me, I liked old shoes and spicy Mexican cantinas with stuffed parrots perched on top of salsa bars. And honestly, I could get into KDRS radio if the staff wasn’t so anti-Chloe. The promotional work, not to mention the idea of going on air, made my toes tingle.

“What about you?” I asked. “Why are you at the station?”

Duncan unbuckled his tool belt and hung it on a hook. His
back was to me, and I watched the muscles along his broad shoulders and arms bunch under his faded T-shirt. I wondered at the loads he carried on that muscled back. He didn’t say anything.

“Do you want a career in radio?” I asked. “Did you fail to make the badminton team?”

He faced me, his stormy eyes steady. “Do you always talk this much?”

My breath caught in my throat. “Does it bother you?”

He reached for the cord hanging from the bare lightbulb overhead with both hands but didn’t pull. After an eternity, he shook his head, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“So why are you here?” I asked again.

Duncan wrapped the cord around his fingers three times. “It’s fun.”

“Fun? KDRS is fun?”

“Yeah. Fun.” His shoulders lifted in an awkward shrug. “Sometimes that’s hard to find.”

I searched his face. He had to be joking. But Duncan, with his stormy eyes, was no jokester. “Fun is everywhere,” I said. “You just have to find it. Or make it.”

He leaned toward me, his fingers pulling the cord tight. “Tell me, Chloe, exactly how do you make fun?” His face looked earnest, but there was something else there, something that settled around him like a swollen storm cloud.

Duncan Moore didn’t have much fun in his life. The realization slammed me, knocking me breathless. I couldn’t imagine a life without laughter and friends and fun.

I reached for both ends of his scarf, wanting to draw him away from the heaviness of his world and into mine, at least the one I’d known until a few weeks ago. “The recipe for fun’s a top-secret formula.” I pulled him toward me to whisper in his ear, mock severity lining my brow. “If I told you, I’d have to . . . you know . . . kill Clementine.”

Duncan stared at me, a strange look on his face, as if he’d come across a beached whale carcass, fascinating but in a grotesque way. I dropped the ends of his scarf. “Okay, so my sense of humor is warped, don’t mind—”

A soft laugh rumbled around his broad chest, wound through the crowded storeroom, and wrapped around me in a hug. What a wonderful sound. I’d heard so little laughter the past few weeks.

His watch beeped, and his laughing tapered off. “I need to go.”

I fought the urge to beg,
Don’t go. Stay and laugh with me
.

He pulled the cord, extinguishing the light. When he reached the storeroom door, he placed both hands on the door frame, as if forcing himself to stay, and looked at me over his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here, Chloe.” Did he like laughing with me? Or was he simply being a
nice
guy? Could he tell I needed nice? “Someone like you can make a difference.”

He turned to leave, and I reached for his scarf again, looping my thumbs through the ends. “Someone like me?”
Say something nice. Say something to make me forget that my best friends hate me and the whole school is whispering something about me that’s not nice
.

He stared at my thumbs. Like my science-minded brothers,
Duncan was an observer. In his quietness, did he see things others didn’t?

“Yeah, someone like you,” he said. “Someone with a big personality and a big heart. People like you can do big things.” Not mean. Definitely not mean.

As if embarrassed by the sweet words, Duncan unhooked my thumbs, which sparked and heated, like two stubby candles. How crazy was that? Thumbs were . . . thumbs. As I contemplated the tingly heat, he hurried into the main room, where he climbed onto a wobbly desk and centered the clock above one of the glass windows. Then he slid out the door.

Thudda-click, thudda-click
, went Duncan’s clock.

Duncan said I had a big heart. I always felt things in a big way, joy on the night of the Mistletoe Ball, worry about Grams’s health, guilt for ignoring my best friends at a time when they needed me, confusion over all the whispers. I definitely felt big emotions; maybe I could do big things.

“Get your butt over here, JISP Girl.”

Time to pour my big heart into my big pain-in-the-butt JISP.

The radio staff and Mr. Martinez, an English teacher who had joined the group while Duncan was wreaking havoc with my thumbs, sat in a horseshoe with Clementine at the center. I took out my promo notes to hand to Haley when Clementine snatched them from my hand.

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, JISP Girl. You’re last on the agenda. Now sit down and shut up.” She turned to the rest of the staff, her voice less snappish as she said, “Bad news.
Since the wrestling team got knocked out of the Winter Trophy tournament, we have a two-hour program hole to fill this Friday. I don’t want clutter. What do you all have?”

“I can get interviews with the wrestling coach and captain,” Frick said.

“I’ll take another hour on my format clock, expanding my grunge band segment,” Taysom added. “And isn’t there an indie film festival coming to town next week? Maybe Haley can do a preview. I can help with bites.” Haley reached for another Tootsie Pop and gave a thumbs-up sign. Mr. Martinez, head bent as he graded a stack of papers, saluted with his red pen.

Problem fixed. It was strange seeing this little dysfunctional family at work. Clementine took the staff on an hour-by-hour walkthrough of the week’s programming. When she was done, she closed her eyes, as if trying to find a Zen moment. “Okay, JISP Girl, talk.”

I’d been uncharacteristically silent through the meeting because they weren’t talking a language I understood. Program holes. Format clocks. Clutter. Bites. Sweepers.

However, promo was something I knew and loved.

I looked at every staff member. The soap villainesses had taught me that delivery was just as important as content. I leaned forward, my eyes wide. “Free burritos.”

A loud, hot rumble tumbled from Clementine’s dragon snout.

“You want to give our listeners burritos?” Frick said. “That’s . . . uh . . . kind of weird.”

“Not at all,” I said. “We need more listeners to attract advertisers.”

Clementine smacked her hands on either side of her head. “Would someone shoot her and put me out of my misery?”

“What’s wrong with what I said? If we have a broader audience, we’ll have more impressions, so we’ll be more attractive to advertisers. It’s basic marketing.”

Clementine’s nostrils flared. “We’re a noncommercial station. FCC says we can’t have
advertisers.”
She turned to the rest of the staff. “See, she knows nothing about radio. She doesn’t belong here.”

Wrong. I belonged here thanks to my JISP. “Bad choice of words. Duncan called them . . . what? Sponsors?”

“Un-der-wri-ters.”
Clementine enunciated each syllable as if I were dense.

“Okay, un-der-wri-ters like lots of listeners, and one way to attract listeners is to give them free things.” I explained about Dos Hermanas’ buy-one-get-one-free burrito special. “After starting BOGOF, Sunday sales skyrocketed. People like freebies. I’m suggesting we have a contest for listeners, and the winners get something free.”

“What type of things?” Taysom asked.

“We don’t have any things,” Frick said.

“N-n-none.” Frack. Was that snide laughter?

“Stoo-pid.” Clementine.

Tootsie Pop Mom hummed a funeral dirge.

“Stop.” I jammed both hands in the air. This wasn’t fun. This
should be fun. Why did Duncan have to leave? “We get donations. I can ask Dos Hermanas if they’d give us a gift certificate. We need eight items.” I pointed to the faded KDRS logo on the wall. “My idea is, 88.8 The Edge, your home to the Great Eight Giveaway. But that’s only the first step. As we’re getting out the word to all of our shiny new listeners, we’ll need to find out about”—another well-timed dramatic pause—“refritos.”

Clementine slammed her forehead on the table.

I ignored her and explained that last year Dos Hermanas won Best Refritos awards from a dozen web dining guides. Prior to getting the award, Ana and Josie spent months talking to customers about what type of refried beans they wanted. Black beans or pintos? With or without onions? Light spice or high kick? “People will keep returning to a restaurant if they like the refritos, and they’ll keep tuning in to our station if they like our programming.”

“And how do we find out what kind of . . . refritos they like?” Taysom asked.

“Burrito costumes.”

Clementine’s head popped up, fire flying from her ears. “You want us to dress up as freakin’ burritos!”

No, what I wanted was to sic my evil kitty counselor on dragon Clementine and see which one came out on top. “Not necessarily, but we need to draw attention to ourselves. Costumes, posters, flyers. When we get their attention, we have them fill out a survey about what kind of radio programs they want, and after they fill out the survey, they get entered in a drawing to win free stuff.”

Cricket. Cricket
.

“Come on, people,” I said. This was all about my JISP, and thanks to A. Lungren and AWOL BFs, my JISP was my life. “We can hold the survey and prize drawing in the lunchroom. Frick and Frack, you can take first lunch. Taysom, you and Haley take second.” I gave Clementine my most winsome grin. “You know you want to.”

Laugh. Please, please, somebody laugh
.

Without a word, Clementine stalked to one of the glass rooms and slammed the door. The glass rattled, and I ducked, half expecting little shards of window to fly across the newsroom and straight at my chest.

With a final deep breath, I faced the rest of the staff and Mr. Martinez. “Okay, that’s a no.” Sure, I was a lover with a big heart, but I could fight when I had to, when things I cared about were on the line. Like a passing JISP. Like trying to forget images of best friends with barbed-wire arms. “What about the rest of you? Are you with me?”

WIN A $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO DOS HERMANAS MEXICAN CANTINA!

Stop by Cafeteria Table Fourteen and fill out the first-ever KDRS 88.8 The Edge Radio Listener Survey!

THE NEXT DAY I SAT AT TABLE FOURTEEN WITH ONLY A PLATE OF
tamales de dulce to keep me company.

Sitting alone in a school cafeteria was akin to screaming,
Look at me, world! I have no friends!
All around me different clans talked and laughed and shared oatcakes and haggis. When Kim and Leila from the drama club walked by, I shot out my hand. “Hey, guys. Come check out our radio survey. We have some cool swag.”

They looked at each other, shuddered, and hurried away.

I waved at Liam across the aisle. He’d been the king to my Mistletoe Queen and had sworn his love and fealty at the ball. Today he refused to look me in the eye.

I wanted to stand and scream,
What’s going on? Why’s everyone treating me like a pariah?
But I stayed seated because the almighty JISP demanded I stay seated.

Thanks to my persuasive presentation yesterday, everyone at
the KDRS staff meeting but Clementine agreed to help with the survey and Great Eight Giveaway.

During the first two lunch periods, Frick, Frack, Taysom, and Haley manned table fourteen, the undisputed hub of the cafeteria, and managed to gather more than four hundred completed surveys. I’d hoped to have Duncan at my side for the final lunch bunch, but he hadn’t shown to first-period econ. Had he slept in? Was he finishing a last-minute paper for some other class? Or like everyone else, did he not want to be seen with me?