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Finally Nancy Collett sighed. “When you are on the air, I want you to try slowing down the speed of your speech,” she said with restraint. “You started off talking too fast through a few of the early calls, but got better towards the end of the night.”
I nodded. I felt my lips pressed into a thin resentful line. “April said the same thing,” I admitted grudgingly. “I’ll work on it.”
Nancy nodded, seemingly relieved. She tiptoed delicately to the next subject while our tempers cooled.
“How did you find working with April? Was she helpful?”
I shrugged. The truth was I didn’t know enough about my new job yet to tell whether the woman was a good operator, or a bad one. “She seems pleasant enough,” I said without any real enthusiasm. “She’s very vivacious. Very friendly…”
Nancy pursed her lips into a knowing little pucker. She nodded her head. “April gives the impression that she is a wild girl – an outrageous flirt. The real April isn’t anything like that. What you saw last night was a character. It is how she presents herself to the public, not who she really is.”
I sat back and thought about that for a moment. If what Nancy said was true, April was a highly skilled actress. She had fooled me.
“And what about your producer?” Nancy glanced down at a sheet of paper on her desk. “You worked with Cecily last night, right?”
I nodded my head, and then shrugged again. “Everything seemed to go well,” I said. “They both tried to make the job as easy as possible.”
That seemed to please Nancy. She crossed her legs and swung the chair to one side so that I could see her expensive heels. “And what about the callers?” she asked suddenly, and I sensed this was the real purpose of the meeting. “Any observations?”
I thought back to the long hours of talking to women and answering their questions. I clasped my hands together and leaned forward in the chair. “There is a lot of curiosity out there,” I said. “More than I expected, and more than Cecily expected too. She seemed quite shocked that every line lit up, and I was taking calls non-stop for the entire show. There certainly is a demand and a market for this kind of information.”
Nancy nodded her head and a thin I-told-you-so smile touched one corner of her mouth. “As I said, I listened to the show.”
I sat back. “Well you tell me,” I challenged without any heat in my voice. “What did you think about the calls?”
Nancy became contemplative, like she was carefully choosing her words.
“A lot of the questions seemed to follow the same lines,” she said, and began to frown a little. “It might be the one unexpected obstacle.”
“Obstacle?”
She nodded. “If people hear you explaining the same basic concepts over and over again for each new woman who calls, there is a chance the general audience will grow tired and turn off. We need to keep the show fresh, with new information and new ideas each night.”
I nodded. It made sense. “Do you have any ideas you want to suggest?”
Nancy smiled winningly and held up a pointed finger for attention. “I do actually,” she kept right on smiling, watching my face. “I think we need more fantasy calls. A mix of information and pure eroticism.”
I nodded slowly. “I’m listening.”
Nancy became brusque and business like. She rifled the pages on her desk like they contained information that was relevant, but that I had no right seeing.
“You had one woman call last night – late last night. Her name was…” she turned a page over and ran her eyes quizzically down a fresh page.
“Sondra,” I said. Nancy looked up. “Her name was Sondra. I think she was the last call.”
“Yes!” Nancy’s eyes sparkled with a predatory kind of gleam. “Sondra and her fantasy about the strange man in her bedroom.” She picked up a pen and pointed it at me like a dagger to emphasize her words. “We need more Sondras… or we need Sondra to call in every night with a new fantasy. Either way, that’s exactly the kind of pure erotica we need to sprinkle like sugar between the information calls.”
Chapter 6.
When I arrived at the station that night, April was waiting for me at the end of the corridor beyond the walls of the studio. She was standing by a coffee machine, hip thrust out provocatively, and a mirthless smile on her face. She watched me come towards her and shifted her weight, arching her back a little so that her breasts were even more apparent. She was wearing a simple t-shirt and tight-fitting jeans. I could see the shadow of her bra through the fabric. She batted her eyes in a parody of a flirt.
“I didn’t see you at the meeting this morning,” she said, and I wondered for an instant if she was being malicious, or merely curious.
“I didn’t know there was a meeting,” I said. April gestured an invitation for coffee and I shook my head.
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” she became suddenly serious.
“No.”
April frowned into the contents of her cup and then glanced up at me, her head tilted, her eyes wide and artless. “Sorry,” she said, “maybe I was supposed to give you the message…”
I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jeans and shrugged my shoulders. “Forget it.”
April went quiet for thoughtful moment. “Did dragon-slayer-horror-bitch tear you a new one?”
I looked puzzled. April smiled but there wasn’t a lot of humor in the expression. “Nancy fucking Collett,” she explained. “Did she get upset?”
It was an interesting insight into how the on-air staff saw their boss. Clearly the General Manager wasn’t going to win a popularity award.
“She was… frosty,” I understated.
April shook her head. Her hair swished like a lion’s mane across her shoulders and the big hoop earrings jangled. She sipped at the coffee and her face wrenched into an expression of revulsion. I wasn’t sure if the coffee, or her impression of our boss had caused it.
“She’s a hard bitch, that one,” April nodded sagely. “The woman has ice in her veins.”
I molded my features into a neutral expression. “What makes you say that?” I encouraged.
April threw her coffee into the trash bin. The wreckage of it steamed.
“In the last three months she has fired two good on-air talents, as well as a damned fine producer. She’s a hard bitch – and she seems to like being that way.”
I was about to probe more when I saw April’s gaze flick past my shoulder and an instant later I heard the heavy fall of footsteps on the carpet. I glanced behind me. A grey-haired man was coming towards us. He looked like a hippie. He was in his fifties or sixties with a ragged little scruff of a beard, and a glittering diamond earring in one ear. His long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. His shirt was a loose-fitting tie-dyed thing that looked like it had been salvaged from a second-hand store, and his boots were scuffed and as tired looking as the man who wore them. He waved to April and she smiled back brightly.
I turned to meet the man. He had his hand extended.
“You must be Jericho James,” the guy said. His voice had a rich timber to it.
“I must be,” I said. We shook hands.
I felt April’s touch. She leaned close to me so that I could sense the heat of her body. Her hip pressed firmly against my leg. She draped herself over my shoulder in the intimate familiar gesture of a girlfriend.
“Jericho, this is Grover.”
I nodded. “Hi,” I said. “First or last name?”
“Both,” the man said without affectation. “Everyone just calls me Grover.”
April’s breath was a warm tickle against my neck, the scent of her perfume enveloped my senses. “Grover is the station’s best producer,” April explained. “He will be working with us tonight. He used to be an announcer – back in the day.”
I studied the man with renewed interest. He certainly had the voice for it.
“Well it’s good to meet you,” I said. “But I thought Cecily was going to be our regular produc
er.”
Grover smiled. “Ain’t nothing regular at this station, bucko,” he said and dragged his fingers through the straggle of his beard. “The only thing you can count on for sure – is the unexpected.”
I sensed there was deeper meaning to Grover’s comment, but this wasn’t the time or the place. It was almost midnight.
“Did Miss Collett brief you both about the show tonight?” I asked.
